Today’s Connections: Sports Edition is easy for fans of the Big East.

As we’ve shared in previous hints stories, this is a version of the popular New York Times word game that seeks to test the knowledge of sports fans.

Like the original Connections, the game is all about finding the “common threads between words.” And just like Wordle, Connections resets after midnight and each new set of words gets trickier and trickier — so we’ve served up some hints and tips to get you over the hurdle.

If you just want to be told today’s puzzle, you can jump to the end of this article for the latest Connections solution. But if you’d rather solve it yourself, keep reading for some clues, tips, and strategies to assist you.

What is Connections: Sports Edition?

The NYT‘s latest daily word game has launched in association with The Athletic, the New York Times property that provides the publication’s sports coverage. Connections can be played on both web browsers and mobile devices and require players to group four words that share something in common.

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Each puzzle features 16 words and each grouping of words is split into four categories. These sets could comprise of anything from book titles, software, country names, etc. Even though multiple words will seem like they fit together, there’s only one correct answer.

If a player gets all four words in a set correct, those words are removed from the board. Guess wrong and it counts as a mistake — players get up to four mistakes until the game ends.

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Players can also rearrange and shuffle the board to make spotting connections easier. Additionally, each group is color-coded with yellow being the easiest, followed by green, blue, and purple. Like Wordle, you can share the results with your friends on social media.

Here’s a hint for today’s Connections: Sports Edition categories

Want a hint about the categories without being told the categories? Then give these a try:

• Yellow: Hang the banner

• Green: Big East

• Blue: Food analogies

• Purple: Famous Tims

Here are today’s Connections: Sports Edition categories

Need a little extra help? Today’s connections fall into the following categories:

• Yellow: Things Fans Hang on Their Walls

• Green: A Big East Athlete

• Blue: Food, But Make It Baseball

• Purple: Tims

Looking for Wordle today? Here’s the answer to today’s Wordle.

Ready for the answers? This is your last chance to turn back and solve today’s puzzle before we reveal the solutions.

Drumroll, please!

The solution to today’s Connections: Sports Edition #536 is…

What is the answer to Connections: Sports Edition today?

• Things Fans Hang on Their Walls – BANNER, FLAG, PENNANT, POSTER

• A Big East Athlete – FRIAR, HOYA, HUSKY, PIRATE

• Food, But Make It Baseball – CAN OF CORN, MEATBALL, PICKLE, TATER

• Tims – DUNCAN, RAINES, SALMON, TEBOW

Don’t feel down if you didn’t manage to guess it this time. There will be new sports Connections for you to stretch your brain with tomorrow, and we’ll be back again to guide you with more helpful hints.

Are you also playing NYT Strands? See hints and answers for today’s Strands.

If you’re looking for more puzzles, Mashable’s got games now! Check out our games hub for Mahjong, Sudoku, free crossword, and more.

Not the day you’re after? Here’s the solution to yesterday’s Connections.

Welcome to your guide to Pips, the latest game in the New York Times catalogue.

Released in August 2025, the Pips puts a unique spin on dominoes, creating a fun single-player experience that could become your next daily gaming habit.

Currently, if you’re stuck, the game only offers to reveal the entire puzzle, forcing you to move onto the next difficulty level and start over. However, we have you covered! Below are piecemeal answers that will serve as hints so that you can find your way through each difficulty level.

How to play Pips

If you’ve ever played dominoes, you’ll have a passing familiarity for how Pips is played. As we’ve shared in our previous hints stories for Pips, the tiles, like dominoes, are placed vertically or horizontally and connect with each other. The main difference between a traditional game of dominoes and Pips is the color-coded conditions you have to address. The touching tiles don’t necessarily have to match.

The conditions you have to meet are specific to the color-coded spaces. For example, if it provides a single number, every side of a tile in that space must add up to the number provided. It is possible – and common – for only half a tile to be within a color-coded space.

Here are common examples you’ll run into across the difficulty levels:

• Number: All the pips in this space must add up to the number.

