CS&T/AllsportsAmerica Friday Sports News Update and What's Your Take? 01/27/2017.

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"Sports Quote of the Day"

“It's better to look ahead and prepare, than to look back and regret.” ~ Jackie Joyner-Kersee, Retired Olympic Field and Track Athlete  

TRENDING: Rajon Rondo unleashes harsh criticism of Dwyane Wade, Jimmy Butler in Instagram post. What's Your Take? (Please go to the Bulls section, read the article and share your take with us. We look forward to hearing from you).

TRENDING: Blackhawks collapse in third period again, fall to Jets. (See the hockey section for Blackhawks updates and NHL news).

TRENDING: Defensive Coordinator Vic Fangio seeking players with ball skills. (See the football section for Bears News an NFL updates).

TRENDING: How Cubs see Ben Zobrist, Javier Baez and all the other pieces fitting together. (See the baseball section for Cubs and White Sox updates).

TRENDING: College basketball Power Rankings, Jan. 26: New No. 1 after upsets galore. (See the NCAABKB section for college basketball news and team updates).

How 'bout them Chicago Blackhawks? Blackhawks collapse in third period again, fall to Jets.

By Tracey Myers

(Photo/csnchicago.com)

That first shift after giving up a goal. Hockey coaches stress how important it is. Hockey players know how important it is. But for the second time in as many games, the Blackhawks' first shift after giving up a goal has hurt them, and on Thursday it hurt them twice.

The Winnipeg Jets scored two goals in 42 seconds in the first period and another two in 33 seconds in the third period as they came back to beat the Blackhawks 5-3 on Thursday. It was another frustrating night for the Blackhawks, who have now lost two games in a row when leading entering the third period. Prior to Tuesday, they had gone 78-0-5 in those regular-season games.

The Blackhawks enter the All-Star break second in the Western Conference, four points behind Minnesota, which won again on Thursday night and has three games in hand.

The losses are one thing. How they're happening is another. The Blackhawks giving up pairs of goals in a brief amount of time is getting alarming. They did the same on Tuesday against Tampa Bay, the Lightning scoring two in 30 seconds en route to a victory.

"Tonight it was bad luck, two goals after goals that are just unlucky bounces off your own guys and they end up in the back of the net. I don't know what you say about stuff like that. It just happens sometimes," Scott Darling said. "But obviously you'd like to try and have a good start the next shift and try to get the puck into the other end, but that's what happened tonight."

It was another game in which the Blackhawks outshot their opponent early and still trailed. The Jets were up 2-0 less than seven minutes into the game thanks to Patrik Laine's power play goal and Shawn Mattias' goal 42 seconds later. The Blackhawks nevertheless chipped away at that.

Duncan Keith scored just five seconds into the Blackhawks' first power play of the night. Nick Schmaltz scored four minutes into the second to tie it 2-2 and Tanner Kero scored later in the second to give the Blackhawks a 3-2 lead.

Then came the latter minutes of the third period and another quick-scoring moment. Andrew Copp tied it with 4:03 remaining and Bryan Little put the Jets up 4-3 just 33 seconds later.

"If we do give up a goal we've gotta be better on the next shift. When they're scoring they're getting chances on the next shift and capitalizing on more mistakes," Schmaltz said. "I don't know if it's not [being] ready for the next shift, because that's one of the most important shifts is after they score a goal. We can pay more attention to that and just tighten up defensively, especially in the third period. We've had a couple of leads and let them slip away, so hopefully we can turn that around, because we need to turn those games into points, for sure."

Mark Scheifele added an empty-net goal with 2:03 remaining in regulation to seal it.

The Blackhawks can't do anything about the points that got away from them heading into the All-Star break. They've got quite the road trip coming up following the respite. The first shift after a goal is critical. The Blackhawks have suffered lapses on them too often lately.

"I still think we were fine on the other end, we had the puck and were dangerous in certain areas. but we have to make it tougher in what we're giving up," coach Joel Quenneville said. "There were some positives in both games [vs. Tampa and Winnipeg] but definitely an awful taste now."

Five Things from Blackhawks-Jets: Quick goals allowed becoming a trend. 

By Tracey Myers 

(Photo/csnchicago.com)

Well, that wasn't good. Again.

The Blackhawks are officially in bad-trend status with how they've allowed goals lately. We'll get to that, as well as some other things in our Five Things to take from the Blackhawks' 5-3 loss to the Winnipeg Jets.

1. Two quick goals again. And again. This is becoming a trend the Blackhawks need to address on the other side of the All-Star break. Two nights after allowing the Tampa Bay Lightning two goals in 30 seconds, the Blackhawks gave up two in 42 seconds to the Winnipeg Jets. And after they overcome that and take the lead, they do it again down the stretch. Said Duncan Keith, "I mean obviously I thought we had good control of the game and they were getting some chances but I thought we were playing well and it was just two sets of two quick goals and totally changed the game."

2. Third periods not so good anymore. This plays off our first item. Because as strange as it is to see the Blackhawks give up goals in quick succession, when they're doing it is even more bizarre. This used to be a fantastic third-period team, that 78-0-5 mark when leading after two periods (prior to Tuesday) was proof. But in two consecutive games the Blackhawks have lapsed in the waning minutes, and it's cost them.

3. Rookies work once again. Tanner Kero started the season in Rockford. Nick Schmaltz played 12 games there. Both have made strides in their respective games and both came up with goals on Thursday night. Schmaltz, who didn't shoot enough in his first go-around with the Hawks, scored an unassisted goal. Kero got his fourth of the season later. The Blackhawks have gotten big contributions from their youth this season and it continued into the All-Star break. 

4. Constant net presence. If the Blackhawks had one big problem against the Jets in their previous meetings, it was they didn't make things too tough on the Winnipeg goaltenders. On Thursday they did. They got bodies in front of the net for perimeter shots, they drove the net and came up with good scoring opportunities. We pointed out what they did wrong. On the other side, this is what the Blackhawks did right.

5. Break coming at a good time. Yeah, it can come at a good time when a team is struggling, too. The last two games have been trying, so a weekend away should be a good thing. The Blackhawks need to reset mentally and physically and come back prepared. The stretch run won't be any easier. "Guys who are going to LA, enjoy and have fun with it," coach Joel Quenneville said of players heading to the All-Star Game. "We have a tough trip coming up, that's for sure."

More consistent Richard Panik producing for Blackhawks.

By Tracey Myers

(Photo/csnchicago.com)

Tampa Bay Lightning head coach Jon Cooper was dining with his wife in Chicago on Monday night when unexpected drinks arrived at his table, compliments of his former forward, Richard Panik.

"I thought, 'How would he know I was here?' I turned around he was sitting two tables behind me with his wife," Cooper recalled Tuesday morning. "So I thought that was pretty funny."

In the days Panik played for Cooper, first with the Norfolk Admirals and then the Lightning, he struggled with inconsistency. Several years later he's improved in that area, and the Blackhawks are benefiting from it.

In 50 games this season Panik has 11 goals (tied for career best set in 2014-15) and a career-high 21 points. The points are nice, and they're part of what got Panik another shot on the top line with Jonathan Toews this season. But Panik said his all-around game is improving, and coach Joel Quenneville agrees.

"I think he's gotten better. I think he's adding some physicality to our team in his own game," Quenneville said. "Defensively, he's a work in progress but I still think he has the puck a lot more. He comes up with loose pucks with some separation going into the tight areas, and he's around the net. He's hard to play against and I think that adds to his scoring as well. But he's got a tremendous shot and just getting that shot away, he's dangerous."

Panik was one of several players who transitioned from the 2011-12 Calder Trophy-winning Admirals to the Lightning. Tyler Johnson was Panik's line mate in Norfolk and Tampa in the early going.

"It's awesome to see him doing well," Johnson said Tuesday morning. "It's tough seeing an ex-teammate, especially a guy so close, being on a different team, but you always root for him — anytime he doesn't play against us, anyways. But he's a great guy, deserves everything he's getting here. his skill and talent level, you always knew he was capable of big things and he's doing that right now."

Cooper said Panik always had all the tools to become a strong NHL player. He just had to put it all together.

"He just had to learn how to be a pro and he'd been in the process of that. It just took him a little longer than some other guys," Cooper said. "He's an electrifying player and he can do some things with the puck that I haven't seen other guys be able to do. I saw him this summer, his whole approach to the game now is pro. He probably learned a lot of that from playing here in Chicago. I'm happy for him because he deserves this."

Panik admits those early years could be difficult. He said he was a healthy scratch early, and even after that consistency continued to be an issue. Cooper kept reminding Panik what he could do.

"I was having a major issue back then with the consistency and he was trying to make me better," Panik said. "He taught me everything, all over the game."

When the Blackhawks traded for Panik just over a year ago, it was an opportunity for the forward to get a fresh start. It took him some time to get comfortable off the ice as well as on but he's getting there. Tampa was where Panik got some great lessons on how to become a good NHL pro. Chicago is where he's applying them.

"I think I felt good in Tampa, too, because so many of us played together in the AHL and they brought us together to the big team. But this one is probably up there, you know?" Panik said. "Last year was tough because I got traded in January and it's hard to get on a team that's already going. It was hard but I battled through it. This year I felt pretty good because I was here from the beginning, since training camp. Everything feels more comfortable."

Bear Down Chicago Bears!!!!! Bears depending on Ryan Pace to hit when he drafts quarterback for first time. 

By John Mullin

(Photo/csnchicago.com)

The true intrigue surrounding the Bears' 2017 draft plans for a quarterback concern not simply which quarterback – or "quarterbacks," plural – the Bears select, but also on how astute a judge of the position the main man in the draft room is: GM Ryan Pace.

How good is he at finding a potential franchise quarterback, given that he’s never picked a quarterback in his two Bears drafts?

Former GM Jerry Angelo admitted that he and his staff had more than their share of difficulties identifying good offensive linemen in the draft. Maybe it was because Angelo himself was a former college linebacker and defensive lineman; who knows?

Angelo successor Phil Emery whiffed on linebackers and defensive linemen – Jonathan Bostic, Ego Ferguson, Khaseem Greene, Shea McClellin.

Pace is a former college defensive end and his personnel moves on that side of the football have generally been solid – Leonard Floyd, Eddie Goldman, Nick Kwiatkowski, plus free agents Akiem Hicks, Danny Trevathan, Tracy Porter and Jerrell Freeman.

But can Pace, who certainly knows things about chasing quarterbacks with malicious intent, draft success at the single most important position in perhaps all of sports?

He will have his challenges in 2017, which has in its quarterbacks class some top candidates – Mitch Trubisky of North Carolina, others – with a limited sample size as their body of work.

"It carries a lot weight," Pace told reporters on Thursday at Senior Bowl practice. "I think there's nothing that can really substitute for [experience]. It's already a big jump from college to the NFL as it is. The more of that you have, definitely the more beneficial it is. I think you can feel it with a lot of these [seniors] who played a lot of college football at a high level. We can feel it out here. They're picking up things really quick... .

"You've really got to do your due diligence because it's hard. It's a big jump as it is — especially with the type of offenses a lot of them are coming from. You've got to be careful with that."

Pace has stressed football intelligence and passing accuracy as chief criteria for evaluating quarterbacks. But factored into his equation will be one major intangible, one that raises the possible interest in a leader like Clemson’s Deshaun Watson, who is not at the Senior Bowl but has established a body of work as a winner and champion.

"You want to look for a player who has lifted his program for the most part," Pace said, whose experience while with the New Orleans Saints gave him a sense of what this looks like. "That's something that's there. Quarterbacks we've been around, I think Drew Brees, for example, when he was at Purdue, he lifted that program. That's one of the things we look for. That's definitely a factor added into about 30 other things you factor into that position."

Fangio seeking players with ball skills.

By Larry Mayer

(Photo/chicagobears.com)

While he's coaching the North team defense this week at the Senior Bowl, Vic Fangio is looking for prospects who possess a knack for making plays on the ball.

"Some guys have the innate ability to do that and some guys don't," the Bears defensive coordinator said Wednesday after practice. "Usually you can see it right away if they have the opportunities in practice, so I'd like to think we've given them enough opportunities to show that either in an individual drill or in competitive situations."

Although the Bears stumbled to a 3-13 record in 2016, their defense ranked a respectable 15th in the NFL in total yards, seventh in passing yards and eighth in sacks per pass play. The unit's major deficiency, however, was the inability to take the ball away from opponents.

The Bears forced just 11 turnovers, an all-time franchise low and the fewest in the NFL. Getting better in that critical aspect of the game is a main objective heading into the 2017 season.

"It is a priority," Fangio said. "To be a good defense you've got to be able to take the ball away and we haven't done that well. So we've got to find guys that can do it. We've got to improve in a lot of areas. If you improve a little bit in all spots, the takeaways will come as long as you've got some guys that have got the knack for doing it."

There are seemingly a handful of those players on the North squad in Mobile. At cornerback, Iowa's Desmond King had 14 interceptions over the past three seasons, including a career-high eight in 2015. West Virginia's Rasul Douglas picked off eight passes in 2016 alone.

At safety, Nebraska's Nate Gerry had 13 interceptions over the last three seasons, while Connecticut's Obi Melifonwu picked off eight passes the past three years, including four in 2016. The 6-3, 217-pound Melifonwu is an intriguing prospect with rare size at the safety position.

Asked about evaluating a prospect's instincts at the safety position, Fangio said: "There is no formula to measure that. It's just watching them play and seeing how they react. You can't create a drill to measure instincts. You've got to watch them play."

The Bears no doubt are watching closely, given that their safeties have combined to intercept just three passes the past two seasons, two by Harold Jones-Quartey and one by Demontre Hurst.

At his post-season press conference three weeks ago, general manager Ryan Pace acknowledged that the Bears "need to add more playmakers to our secondary. We need to add more ball skills. That's on me and we'll do that."

By the end of the week in Mobile, the Bears should have in-depth knowledge of not only the defensive backs but each and every player on the North roster.

"There's an advantage [in coaching the Senior Bowl]," Fangio said. "When you're around a person the whole week in a football setting—just like you will be during the season—it does give you a better feel for what a guy may or may not be. A guy can fool you in a 15 or 20-minute interview easy. But throughout the week he'll expose himself good or bad."

Entering his 31st season as an NFL coach and 18th as a defensive coordinator, Fangio has a pretty good idea about the traits he's seeking in pro prospects.

