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"Sports Quote of the Day"

“Infuse your life with action. Don't wait for it to happen. Make it happen. Make your own future. Make your own hope. Make your own love. And whatever your beliefs, honor your creator, not by passively waiting for grace to come down from upon high, but by doing what you can to make grace happen... yourself, right now, right down here on Earth.” ~ Bradley Whitford, Actor

How 'bout them Chicago Blackhawks? Pittsburgh Penguins Vs. Chicago Blackhawks, 03/01/2017.



With a goal and an assist in Sunday's matchup with the Blues, Toews tied Jeremy Roenick for eighth in franchise history with 268 career markers. He was also named NHL's Second Star for the week ending Feb. 26. Chicago's captain leads the league with 24 points (9G, 15A) and seven multi-point outings since Jan. 22. On Feb. 21 against Minnesota, Toews matched career highs for goals (3) and points (5) in a game. He is currently riding a six-game point streak (5G, 8A). The Blackhawks are 22-5-1 when Toews records a point this year.

NICK'S KNACK

Nick Schmaltz picked up an assist against St. Louis, extending his career-long point streak to four games (2G, 5A). He has 13 points (5G, 8A) since Jan. 15 and has a point (3G, 7A) in seven of his last eight games. He ranks ninth among Western Conference rookies with 17 points (6G, 11A) this season.

ONE-TIMERS

Kane notched his team-leading 24th goal of the season and added an assist vs. the Blues on Sunday. He shares third in the league with 65 points (24G, 61A) this year ... Duncan Keith recorded a helper to become one of four active defensemen with 500 career points (89G, 411A), becoming the 61st NHL defenseman to reach the milestone ... Anisimov tied a career high with his 22nd goal of the season, the game-winner; he leads the team with 7 GWG this season.

THREE OPPONENTS TO WATCH

Stats do not include Feb. 28 game at DAL.

C Sidney Crosby: The 2016 Conn Smythe Trophy recipient leads the league in goals and ranks second in points. He paces the Penguins in points, goals and power-play goals (11). Crosby became the 86th NHL player to reach 1,000 career points on Feb. 16 vs. WPG. He's the quickest among active players and 12th-quickest all-time to accomplish the feat.

C Evgeni Malkin: The second-overall pick in the 2004 NHL Draft, Malkin shares eighth in the league in points. He leads the club with five game-winning goals this season. He has 22 career overtime points (10G, 12A), tying Mario Lemieux for second in franchise history.

RW Phil Kessel: Kessel leads Pittsburgh in power-play points (8G, 18A), ranks second in assists and is third in points and goals. He has notched 35 points (15G, 20A) over his last 37 games. He reached the 20-goal and 50-point marks for the ninth time in his career.

Blackhawks bolster defense by reacquiring Johnny Oduya from Stars.

By Tracey Myers

(Photo/csnchicago.com)

A few days ago general manager Stan Bowman said he liked his defensive group, from what he had in Chicago to what was developing in Rockford.

But if the right move at the right price presented itself, Bowman said he’d consider it. On Tuesday the Blackhawks bolstered that defense after all, and with a familiar face.

The Blackhawks reacquired Johnny Oduya from the Dallas Stars on Tuesday night in exchange for Mark McNeill and a conditional fourth-round pick in the 2018 NHL draft, according to TSN’s Pierre LeBrun. Also, as first reported by Lebrun, the Stars will retain 50 percent of Oduya’s salary. Oduya is in the final year of the two-year deal he signed with the Stars as an unrestricted free agent in the summer of 2015.

The move brings Oduya back to Chicago, where he was part of the 2013 and 2015 Stanley Cup teams. It also adds a little more depth to a defense that has been stronger this season, but will be without Niklas Hjalmarsson (upper body) for a few more games. The Blackhawks placed Hjalmarsson on injured reserve on Tuesday night (retroactive to Thursday). Coach Joel Quenneville said Hjalmarsson will miss the next three games, hopeful the defenseman can return when the Blackhawks come off a four-day break.

In reacquiring Oduya, Bowman didn’t give up much. TSN's Bob McKenzie reported that the conditional fourth-round pick could become a third-round pick in 2018, dependent on how much Oduya plays and how far the Blackhawks go into the postseason.

As for McNeill, he never broke through with the Blackhawks. A first-round draft pick (18th overall) in the 2011 NHL draft, McNeill played in just one game with the Blackhawks (last season, against the Carolina Hurricanes).

