Sports
South Carolina, UCLA face off in national championship game
Apr 3, 2026; Phoenix, AZ, USA; UCLA Bruins center Lauren Betts (51) shoots the ball against the Texas Longhorns during a semifinal of the Final Four of the women’s 2026 NCAA Tournament at Mortgage Matchup Center. Mandatory Credit: Kirby Lee-Imagn Images PHOENIX — Perennial powers South Carolina and UCLA avenged recent setbacks in the semifinals of the NCAA women’s Final Four on Friday.
Each could do it again when they meet in the championship game Sunday afternoon.
UCLA (36-1) broke the Gamecocks’ 43-game winning streak in a 77-62 victory in their last meeting Nov. 24, 2024, when star center Lauren Betts had 11 points, 14 rebounds, and four blocks.
“It was one of those games at home where we were really clicking on both sides of the ball,” UCLA coach Cori Close said of the most recent meeting, the Bruins’ only win in the five-game series.
Two seasons prior, South Carolina (36-3) beat the Bruins twice, the second time 59-43 in the NCAA Sweet Sixteen on March 25, 2003.
“I’ve been on both sides of that,” Close said. “What I remember is, the team that rebounds the best and defends the best down the stretch won both those games. I don’t think it is probably going to be that different.”
South Carolina is playing for coach Dawn Staley’s fourth national championship, her third in five years, in their sixth straight Final Four.
UCLA coach Cori Close is going for her first. The Bruins have not won in the NCAA era, although they did win the 1978 title while competing in the precursor AIAW. The Bruins are in their second straight Final Four after losing to UConn in the semifinals a year ago.
South Carolina made the finals with a decisive-at-this-level 62-48 victory over tournament No. 1 seed and undefeated UConn, which had beaten the Gamecocks by 23 in the 2025 championship game.
The Gamecocks won the rematch with an aggressive, active defense that limited the Huskies to 31.1% shooting. It was punctuated by a late-game exchange between Staley and UConn coach Geno Auriemma, who issued an apology Saturday for how he “handled the end of the game.”
“For me, no distractions at this time,” Staley said in response. “Concentrating on winning the national championship. That’s it.”
Ta’Niya Latson had a double-double with 16 points and 11 rebounds, Agot Makeer scored 14 points, and two other Gamecocks scored in double figures against UConn.
Staley would be one of four coaches with four national championships.
“We’re going to be challenged because they are pretty methodical in how they want to cut you apart,” Staley said of UCLA. “They got bigs, they got shooters, they got a point guard that’s super smart.
“They’ve been together. They’re an experienced group that’s used to playing well with each other. They’re battle-tested. We got all of that that we’re up against.”
UCLA advanced with a 51-44 victory over Texas behind 6-foot-7 Betts’ 14th double-double, her blocked shot in the final 18 seconds, and a defense that held the Longhorns to 31% shooting. Texas handed the Bruins its only loss this season in Las Vegas on Nov. 26.
Betts, one of the five Bruins’ senior starters, is averaging 17.2 pointers and 8.7 rebounds.
“She brings about a great challenge,” Staley said. “A couple years ago you could kind of be real physical with her, she would kind of back down a little bit. Now she embraces it, right? Now she welcomes it.
“She can play off of it so well. You have to make a decision whether you’re going to double her, single-cover her, whether you’re going to triple her, then figure out how you’re going to scramble out of that and prioritize who because they can shoot the basketball.”
Kiki Rice (15.1 points), Gabriela Jaquez (13.3), and Gianna Kneepkens (12.8) provide complementary alternatives.
“Against a team like that, it’s going to be about our aggressiveness on both ends of the floor,” Betts said.
–Jack Magruder, Field Level Media
Sports
How Los Angeles Lakers Might Need Bronny James in NBA Playoffs
The Los Angeles Lakers just can’t catch a break.
After Luka Doncic’s regular season ended with a hamstring injury, the Lakers just got another dose of brutal injury luck. Austin Reaves is also done for the remainder of the remainder of the regular season due to an oblique strain.
There’s no timetable for Doncic or Reaves, arguably the best two Lakers players, to return. Of course, Los Angeles will remain hopeful that they can play in the NBA Playoffs, but there’s still five more regular season games to get through before those decisions.
For years, a viral internet social media post that reads, “accidentally became important at work and it’s ruining my life,” has become quite the viral meme.
For Lakers point guard Bronny James, that meme might’ve turned into a reality.
Could Bronny really play in the postseason?
Without Doncic or Reaves, Luke Kennard is the only healthy ball handler in Los Angeles that has gotten consistent minutes throughout the regular season. Of course, LeBron James is a ballhandler and can efficiently run an offense – but that takes him out of his current role.