"You're just looking for talent, to be honest with you, just some movement," Fangio said. "Guys that can bend, guys that can get their bodies in the positions that you know they have to get into to be a good player in the NFL. So it's a lot of little things. It's just watching a guy play and the way he plays and moves, what he can do with his body, what he can't, will it translate to the NFL."

Loggains proud of Howard's success.

By Larry Mayer

Bears running back Jordan Howard finished second in the NFL in rushing with 1,313 yards. (Photo/chicagobears.com)

Every running back that Bears offensive coordinator Dowell Loggains is coaching at the Senior Bowl would love to have the same success that Jordan Howard experienced as a rookie.

While the Bears coaching staff is spending the week in Mobile, Howard is in Orlando as part of the NFC Team in the Pro Bowl—a reward for his breakout first NFL season in Chicago.

"I'm excited for him," Loggains said. "It was earned. Jordan had a heck of a year, especially when you think about what happened and how the year played out for him with Jeremy [Langford] being the starter early on and Jordan coming on Week 4 the way he did."

Selected by the Bears in the fifth round of the draft out of Indiana, Howard opened the season third on the depth chart and didn't make his first start until Oct. 2 when both Langford and backup Ka'Deem Carey were injured.

Howard took the opportunity and ran with it—literally and figuratively—ultimately finishing second in the NFL in rushing behind fellow rookie Ezekiel Elliott of the Cowboys. Howard set Bears rookie rushing records with 1,313 yards and seven 100-yard games and joined Hall of Famer Walter Payton as the only Bears players to run for at least 1,300 yards while averaging more than five yards per carry.

"He's a hard-working kid," Loggains said. "He's quiet. He's a humble kid. You want success for guys like that. He's earned everything he got."

If there was such a thing as a "rookie wall," Howard bolted right through it. He closed his first season with a flourish, earning NFL offensive rookie of the month honors for December/January after rushing for 547 yards and four touchdowns in five games. During that span, he averaged 5.3 yards per attempt and produced three 100-yard games.

Initially selected as an alternate for the Pro Bowl, Howard replaced the Cardinals' David Johnson, who suffered a knee injury the final week of the regular season. The other running backs on the NFC squad are Elliott and the Eagles veteran Darren Sproles.

Loggains believes that Howard will benefit from being around some of the NFL's top veteran players this week at the Pro Bowl.

"That's invaluable for a young guy who is hungry and excited," Loggains said. "I think he hasn't scratched the surface of what he can be and maybe he'll learn how to take care of his body more from some of those guys who are pros who have been doing this a long time. I think that's the biggest thing.

"He didn't have the luxury of coming in and playing behind a Matt Forte and seeing what that was like. He came in, was a rookie in a young room. He can grow a lot that way."

Bears could find answer to tight end need at Senior Bowl.

By John Mullin

(Photo/csnchicago.com)

It has been a position of interest for the Bears ever since they established the early standard for tight end with Mike Ditka a half-century ago. But it has too often been a position of concern ever since, a situation that could be remedied with a draft move based on potentially the right mix of need and grade.

Consensus has tight end as one of the deepest positions in the upcoming draft, with Senior Bowl attendees O.J. Howard from Alabama and Gerald Everett from South Alabama rated as two of the top three prospects at a position where the Bears have had moments — and issues — with Martellus Bennett (attitude) and Zach Miller (injuries) over the past several seasons. The Bears got 20 catches from waiver-pickup Daniel Brown last season but little impact from free-agent-acquisition Logan Paulsen. With unsettled situations at wide receiver, a productive draft pick at tight end becomes a priority amid the higher profiled situations at quarterback and defensive back.

"I thought [Howard] was the best player on the field if you look at either of the practices," NFL Network draft analyst Daniel Jeremiah said via video on ChicagoBears.com. "He was outstanding, several one-handed catches. Everything he does is just so smooth and easy."

The Bears had designs on Arkansas' Hunter Henry in the 2016 draft, but the San Diego Chargers snatched the Razorbacks standout with the fourth pick of the second round. The Bears were sitting at No. 10 in the round and, having already traded up in round one for Leonard Floyd, were not in a position to jump up again for Henry, particularly with a good grade on Cody Whitehair, whom they were able to land after two trade-downs. 

Henry put up 36 catches and 8 touchdowns as a rookie, an indication that the Bears had correctly identified a talent.

Just Another Chicago Bulls Session..... Miami Heat Vs. Chicago Bulls Preview, 01/27/2017.

By Scores & Stats

Dwyane Wade's old team is visiting just as his new team seems to be coming apart. Wade and the Chicago Bulls will try to heal some of the fractures within the team and bounce back from a tough loss when they host the Miami Heat on Friday.

The Bulls gave up 41 fourth-quarter points, including a 19-4 game-ending run, in a 119-114 home loss to the Atlanta Hawks on Wednesday, and both Wade and All-Star Jimmy Butler had some harsh words for their teammates after the game. "I don't know what happened," Wade told reporters. "But we continue to be in these kinds of situations and lose games like this. Everyone don't care enough. You got to care enough, man. It's got to mean that much to you to want to win. And it doesn't. So I don't know what happened." The Heat, with whom Wade spent the first 13 years of his career before leaving as a free agent last summer, are 14th out of 15 teams in the Eastern Conference but are playing their best basketball right now and enter the matchup with a five-game winning streak. Miami took the opener of its two-game road trip 109-106 at Brooklyn on Wednesday - the fourth time during the winning streak that the team pulled out a win decided by six points or fewer.

TV: 8 p.m. ET, FSN Sun (Miami), CSN Chicago

ABOUT THE HEAT (16-30): Miami's ability to pull out close games of late comes down to shooting guard Dion Waiters burying clutch jumpers. Waiters, who is averaging 30 points on 61.4 percent shooting in the last three games, knocked down the go-ahead 3-pointer in the final second of Monday's 105-102 triumph over the NBA-best Golden State Warriors and nailed another key 3-pointer down the stretch in Wednesday's triumph. "He has that almost irrational confidence," Heat coach Erik Spoelstra told reporters of Waiters. "You need that. I feel very comfortable with the ball in his hands, especially in key, clutch moments."

ABOUT THE BULLS (23-24): Wade (33) and Butler (40) combined for 73 points on Wednesday, and both questioned their teammates' desire to win after the loss. "At the end of the day, do whatever it takes to help the team win," Butler told reporters. "You play your role to the T. Be a star in your role, man. That's how you win in this league, man. You have to embrace what this team, what this organization needs for you to do on either end of the floor. On top of everything else, just play every possession like it's your last. We don't play hard all the time. It's very disappointing whenever we don't play hard.'' Reserve small forward Doug McDermott (10 points on 4-of-9 shooting in 23 minutes) was the only other player in double figures.

BUZZER BEATERS

1. Bulls PF Nikola Mirotic is 2-of-15 from 3-point range in the last four games.

2. Miami C Hassan Whiteside (ankle) left Wednesday's game and is questionable for Friday.

3. Wade averaged 20.5 points in a pair of wins over Miami earlier this season.

PREDICTION: Bulls 103, Heat 101

Bulls: Dwyane Wade, Jimmy Butler explode after Bulls' collapse to Hawks. (Wednesday night's game, 01/25/2017).

By Vincent Goodwill

(Photo/csnchicago.com)

The tension and frustration was evident as Dwyane Wade and Jimmy Butler emerged from the showers after an inexcusable collapse against the Atlanta Hawks.

They were 3 minutes away from getting back over that elusive .500 mark, three minutes away from sending the Chicago hopefuls home with some good feelings as the two stars combined for 73 points as Butler scored 40 and Wade notched 30 for the third time in four games.

But 90 seconds turned those Cinderella dreams into a terrible, ugly pumpkin.

The Atlanta Hawks continued their mystifying mastery of the Bulls with a 119-114 win at the United Center, their sixth straight win, courtesy of a 19-4 run over the final minutes.

It was capitalized after the Hawks took a 114-112 lead, leaving the Bulls with two great options coming out of the timeout: Wade, who was hot. And Butler, who was scorching.

The two literally played horse to extend a 95-91 lead to 110-100 with an array of jumpers, 3-point plays and even a four-point play from Butler, sending the Hawks scrambling for a timeout with 3 minutes left before they regrouped to tie the game, then take the lead.

Apparently the memo didn't make it to Nikola Mirotic, who fearlessly took a triple after Wade kicked it to him on a baseline drive, firing up an errant triple that looked terrible from the moment it left his hands.

"I understand that if you've got an open shot take it," Butler said. "But at a point in the game like that, no offense but you gotta get the ball to your best players. That's just how the game goes. Let it come down on my shoulders or D-Wade's shoulders. Let us be the reason why."

Wade's frustration was felt before Butler spoke to the media, sounding very much like the veteran player who's utterly disgusted and shocked at the state of affairs.

"I don't know what happened, but you continue to be in these kinds of situations and lose games like this, you really don't care enough," Wade said. "You don't care enough. It's got to mean that much to you to want to win. And it doesn't. So I don't know. I don't know happened. I don't know how you fix it. It just doesn't mean enough for guys around here to want to win ball games.

"It pisses me off, but I can't be frustrated and I can't care too much for these guys. They got to care for themselves. We got to do better."

Wade has been the sage, encouraging and experienced star but he brought fire and brimstone after the game, probably as frustrated with Wednesday's result as he is with the season to date.

Count this loss to the Hawks as probably the most upsetting, but it can be added to a ledger of several—especially as the Bulls find themselves right in the middle of an Eastern Conference muck they seem unable to emerge from, mired in mediocrity.

"I heard what D-(Wade) was over there saying, yeah," Butler said. "Mother------- just got to care if we win or lose. At the end of the day, do whatever it takes to help the team win. You play your role to the tee. Be a star in your role, man." "That's how you win in this league, man. You have to embrace what this team, what this organization needs for you to do on either end of the floor. On top of everything else, just play every possession like it's your last. We don't play hard all the time. It's very disappointing whenever we don't play hard."

It has Wade questioning his teammates' desire to win as opposed to showing up and collecting a check every two weeks. It's a storm that's been brewing and finally, Mount Wade exploded.

"I wish I could say that everyone in here is going to go home and not eat tonight," Wade said. "I can't say that. I wish I could, but I don't know that they care enough.

Games are supposed to hurt. You're not supposed to sleep, you're not supposed to want to talk to anybody. These games are supposed to hurt. I don't know if that is in guys in this locker room."

His challenge was certainly strategic, as he's hoping to stir some kind of lasting emotion from his teammates in a critical hour.

"Hopefully they can prove me wrong, but I will challenge them to see if losses like this hurt," Wade said. "We can play bad, we can miss shots, but we're having too many of these lapses. We're having too many of these losses. This just can't be acceptable if you want to do anything besides have an NBA jersey on and make some money. That's all we're doing right now."

It didn't, although it shouldn't have come down to that possession anyways, if all parties are being honest. Three triples in succession from Paul Millsap, Dennis Scroeder and Tim Hardaway Jr cut the Bulls lead to one and as has been proven all year, when adversity hits the Bulls, it's rare they stand together to fight with savvy and verve.

Schroeder scored 24 with nine assists while Millsap scored 21 and Dwight Howard added 16 with 12 rebounds, including a late dunk when the Bulls' defense again became confused with Hawks' penetration.

The Hawks shot 52 percent and 57 from three with 29 assists on their 43 field goals.
Giving up 41 points in the fourth, 17 triples overall and several backbreaking breakdowns on defense added to the calculated statements from Wade and later, Butler.

The Bulls' schedule gets tougher as the next month approaches with a west-coast swing coming up, a period that could be make or break with the All-Star break and trade deadline not terribly far away.

Who knows it was pointed squarely at Mirotic, whom the Bulls have previously invested so much in but has consistently underwhelmed, or Doug McDermott or Bobby Portis or anyone who could help the Bulls elevate themselves with just a little bit of help.

"You guys see our lineup. There's a lot of shuffling around," Wade said. "Coach don't feel he can count on that many guys right now. That can't be.

"There are guys in this league who people don't think can play. But once they get in certain situations, once they get certain confidence, they can play. It's not about talent.

"We got young guys. Sometimes you're just happy to be here. Once the years start going by, you find yourself in your 30s and stuff like that and start looking back and wishing you did more, I don't know. I've always been a person who tries to seize the moment because tomorrow is not promised to anyone in this game. You're one
wrong move away from never playing again. It has to mean that much to you."

The leaders of the Bulls have spoken, and make no mistake, their calculated message was tinged with uncontrollable emotion they could no longer hold in.

"It's not hard to figure out. But at the end of the day if you can't look at yourself in the mirror and realize it yourself, no matter how many people tell you, it ain't resonating and you don't give a damn anyway," Butler said.

Gauntlet laid.

Rajon Rondo unleashes harsh criticism of Dwyane Wade, Jimmy Butler in Instagram post. What's Your Take?

CSN Staff

(Photo/csnchicago.com)

Rajon Rondo apparently disagreed with the postgame approach taken by Dwyane Wade and Jimmy Butler after Wednesday's loss.

The Bulls led by double digits with under three minutes to play and blew the lead, eventually losing to the visiting Atlanta Hawks by a 119-114 score.

After the game, Wade and Butler both went off on teammates.

Thursday afternoon, Rondo unleashed a criticism of Wade and Butler, though he didn't reference them by name. Instead, he posted a picture of Paul Pierce and Kevin Garnett, two veterans he played with on the Boston Celtics. Here's what Rondo wrote.

"My vets would never go to the media. They would come to the team. My vets didn't pick and choose when they wanted to bring it. They brought it every time they stepped in the gym whether it was practice or a game. They didn't take days off. My vets didn't care about their numbers. My vets played for the team. When we lost, they wouldn't blame us. They took responsibility and got in the gym. They showed the young guys what it meant to work. Even in Boston when we had the best record in the league, if we lost a game, you could hear a pin drop on the bus. They showed us the seriousness of the game. My vets didn't have an influence on the coaching staff. They couldn't change the plan because it didn't work for them. I played under one of the greatest coaches, and he held everyone accountable. It takes 1-15 to win. When you isolate everyone, you can't win consistently. I may be a lot of things, but I'm not a bad teammate. My goal is to pass what I learned along. The young guys work. They show up. They don't deserve blame. If anything is questionable, it's the leadership."

Here's what the post looked like.

Sharp words that are sure to spark a firestorm.

Chicago Sports & Travel Inc./AllsportsAmerica Take: Apparently there's a lot of dissention on this team. While he's a decent player, Rajon Rondo has a history of having conflict with his coaches, it occurred again earlier this season with one of the Bulls' coaches. It seems like things have been going down hill since then. Plus Rondo's performance has been much less than was expected and has caused his benching for several games this season. The Bulls are trying to rebuild with a mixture of savvy veterans and some good young talent. The Bulls were picked by the prognosticators to make the playoffs and see what happened from there. Some of the veteran players are frustrated with the way the team is finishing games and their frustration is beginning to show.