If there’s any concern with Oduya it’s how he is health-wise the rest of the way. The 35-year-old just returned from an ankle injury (one that was re-aggravated) that kept him sidelined for more than a month. Oduya, who had a goal and six assists in 37 games with the Stars this season, returned to Dallas lineup on Sunday vs. the Boston Bruins. But Stars general manager Jim Nill told the Dallas media that Oduya is fine.

“Health was an issue, but we had all the medical records and he’s healthy now,” Nill said following the deal. “He would have played [Tuesday] night if he wasn’t getting traded, so that wasn’t an issue.”

As for how much talk there was with the Blackhawks regarding Oduya, Nill told the media, “they had him, won a Cup with him, they know what he brings, so they’re a team that was always talking to us.”

When Oduya will join the team is uncertain at this time. The Blackhawks host the Pittsburgh Penguins on Wednesday night.

Michal Rozsival, Jordin Tootoo extensions give Blackhawks flexibility at expansion draft.

By Charlie Roumeliotis 

(Photo/csnchicago.com)

The Blackhawks agreed to one-year contract extensions with defenseman Michal Rozsival and forward Jordin Tootoo, the team announced Tuesday.

Rozsival's deal is worth $650,000 while Tootoo's deal carries a $700,000 cap hit, according to ESPN's Pierre LeBrun.

The move gives the Blackhawks two players eligible to be exposed during this summer's expansion draft.

NHL teams must expose two forwards and one defenseman that have played at least 40 games in 2015-16 or more than 70 in 2016-17, and they must be under contract in 2017-18.

Rozsival and Tootoo meet those requirements, which means the Blackhawks can now protect Ryan Hartman, who is also eligible.

They are allowed to protect seven forwards, three defensemen and one goaltender or eight skaters (regardless of position) and one goaltender. 

Rozsival, 38, has one goal and one assist in 16 games this season, often serving as the team's extra defenseman. Tootoo, 34, has no points in 36 games.

In The Loop: The Blackhawks' 9-1 February by the numbers.

By #HawksTalk

(Photo/csnchicago.com)

The Blackhawks went 9-1 in February and did so in emphatic fashion.

The Blackhawks outscored their opponents 44-24 in the month and scored four goals or more in each of the nine wins. The only loss came after the team's bye week, a 3-1 loss at home to Edmonton seven days after winning 5-1 in Edmonton.

A big reason for the Blackhawks' recent surge is because of the production of Jonathan Toews and Patrick Kane. Toews scored seven goals and had 11 assists in February and was named the league's second star of the week this week. Patrick Kane had nine goals and seven assists.

Scott Darling went 3-0 in his starts and gave up just four goals in those games. Corey Crawford went 6-1 with a 2.71 goals against average.

Despite the Blackhawks' success in February, the Minnesota Wild still lead the division. The Blackhawks beat the Wild twice in February, but the Wild went 7-2 in the rest of February, including tonight's 5-4 overtime win against the LA Kings to sit three points ahead of the Blackhawks and still with two games in hand.

Bear Down Chicago Bears!!!!! NFL Scouting Combine represents opportunities — good and bad — for Bears.

By John Mullin

(Photo/USA TODAY)

The NFL Scouting Combine convening this week in Indianapolis isn't really the high point of pre-draft assessing being done by NFL teams. Those evaluations have been going on for many, many months — on college campuses, at bowl games — and will go on with Pro Days and selected visits to team headquarters.

But what it does represent is two things: a chance for teams to probe for detailed medical information on some 300 potential draftees, and a case study in savvy brand marketing by the NFL that has become its own hot-stove league on steroids (hopefully not literally for any of the participants).

Covering the event 25 years ago, representatives of the three Chicago-area newspapers comprised one of the two largest media contingents (the other being New York's) going about the business of football reporting after the sport had largely moved off the sports-front with the wrap-up of the Super Bowl. No TV, no internet, and the Combine operators really didn't want media around for what was set up as a purely team-centric.

Now the NFL has created a media event that keeps it in news prominence at what had always been a dormant calendar nadir for pro football, with not only some 1,000 media members and outlets welcome, but also with fans able to attend events like the 225-pound bench press and 40-yard dashes, whose results were once something that reporters dug around for as news scoops.

But beyond the observed events, including group media interviews for the majority of athletes, individual draft stocks will be affected by vertical jumps, cone drills and such. And by interviews with individual teams, which are still private. (For now. Somehow, it's not beyond imagination that someday even those will be televised, in an NFL guise of "transparency" or something, but that's for another time.)