There’s a real world, if Doncic and Kennard can’t suit up, that Bronny could end up playing significant minutes in the first round of the NBA Playoffs.
Lakers coach JJ Redick has been trusting Bronny a bit more in his second NBA season. As a rookie, he played in just 27 games. This year, he’s already appeared in 37 games. That could be as many as 42 games – especially with the new need for a point guard in Los Angeles.
Bronny averaged just a tick under eight minutes per night when he was called on to enter action for the Lakers this season. He’s played a much bigger role for the South Bay Lakers, where Bronny has played six games this season. In those 14 G League appearances, Bronny has averaged 15 points per game.
That’s not exactly the sort of production that screams to the Lakers that the 21-year-old is ready for action in the NBA Playoffs. The lights are brighter, the pace is faster and the game is way more physical in the postseason.
But out of necessity, could Redick find himself desperate?
In reality, Bronny isn’t going to see postseason minutes. The Lakers still have Kennard and Jake LaRavia would be ahead of Bronny in a playoff rotation if push came to shove.
The Lakers are currently the No. 3 seed in the Western Conference. Right now, they’d be matched up with the Minnesota Timberwolves in the first round. However, there’s still more than one week in the regular season, and the seeding can change with all of this injury news.
Before his injury, Doncic was playing at an MVP level. LeBron has enjoyed his role as “OG in residence,” contributing as a consistent third option with Doncic and Reaves handling the workload every night.
If Doncic and Reaves can’t suit up for Game 1 of the postseason, James is back to being the No. 1 option for the Lakers.
In that scenario, nobody should be surprised if Bronny gets a few minutes of run in the postseason. If the Lakers find themselves with their backs against the wall without their best two players against an athletic Anthony Edwards or a talented Houston Rockets team, they might as well bank on chemistry and genetics.
Sports
Five Early 2026 MLB Takes That Might Already Be True
Mar 24, 2026; Los Angeles, California, USA; Los Angeles Dodgers two-way player Shohei Ohtani (17) on deck in the fourth against the Los Angeles Angels at Dodger Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Jayne Kamin-Oncea-Imagn Images A week of games is never enough time to evaluate anything in Major League Baseball.
Unless, of course, it is enough time.
The Los Angeles Dodgers will win the N.L. West by 25 games.
This is more of a first impression of the rest of the division, and not even a “if everything goes perfectly” projection. But if the Dodgers win 110 games, which seems not far-fetched, second place needs to go 85-77 for a 25-game margin. That seems about right for the San Diego Padres and Arizona Diamondbacks, and don’t even bother worrying about the San Francisco Giants or Colorado Rockies winning more than 85. (Seventy-five? Sixty-five?)
The record margin for winning a division is 23.5 games by the 1995 Cleveland Indians in the AL Central, which came in a strike-shortened season. The top mark for a full season is the 2001 Seattle Mariners, who won the AL West by 20 games, finishing with a 116-46 record. If the Dodgers win that many, they’ll take the West by 30.
Or more.
The San Francisco Giants will lose 95 games.
It’s going to take new manager Tony Vitello a moment to adjust to the big leagues after serving his apprenticeship in college.
But the Giants have had a questionable roster composition all along, which should make everyone also question how long it’s going to take team president Buster Posey to transition from team legend as a catcher to credible as a major league executive.
Brian Cashman will win Executive of the Year for running it back with the New York Yankees.
source: Getty Images The Yanks are 6-1 having played the Giants (oof), Seattle Mariners (middling start) and Miami Marlins (OK, but still meh) so far, not exactly a Murderer’s Row schedule. But they look pret-ty, pre-ty good, especially with Aaron Judge not having to carry them. And without having pitchers Gerrit Cole, Carlos Rodón and Clarke Schmidt on the active roster yet because of injury rehab.
New players include only left-hander Ryan Weathers, backup outfielder Randal Grichuk and Rule 5 reliever Cade Winquest. Well done, Cash! It’s not a World Series champion yet, of course…
You might have heard about rookie catcher Carter Jensen oversleeping and being scratched from the lineup Thursday afternoon. Jensen has a bright future if he’d just literally wake up.
Well, back in Spring Training, KC social media produced a TikTok video asking their players how many alarms and snoozes it takes for them to wake up. The answers varied, but the best one (and also the worst) came from Jensen.
“This is embarrassing,” Jensen began. “I need at least, like, six-to-eight alarms. It’s not good.”
It was all right there in the TikTok scouting report. When people tell you who they are, believe them!
The ABS system will be good for all parties, as long as umpires keep their cool.