It is our opinion that this situation falls completely in the lap of the front office; John Paxson and Gar Foreman. I think Fred Hoiberg is a decent coach but coming into the NBA with his lack of coaching experience was a big mistake. There is a world of difference between a college player and a professional player in attitude and skills. This situation should have been addressed by the coaches with the players immediately. It's obvious the Bulls have some talent and I'm sure if they traded some of their young players, they would do well on other teams. Kyle Korver comes to mind right away. He left the Bulls went to Atlanta, made an immediate impact and was recently traded to the Cavaliers. For some reason the coaching philosophy is not being bought into by the players.   

Something definitely needs to be done. The Bulls have been selling out since the Michael Jordan championship years and now they're offering buy one get one free tickets. This should not be. The Bulls should have a better record than they have now and it's not too late to win a few games and show what this team is truly capable of doing.

Now for the action we feel that is really needed. We've often said, Jerry Reinsdorf is one of the best owners in professional sports, it's time for him to step up to the plate and prove it. He should take some time, review the last few years of the Bulls performance and truly see if his scouting staff is that bad or does he need to review his front office management and his coach. This team has a very proud heritage, tremendous fan base and unparalleled city support. Chicago deserves better and the Bulls should step up and perform better. The ball is in the Bulls court, it's up to them to show what they can truly do!!!!!    

As usual, we've shared our thoughts with you and would love to know, what's your take? Please take a moment and go to the comment section at the bottom of this blog and let us know how you really feel. As always, thanks in advance for your time and comments. We truly look forward to hearing from you.

The Chicago Sports & Travel Inc./AllsportsAmerica Editorial Staff. 

Elena Delle Donne unhappy with Sky, wants out of Chicago, sources say.

By Phil Thompson

Chicago Sky player Elena Delle Donne. (Photo/chicagotribune.com)

Elena Delle Donne found her game and fame in Chicago. She established roots here — even named her dog Wrigley — but she may be on the verge of a breakup.

The Chicago Sky star, wanting to be closer to her hometown of Wilmington, Del., and also unhappy with her current team, is seeking a trade out of Chicago, sources tell the Tribune.

The Washington Mystics have offered their first-round pick this year and All-Star center Stefanie Dolson to the Sky for Delle Donne, the 2015 WNBA Most Valuable Player. The deal also might include last year's seventh-overall pick, Kahleah Copper, or at least did initially.

Delle Donne has become discouraged by the "revolving door" in Chicago, a source requesting anonymity put it, as players and coaches have left the team or were fired. The Sky dismissed Pokey Chatman in late October and saw three assistants leave within the last year, including well-liked former NBA big man Wayne "Tree" Rollins. In 2015, Sylvia Fowles forced the team to trade her to the Minnesota Lynx by sitting out.

Delle Donne's representatives declined to comment, as did Sky officials and Mystics coach and general manager Mike Thibault.

Rumblings about her desire to play in Washington began last summer. Her hometown in Delaware is within commuting distance, and on several occasions she has expressed a strong desire to be near her older sister, Lizzie, who was born blind and deaf, has autism and cerebral palsy and communicates with Elena through touch and smell.

Delle Donne said in a podcast interview last month that she's looking for a place for her and fiancee Amanda Clifton to raise children.

"You got to think about your family and where you want to be living and where you want them to grow up and make some traditions," she told Howard Megdal on "Locked on Women's Basketball."

Among the other reasons Delle Donne wants out of Chicago, according to those sources, are that she felt out of place on the team — and perhaps with the leadership role expected of her — and was dissatisfied that the front office wasn't marketing and investing in the team as much as in past seasons.

But one former teammate said she did not see any such discontent from Delle Donne.

"I didn't feel tension. I didn't feel problems," said Jacki Gemelos, who played for the Sky in 2015 and remains friends with Delle Donne. "Of course there are issues throughout the season if we lose games. But ... we had our leader (Cappie Pondexter) who demanded and expected things from us. We had our leader by example (Delle Donne), and we had coach Pokey (Chatman) and Courtney Vandersloot and (Allie) Quigley. Everyone brought something different and we all respected each other.

"It's true, Elena's more of a leader by example. It's not like she never said anything. Of course she would say things but she wasn't as vocal as Cappie."

Delle Donne, a 2016 Olympic gold medalist and regarded as among the best players in the world, is a restricted free agent, allowing the Sky to match any offer. WNBA free agency began Jan. 15, but deals do not become official until Feb. 1, the first day players are permitted to sign.

Blockbuster deals are uncommon in the WNBA given leaguewide financial limitations, although two years ago Fowles, a three-time Olympic gold-medal winner, forced a trade from the Sky to the Lynx by sitting out the first half of the season.

In the podcast interview, Delle Donne noted what a "really nice move" it was when Fowles orchestrated her exit from Chicago. Fowles earned her first ring and was named WNBA Finals MVP in 2015 when the Lynx won the championship for the third time in five years.

Delle Donne was the 2008 Naismith High School Player of the Year at Ursuline Academy in Wilmington and had been pursued by top programs as early as seventh grade. She committed to the University of Connecticut but then walked away from its legendary coach, Geno Auriemma, and the game because she said she was burned out from basketball.

She enrolled that fall at the University of Delaware, played volleyball for a year as a walk-on and returned to basketball the next season as a redshirt freshman. She led the Blue Hens to the NCAA tournament's second round as a junior and the Sweet 16 her senior year.

The Sky drafted her No. 2 overall in 2013, and she was unanimously voted rookie of the year. In 2014, however, her season was stunted by what she identified as a flare-up of chronic Lyme disease and a back injury, and she missed more than half the season.

Still, Delle Donne helped the Sky reach the WNBA Finals that season, and the team has reached the playoffs in each of her four seasons. In 2015, she was a near-unanimous MVP, averaging 23.4 points to win the scoring title and setting career highs with 95 percent free-throw shooting, 8.4 rebounds and two blocks per game.

In August, before earning a gold medal at the Rio Olympics, Delle Donne revealed that she was engaged to Clifton, the first time she publicly acknowledged her sexual orientation.

"I've grown up in a family where I have the most unique sister in the world and we've always been taught to celebrate uniqueness," Delle Donne said while in Rio de Janeiro preparing for the Olympics. "It was easy for me to be who I am, and hopefully others can be who they are as well."

Delle Donne averaged 21.5 points last season, second to the Liberty's Tina Charles by percentage points, before injuring her right thumb in a 118-81 loss to the Mystics on Sept. 7. Shortly thereafter she had season-ending surgery, forcing her to miss the Sky's final 10 games.

"I want to be known as an elite brand of excellence in everything that I do," she told the Tribune in 2015. "And I feel like I try to put that forth on and off the court. But there's always room to grow and always room for improvement, and as long as I'm playing this game, I always want to be improving.

CUBS: How Cubs see Ben Zobrist, Javier Baez and all the other pieces fitting together.

By Patrick Mooney

(Photo/csnchicago.com)

Ben Zobrist is a three-time All-Star and a World Series MVP with a $56 million contract, no-trade protections and enormous respect inside the clubhouse. Zobrist is secure enough to admit that the Cubs will need to play Javier Baez more this year, even if it means shifting back to more of a super-utility role.

Baez became a breakout star as the Cubs won their first World Series title since 1908, starting all 17 playoff games at second base, making highlight-reel plays look routine, turning tagging into an art form and showcasing his confident personality. Baez has no doubt that he should be an everyday player.

The Cubs are built with depth, flexibility and the 162-game marathon in mind. A potential six-man rotation – with the Brett Anderson deal becoming official on Thursday – and a collection of versatile defenders should help keep them fresh for October (and lead to inevitable grumbling about messing with routines and timing).

After a winter where he faced repeated questioning about the way he managed Games 6 and 7 in the World Series, Joe Maddon will again have to massage egos, entertain/inform/distract the media and not lose sight of the big picture. Bench coach Dave Martinez and pitching coach Chris Bosio should at least expect to have some difficult conversations with frustrated players, putting out fires before it gets back to Maddon's office.    

Zobrist vs. Baez will be one of countless variables when Maddon sits down at a Starbucks and writes out the lineup on his iPad.

"There's all kinds of stuff going on there," Maddon said. "Of course, you've got to keep everybody involved. (With Kyle) Schwarber being well, you look at Schwarber a lot in left field. And then you look at Javy at second base with Zo. You can even think about Zo in the outfield in right when you want to put Jason (Heyward) in center.

"I'm not worried about that right now."

In part because the Cubs went through this in spring training last year, when Dexter Fowler shocked the baseball world by taking a one-year, $13 million guarantee and showing up at the team's Arizona complex.

"It was kind of right around this time last year that we started having sort of more serious dialogue with Dexter about possibly coming back," general manager Jed Hoyer said at Cubs Convention in mid-January. "Up on the white board in my office, we all sat around and tried to figure out the playing time.

"We had (Jorge) Soler up there. We had Schwarber up there. We had Heyward up there. And (with) Dexter, we were trying to figure out how we could get him enough at-bats.

"We kept saying: ‘If all the guys are healthy, it's going to be tight, but we can figure this out. And that's going to be Joe's problem.'"

By Game 3, Fowler and Schwarber had crashed into each other in Chase Field's left-center gap. The violent collision forced Schwarber to get major surgery on his left knee, setting the stage for a dramatic World Series return.

"It's a great lesson on depth," Hoyer said.

Zobrist will turn 36 in May and already has a World Series ring from the 2015 Kansas City Royals. He's a patient switch-hitter with contact skills and the ability to play all over the infield and outfield for a team that will be pieced together like a jigsaw puzzle, tailoring lineups for the opposing pitcher and setting specific defensive alignments behind that game's starter.

Beyond the 39 homers and 102 RBI, Kris Bryant won last year's National League MVP award with his strong defensive play all over the field, allowing Maddon to get more and more creative with his lineup decisions and in-game adjustments. Bryant, Heyward, Jon Jay, Albert Almora Jr. and Matt Szczur have the athleticism to play center field this season. Schwarber and Willson Contreras have experience in the outfield and behind the plate.

Maddon watched Baez develop last year and again brought up the idea of awarding a Gold Glove to a super-utility guy. When figuring out where to play Baez defensively – at least before that spectacular playoff performance – Maddon would take into account that game's starting pitcher and information from The Geek Department and try to figure out where the ball should be hit most often.

"He does some things on the field that you just don't teach," third base coach Gary Jones said. "He's one of the most instinctive guys that I've ever been around in my 30-plus years in this game. He just does things on the field that make you go: ‘Wow.'"
 
That's why Zobrist understood Maddon's decision to let Baez take over second base in October and early November.

"I'm going to talk about rest from Day 1," Maddon said. "I really think it's important, whether it's pitchers or position players to really be aware of giving guys rest.

"Zo's another year older. The last two years, he's played very deep into the year. (And) it's a long spring training with the WBC (World Baseball Classic) going on. Just try to get a pulse of everybody, where they're at, what you think they might need.

"Like last year, we were all worried about how we were going to figure out the outfield – and then two guys run into each other in Arizona. All of a sudden, it takes care of itself. I don't want that to happen that way. But I really believe that we'll be able to parcel the work out, based on conversation and just giving guys rest." 

Can Cubs break down Jason Heyward's swing and build him back up again?

By Patrick Mooney

(Photo/csnchicago.com)

The Cubs can use hitting jargon to explain Jason Heyward's steep offensive decline, focusing on bat angle and launch position, but there's still a bottom-line aspect to his struggles: How to handle the pressure that comes with signing the biggest contract in franchise history.

"You try so hard – and you want to be so good – you get to a point where you can't breathe," hitting coach John Mallee said.

If Heyward's life forever changed 13-plus months ago when he turned down the St. Louis Cardinals and signed that eight-year, $184 million megadeal, those mechanical issues had already been building for someone with long arms, a 6-foot-5-inch frame, a high-maintenance swing and a history of starting slow.

To his credit, it didn't stop Heyward from winning his fourth Gold Glove or setting an example for a young lineup with his patient approach at the plate and aggressive instincts on the bases. Even as manager Joe Maddon turned him into a part-time outfielder during the postseason, Heyward didn't sulk or drift off, calling a players-only meeting during the Game 7 rain delay in the World Series.

Sometime after the championship parade down Lake Shore Drive and Michigan Avenue, Heyward moved to Arizona, to be near the team's Mesa complex and break down his swing so it could be rebuilt again. The reboot is underway, which will again make Heyward one of the most closely watched players in February, even on a team loaded with stars.

"Being the player he is and the human being that he is and the teammate that he is," Mallee said, "he really put a lot of stress on himself, in my opinion, trying to be successful for the Cubs and for his teammates.

"You get to a point where you really just can't find yourself. You got to take a step back, take a breather and take the offseason and assess what went wrong. And then figure out where you were good, because he's one of the best guys in baseball and we just lost him (by) a hair there."

The Cubs studied what Heyward did with the Atlanta Braves in 2012, when he generated 27 homers and 82 RBI and looked like a budding superstar during his age-22 season. Heyward has been working closely in Mesa with assistant hitting coach Eric Hinske, who has a unique understanding after playing on that 2012 Braves team.

While the spring-training coverage will focus on Heyward 2.0, Mallee insisted this isn't a dramatic overhaul, changing the position of his hands, holding the bat more straight up instead of tilted behind his head and getting into more of a ready position.

"Sometimes things creep into your swing that you don't even recognize," Mallee said. "He's trying to mirror the swing that he had then.

"It's not actually making a change – it's just getting him to who he was. Those are all natural moves for him. Those are all moves that he's done in the past before. So it's not like adding a leg kick to somebody – or trying to teach him to pull the ball more or anything like that. It's just getting him back to the swing patterns that he had when he had success."

As much as anything, Theo Epstein's front office invested in Heyward's age (now 27), athleticism and intangibles. Of course, the Cubs expected more production than seven homers and a .631 OPS that ranked 144th out of the 146 qualified big-league hitters last season. But if Heyward bombed in Year 1, it's not like it automatically meant a sunk cost or the beginning of the end.

Mallee also wrote off some of this as bad luck, saying Heyward "was shifted more than he's ever been shifted in his career" and pointing to a .266 batting average on balls in play. But the same logic that drove the Heyward decision – and helped the franchise win its first World Series title in 108 years – now makes team officials believe his offensive game can be salvaged.