Strengths, weaknesses and the QB conundrum

One annual refrain are the assessments of the overall draft class, what positions are its deepest, its weakest, an evaluation that carries some weight because invitees to the Combine include underclassmen, which the Senior Bowl does not.

But a danger within the process is exactly that — the "weight" assigned to results, particularly the on-field ones. On-field evaluations are the best indicators, but the right on-field ones were there on playing fields and now tape, not inside Lucas Oil Stadium this week.

Combine performance has affected drafts rightly and wrongly over the years.

ProFootballTalk.com's Mike Florio has made an excellent case for players declining that test for reasons of confidentiality. And frankly, if teams have a problem with a player declining the test, then teams and the NFL need to do a better job of keeping the results in-house, particularly given that correlations between the Wonderlic and NFL success are questionable at best.

But some player or players will move up or slip down on draft boards because of drill work. That may be unfortunate for the player, and for the teams.

 QB or not QB

It is at this point that the Combine becomes increasingly relevant to the Bears, or at least to those trying to discern what realistic chances exist for the Bears to address their well-documented areas of need (quarterback, tight end, cornerback, safety).

An inherent problem at this stage is the difficulty in arriving at a right decision, particularly at the paramount position. NFL Network draft expert Mike Mayock did some checking that illustrates the issue.

Between 2007-14, teams selected 21 quarterbacks in the first round. Nine of them are no longer even in the league, and only a handful have achieved something close to the coveted "franchise" distinction: Matt Ryan in Atlanta, Matthew Stafford in Detroit, Carolina's Cam Newton, Andrew Luck in Indianapolis and Joe Flacco in Baltimore. Only Flacco has won a Super Bowl.

"It gives a pretty good feel for the 'hit' rate of franchise quarterbacks in the first round," Mayock said on Monday.

"My message to NFL teams is, 'you've got to keep trying, keep on swinging.'"

Whether the Bears take a swing at a franchise quarterback at No. 3 is still many weeks off. But Mayock didn't endorse making that swing at that point.

"I don't have any quarterbacks anywhere near the Top 10," Mayock said. "That doesn't mean I think there's no talent there, because I think there are four quarterbacks that have first-round talent. In my order I had for my initial Top 5, it was [DeShone] Kizer, [Deshaun] Watson, [Mitch] Trubisky, [Patrick] Mahomes. All four of them have holes in their games.

"I don't think any of them are ready to start Week 1."

More to come over the next week. Make that "weeks."

Draft pick at No. 3 demands guiding 'concept' of what Bears ultimately want to be.

By John Mullin 

(Photo/csnchicago.com)

With the Bears holding the No. 3 pick of the upcoming draft, the obvious and automatic focus settles on Player A, B, D etc. "Best available" is an operating philosophy that routinely rules the moment.

But for the Bears and the 2017 draft, another overarching philosophical principle is in play. Specifically, what is the concept (for want of a better word) guiding what GM Ryan Pace is attempting to do?

Coach John Fox, as well as Pace, want a team founded on defense, running the football and ball security. They know the franchise need for a quarterback, but a team building on defense could reasonably be expected to weight their draft decisions toward that side of the football.

Meaning: A quarterback like Clemson's Deshaun Watson could alter the entire persona of the Bears and the Halas Hall building, but if the far-and-away best option at No. 3 is defense…?

What makes this draft and the Bears' operating concept intriguing is that the chances will be there potentially to build a true elite defense. Beginning at No. 3:

"I think [Alabama defensive lineman] Jonathan Allen is one of the two or three best players in this draft," said NFL Network draft analyst Mike Mayock via conference call on Monday. "What I like about him is he dominates outside…but I think he's going to make his money on an inside pass rusher. Inside or outside, I think he's a special player."

Behind that – and last year's No. 1, Leonard Floyd, addressed the rush-linebacker spot – is the secondary, with both cornerback and safety among the strongest positions in the draft.

"This is a great corner class," Mayock said. "If you don't get one in the first round, you can come back in the second or third rounds and really help yourself."

The safety group is such that Mayock posited the prospect of two going in the Top 10, maybe Top 5.

 Deciding on a "concept"

One former NFL personnel executive maintained that the salary cap all but precluded building offense and defense equally, so the need was to define an identity and build to that, within reason. Former Bears GM Jerry Angelo opted a concept that built both offense and defense equally, but with designated positions ticketed for more cap resources: quarterback, running back, one wideout, two O-linemen, one franchise pass rusher, etc. Not all 22 positions are created equal but creating offense and defense simultaneously was doable.