Hawk-Eye tracking cameras are positioned around the stadium. Five cameras are used to track pitches. Additional cameras around the stadium are used to track player position and ball location. Major League Baseball is testing an Automated Ball-Stike (ABS) challenge system at select spring training parks. The system allows players to challenge a limited number of ball/stike calls during a game. Calls can be overturned if the pitch tracking technology shows an umpire got a call wrong. On a cold and wet night Wednesday, a hot mic caught umpire Andy Fletcher complaining about the Minnesota Twins challenging his strike zone.
“For God’s sake,” Fletcher whined after one of 11 challenges went up, including nine by the Twins — who were right about eight of them.
As they challenged, the Twins chipped away at an 11-run deficit, losing 13-9 to the Royals but bringing the tying run to the on-deck circle in the ninth. It would have been a less competitive game without ABS.
“There will be some umpires that have an ego behind it,” Twins catcher Ryan Jeffers told reporters. “But at the end of the day, I think most of them understand that it’s part of the game now.”
Sports
LeBron James, depleted Lakers face Mavericks
Feb 12, 2026; Los Angeles, California, USA; Los Angeles Lakers forward LeBron James (23) pleads his case to referee Che Flores (91) in the second half against the Dallas Mavericks at Crypto.com Arena. Mandatory Credit: Jayne Kamin-Oncea-Imagn Images The Los Angeles Lakers head into the final week of the regular season with an opportunity to sew up home-court advantage for the first round of the NBA Playoffs, but they begin the final push Sunday at Dallas with Luka Doncic and Austin Reaves sidelined.
Doncic, a 2026 Most Valuable Player candidate and former Maverick, sustained a hamstring injury in Thursday’s 139-96 blowout loss at reigning NBA champion Oklahoma City.
Reaves will be sidelined for the remainder of the regular season with a Grade 2 left oblique muscle injury, according to ESPN.
Doncic went into the matchup with the league-leading Thunder on a run scoring 41-plus points in the previous three contests, boosting his NBA-best scoring output to 33.5 points per game. Doncic is also averaging 7.7 rebounds and 8.3 assists per game, the latter a team-high for Los Angeles (50-27).
“We’re not going to put a player at risk,” Lakers coach JJ Redick said of Doncic being in the game in the third quarter, despite Oklahoma City holding a 31-point lead at halftime. “(The coaching staff) thought we’d give (the Lakers starters) about six minutes, and if we didn’t cut into the lead, we were gonna pull them.”
Doncic’s injury came shortly before that six-minute mark in the third period.
Meanwhile, Reaves was enjoying a breakout season, averaging 23.3 points, 5.5 assists, and 4.7 rebounds across 51 games.
Their absence now looms with Los Angeles playing five games in the final eight days of the regular season and holding a half-game lead over fourth-place Denver.
After West-leading Oklahoma City and San Antonio, which are vying for home-court advantage throughout the Playoffs, the conference is a logjam. The third-place Lakers are separated from sixth-place Minnesota by just four games, with Denver and Houston between.
With Doncic and Reaves out, LeBron James is expected to shoulder a large workload. The 41-year-old, who posted a triple-double last Monday vs. Washington, is averaging 20.6 points, 6.9 assists, and 6.0 rebounds per game.
James leads the Lakers against a Dallas team that has dropped eight of its last nine, including the last three.
In their most recent outing, the Mavericks (24-53) fell to Orlando, 138-127, despite rookie Cooper Flagg’s career-high 51 points.
The 19-year-old Flagg became the youngest player in NBA history to score 50-plus points, shooting 19-of-30 from the floor and 6-of-9 from 3-point range on his way to the milestone. Flagg is averaging a team-high 20.8 points per game, as he makes his case for 2025-26 Rookie of the Year.
“He should be Rookie of the Year,” Mavericks coach Jason Kidd said. “It’s unbelievable, the country is not watching the same thing that we get to watch on a daily basis.”
Flagg is jockeying with his former Duke teammate Kon Knueppel for the award. Knueppel is averaging 18.8 points per game for the surprising Eastern Conference playoff contenders Charlotte.
Flagg has five games remaining to finish his case for Rookie of the Year, four of which pit Dallas against teams bound for the postseason, including the Lakers. Flagg missed the Mavericks’ most recent matchup with Los Angeles, a 124-104 loss on Feb. 12.
The Lakers moved to 3-0 against Dallas on the season with that win and can complete the season sweep on Sunday. Los Angeles has won the past five meetings.
–Field Level Media
How Los Angeles Lakers Might Need Bronny James in NBA Playoffs
Five Early 2026 MLB Takes That Might Already Be True