"Everybody knows he didn't have a great year hitting," bench coach Dave Martinez said. "But what this guy brought every day to our clubhouse – irreplaceable."

Maddon again compared Heyward to Jon Lester, who admittedly felt the weight of his $155 million megadeal in April 2015 and needed an adjustment period before becoming a Cy Young Award finalist last year, even after spending almost his entire career in a high-pressure environment with the Boston Red Sox.

"Of course, it's difficult," Maddon said. "You saw it with Jon Lester the year before, what he did last year compared to the previous year. Jason's been working very hard. They really like a lot of the adjustments that he's been making already.

"Listen, I just love the way Jason plays, regardless. I said that all last year. I do believe you're going to see an increase in offense, all around, whether it's hitting for average, power, RBIs, runs scored, the whole thing. But I just really am a big fan of his as a baseball player.

"A year older and a year wiser with a lot of really good offseason work – and it's been properly directed – I think you're going to see a nice uptick this year."

With so much young talent and cheap labor in their lineup, the Cubs could afford a down season from Heyward, before the salaries for Kris Bryant, Addison Russell, Kyle Schwarber and Javier Baez soar in the coming years.

Being a member of the supporting cast – and not having to be The Man all the time – was part of the attraction to playing at Wrigley Field. Heyward will always be part of The Team, but the Cubs will need more if they want to become a dynasty.

"Just get back to doing things simple, the right way," Heyward said. "(It's) being in a good position to hit all the time. It's easier said than done when you're trying to do it in the season, working in the cage and (then) trying to go compete to help a team win. The offseason really allows you to slow things down (and) take time to focus on all the little things and over-exaggerate that."

Cubs announce one-year deal with Brett Anderson.

CSN Staff

(Photo/csnchicago.com)

The Cubs announced Thursday a one-year deal with free-agent pitcher Brett Anderson, an announcement that was anticipated after reporting earlier this week.

The team made things official Thursday, adding the left-hander to its 40-man roster.

Anderson spent the past two seasons with the Los Angeles Dodgers, though his 2016 campaign was derailed by injury, as has so often been the case throughout the 29-year-old's major league career. Last season, Anderson pitched in just four games.

The year prior was only the second time in his eight big league seasons Anderson made 30 starts in a single season. During the 2015 season, he was 10-9 for the Dodgers with a 3.69 ERA and 116 strikeouts in 31 starts.

Anderson started 30 games for the Oakland A's as a rookie during the 2009 season and struck out 150 batters, finishing sixth in American League Rookie of the Year voting. But as the years went on, his durability went down. He started 19 games in 2010, 13 in 2011 and six in 2012. He made 22 total appearances with the A's and Colorado Rockies during the 2013 and 2014 seasons.

Given those health concerns, the Cubs reportedly structured the contract in a very interesting fashion, as chronicled by MLB Network's Jon Heyman.

The Cubs add Anderson to a group of starting pitchers that includes Cy Young contenders Jon Lester, Jake Arrieta and Kyle Hendricks at the top of the rotation and veteran John Lackey in the No. 4 spot. While Mike Montgomery is the odds-on favorite for the final spot in the rotation entering spring training, Anderson is now in the mix.

Javy Baez is getting a street named after him in Chicago.

By Tony Andracki

(Photo.csnchicago.com)

Chicago is already thanking Javy Baez for his postseason heroics.

DNAInfo reported Wednesday afternoon the City Council approved a sign for "Javier 'Javy' Baez Way" in Humboldt Park.

The Baez portion of the street will be near the Wrigley Field replica (dubbed Little Cubs Field) on the west side of West Luis Munoz Marin Dr.

Here's more background from DNAInfo:

Luis Munoz Marin was the first elected governor of Puerto Rico. The street named after him surrounds Humboldt Park's namesake park in a neighborhood defined by large steel Puerto Rican flags. 

Baez, 24, was born in Puerto Rico, but grew up in Jacksonville, Fla. Last season, he was named the National League Championship Series co-MVP. 

The sign was first proposed by Ald. Roberto Maldonado (26th) in November. Maldonado said the idea came from his 11-year-old son, whose fall Little League baseball team was captivated by the Cubs' postseason push.

Baez was named the co-MVP (along with Jon Lester) of the National League Championship Series after posting an .833 OPS against the Los Angeles Dodgers with five RBI and four doubles in six games.

In total, Baez hit .265 with a .693 OPS in the 2017 postseason, flashing incredible baseball instincts and athleticism in the field while helping lead the Cubs to their first World Series championship in 108 years.

Let's check in on Javy's reaction to this news:

WHITE SOX: Is Michael Kopech the next Noah Syndergaard? It's not just because of the hair.

By Dan Hayes

(Photo/csnchicago.com)

Whether it's the Noah Syndergaard-like hair, the hype or the internet video of his 110-mph pitch, it was only a matter of time before Michael Kopech got recognized on the street. 

Turns out it took less than a day. 

The White Sox farmhand — the No. 30 overall prospect in baseball, according to MLB.com — got a taste of his newfound notoriety after he arrived in Chicago on Thursday morning. Kopech, who's in town for SoxFest this weekend, said he was taking a stroll when suddenly a fan realized who he was.

"Most of the time, I'd go home and I can walk through a Walmart and say hi to everybody in Walmart and that's that," Kopech said. "It's a little different when I turn the corner in Chicago and I run into a person that recognizes me. It is something I have to get used to."

But it's not hard to understand why White Sox fans have made Kopech, 20, a focal point for their excitement. One of two signature pieces acquired from the Boston Red Sox in last month's Chris Sale trade, Kopech and infielder Yoan Moncada symbolize the franchise's decision to finally head in the opposite direction and rebuild.

Not only that, he possesses the kind of talent that made pitching coach Don Cooper say his "eyes lit up" when he watched video. The 6-foot-3, 205-pound right-hander followed a dominant half season at Single-A Salem with an outstanding showing in the Arizona Fall League. He has drawn comparisons to Syndergaard, the New York Mets' ace, and it's not just because the two feature shoulder-length blonde hair.

And, of course, there's that video that surfaced last week when Kopech threw a pitch into a net at 110 mph in his first workout (the ball was weighted and he had a running start). 

All of the above is sure to make Kopech an instant hit with White Sox fans even if he won't be in the majors right away.

While Kopech, who went to high school in Mt. Pleasant, Texas, population 16,000, doesn't mind the attention, he said it might take a minute for him to adjust.

"It's kind of surreal to have this much attention on me because a small town out of Texas is where I grew up," Kopech said. "All of this has been surreal, but I'm extremely excited about it.

"I don't mind it. It's cool. I like interacting with people."

Kopech spent 90 minutes talking to season-ticket holders on Thursday afternoon. One informed him he isn't allowed to call Guaranteed Rate Field anything but "The Cell." Another wanted his opinion of new manager Rick Renteria, who Kopech hasn't yet been introduced to. But most wanted to express their excitement about the team's new direction, an enthusiasm Kopech also feels.

"The fans have been very excited, but I've been pretty excited myself," Kopech said. "I think I just learned more from them than they probably will from me. It's pretty cool we get to interact with them and see how devoted these fans actually are."

Moncada aiming for Major heights in 2017.

By Scott Merkin

(Photo/chicagowhitesox.com)

There was no big league timetable set by Yoan Moncada when presented with that question during a visit to Ann and Robert H. Lurie Children's Hospital of Chicago on Thursday during an event taking place one day prior to the start of SoxFest.

But the 21-year-old switch-hitter sounds like a player who intends to be with the White Sox sooner than later during the 2017 season.

"Yes, of course. That's everyone's expectations when you are a player," Moncada said through White Sox interpreter Billy Russo. "I just want to show them what I can do during Spring Training and that I'm ready to play in the big leagues."

Moncada gave the White Sox a taste of his ability during a three-day hitters mini-camp this month at Camelback Ranch in Glendale, Ariz. He had the chance to meet new teammates after being acquired from Boston as the centerpiece of the Chris Sale deal, and will have the same opportunity this weekend at the Hilton Chicago.

Last season, Moncada had a short call-up to the Majors, where he batted .211 with one RBI and one extra-base hit over 20 plate appearances. That eight-game appearance didn't go exactly as Moncada desired, but it served as a good learning device for the future.

"It was a meaningful experience for me. It was something unique," Moncada said. "I learned that this is a process. I have to make adjustments once I reach the Majors.

"You have to know what you can do to get better and that's where I can learn from experience. You can't be comfortable in what you are doing. You have to look for ways to get better, too."

David Ortiz and Hanley Ramirez were two Red Sox veterans mentioned by Moncada as sources of help and information last season, as well as the coaches. White Sox manager Rick Renteria will be one of those individuals providing Moncada assistance this season, along with shortstop Tim Anderson, who doesn't exactly stand as a seasoned veteran entering his first full campaign as a Major Leaguer after a standout rookie effort.

"I'm going to help him as much as I can," said Anderson, who was at the same event Thursday morning with Renteria, Moncada and Lucas Giolito. "I'm sure he's going to help me. We'll get each other better up the middle. It's someone I'm going to work with for a while, so I have to know him real well."

White Sox director of player development Chris Getz went no further at the mini-camp than stating Moncada will be in big league camp and they will go from there. With Brett Lawrie, Tyler Saladino and Carlos Sanchez on the depth chart at second, Moncada certainly won't be rushed, and he figures to open the season at Triple-A Charlotte.

Moncada is the White Sox future, but he has the confidence to make that future begin almost immediately.

"I feel I can handle that situation very well," Moncada said. "I feel very comfortable about myself. I know what kind of player I am. I don't feel any pressure. I feel pressure because I know what I can do, not because what other people think I can do."

Golf: I got a club for that..... Rose shoots 65, leads by 1 at Farmers.

By Will Gray

(Photo/Golf Channel Digital)

While Tiger Woods stole the spotlight for much of the afternoon, Justin Rose ended up on top of the leaderboard after the first round of the Farmers Insurance Open. Here's how things look in San Diego, where Rose holds a one-shot lead over another recent runner-up:

Leaderboard: Justin Rose (-7), Adam Hadwin (-6), Gary Woodland (-5), Brad Fritsch (-5), Charles Howell III (-5), Brandt Snedeker (-4)

What it means: Woods was the main story entering the day as he made his first official PGA Tour start in nearly 18 months, but he was unable to keep pace on the rugged back nine on the South Course. Hadwin's 66 led the way on the more difficult of the two layouts in play this week, but Rose will sleep on a slim advantage after carving up the par-5s on the North Course.

Round of the day: Rose is making his first start since a second-place finish at the Sony Open, and he picked up right where he left off with a 65 that featured a pair of eagles. Rose was actually 1 over through six holes before turning it on, as the Englishman played the quartet of par-5s in 6 under after hitting all four greens in two.

Best of the rest: Hadwin joined exclusive company last week with his third-round 59 at the CareerBuilder Challenge, but he wasn't able to catch Hudson Swafford down the stretch. The Canadian isn't easing up, though, as his 6-under effort on the South Course included just one bogey in addition to four birdies from Nos. 13-17.

Biggest disappointment: Woods appears unlikely to make the cut after an opening 76, but the expectations were much higher for world No. 1 Jason Day. The Aussie won this event two years ago, but his putter went cold Thursday en route to a 1-over 73. He'll now head to the easier North Course with work to do simply to make the cut in just his second start since September.

Main storyline heading into Friday: The spotlight will be on Woods, especially since it appears this could be his last round in the U.S. for a few weeks. The former King of Torrey appeared to have things on track after birdies on Nos. 10 and 11, but he played his next six holes in 6 over to plummet toward the bottom of the pack. The North Course should prove an easier adversary, but Woods still has plenty of rust to kick off after missing a number of shots to the right during his opening round.

Quote of the day: "With ball in hand, and obviously with the rough really thick and wet, it was important to drive the ball in the fairway. And on all the important holes, I drove it in the fairway." - Rose

Tiger Woods already in danger of missing cut at Torrey Pines.

By Ryan Ballengee

Tiger Woods hits out of a bunker on the 17th hole. (Photo/AP)

Tiger Woods struggled in his first competitive round on the PGA Tour since August 2015, shooting a 4-over 76 on the South Course at Torrey Pines near San Diego that has him in danger of missing the cut at a place he’s won eight times as a professional.

Woods, playing alongside world No. 1 Jason Day and reigning U.S. Open champion Dustin Johnson, bogeyed the first hole out of the gate, something that has become more commonplace for the 14-time major winner in recent years. However, he could be forgiven in this case, as Torrey South’s opener is one of the toughest holes on the PGA Tour.

From there, Woods made eight consecutive pars to turn in 1-over par, largely saved by his short game, which showed flashes of his former, dominant self.

However, it was also clear playing alongside Day and Johnson that Woods will have to reinvent himself as a golfer, no longer smashing the ball miles past his opponents. It was no more evident than on the par-5 ninth hole, a 602-yard beast that is a challenge for most pros to reach in two shots. Not so for Day and Johnson, who both had eagle putts after two mighty whacks to reach the green. Woods? Not in the bag. Despite a 300-yard drive, Woods chose to lay up and played for birdie, settling for par when his 19-footer didn’t sniff the hole.

After the turn, Woods played his two best holes of the day at Nos. 10 and 11, making them look simple with a pair of 10-foot birdie putts. It was then that it seemed Woods might be finding something, but it turned out to be a false flag, as Woods bogeyed the next three holes after errant tee shots left him to gouge from nasty lies. On the par-4 15th, Woods pulled his tee shot left and into a hazard that forced a penalty stroke, leading to a double-bogey 6 that could have potentially been worse.

Following a failed up-and-down bid from the green-side bunker on 17 to drop to 5-over par on the round, Woods came to the par-5 18th, the hole he birdied in the final round of the 2008 U.S. Open to force a playoff with Rocco Mediate, needing some kind of positive to carry into Friday’s round. He got it, sticking his third shot to nine feet before converting a closing birdie.

All told, 76 is not good. At 4-over par, he trails leader Justin Rose by 11 shots heading into the second round. Fortunately, Woods goes to the easier, renovated North Course, where Rose played on Thursday. Tiger should have more opportunities for birdies in theory, but if his driving game is as off Friday as it was Thursday, those chances will be rare. Woods will need a round in the 67-68 range to get to the weekend. While he showed flashes of that potential on Thursday, he could have easily turned in a higher still number than 76.

It’s a work in progress.

Rory McIlroy targeting March return from rib injury.