"It's really what a team is looking for," said Mayock, speaking both of player preferences but in a way that extended to picking players for a scheme. Or philosophy.

Different concepts, like diets, work if you execute them well.

The Bears reached Super Bowl XLI with a Top 5 defense and a mid-teen's offense. The Indianapolis Colts prevailed in that game with a No. 3 offense and a defense ranked in the low 20's in both yardage and points allowed.

Bears reportedly won't franchise tag Alshon Jeffery, so what's next?

By Tony Andracki

(Photo/csnchicago.com)

NFL.com's Insider Ian Rapoport dropped a news bomb in the middle of the night, Tweeting in the wee hours of Monday morning that the Bears will not sign receiver Alshon Jeffery to a franchise tag:

"#Bears are not expected to franchise Alshon Jeffery again at > $17M, sources say. A top WR on the market will generate lots of buzz in Indy

5:01 AM - 27 Feb 2017"

Jeffery played under the franchise tag in 2016, when he earned roughly $14.6 million. 

The Bears could still re-sign Jeffery to a longer deal in free agency, but the market on the 27-year-old receiver may climb out of their desired range.

The $17 million franchise tag was an awful lot of salary cap to spend on a guy who has missed 11 games over the last two seasons to injury and a PED suspension that stretched to four games in 2016.

When he was on the field last year, Jeffery turned in his worst stat line since his rookie season, catching only 52 balls for 821 yards and 2 TDs.

Still, his departure would leave a gaping hole in the Bears receiving corps as Cameron Meredith and Kevin White would emerge as the leaders of the group.

Meredith went undrafted out of Illinois State, but he has impressed in his two pro seasons, leading the Bears in receptions (66), targets (96), yards (888) and TDs (4) in 2016.

White was the Bears' first-round pick in 2015 (7th overall) but has played in just four games due to leg issues and has only 19 catches for 187 yards and 0 TDs under his belt.

David Kaplan believes if Jeffery does depart Chicago, it sends a bigger message about the state of the Bears:

"If report the @ChicagoBears won't franchise Alshon is true and he's a goner it tells u how awful the situation was that Ryan Pace inherited.

8:41 AM - 27 Feb 2017"

"The Alshon report if true also tells u where the Bears believe they are as a franchise.

8:42 AM - 27 Feb 2017"

Just Another Chicago Bulls Session..... Nuggets run Bulls out of the building, end four-game win streak.

By Vincent Goodwill

(Photo/csnchicago.com)

It got ugly and it got ugly in a hurry as Fred Hoiberg was ready to initial for a timeout before Jamal Murray's triple found an easy home in the bottom of the net after a Bulls turnover.

The onslaught happened quick for the Denver Nuggets and the Bulls were unable to counter with a reasonable response as their defense failed them miserably in the second half of their 125-107 loss—the first sign of serious defensive slippage since the trade of Taj Gibson as their season-high four-game winning streak was snapped.

And to make matters all the more optimistic, the Golden State Warriors and L.A. Clippers are the next two opponents to grace the United Center floor.

Jimmy Butler going three for 13 in 35 minutes definitely shouldn't be ignored, as was the Bulls inability to muster second-half offense after leading by three, but the Nuggets ran the Bulls ragged with ball movement and open threes all night.

"I haven't been in rhythm for awhile now," Butler said. "It's okay. We gotta a few more games, I'll find a rhythm and make some shots. I'm not worried about it, we got another one on Thursday."

Nikola Jokic dominated the stat sheet and the game with 19 points, 16 rebounds and 10 assists in a showing that had the versatile center operating as a hub, creating open shots for Danilo Gallinari (22 points) and Wilson Chandler (20 points), among others.

"They do a good job of shooting and cutting around Jokic," Hoiberg said. "Some of the 3's were contested but I agree we did not run them off the line."

And when he received too much room on the perimeter from Robin Lopez or Cristiano Felicio, he unleashed one of his three triples as the Nuggets hit 13 of them, many during the decisive third and fourth quarter run when they pulled away.

Shooting 56 percent from the field and 43 from 3, the Nuggets made easy work of the Bulls once they figured out the Bulls' early defense, putting up 103 points in the final three quarters.

"We stopped getting stops, it was either a layup or a 3," said Rajon Rondo. "We gotta run them off the line. They get paid a lot of money to shoot the ball. Those guys, we knew going into the game what the scouting report was. We didn't stick to the plan."

