Sports
No. 25 BYU pits balanced attack vs. Javon Small, WVU
Feb 19, 2025; Morgantown, West Virginia, USA; West Virginia Mountaineers guard Javon Small (7) shoots a layup during the first half against the Cincinnati Bearcats at WVU Coliseum. Mandatory Credit: Ben Queen-Imagn Images No. 25 BYU is all but certain of an NCAA Tournament berth. West Virginia needs every win it can get down the stretch to join the Cougars and probably six other Big 12 Conference schools on the March dance floor.
The Mountaineers search for one of those wins Saturday night when they visit Provo, Utah, for a conference matchup with BYU.
West Virginia (17-11, 8-9) helped its cause on Tuesday night by drilling TCU 73-55 at home for only its second win in five games. Point guard Javon Small filled his usual starring role with 23 points, 10 assists and five rebounds for just the eighth 20-10-5 game of that type in Mountaineer history.
Small has been everything West Virginia hoped for and more after transferring from Oklahoma State. He’s averaged 18.4 points, 5.6 assists and 1.7 steals, taking up slack for the loss of injured star Tucker DeVries, who played just eight games before going down with a season-ending upper-body injury in December.
The difference Wednesday night was other players who haven’t been major scoring threats coming up big. Sencire Harris and Joseph Yesufu, who average a combined 12.4 ppg between them, teamed up for 27, including 14 from Yesufu in a reserve role.
That unexpected production helped the Mountaineers pick up a crucial win.
“They’re all critical at this time of year,” first-year coach Darian DeVries said afterwards. “It doesn’t mean your season is over if you lose it but it certainly would have put us in a tougher spot.”
West Virginia has succeeded despite missing the firepower Tucker DeVries was expected to supply. It’s 305th in Division I in points per game at 68.6 and hits just 42.8 percent of its field goals.
Scoring isn’t an issue for the Cougars (20-8, 11-6), who have won five in a row and scored at least 91 points in the last three games. They’re coming off a 91-81 triumph at Arizona State on Wednesday night that saw them can 17 3-pointers to stave off an upset bid.
According to StatsPerform, BYU became the first Division I team this century to score at least 90 points, shoot at least 50 percent from the field, make at least 12 3-pointers and commit fewer than 12 turnovers in three straight games.
“We have a really unselfish group,” first-year coach Kevin Young said. “Our guys play for each other, whether that is making the extra pass, whether that is sprinting the floor. We try to get to the corner so we can space teams out.
“That’s really been something we have gotten really, really better at as the season has gone on. We are starting to see the fruits of that labor.”
BYU doesn’t have one go-to player, although Richie Saunders (15.9 ppg) is trying to fill that bill lately. Egor Demin (10.6) is its other double-figure scorer but the Cougars offer great balance. Seven other players chip in between 6.0 and 9.7 ppg.
Demin scored 16 points on Feb. 11 when BYU scored a 73-69 win at West Virginia. The Cougars own a 3-1 record in the all-time series.
–Field Level Media
Sports
Knicks and Nuggets Blow Big Leads: What Went Wrong in Game 2?
Roughly 5,000 feet of elevation separate Denver and New York City.
Still, gravity works the same regardless of where one stands. Just ask the NBA teams in both towns.
“You get too high, and you get, I don’t want to say cocky, but feeling yourself,” Nuggets guard Tim Hardaway Jr. said.
That sensation went south on either side of the country Monday night.
After squandering sizable leads that would have cemented commanding 2-0 advantages in their respective first-round playoff series, the Nuggets and Knicks now find themselves bracing for a fight.
Should their opponents ultimately have their number, Denver and New York will look back with disdain on 19 and 14. Those were the Game 2 cushions the teams coughed up as the No. 3 seeds in the Eastern and Western Conference.
“It’s a game we should’ve won,” Knicks guard Josh Hart said. “In the playoffs, we can’t give away games.”
Be that as it may, the Knicks did just that against the Atlanta Hawks. They controlled the outcome for much of the night and took a 12-point edge into the fourth quarter after leading by as many as 14.
Then New York shot 5-for-22 from the floor in the final 12 minutes compared to 10-for-15 for Atlanta. Fighting through vulgar chants from the Madison Square Garden faithful, Hawks star CJ McCullom scored six straight points down the stretch during one key sequence on the way to a game-high 32.
“In that fourth quarter, you could tell [the Hawks] were playing with a level of desperation,” Knicks coach Mike Brown said. “There were four 50-50 balls, and they got three of the four. We always use that stat to gauge the level of aggression in a game. In that fourth quarter, their aggression stepped up.”
New York’s melted at the same time. How many late possessions saw the Knicks pass or hold the ball around the perimeter before settling for subpar looks from 3-point range? The Knicks went 3-for-11 from deep as part of their flop.
Denver led the Minnesota Timberwolves by 19 points early in the second quarter before crumbling. The Nuggets still were ahead by three points to start the fourth quarter but a combined 2-for-12 shooting effort from pillars Nikola Jokic and Jamal Murray in the final 12 minutes took a toll.