By Ryan Ballengee

Rory McIlroy has the goods to be one of golf’s all-time greats. (Photo/Getty Images)

Rory McIlroy isn’t playing in next week’s Dubai Desert Classic on the European Tour, missing the second leg of what is typically an early season United Arab Emirates double for the Ulsterman.

He’s sidelined with a rib injury that almost forced him out of the South African Open and led to him withdrawing from the Abu Dhabi HSBC Championship and Dubai. When he first announced the true nature of the injury, he left the timetable for his return undefined. However, McIlroy now has a target date to return.

Speaking to Fox Sports’ Shane Bacon on the Clubhouse podcast, McIlroy said he’s looking to come back in March at the WGC-Mexico Championship.

“I’m trying to get back for Mexico,” said McIlroy. “That’s my timetable for return. I could probably get back before that. For example, if I were to play Honda [the Honda Classic at the end of February] and then go straight to Mexico, I would be playing two weeks in a row.

“I’d like to ease my way back in gently. Mexico is the perfect time to return because it’s four rounds, there’s no cut. I can see how everything feels. I have a week off after that. All signs pointed towards Mexico being the one I could come back to and be 100 percent comfortable at. Hopefully it works out that way, and that’s when I’m back.”

The WGC-Mexico Championship, which essentially replaces the WGC-Cadillac Championship formerly held at Trump Doral near Miami, starts March 2 and is a no-cut event.

From there, McIlroy could look at another start before the Masters in the Florida Swing or in Texas. Were McIlroy to win a fifth major at Augusta National, he would complete the career Grand Slam.

NASCAR reducing practice time for Cup, Xfinity, Truck teams.

By Dustin Long

(Photo by Brian Lawdermilk/Getty Images)

NASCAR confirmed Thursday that teams in its top three series will have less practice time this season.

Weekend schedules for upcoming races at Daytona, Atlanta, Las Vegas and Auto Club Speedway show that Cup teams will have at least an hour less practice time at each track compared to last year. Cup teams also will have one less day to practice at Daytona International Speedway in preparation for the Daytona 500.

While the schedules are listed as tentative, NASCAR does not expect any major changes to them before those events.

Among the reasons given for the reduction of practice is that teams stated they did not need as much on-track time. The changes also are being done to make the weekend more efficient.

Most weekends are expected to have less practice time. There will be a few exceptions. NASCAR is expected to give teams additional practice in July at Kentucky (additional layer of asphalt added to track) and Texas in April (repave).

At Daytona, there will be nine total Cup practice sessions compared to 10 last year. However, each Cup team will able to take part in eight sessions (each qualifying race will have its own practice session). Last year, Cup teams had 10 hours, 35 minutes of practice time at Daytona. This year, teams will have a maximum of 7 hours, 20 minutes.

Elsewhere, Cup teams will have one less hour of practice at Atlanta, 1 hour, 25 minutes less practice at Las Vegas and 1 hour, 30 minutes less practice at Auto Club Speedway.

Those are the only weekend schedules that have been released by NASCAR at this point. Cup teams will have 1 hour, 45 minutes of practice (divided by two sessions) at each of those tracks this year

Xfinity teams will have 1 hour, 25 minutes less practice time at Daytona and 30 minutes less practice at Atlanta, Las Vegas and Auto Club.

Camping World Truck Series teams will have 30 minutes less practice at Daytona and Atlanta.

NASCAR unveils latest Driver for Diversity class.

By Daniel McFadin

NASCAR has announced the latest class for its Drive for Diversity program, which is made up of six drivers.

The Drive for Diversity program is NASCAR main initiative for developing multicultural and female drivers.

The group of six were selected from a drive combine at New Smyrna Speedway last October and will compete for Rev Racing in NASCAR’s K&N Pro Series East and NASCAR’s Whelen All-American Series.

“Now more than ever, we’re seeing the impact of NASCAR’s development program in producing drivers who excel at the highest echelons of our sport,” said Jim Cassidy, NASCAR senior vice president of racing operations in a press release. “There’s a great deal of talent and potential in this year’s class. With the strong foundation that NASCAR Drive for Diversity provides, these drivers will have the opportunity to develop the skills needed to elevate their racing careers.”

Four drivers in the program are returning members and they are joined by newcomers Chase Cabre and 16-year-old Macy Causey. Causey is the granddaughter of Diane Teel, the first woman to compete in the Xfinity Series race in 1982.

Here’s a look at the 2017 class of the Drive for Diversity program.

Collin Cabre (@CollinCabre12): An impressive second year in the NASCAR Drive for Diversity program was highlighted by four top-five and six top-10 finishes and a sixth-place finish in the NASCAR K&N Pro Series East championship standings. After winning the 2015 season finale at Dover International Speedway, Cabre was named to the 2016-2017 NASCAR Next class. The 23-year-old from Tampa, Florida, will compete in his third season in the NASCAR K&N Pro Series East with Rev Racing.

Chase Cabre (@CabreChase): Cabre, 20, registered 12 race wins in 21 starts in a 600 Mini Sprint Car and is a two-time Fall Brawl Champion at Florida’s Ocala Bullring. In 2016, he averaged a fourth-place finish in races at Hickory Motor Speedway and set two poles during the season. Chase will compete in the NASCAR K&N Pro Series East in his rookie season with Rev Racing.

Rubén García Jr. (@RubenGarcia4): At age 20, the Mexico City native became the youngest NASCAR PEAK Mexico driver to win the series championship in 2015. García was also part of the NASCAR Next program in both 2015 and 2016. He returns to the NASCAR K&N Pro Series East after finishing 10^th in the series last season.

Jay Beasley (@Jbeasleyracing): Beasley, 24, made history in 2013 by becoming the first African-American driver to win a Super Late Model race at the Bullring at Las Vegas Motor Speedway. In his first season with the NASCAR Drive for Diversity program in 2014, he earned two top-five and five top-10 finishes in the NASCAR K&N Pro Series East. He returns to the series for his third season with Rev Racing.

Macy Causey (@MacyCausey): Causey was honored with the NASCAR Young Racer Award in 2016. The year prior, she won the NASCAR Whelen All-American Series Virginia Rookie of the Year Award and earned top rookie honors at Langley Speedway in Hampton, Virginia, where in 1978 her grandmother became the first woman to win a NASCAR-sanctioned race at the track. Causey will compete for Rev Racing in the NASCAR Whelen All American Series.

Madeline Crane (@MaddieCrane78): The Georgia native began her career racing Bandoleros at Atlanta Motor Speedway at age 10. Crane, 19, moved into Legend cars, and by the time she was 14 had garnered 59 top-five finishes in 82 starts. Returning for a second season with NASCAR Drive for Diversity, she will compete in the NASCAR Whelen All-American Series following two top-five and 12 top-10 finishes in 2016.

(Photo/Twitter)

Michael Waltrip will retire from NASCAR after 30th and final start in the Daytona 500.

By Nate Ryan

(Photo/nbcsports.com)

Michael Waltrip will call it a career after one final start in the race that made his NASCAR career.

Running the No. 15 Toyota for Premium Motorsports (which has a guaranteed spot via charter), Waltrip, 53, will retire after making his 30^th start in the Daytona 500 on Feb. 26.

The four-time winner in Cup has won the Great American Race twice (2001, ’03) and also won in July 2002 at Daytona International Speedway. His most recent victory came at Talladega Superspeedway in October 2003.

He will be backed by longtime sponsor Aaron’s in a “Thanks Mikey” paint scheme.

“I can reflect on my career with a lot of emotions and one company that has been there for me is Aaron’s,” said Waltrip, who hasn’t raced full time since 2009 and has been working as a Fox Sports analyst in recent years. “I started working with Aaron’s almost 20 years ago with some commercials and six Xfinity Series races when I had a team behind my house. We have been together ever since and it makes my heart smile thinking about all the great things we did together.”

Aaron’s will release a video next week highlighting Waltrip’s top five moments with the sponsor.

SOCCER: Premier League Power Rankings: Settling into a groove.

By Nicholas Mendola

At this point in the season, power rankings begin to feel a lot closer to the actual table than an experiment in form.

After all, teams in bad position are playing with mounds of pressure on their shoulders and not always picking up big results. And solid teams might have a poor result here or there, but usually nothing shocking.

Well, besides Swansea City and Liverpool.

Here are this week’s rankings.

TEAM	RANKING
	20 (20)		Sunderland: The loss at West Brom just further proof of a lack of inspiration in the squad.
	19 (19)		Crystal Palace: Now in the drop zone, Big Sam needs Wilfried Zaha back from AFCON in a big way.
	18 (17)		Hull City: Zero shame in losing at Chelsea, but it doesn’t get easier as Manchester United, Liverpool, and Arsenal are next.
	17 (18)		Swansea City: The win at Liverpool is the type that can change a season.
	16 (16)		Watford: The Hornets have not won a league game since Dec. 10, its only PL win since mid-November.
	15 (15)		Middlesbrough: Jese would be nice.
	14 (13)		Leicester City: AFCON was always going to be a problem with Riyad Mahrez and Islam Slimani on the books.
	13 (12)		Bournemouth: The Watford draw somehow feels like a loss for Eddie Howe‘s bunch.
	12 (14)		Southampton: Usually we don’t account for Cup momentum in the PRs, but with Wembley on the minds and a big win over Leicester City, Saints feel a lot better this week.
	11 (10)		Stoke City: No shame in drawing Manchester United.
	10 (11)		West Ham United: We are almost convinced that the Irons have turned the corner. Healthy Andy Carroll is almost unstoppable.
	9 (8)		Burnley: Forget the controversial ending, the Clarets showed us a bit about their mettle in the 2-1 loss to Arsenal.
	8 (9)		West Bromwich Albion: Easy win over Sunderland.
	7 (7)		Manchester City: Same place, and were tempted to move them up considering referee and not player error may’ve cost them a win versus Tottenham.
	6 (6)		Everton: Was a lot of work beating Palace.
	5 (4)		Liverpool: We can talk AFCON absences, but the Reds didn’t lose to Swansea for lack of attack.
	4 (3)		Manchester United: Stoke draw really needed to be a win, not that the Red Devils didn’t deserve all three points.
	3 (4)		Arsenal: Good mettle to hold off Burnley. All wins are wins (it’s science).
	2 (2)		Tottenham Hotspur: Fortunate not to lose versus Man City, but fortune is needed in a title push. Ask Leicester.
	1 (1)		Chelsea: Really good team. Really. Let’s hope to see Nathan Ake get his chance to shine.

Manchester United on to EFL Cup final despite loss to Hull City.

By Kyle Bonn

(Photo/Getty Images)

Manchester United saw its 17-match unbeaten run snapped, but it didn’t much matter as Paul Pogba‘s 66th-minute goal sent the Red Devils to Wembley for the EFL Cup final with a 3-2 aggregate win over Hull City.

United fell 2-1 in the second leg at the KCOM Stadium, but Pogba’s follow-up strike which equalized the score at 1-1 put United through after a 2-0 win in the first leg. Hull City’s Oumar Niasse, who just arrived on loan from Everton 13 days prior, was bright in the match and scored the winner for the Tigers, but it wasn’t enough to keep them from elimination.

Jose Mourinho began the match with clear defensive tactics to protect the lead on the road, but Hull broke through 35 minutes in when referee Jon Moss penalized Marcos Rojo for a pair of fouls in the box on a corner, having tugged the shirt of Harry Maguire and also pushed/tripped Niasse. Tom Huddlestone powerfully buried the spot-kick into the lower left-hand corner, and put Hull up 1-0.

Following the goal, Manchester United switched to a more attacking intent, and Pogba put them back level after the hour mark as he came streaking into the box and pounced on a loose ball. Jose Mourinho was angered during the match when Chris Smalling appeared to be fouled by Huddlestone in the box with 20 minutes to go, but the referee ignored the calls for a Manchester United penalty.

With Hull fighting for their Cup lives down the stretch, they grabbed the match victory to end United’s unbeaten run with the Niasse goal five minutes from full time, but it was too little too late to earn a spot in the final at Wembley Stadium. They will take on Southampton in the EFL Cup final on February 26th.

NCAABKB: College basketball Power Rankings, Jan. 26: New No. 1 after upsets galore.

By Henry Bushnell

Kansas lost by 16 to West Virginia … But did they fall in this week’s rankings? (Photo/Getty)

The calls come from far and wide, every year around this time and over the next month-and-a-half, and they’re relentlessly annoying.

“The bubble is soft!”

Or there’s this variant:

“Nobody wants to make the tournament!”

They come from rational and irrational folks alike, and they’re one of the most tiresome aspects of the fierce yearly debates over who will and won’t, should and shouldn’t, can and can’t make the NCAA tournament.

They’re especially ridiculous around this time of year, when so many résumés are incomplete, and the striking lack of quality wins on the bubble is natural. A month-and-a-half remains, and it’s a month-and-a-half of repeated opportunity — opportunity that many squads didn’t have much of in non-conference play.

Let’s look at Marquette and Northwestern to illustrate. Around this time last week, the Golden Eagles would have been the exemplar of the “Weak bubble!” chatter. They were 12-6 with no quality wins. But you know what they did have? Opportunity!

Just like every single other team remotely close to the bubble has; whether that opportunity is for one or two highlights or for volume, it’s there. Just like for Northwestern, whose résumé lacks that single win of real quality, but who plays Indiana, Purdue and Wisconsin in three of its next five. I’m all for bracketology, and have obsessed over it in the past. What I’m not for is drawing broad conclusions about the selection process and its state of affairs halfway through that process.

I’m also not in favor of levying that same criticism every year when that criticism is fundamentally based on relativity. When you say the bubble is soft, what you’re really saying is that the bubble is softer than it has been in past years. And if you make the claim every year, it’s a ridiculous one that loses merit every time you make it. Maybe this is just what the bubble is, and what it has been since the move to 68 teams. Somehow, our expectations haven’t yet adjusted.

There is one thing, however, that could impair the strength of the bubble this year, even relative to past bubbles, and that’s the notable absence of non-power conference at-large candidates. The Atlantic-10 is looking like a one-bid league. The Mountain West almost surely is. The AAC could only get two. The Missouri Valley will fight for two, but might have to settle for one. That absence bumps every middling major conference team up a few spots.

And, as we transition into this week’s rankings, it’s why you’ll see a slight tweak at the bottom of the page. Those five mid-majors that we list every week used to exclude the A-10 for fear of the A-10 dominating the list. It would have in past years. It won’t this year, and doesn’t this week, so from this point forward, every team outside the nation’s top seven conferences is eligible.