• Equal: Every domino half in this space must be the same number of pips.

• Not Equal: Every domino half in this space must have a completely different number of pips.

• Less than: Every domino half in this space must add up to less than the number.

• Greater than: Every domino half in this space must add up to more than the number.

If an area does not have any color coding, it means there are no conditions on the portions of dominoes within those spaces.

Easy difficulty hints, answers for March 13 Pips

Number (11): Everything in this space must add up to 11. The answer is 6-6, placed vertically; 5-5, placed horizontally.

Number (8): Everything in this space must add up to 8. The answer is 6-6, placed vertically; 2-2, placed horizontally.

Number (6): Everything in this space must add up to 6. The answer is 2-2, placed horizontally; 4-4, placed horizontally.

Equal (3): Everything in this space must be equal to 3. The answer is 3-3, placed vertically.

Medium difficulty hints, answers for March 13 Pips

Number (9): Everything in this space must add up to 9. The answer is 1-4, placed horizontally; 5-3, placed vertically.

Number (1): Everything in this space must add up to 1. The answer is 1-4, placed horizontally; 0-0, placed vertically.

Number (6): Everything in this space must add up to 6. The answer is 5-3, placed vertically; 3-4, placed vertically.

Number (5): Everything in this orange space must add up to 5. The answer is 0-0, placed vertically; 2-6, placed horizontally; 3-1, placed horizontally.

Number (5): Everything in this green space must add up to 5. The answer is 3-1, placed horizontally; 4-5, placed horizontally.

Number (9): Everything in this space must add up to 9. The answer is 3-4, placed vertically; 4-5, placed horizontally.

Hard difficulty hints, answers for March 13 Pips

Number (0): Everything in this space must add up to 0. The answer is 0-0, placed vertically.

Number (3): Everything in this space must add up to 3. The answer is 3-3, placed vertically.

Number (0): Everything in this space must add up to 0. The answer is 0-2, placed vertically.

Number (1): Everything in this space must add up to 1. The answer is 1-1, placed horizontally.

Number (1): Everything in this space must add up to 1. The answer is 1-1, placed horizontally.

Number (0): Everything in this space must add up to 0. The answer is 0-0, placed vertically.

Number (3): Everything in this space must add up to 3. The answer is 3-3, placed vertically.

Number (2): Everything in this space must add up to 2. The answer is 0-2, placed vertically.

Number (3): Everything in this space must add up to 3. The answer is 4-3, placed horizontally.

Number (1): Everything in this space must add up to 1. The answer is 4-1, placed vertically.

Less Than (4): Everything in this space must be less than 4. The answer is 2-4, placed horizontally.

Number (1): Everything in this space must add up to 1. The answer is 1-3, placed vertically.

Number (0): Everything in this space must add up to 0. The answer is 0-4, placed vertically.

Number (0): Everything in this space must add up to 0. The answer is 0-1, placed horizontally.

Number (1): Everything in this space must add up to 1. The answer is 0-1, placed horizontally.

Number (0): Everything in this space must add up to 0. The answer is 0-3, placed horizontally.

Number (3): Everything in this space must add up to 3. The answer is 0-3, placed horizontally.

Number (3): Everything in this space must add up to 3. The answer is 1-3, placed vertically.

Number (2): Everything in this light blue space must add up to 2. The answer is 2-1, placed vertically.

Number (2): Everything in this dark blue space must add up to 2. The answer is 2-2, placed horizontally.

Number (2): Everything in this space must add up to 2. The answer is 2-2, placed horizontally.

Number (3): Everything in this space must add up to 3. The answer is 3-2, placed horizontally.

Number (2): Everything in this space must add up to 2. The answer is 3-2, placed horizontally.

Number (1): Everything in this space must add up to 1. The answer is 2-1, placed vertically.

If you’re looking for more puzzles, Mashable’s got games now! Check out our games hub for Mahjong, Sudoku, free crossword, and more.