“I feel like we had the game in hand, and then we just didn’t make our shots,” Murray said.
As with the Knicks and Hawks, the reversal of fortunes stemmed both from the hosts’ miscues and an outstanding effort from a visiting player, as Minnesota’s Anthony Edwards had 30 points.
“Great leadership, positive,” Timberwolves coach Chris Finch said. “He recognized he needed to get into attack mode and get downhill a little bit more. He did that.”
The Knicks and Nuggets no doubt sensed the need to amp up their own urgency as things started slipping away Monday.
That neither could act upon it didn’t signal the end for either New York or Denver, of course. But now there’s unnecessary added weight for the climb back to the top.
Sports
Pistons seek return to identity vs. Magic after Game 1 shocker
Apr 19, 2026; Detroit, Michigan, USA; Detroit Pistons forward Tobias Harris (12) is defended by Orlando Magic guard Desmond Bane (3) in the second half during the 2026 NBA Playoffs at Little Caesars Arena. Mandatory Credit: Rick Osentoski-Imagn Images After an exceptional regular season, this wasn’t the start to the NBA playoffs that the Detroit Pistons envisioned.
Reeling from a stunning Game 1 loss in which only two players reached double figures, the Eastern Conference’s top seed heads into Game 2 Wednesday against the visiting Orlando Magic facing early pressure to reset the best-of-seven series.
The eighth-seeded Magic controlled the opener from the start, never trailing and leaning on a balanced offensive attack. Paolo Banchero led the way with 23 points while Franz Wagner scored 11 of his 19 in the fourth quarter to help close out the 112-101 win.
For Detroit, the issue wasn’t just the loss — it was how it happened. The Pistons never established their defensive identity and struggled to find consistent offense beyond star guard Cade Cunningham, two areas that will be central entering Game 2.
“It starts, always, with us defensively,” said Pistons coach J.B. Bickerstaff. “When you go back and watch the film of that (game), we weren’t ourselves defensively. The telling tale is typically when we play them, they go to the free-throw line a ton.
“… We went 38 (times) but they went 19. So that means we weren’t playing our brand of basketball, being physical, being handsy, being aggressive. That kind of sets the tone for us.”
Offensively, the Pistons leaned on Cunningham, who scored 39 points, but got little other support — scoring their fewest points in nearly three months, since a loss to the Phoenix Suns on Jan. 29. Detroit will need more help from All-Star center Jalen Duren, who was held to just eight points and seven rebounds in Game 1.
“They came out ready from the jump,” Duren said. “We didn’t really meet their intensity. They’ve been playing with their backs against the walls the last few weeks, so they were already kind of already rolling. I think we just got to do a better job meeting that intensity.”
Duren said the Pistons remain confident despite the loss, which extended their home playoff losing streak to 11 games, the longest in NBA history.
“We know the type of team we are,” Duren said. “We feel like we’re the better team. We know that we’ve just got to make adjustments and come out smarter, come out playing harder.”
Orlando coach Jamahl Mosley said he has talked to his team about not becoming too overconfident coming off Sunday’s win.
“It’s one game at a time,” Mosley said of his message to the team. “It’s the reality that, yeah, you did get the Game 1 win, but now you have to go and figure out how to get a Game 2 (win). There’s going to be, obviously, the positive talk about what you’ve done, and thinking there’s reasons to celebrate, but at the end of the day, it’s one game, and that’s the most important piece that we’ve talked about: just taking it one game at a time.”
Banchero said the team has received the message, and he believes the key for the Magic is to play defense like they did in the opener.
“I thought we were on a string, just communicating, talking out coverages,” Banchero said. “I think it’s just going to continue to take that, being aggressive, being the aggressors on defense and just not trying to give them much. Obviously they’re going to make shots, but just not trying to give them any free looks.”
–Field Level Media
Sports
Lynx star Napheesa Collier (ankle) targets June for on-court work
Mar 2, 2026; Brooklyn, NY, USA; Unrivaled Co-founder Napheesa Collier at Barclay’s Center. Mandatory Credit: Wendell Cruz-Imagn Images The Minnesota Lynx said Tuesday that star forward Napheesa Collier’s rehab from left ankle surgery is “progressing as expected,” and she could resume on-court activities in early June.
The team plans to release updates on Collier’s progress when available.
The timeline means Collier will miss, at minimum, the first month of the WNBA season, which begins May 10 for the Lynx.
Collier underwent surgery on her ankle on March 24 after sustaining a severe injury during the 2025 playoffs. Per reports at the time, she sustained a Grade 2 tear of three ligaments in the ankle and a muscle in her left shin on a collision during Game 3 of the playoff semifinal series vs. Phoenix.
Collier, 29, averaged a career-high 22.9 points and shot 40.3% from 3-point range to go with 7.3 rebounds, 3.2 assists, 1.6 steals and 1.5 blocks per game last year. The back-to-back WNBA Most Valuable Player runner-up, Collier is a five-time All-Star and earned MVP honors in the 2024 Commissioner’s Cup final and the 2025 All-Star Game.
–Field Level Media
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