And now for what you’ve really come here for:

1. Kansas | 18-2 | KenPom: 9 | Last week: 2

That glorious night of upsets has left us with a new No. 1 … but, it’s … one of the teams that was victimized by those upsets? Yep! And the rationale is surprisingly simple. Aside from all the basketball reasons Kansas belongs here, the Jayhawks were viewed as one of the best teams in the nation last week. Some had them No. 1. Others had them No. 2. Others slightly lower. So why should that opinion change after Kansas lost a game it was supposed to lose?

Vegas had the Jayhawks as 3.5-point underdogs, and the number opened at 6. Sure, Kansas has flaws, and some of them doomed it in Morgantown, but there is absolutely no shame in losing that game. We are programmed to automatically assume that winning games you’re supposed to win is significantly more impressive than losing games you’re supposed to lose. That’s why Gonzaga will be No. 1 in the AP Poll on Monday. But not here.

2. Villanova | 19-2 | KenPom: 5 | Last week: 1

As I more or less wrote yesterday, you could give Kris Jenkins, Jalen Brunson and Donte DiVincenzo a combined 17 shots from midcourt and they’d be unlikely to miss all of them. They’re even more unlikely to go 0 for 17 from three in a game. That’s what they did Tuesday against Marquette. If they go 1 for 17, Villanova wins the game. That poor shooting comes down to randomness, and isn’t a major cause for concern.

3. North Carolina | 18-3 | KenPom: 8 | Last week: 5

The Tar Heels are the best rebounding team in the country. They pull down 42.7 percent of their missed shots. Roy Williams, however, thinks they can get a lot better on the boards, which should be disconcerting, if not frightening, for the rest of the ACC.

4. Gonzaga | 20-0 | KenPom: 1 | Last week: 6

The Bulldogs are your new KenPom No. 1, which highlights an interesting divergence in our use of statistics to analyze teams that play weak schedules vs. those that play strong ones. Here’s the thing about the Zags: You have your opinion on them, and that opinion probably isn’t changing between now and mid-March. It’s not going to be swayed by a 31-point trouncing of Santa Clara or a 21-point victory over Portland. No matter how impressive or unimpressive those results are, it just won’t be. The numbers, even the ones that adjust for opponent, care whether Gonzaga beats San Diego Thursday night by 10 or by 30. We don’t. We’ll instead choose to count down the days to the second clash with St. Mary’s. We’re 16 days out as of Thursday.

5. Kentucky | 17-3 | KenPom: 2 | Last week: 3

It’s been fascinating over the past few weeks to watch the SEC try to slow down John Calipari’s crew and force the Wildcats to play half-court offense. Kentucky averaged 19.7 fast break points over its first three SEC games, but just 8.2 in five games since. Some coaches, like Bryce Drew, take drastic measures; others adopt less noticeable, but not less emphasized, tactics. The effect these tactics have on Kentucky’s efficiency is likewise interesting:

(Henry Bushnell)

That table isn’t meant to show anything definitive — obviously fewer fast break points will induce fewer points overall — and the correlation between transition points and efficiency is far from strong. The sample size is also small. But there’s a slight hint in the numbers that keeping De’Aaron Fox and Co. out of the open floor might limit Kentucky’s effectiveness.

6. Arizona | 18-2 | KenPom: 12 | Last week: 17

Arizona is the toughest team to gage because, in a way, our sample size is only one game. That one game was wildly impressive, but it’s the only one the full-strength Wildcats have under their belt. This ranking, however, factors in those 19 games Arizona played without Allonzo Trier, in that those games have been vital in the maturity of players like Kobi Simmons and Rawle Alkins. Both were thrust into unexpected roles and forced to learn on the fly. Every success and every failure in Trier’s absence contributed to that learning, and both freshmen are better players because of it.

7. Florida State | 18-3 | KenPom: 20 | Last week: 7

Yuck. Erase that game from your memory. Shoot it into the sun. Bury it. Do whatever you need to do. That wasn’t the real Florida State. But the mere stench of Wednesday night’s performance in a 78-56 loss at Georgia Tech prevents the Seminoles from rising in this week’s ranks. They might have been a top-five team without it.

8. Virginia | 16-3 | KenPom: 4 | Last week: 10

I’m all in. I made the ACC title prediction last week, and the Cavaliers showed why I pegged them as ACC favorites in a 71-54 triumph over Notre Dame on the road Tuesday night. They held the usually efficient Irish to 0.84 points per possession, and London Perrantes connected on five of his eight three-point attempts. Virginia isn’t anywhere near the top 10 when it comes to talent, but Tony Bennett has proven time and time again that he won’t just win with whatever he has; he’ll win a lot.

9. Baylor | 19-1 | KenPom: 7 | Last week: 9

Baylor has won its four Big 12 games since the West Virginia loss by 10 or fewer points each, and it has done so with defense and Johnathan Motley. Motley got 15 of his 25 points from the free throw line in a 65-61 win over Texas Tech. He’s the only Bears player whose offensive rating has actually risen in Big 12 play, and his exploits have vaulted him to No. 3 in Ken Pomeroy’s stats-based player of the year rankings.

10. West Virginia | 16-4 | KenPom: 3 | Last week: 8

The relationship between West Virginia’s ability to force turnovers and its field goal percentage defense, and specifically how that relationship played out in Tuesday’s win over Kansas, leads to an interesting discussion. West Virginia ranks 96th nationally in opponent effective field goal percentage (eFG%) and first in opponent turnover percentage. Against Kansas, the Mountaineers forced turnovers at a rate well below their season average, but held the Jayhawks well below that opponent eFG% average too.

So how much of that relatively mediocre field goal percentage defense is due to the extended aggressiveness of the press? And how much better would it be if only halfcourt possessions were taken into account? On possessions following a made basket, per hoop-math.com, West Virginia opponents shoot 54 percent (eFG%) on attempts within the first 10 seconds of the shot clock — much of them likely after breaking the press to score — but just 43.1 percent (eFG%) in the final 20 seconds of the shot clock. (Note: For other top defensive teams, the former number tends to be slightly higher than the latter, but not to the extent it is for West Virginia.)

This is not at all to say West Virginia should stray from its Press Virginia identity. It’s to point out that the players Bob Huggins recruits for his system are naturally very good halfcourt defenders too, and if a game needs to be won defensively within 30 feet of the basket, as was the case Tuesday night, those players are more than capable of doing just that.

11. UCLA | 19-3 | KenPom: 18 | Last week: 4

UCLA spent the first two months of the season hypnotizing America with its high-powered offense. It sprinted to a top-five ranking, to national title contender status, and to the top of the college hoops entertainment index. It also blinded us to the Bruins’ dirty little secret: They can’t play defense. For three of four halves against Arizona and USC, the weakness was painfully clear.

But, perplexingly, it was UCLA’s offense that ultimately let it down against its crosstown rival. The Bruins scored a point per possession Wednesday night in a loss to USC; their previous low had been 1.06 against Texas A&M. On paper, a team full of dead-eye shooters and competent passers should have been able to rip apart USC’s zone; instead, turnovers (13 in the first half) and a lack of patience ripped apart UCLA’s offense and doomed Steve Alford’s team to a second straight loss, and fourth in a row against the Trojans.

12. Louisville | 17-4 | KenPom: 6 | Last week: 15

Louisville fell in these rankings last week solely because of the Quentin Snider injury. In light of that expected drop-off with Snider sidelined, the Cardinals had one of the most impressive weeks of any team, hanging with Florida State on the road before delivering Pittsburgh the second-largest margin of defeat the Panthers had ever seen. The 106-51 beat-down was the biggest by a road team in the history of the ACC.

13. Oregon | 18-2 | KenPom: 16 | Last week: 11

UCLA swept the Rocky Mountain road trip earlier this month. Not many teams do, though. Oregon gets a crack at it starting tonight at Utah. The Ducks were 2.5-point underdogs as of late Wednesday night, which tells you most of what you need to know about the size of the task.

14. Notre Dame | 17-4 | KenPom: 23 | Last week: 13
15. Butler | 18-3 | KenPom: 14 | Last week: 14

Let’s talk midseason awards. If the NCAA tournament were to start today, who would be your National Coach of the Year? For me, there are five candidates, and Mike Brey and Chris Holtmann are two of them. Sean Miller, Scott Drew and Tony Bennett are the others. Perhaps Bob Huggins is a sixth. Both Brey and Holtmann are outstanding teachers of the game in every sense, and their educational abilities are apparent every time you watch Notre Dame and Butler play.

16. Wisconsin | 17-3 | KenPom: 10 | Last week: 16

Over the past five or 10 years, basketball has evolved away from the one-through-five positional distinctions that frame so much of how we think about lineup combinations. There aren’t many better examples of that evolution in the college game than Wisconsin. Bronson Koenig is the “point guard” in the traditional sense: He often brings the ball up the court, is (tied for) the shortest player in the starting lineup, and usually guards opposing ball-handlers. When Wisconsin has the ball, though, from the 25-second mark of the shot clock to the end of the possession, his role is far from that of a traditional point guard. Here’s a blind statistical comparison of Wisconsin’s big three, Koenig, Nigel Hayes and Ethan Happ:

(Henry Bushnell)

Can you guess which player is which? Probably only if you’ve studied the Badgers beforehand. Player A is Hayes. Player B is Happ. Player C is Koenig. Hayes and Happ split the playmaking duties while Koenig is essentially Wisconsin’s shooter and perimeter scorer. It’s still fine to call Koenig Wisconsin’s point guard; in a way, he is. Just make sure you’re aware of the limits of what the words “point guard” denote for Greg Gard and the Badgers.

17. Cincinnati | 17-2 | KenPom: 17 | Last week: NR

The Bearcats make their 2016-17 Power Rankings debut because of … their offense? Yes. Mick Cronin has had a top 25 defensive team every year since 2010-11. This year, he has his highest-ranked offense since that 2010-11 team. Sophomore guard Jacob Evans is shooting 41.2 percent from three and is a big reason why. Cincinnati is rolling through the AAC, and is a 4-point favorite over Xavier Thursday night in the Crosstown Classic.

18. Purdue | 17-4 | KenPom: 11 | Last week: NR

ESPN’s Myron Medcalf wrote an outstanding feature on Caleb Swanigan, who was 360 pounds and facing all kinds of instability in his life as an eighth-grader. Tuesday night, Swanigan dropped 25 and 17 on Michigan State, the program he had committed to play for before flipping to Purdue in May of his senior year of high school.

19. South Carolina | 16-4 | KenPom: 28 | Last week: 18

I spent some time last week speaking with former Frank Martin players — both Gamecocks and Kansas State Wildcats — to get a sense of what it’s actually like to play for him, and why his seemingly incessant screaming works. I also learned why he’s mellowed a bit in recent years. Here’s the feature.

20. Duke | 15-5 | KenPom: 15 | Last week: 12

In all honesty, approximately 35.4 percent of the reason Duke is here is to make you angry. I don’t know if you’ll be angry because the Blue Devils are too high or too low, but Duke inevitably makes people angry. Anyway … another 42.1 percent of the reason is to plug Jeff Capel’s piece on The Players’ Tribune on coping with his father’s ALS diagnosis and on the bonds that tie his family together. Roughly 12.6 percent is to tell you that I may or may not have some in-depth Duke analysis coming tomorrow. A further 10.1 percent is because Duke still has top-10 talent. And the final one percent is to see how many readers get angry that those percentages are just totally random and don’t add up to 100.

Five more to keep an eye (or two) on: Florida, Marquette, SMU, Iowa State, Kansas State

Best of the mids: St. Mary’s, Illinois State, Wichita State, UNC-Wilmington, Middle Tennessee State

Bracketology: Making sense of a wild week of college hoops.

By Dave Ommen

(Photo/Ronald Martinez/Getty Images)

You probably don’t remember the last time Northwestern made the NCAA tournament. That’s because the Wildcats have never enjoyed the Madness of March.  This year’s team could change that, dancing into history in the process.  Entering today, the Wildcats are 5-2 in the Big Ten and look poised to make a run at finally hearing their name called on Selection Sunday.  February is going to be a fun month in Evanston.

Top Seeds 

It was a rocky two days for the top two seed lines, but other than a little re-ordering, the No. 1 seeds remain in tact; that’s what happens when everyone in the group loses (except for Gonzaga, of course).  Also, keep an eye on Arizona.  Those Wildcats look awfully good at full strength.

The Bubble

It’s a tangled mess around the cutline.  The number of teams under at-large consideration with losing conference records (even as bad as 1-6) is rather incredible, really.  It’ll be interested to see how all of these bubble teams perform down the stretch, especially in the ACC, Big Ten, and Big 12.  Unfortunately, we don’t have a lot of mid-major at-large contenders. The clubhouse leaders would be Middle Tennessee State, UNC-Wilmington, Illinois State, and Wichita State.  We’ll see how they navigate the next month.

UPDATED: January 26, 2017

Regarding bracketing principles, you can read them for yourself at http://www.ncaa.com. For example: teams from the same conference may now meet before a Regional final, even if fewer than eight teams are selected. The goal is to keep as many teams as possible on their actual seed line.

FIRST FOUR PAIRINGS – Dayton (First Round)

• TCU vs. VCU | East Region
• Wake Forest vs. Michigan | West Region
• NEW ORLEANS vs. WEBER STATE | Midwest Region
• MT. ST. MARY’S vs. NC CENTRAL | East Region

BRACKET PROJECTION …

SOUTH – Memphis		EAST – New York
Tulsa		Buffalo
1) BAYLOR		1) VILLANOVA
16) NEW ORLEANS / WEBER STATE		16) NC-CENTRAL / MT ST MARY’S
8) DAYTON		8) Virginia Tech
9) Minnesota		9) MID TENNESSEE ST
Orlando		Sacramento
5) Duke		5) MARYLAND
12) NEVADA		12) VCU / TCU
4) Purdue		4) Oregon
13) MONMOUTH		13) NEW MEXICO ST
Indianapolis		Milwaukee
6) Creighton		6) Florida
11) Texas Tech		11) Georgia Tech
3) Louisville		3) Butler
14) WINTHROP		14) FLA GULF COAST
Indianapolis		Greenville
7) Xavier		7) USC
10) ILLINOIS STATE		10) Michigan State
2) KENTUCKY		2) NORTH CAROLINA
15) PRINCETON		15) BUCKNELL
MIDWEST – Kansas City		WEST – San Jose
Tulsa		Salt Lake City
1) Kansas		1) GONZAGA
16) UC-IRVINE		16) TX-SOUTHERN
8) Northwestern		8) Arkansas
9) Marquette		9) Iowa State
Milwaukee		Buffalo
5) Wisconsin		5) CINCINNATI
12) AKRON		12) Wake Forest / Michigan
4) Notre Dame		4) West Virginia
13) VALPARAISO		13) VERMONT
Sacramento		Greenville
6) Saint Mary’s		6) South Carolina
11) NC State		11) Seton Hall
3) UCLA		3) Virginia
14) BELMONT		14) CHATTANOOGA
Orlando		Salt Lake City
7) Indiana		7) SMU
10) NC-WILMINGTON		10) Kansas State
2) Florida State		2) ARIZONA
15) GA-SOUTHERN		15) NORTH DAKOTA ST

NOTES on the BRACKET: Baylor is the No. 1 overall seed, followed by Villanova, Gonzaga, and Kansas.