By Chris Snellgrove
| Published 1 hour ago

Starfleet Academy has been incorporating nods to earlier Star Trek shows, with varying degrees of subtlety. Sometimes, we just get, say, passing references to a Talaxian furfly. Other times, we get an entire episode dedicated to characters like Benjamin Sisko, complete with cameos from those who are closest to him.

So far, most of the show’s most overt references have been nods to shows like Deep Space Nine and Voyager. However, the most recent episode, “300th Night,” referenced The Next Generation in a powerful way by portraying an alien ritual we haven’t seen onscreen for decades. That ritual was the R’uustai, which allows Klingons to induct new members into their house.

Worf Bonds With A Child

We first saw the R’uustai in the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode “The Bonding.” In this tale, Worf led an away team mission that went sideways, resulting in the death of a woman under his command. She died a typical Redshirt-style death, but unlike the Redshirts of yesteryear, her death left her son, Jeremy Aster, without a mother or father to raise him.

Jeremy goes through plenty of trauma afterward, especially after sympathetic aliens try to replicate his mother in an attempt to soothe his pain. Eventually, the crew gets the young boy to accept that his mother is dead, and Worf (whom the kid originally blamed for his mother’s death) performs the act of R’uustai, an ancient Klingon ritual that allowed him to make Jeremy a brother who would forever be part of Worf’s family, House Mogh.

Interestingly, R’uustai didn’t come up again in Star Trek for decades. Jeremy Aster was never mentioned again, and we never saw this ritual onscreen or even heard it mentioned. This is doubly interesting because on Deep Space Nine, Martok made Worf part of his family, meaning that young Jeremy Aster (wherever he is) is technically the last surviving member of House Mogh. However, it’s doubtful that he’ll be picking up a bat’leth and battling for the disgraced family’s honor anytime soon.

An Old Ritual From A New Klingon

After decades of its absence from Star Trek, however, R’uustai just made a quiet comeback. In the penultimate episode of Starfleet Academy Season 1 (“300th Night”), the unconventional Klingon Jay-Den conducts the R’uustai ritual for his fellow cadets, inviting them to join his family, House Kraag. All but Caleb drink during the ceremony, making them brothers and sisters of Jay-Den. Despite Caleb not wanting to join House Kraag because he is still obsessed with finding his mother (the last of his biological family), Jay-Den considers him a chosen brother and helps Caleb with his reckless mission to reunite with his mom.

In a weird way, this forgotten ritual from Star Trek: The Next Generation was perfect for Starfleet Academy. The show is all about found family and the strength you gain from letting close friends into your heart. In “300th Night,” the R’uustai ritual makes the “family” part official for these cadets while calling back to a TNG ritual that proved how easy it was for humans and other outsiders to officially join Klingon houses.

Today Is A Good Day To Bond

As a longtime Star Trek nerd, I just wish we knew a little more about how R’uustai works in this fictional universe. In the TNG episode “The Bonding,” this ritual was used to induct Jeremy Aster into Worf’s family, but an entirely different ritual (one involving less drinking and more bloodletting) was used in the DS9 episode “Sons and Daughters” to induct Alexander into House Martok. Therefore, it’s unclear whether the R’uustai temporarily fell out of fashion as a way to induct new House members before Jay-Den embraced it or if the rituals are race-specific, with one being reserved for Klingons and the other being used for everyone else.

At any rate, if you’re a Star Trek fan who loves Klingon lore, it’s particularly rewarding to see the return of R’uustai, something last seen in the excellent TNG episode “The Bonding.” The ritual emphasizes Starfleet Academy’s themes of found family, all while steeping itself in decades-old franchise lore. Hopefully, everything works out for Jay-Den, whose induction of Darem into House Kraag means he now officially has a family member who wants to have sex with him.

Let’s just hope this doesn’t lead to any particularly weird holodeck misadventures. If a simulated Darem gets stuck in a Jeffries Tube and starts saying things like, “What are you doing, chosen brother?” that will be our cue to turn the TV off quicker than you can say “qapla’!”