Last Four Byes (at large): Texas Tech, Georgia Tech, NC State, Seton Hall

Last Four IN (at large): TCU, Michigan, Wake Forest, VCU

First Four OUT (at large): California, Wichita State, Miami-FL, Clemson

Next four teams OUT (at large): Pittsburgh, Illinois, Tennessee, Oklahoma State

Breakdown by Conference …

ACC (10): NORTH CAROLINA, Florida State, Louisville, Virginia, Notre Dame, Duke, Virginia Tech, Georgia Tech, NC State, Wake Forest

Big 10 (8): MARYLAND, Purdue, Wisconsin, Indiana, Northwestern, Minnesota, Michigan State, Michigan

Big 12 (7): BAYLOR, Kansas, West Virginia, Iowa State, Kansas State, Texas Tech, TCU

Big East (5): VILLANOVA, Butler, Creighton, Xavier, Seton Hall

SEC (4): KENTUCKY, Florida, South Carolina, Arkansas

Pac 12 (4): ARIZONA, UCLA, Oregon, USC

Atlantic 10 (2): DAYTON, VCU

American (2): CINCINNATI, SMU

West Coast (2): GONZAGA, Saint Mary’s

Missouri Valley (1): ILLINOIS STATE

Mountain West (1): NEVADA

ONE BID LEAGUES: Monmouth (MAAC), Middle Tennessee State (C-USA), Georgia-Southern (SBELT), Princeton (IVY), Weber State (BSKY), Valparaiso (HORIZON), New Orleans (SLND), Chattanooga (STHN), UC-Irvine (BWEST), Akron (MAC), Florida Gulf Coast (ASUN), Belmont (OVC), UNC-Wilmington (CAA), Winthrop (BSO), NC-Central (MEAC), North Dakota State (SUM), New Mexico State (WAC), Vermont (AEAST), Bucknell (PAT), Mt. St. Mary’s (NEC), Texas-Southern (SWAC)

What’s wrong with Duke?: Why the consensus preseason No. 1 team is spiraling?

By Rob Dauster

(Photo/Michael Reaves/Getty Images)

Five weeks ago, fresh off of a win in the Jimmy V Classic in which then-No. 5 Duke knocked off Florida and was on the verge of getting Harry Giles, the third of the program’s three elite and injured freshmen, back from his layoff, the Blue Devils looked the part of a team on the verge of making a run at winning Mike Krzyzewski’s sixth national title.

Fast forward to Monday night, and the team is a total mess despite the fact that Blue Devils have every one of their key players available.

Duke lost for the third time in their last four games and for the fourth in in seven ACC games when, on Monday night, they blew a number of second half leads and fell to N.C. State at home for the first time since 1995. Coach K is still recovering from surgery on his back and has not been on the sidelines for the last five games. Grayson Allen has looked like a shell of himself for most of the season, particularly over the course of the last month, since his third tripping incident of 2016 has turned him into a media sensation that college basketball has never before seen. Giles isn’t anywhere near the player that he was before his knee surgeries, and it’s looking less and less likely that we’ll see him get close that level this year. Jayson Tatum isn’t playing like a top five pick. Marques Bolden looks nothing like a lottery pick. Luke Kennard was sensational early in the season but is being pushed back into a complimentary role.

All of this coming from a team that, on paper, should be as talented as anyone we’ve seen in recent history.

How has it gone so wrong for Duke?

1. The Luke Kennard conundrum: Right now, Luke Kennard is the guy playing the best for Duke, and he’s the only one on the team that seems to realize it. This is the crux of the issue for Duke.

By almost any measure that you use, Kennard has been the star of this team. He’s their leading scorer. He has, by far, the highest offensive rating on the team, according to KenPom.com. He’s by far their best three-point shooter. The only guy that’s shooting better from inside the arc is Amile Jefferson. What he’s doing this season isn’t all that different from what Grayson Allen did last season, when he was a second-team all-American. The way Kennard’s been playing, he’s the one that should have the offense built around him.

“They need to make Kennard the focal point,” said a person who has scouted the Blue Devils this season.

Only, that’s not how it has gone. Since the Dec. 19th game against Tennessee State, when things started to spiral for Duke, Kennard has averaged 11.2 shots per game, down from 13.5 in the first 11 games of the season. During that same stretch, Tatum has averaged 13.6 shots while getting more shots than Kennard in eight of the nine games. If you like advanced stats, the numbers are similarly glaring: Tatum took an average of 28.4 percent of the shots while he was on the floor during those nine games. Kennard checked in at 21.9 percent. On the season, Kennard’s usage rate is 22.0. Tatum’s is 27.8.

Kennard has his flaws, and Tatum is inarguably a better NBA prospect, and this has created an issue because Tatum is a ball-stopper. He’s terrific when he’s allowed to operate in isolation, but he lacks feel. He doesn’t read when and where help is coming from. He doesn’t make his teammates better. He can’t create shots for anyone else. He doesn’t seem to have an understanding of when he should try to takeover and when it’s time to keep the offense moving. It’s not all that different from what Brandon Ingram did last season, but this Duke team and that Duke team have very different supporting casts. They needed Ingram to take over in stretches last season – more on Ingram in a second – and he did, while still managing to shoot less than Tatum is this season.

That leads me into the next point …

2. … that Duke lacks an identity: Whose team is this? Who is the go-to guy? Who is the player that offense will run through? Who do they build around?

It should be Grayson Allen, right? He was the Preseason National Player of the Year. He is the guy that averaged 21.6 points, 4.6 boards and 3.5 assists last season. He’s the guy that returned to Duke for his junior season in part because he wanted to leave a legacy at the program; no one has won two national titles at Duke since Christian Laettner and Bobby Hurley. But given his propensity for tripping people, the Laettner legacy that Allen has followed has been very different than what he was hoping for, and the scrutiny those incidents brought upon him has turned Allen into a guy that looks nothing like the player we saw last season.

No one has filled that void in his absence.

“They have too many guys who think it’s their team,” one NBA front office member said. “No identity.”

Which brings me back to Kennard.

For the Blue Devils to reach their ceiling, he cannot be their best player. I don’t say that to take away from his ability. He is quite clearly capable of being their best player; he’s been doing it for two months.

I say that because, quite simply, Allen and Tatum should be better than him. They are more talented. But as of today, we’re now more than halfway through the season and those two just haven’t been good enough.

It really is that simple.

“And that’s part of the problem,” a coach who has game-planned for Duke said, adding that this where injuries have really taken their toll.

You see, Duke has never really had a chance to gel. If you include Coach K into the equation, they’ve essentially played one game where they had all of their preferred starters available and one of the greatest to ever do it on the sideline. You’ve heard this a thousand times by now, but teams figure out their pecking order, their rotation and the hierarchy of who gets shots and when they get them during games in November and December. Duke did just that, and then they had a wrench thrown into the gears when Tatum returned, when Bolden returned and when Giles returned, not to mention when Allen finally got healthy.

And now this is the situation they face: Kennard has gotten used to being ‘the man’ this season, Allen spent all of last season as ‘the man’ while Tatum – and, to a lesser extent, Giles and Bolden – entered the program with the expectation of being ‘the man’.

Something has to give. Someone has to accept a role.

And, over the course of the last month, that just hasn’t happened the way that it needs to.

3. That whole “Duke doesn’t have a point guard” story line? It’s an issue: Back to Allen, part of the reason that he is struggling is that he is being asked to play out of position. He’s not a point guard, but he’s the best point guard that Duke currently has on their roster.

There is a difference between a play maker and a point guard, which is similar to the difference between playing the point and being a point. Allen is a playmaker. He’s a better passer than he gets credit for. He can get into the paint, draw a defense and find an open man. But he’s an attack-minded player. He wants to be aggressive.

That’s when he’s at his best, and that’s what his natural instinct is. He’s being asked to facilitate, and it has become clear that this is not working as well as Duke would have hoped.

Frank Jackson isn’t quite ready to play a facilitator role, either.

“They just don’t have that guy,” said a coach who has faced Duke this season.

What they do have, however, is nine McDonald’s All-Americans, and in theory, that should be good enough. They were fine offensively last season when they had the same point guard concerns, but that’s because there was a hierarchy that was quite clear. Everyone knew that Allen was the star, Brandon Ingram was the next option and Kennard was the guy that took over if defenses focused on those two.
That’s not the case this year.

“They don’t know where they’re getting shots from because they haven’t been a collective unit long enough,” the coach said.

4. Does this group even like playing with each other?: Do they like each other, period?

What made Duke’s second half performance on Saturday afternoon so promising, what made so many people – myself included – think that it could end up being the turning point in their season, is that, for the first time in a long time, Duke actually looked like they were having fun playing basketball.

That’s because they were, sources connected to the program said.

And the result was that second half, the best defensive performance the Blue Devils have had since they won the 2015 national title.

Defense has been a constant concern for the Blue Devils since Coach K has fully embraced the one-and-done method of chasing titles, and this season is no different. They’ve been lit up in ball-screens. They’ve been getting beaten one-on-one. They looked incapable of keeping anyone out of the lane in their four conference losses, the most recent of which featured a 32-point, six-assist outburst by Dennis Smith Jr. But they’ve also shown flashes of being really, really good on that end of the floor.

Where does the inconsistency come from?

Part of it is youth. For example, it’s hard to expect freshmen big men to enter college with a complete understanding of what they have to do defensively. In high school, they stand in front of the rim and block shots. In college, Giles and Bolden are being asked to hedge hard on ball-screens, to switch onto smaller defenders, to defend big men that can make jumpers, to be in the right place in help-side. There’s a lot more on their plate, and they’re barely a month into their playing career after getting healthy. They are improving.

But there’s more to it than that.

For all the talk about athleticism and length and defensive tools, the single-most important skill when it comes to being a good individual defender is effort. From a team perspective, communication may be the most important part of putting together a well-oiled defense. As cliché as it sounds, teams that don’t like playing with each other – that don’t make the extra effort to take a charge, that don’t give their all trying to stop their man, that reach for a steal instead of moving their feet to plug a driving lane, that don’t talk to their teammates on screens or switches or rotations – aren’t very good on the defensive end of the floor.

Ask yourself this: Is it a coincidence that Duke team’s best defensive half came when they were actually enjoying each other’s presence on the court?

The question that needs to be asked now is whether or not this team can actually turn this thing around, and I don’t know if they can.

Getting Coach K back should make a difference, but will it be enough for Duke to actually be able to make a run in the tournament in March?

In 2014, the answer to that question was yes. Kentucky entered the year with more hype than any team in John Calipari’s tenure with the Wildcats, and they promptly lost to Michigan State in the Champions Classic. Then they lost Baylor. And North Carolina. And Arkansas. Before you knew it, those Wildcats were finishing off a 22-9 regular season where they went 12-6 in the SEC and finished a full six games behind Florida for the conference regular season title.

But that group was able to shake off whatever ailed them in March. They went to the SEC tournament final, where they lost to No. 1 Florida by a point. They got slotted in a nightmare region in the NCAA tournament, then proceeded to beat No. 1 seed and undefeated Wichita State, Louisville, Michigan and Wisconsin – all of whom were top ten teams in the polls entering the tournament – to get to the national title game.

They lost to UConn in the finals.

That UConn team was led by Shabazz Napier, who went through a similarly catastrophic season two years earlier. In 2011-12, UConn landed a commitment from Andre Drummond, the best prospect in the Class of 2011, on August 26th, six weeks before practices were scheduled to start. That vaulted the Huskies, who were coming off of a national title the previous April, to the top of every preseason poll, even beating out North Carolina and Kentucky – who would prove to be far and away the two best teams in the country that year – for a couple of votes for No. 1.

But that team, which was as talented as any of their counterparts, would lose to Central Florida in the Bahamas. Then they lost to Seton Hall and Rutgers in back-to-back games early on in Big East play. There was one stretch during the season where they lost nine out of 12 before finishing 8-10 in the Big East and landing a No. 8 seed in the tournament.

Unlike Kentucky, UConn did not have a bonding moment prior to the Big Dance. They were bounced by Iowa State in the first round. In the locker room after the game, Napier punched a locker in frustration in front of members of the media as he watched his teammates laugh their way to the end of the season.

Duke’s season appears destined to follow one of those two paths.

In a world where Giles is back to 100 percent, Allen’s head is in the game and Tatum understands that Kennard is the team’s best player right now, Duke clearly has the talent to do what Kentucky did.

That team can win a national title.

But are we actually going to see that team at any point the rest of this season?

Coach K calls team meeting, bans players from locker room, wearing team gear.

By Rob Dauster

(Photo/Grant Halverson/Getty Images)

Duke head coach Mike Krzyzewski called a meeting on Tuesday night at his house where he revoked the team’s access to the locker room, a source confirmed to NBCSports.com.

The team has also been banned from wearing Duke gear on campus. ESPN.com was the first to report the news, citing a source that said the rights won’t be returned to the players, “until they start living up to the standards of the Duke program.”

The meeting occurred a day after Duke lost at home to N.C. State.

As we detailed in an extensive story yesterday, there are a myriad of issues within this Duke program. They lack leadership and they lack an identity as the talented players on the roster grapple for different roles.

NCAAFB: College football satisfaction index: How happy are SEC fans with their coaches?

By Pat Forde

Nick Saban came oh-so-close to yet another title this season. (Photo/Getty)

The college football fan relationship with their favorite team’s head coach is highly volatile. Characterized by sharp autumnal mood swings and overreactions, it’s a bit like the Brangelina marriage – filled with drama.

With the 2016 season in the books, this seems like an apt time to check in on every fan-coach relationship in FBS. What follows is a Fan Satisfaction Index, appraising where every coach stands with his constituency, based on the following scale:

5 – Build the statue.
4 – Extend the contract.
3 – Stay the course.
2 – Fire the coordinators.
1 – Call the moving trucks.

SOUTHEASTERN CONFERENCE

Alabama: Nick Saban (119-19 at Alabama, 74-13 in SEC). Satisfaction rating: 5. The statue is already there and significantly larger than life, elevating Saban to literal and figurative giant status. There are some who can persuasively argue that forcing out offensive coordinator Lane Kiffin a week before the national title game cost the Tide another championship – but it’s easier to simply blame the mess on Kiffin than the guy who got rid of him at a crucial time. Regardless, Saban has established himself as the premier coach of this era and is in the discussion for the greatest of all-time.

Arkansas: Bret Bielema (25-26 at Arkansas, 10-22 in SEC). Satisfaction rating: 2. If the season had ended Nov. 19, Bielema’s rating would have been a 3. It did not end then, however. The Razorbacks were upset by miserable Missouri and then collapsed in the Belk Bowl against Virginia Tech – blowing big leads in both games. That left the Hogs 7-6 and 3-5 in the SEC, with blowout losses to West Division rivals Alabama, Auburn, Texas A&M and LSU. A huge buyout affords some security and elements of a potent 2017 offense are on hand – but more fans are angry than happy right now.

Auburn: Gus Malzahn (35-18 at Auburn, 19-14 in SEC). Satisfaction rating: 2. Malzahn’s meandering search for a new offensive coordinator underscores the central question for Tigers fans – why has this onetime offensive guru lost his touch on that side of the ball? Auburn was better offensively in 2016 than ’15, but still struggled against high-end opponents. Average production in five losses: 13.4 points and 269 yards. If it weren’t for the Kick Six miracle of 2013, Malzahn would be 0-4 against Alabama – and while a lot of SEC teams have lost four straight to the Crimson Tide, this is the wrong school for that.

Florida: Jim McElwain (19-8 at Florida, 13-5 in SEC). Satisfaction rating: 3. Has won the SEC East both years he’s been in Gainesville despite losing his starting QB halfway through both seasons. That’s a major upgrade from the Will Muschamp Era. But winning the East doesn’t mean what it used to mean – Florida has not rejoined the national elite, and it won’t until its dreadful offense improves. The Gators were last in the SEC and 116th nationally in 2016 in total offense. At a school where they watched Steve Spurrier and Urban Meyer dial up plays, that’s tough to swallow.

Georgia: Kirby Smart (8-4 at Georgia, 4-4 in SEC). Satisfaction rating: 2. The guy who was supposed to elevate the Bulldogs above the malaise of the last years of the Mark Richt Era led the team to its worst SEC record since 2010. He also lost three of the Bulldogs’ four rivalry games: Georgia Tech, Florida and Tennessee (he beat Auburn). There was a 31-point loss to 5-7 Mississippi and a home loss to Vanderbilt to factor in as well. The caveats: regime change takes time; the quarterback was a true freshman; and have you seen the 2017 recruiting rankings? It should and likely will get much better – but it needs to.

Kentucky: Mark Stoops (19-30 at Kentucky, 8-24 in SEC). Satisfaction rating: 3. How big a difference can one game make? A lot in the case of Stoops. He was muddling through an undistinguished fourth season on the job with plenty of fans losing patience and passion – and then the Wildcats went into Louisville and shocked their arch rivals as a huge underdog. In addition to the sheer unexpected joy of winning that game, the outcome guaranteed the program’s first winning record since 2009, elevated Kentucky to a better bowl game (TaxSlayer) and knocked Louisville out of a New Year’s Six bowl. Nov. 26, 2016, was a very good day for Mark Stoops.

LSU: Ed Orgeron (6-2 at LSU, 4-2 in SEC). Satisfaction rating: 3. Orgeron still is largely operating within the honeymoon period, having taken over as interim coach in October and not getting the full-time gig until late November. He had some fan-pleasing moments, beating Texas A&M on the road and pasting Louisville in the bowl game, both without Leonard Fournette. But LSU also scored a total of 10 points in home games against SEC divisional champions Alabama and Florida – and LSU clearly wants to get back into the business of winning the SEC. Can Orgeron get the Tigers there?

Mississippi: Hugh Freeze (39-25 at Ole Miss, 19-21 in SEC). Satisfaction rating: 2. The ongoing NCAA investigation is one thing – but going 5-7, finishing last in the SEC West and being pasted at home by hated rival Mississippi State? That’s a whole other set of problems for Freeze, and it led to some significant staff changes. Quarterback Shea Patterson showed potential after being pressed into duty as a true freshman when Chad Kelly was hurt and the defense should be much improved, but the overhanging NCAA cloud and potential for major sanctions cannot be ignored.

Mississippi State: Dan Mullen (61-42 at Mississippi State, 29-35 in SEC). Satisfaction rating: 3. A 6-7 season was Mullen’s worst since his debut in Starkville in 2009, but some regression after losing Dak Prescott was inevitable. Chalking up Mississippi State’s largest margin of victory in the Egg Bowl rivalry since 1916 was certainly well received. Now, the question: how much better can it get in 2017? That remains to be seen, but dual-threat QB Nick Florence is a nice foundation to build around. The other question: how much does Mullen still want to be in Starkville?

Missouri: Barry Odom (4-8 at Missouri, 2-6 in SEC). Satisfaction rating: 2. Odom’s debut season resulted in Mizzou’s worst record since 2000, which is not ideal. The 378 points allowed in 12 or fewer games are the most since 1991 – also not ideal – as the program’s defense collapsed amid a switch of offensive philosophies to all-tempo, all-the-time. Still, the season-ending upset of Arkansas served as a useful rallying cry heading into 2017, and Odom’s status as an alumnus who truly wanted the job when many others did not will buy him some time. This was never an easy job, but it has gotten harder in the last 16 months.

South Carolina: Will Muschamp (6-7 at South Carolina, 3-5 in SEC). Satisfaction rating: 3. The Gamecocks were widely projected to finish last in the SEC East. They exceeded those modest expectations, outperformed Steve Spurrier’s final team and turned a rebuilding season into something hopeful. That gives Muschamp a foothold of support after tepid reaction to his hiring in some corners. Still, 6-7 is just the second losing season since 2003, so not exactly the stuff of parades just yet – especially while rival Clemson is riding an all-time on the other side of the state.

Tennessee: Butch Jones (30-21 at Tennessee, 14-18 in SEC). Satisfaction rating: 2. You can make the case that this should be a 1, as the anticipated breakthrough season in 2016 dissolved into more big orange angst. The Volunteers blew a chance for their first SEC East title since 2007 by losing to a pair of teams that would finish 6-7, South Carolina and Vanderbilt. That continued the trend of Jones winning big on signing day and nowhere near big enough in the fall. If Tennessee weren’t in administrative disarray he might have been gone in November, although consecutive 9-4 seasons is still better than this underachieving program had done in back-to-back years since 2006-07. He will be on the clock in 2017.

Texas A&M: Kevin Sumlin (44-21 at Texas A&M, 21-19 in SEC). Satisfaction rating: 1. Spared by buyout, that’s the summation of how Sumlin got through 2016. A third straight collapse in the second half of the season brought fan discontent to a vigorous boil – the Aggies have started 5-0, 5-0 and 6-0 the past three seasons, and finished them all 8-5. Annually strong recruiting hauls have not translated on the field. From players to coaching staff to finishing a season, the entire operation has been volatile and unsettled for several years. No amount of money may be enough to save Sumlin if ’17 goes the wrong way like the previous seasons.

Vanderbilt: Derek Mason (13-24 at Vanderbilt, 5-19 in SEC). Satisfaction rating: 4. After the giddy heights of 9-4 in 2012 and ’13 under James Franklin, Vandy quickly went back to being Vandy in its first two years under Mason: 3-9, followed by 4-8. Then 2016 was a definite step forward, returning to bowl eligibility and upsetting both Georgia and Tennessee. With the nucleus of that team returning and the SEC East still underwhelming, Vandy can dream of returning to Franklin-level success in 2017 if its offense improves and defense remains stout. (Though the early NFL entry of stud linebacker Zach Cunningham hurts.)

Poinsettia Bowl shuttering its postseason doors after 12-year run.

By John Taylor

(Photo/Getty Images)

For those who are of the opinion that there are way too many bowl games, today’s like Christmas in January.

The San Diego Bowl Game Association announced Wednesday that its board of directors has voted to shift its focus solely on the group’s running of the Holiday Bowl.  That decision means that the San Diego County Credit Union Poinsettia Bowl is no more, ending a 12-year run for the postseason game.

The last Poinsettia Bowl was played in December of last year and saw BYU top Wyoming 24-21.

“College football and the bowl game structure has gone through major changes through the years and our board feels the time is right to focus our efforts on one post-season game,” said Mark Neville, executive director of the San Diego Bowl Game Association, in a statement. “The San Diego County Credit Union Poinsettia Bowl staged exciting match-ups for more than a decade and we were one of the few cities to host two bowl games.”

The annual game had recently pitted a Mountain West school against either one from the MAC or BYU.  With the decision to axe the game, both of those conferences, at least for the moment, have temporarily lost one of its potential postseason destinations.

“We were aware today’s announcement from the San Diego County Credit Union Poinsettia Bowl was a possibility,” a statement from MWC commissioner Craig Thompson began. “While we are disappointed by the decision, the Mountain West is thankful for the tremendous relationship we’ve enjoyed with the bowl game. The city of San Diego and the Poinsettia Bowl were outstanding hosts and provided a first-class experience for several MW institutions over 12 seasons. The Poinsettia Bowl is one of six postseason games the Mountain West has been a part of creating during its 18-year history.

“We are well-versed in the bowl space and are already in the process of vetting future options to ensure postseason opportunities for our student-athletes.”

In its release, the SDBGA noted that “[d]iscussions are also underway with the San Diego Padres about playing the Holiday Bowl at Petco Park in the event Qualcomm Stadium closes after 2018.” “The Padres have already started talking to the architectural firm that designed Petco Park about what would be required to allow football to be played in the stadium,” the group added.

With the San Diego Chargers moving to Los Angeles, there’s doubt as to the future of Qualcomm Stadium, which also serves as the home of the San Diego State Aztecs. That MWC program is currently weighing its options for a future home.

ESPN's Brent Musburger announces retirement after 'a wonderful journey'.

By Jordan Heck

(Photo/Getty Images)

Veteran announcer Brent Musburger will retire from play-by-play announcing on Jan. 31, ESPN announced Wednesday.

"What a wonderful journey I have traveled with CBS and the Disney company," Musburger said in a statement. "A love of sports allows me to live a life of endless pleasure. And make no mistake, I will miss the arenas and stadiums dearly. Most of all, I will miss the folks I have met along the trail.

“But the next rodeo for me is in Las Vegas. Stop by and we’ll share a cold one and some good stories. I may even buy!”

According to The Associated Press, Musburger will move to Las Vegas to help his family start a sports handicapping business.

The 77-year-old worked at CBS Sports from 1973–90 where he covered a variety of sports including NFL, NBA, college sports, horse racing, and more. He then joined ABC/ESPN in 1990 and has continued to work there to this day.

Perhaps he's most well known for his college football announcing, as he called seven BCS National Championship games for the network. 

His work in the booth earned him a spot in the National Sportscasters and Sportswriters Association Hall of Fame.

His final game will be at Rupp Arena, where he'll call Kentucky vs. Georgia next week.

Serena and Venus Williams set up Australian Open final showdown.

By Jackie Bamberger

Serena Williams (left) will face older sister Venus Williams in the Australian Open final. (Photo/yahoosports.com)

Death, taxes and the Williams sisters.

There are few constants in life, but Serena and Venus Williams still continue to reign atop the tennis world, even well into their 30s.

Thursday in Melbourne, Australia the sisters achieved another milestone, each advancing to the Australian Open final. There, they will face each other for the ninth time, and the first since 2009, for a Grand Slam title.

A Serena Williams win would be her 23rd Grand Slam title, surpassing Steffi Graf for most in the Open era.

Up first, elder sister Venus Williams, who turns 37 in June, won a grueling semifinal match against fellow American CoCo Vandeweghe, 6-7 (3), 6-2, 6-3.

Venus Williams and Vandeweghe, both heavy hitters, came out swinging in Melbourne. The opening set began with two breaks of serve. Though largely Venus Williams outplayed her 25-year-old in the opener, Vandeweghe kept fighting, with five aces and seven winners, and pulled it together in the tiebreak to take a one-set lead.

Visibly frustrated by the deficit, Venus Williams buckled down. She stormed out to a 5-1 lead in the second, firing eight aces and winning 82 percent of first serves to take things to a decider.

In the third set, Venus Williams’ experience turned out to be the difference over her younger opponent.

While Venus Williams took her time in defeating her foe, Serena Williams took care of business in orderly fashion, finishing off Mirjana Lucic-Baron, 6-2, 6-1 in just under an hour.

Younger sister Serena, 35, owns the overall Grand Slam final series 6-2. The last time they played in an Australian Open final came in 2003, when Serena captured her first “Serena Slam.”

And, fittingly, the first time the sisters ever met in a Grand Slam was at the Australian Open in 1998.

“She’s basically my world and my life,” Serena Williams said. “To meet in the final … is the biggest dream come true for us.”

On This Date in Sports History: Today is Friday, January 27, 2017.

Memoriesofhistory.com

1965 - Ulf Sterner became the first Swedish-born player to appear in the NHL. Sterner only played four games in the NHL.

1967 - Paige Cothren became the first player to sign with the New Orleans Saints.

1973 - The UCLA Bruins won their 61st consecutive game to break the NCAA record held by the University of San Francisco.

1984 - Carl Lewis beat his own two-year-old record by 9-1/4 inches when he set a new indoor world record with a long-jump mark of 28 feet, 10-1/4 inches. 

1984 - Wayne Gretzky set a National Hockey League (NHL) record for consecutive game scoring. He ended the streak at 51 games the next night against the Los Angeles Kings. The streak began on October 5, 1983.

1991 - Whitney Houston sang the "Star Spangled Banner" at Super Bowl XXV. 

1992 - Former world boxing champion Mike Tyson went on trial for allegedly raping an 18-year-old contestant in the 1991 Miss Black America Contest. 

2002 - The Montreal Canadiens became the first NHL team to score 10,000 home goals. The feat was achieved in the Canadiens' 2,675th regular season game. The goal was scored by Sergei Berezin who had come to the team only two days before from the Phoenix Coyotes.

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