A 9-0 run gave the Nuggets an eight-point lead in the final minute of the third quarter led by Jokic, as all five Nuggets starters were in double figures and they were shooting well over 50 percent, quickly erasing a 68-60 Bulls lead.

The Bulls' defense was little more than indifferent in the middle two quarters, giving up 69 points. And the Nuggets' onslaught stretched to start the fourth as they took a 96-83 lead in the first 90 seconds, with their ball movement creating open shots on the perimeter.

"Our movement was terrific in the first half, we were getting the ball up the floor," Hoiberg said. "We lost all that. The shots we missed deflated us."

Hoiberg said the Bulls' slagging offense led to a porous effort on the defensive end, which is an easy way to lose against the third-best scoring offense in the NBA (110.8 points per game).

"It's easily correctable. Just guard," Butler said. "Take your matchups as if it's just you and them. If you get beat, the help is gotta be there. If we guard, we're okay."

The Bulls were surviving early with the play of Rondo, who scored 19. Dwyane Wade scored 19 but nine came in the fourth when the Nuggets all but ended things in the first few minutes of the period.

"I thought Rondo was great for us," Hoiberg said. "When he's in the game our pace just goes up a notch. He's getting guys shots, he's throwing the ball down the floor."

The Bulls' early offense was at a crawl until Rondo started running the show, as the speed quotient increased ten-fold in the first half. He hadn't been that aggressive in weeks and it was necessary with Butler having a slow start and Cameron Payne being eased into running the offense.

"Just the pick and roll. I was trying to get into the paint," Rondo said. "Our bigs did a great job setting screens for me and I was able to get into the paint to make plays for myself or my teammates."

The balance between development and winning games is certainly met at the intersection of Rondo and Payne, with Rondo being a good option for helping the Bulls maintain their playoff standing.

Payne looked unsure during his time in the first half and missed his first seven shots from the field in his home debut, only making a triple after the game had been decided.

The speed and athleticism of the Nuggets confused the Bulls throughout, as one has no idea if this is the Bulls team that will be seen for the rest of season or if this was a telling and alarming blip on the radar.

Bobby Portis relishing his chance as starter.

By Vincent Goodwill 

(Photo/csnchicago.com)

A milk carton was a more likely place to find Bobby Portis than on a basketball floor playing big minutes for the majority of his second season.

He could often be found in the locker room before games and listening to the older players talk to the media afterward, trying his best to fight off the frustration and admitted confusion that comes with the regression of not getting playing time.

When Portis did play, he looked nothing like the confident and borderline cocky rookie who often referred to himself in the third person in interviews. He didn't know when he would play, how long he would be out there or even worse, what was expected of him.

The trade of Taj Gibson at the deadline — preceded by the temporary benching of Nikola Mirotic — put Portis back in the spotlight and he's intent on making the most of it during the last 23 games of the regular season.

"It's fun. You know go out there every day just to know that it's another day I'm going to play," Portis said. "That's the biggest thing for me. I feel like that's already a confidence builder right there, just coming into every game knowing that I'm in the rotation. It's great fun to go out there and play."

It's no secret the front office the Bulls want Portis to succeed and not add him to the ledger of some of the first-round disappointments that can be recalled in recent memory.

The trade of Gibson was certainly underlined with the mantra that Portis should play and the way was going to be cleared for Portis, one way or another. Scoring 19 with eight rebounds against the Celtics on national TV right before the All-Star break probably gave Portis enough validation considering he was thrust into the starting lineup at power forward soon after.

"I don't care about nobody judging me," Portis said. "At the end of the day I'm going to play basketball. That's my job. I'm going to go out there and do the things I do well. I feel like sometimes people misconstrue just because you don't play and they can say some things like that. I don't really care about anybody judging me at this point. At the end of the day I'm still going to be Bobby Portis at the end of the day."

Well, clearly, the third person thing hasn't left the second-year forward, but he said he stayed in the gym waiting on his opportunity, even through a quick but confusing stint to Hoffman Estates to the D-League.

"Just being hungry. Humble and hungry," Portis said. "You know one thing I always strive off of is being humble and hungry. That kept me sane. My mom, I talked to her a lot. She kept me grounded. It's kind of tough not playing and going through the season knowing that some games you might play, you might not play. You know it's about waiting your turn, but at the same time you have to keep working."

Being the fifth big in Fred Hoiberg's rotation didn't leave him a lot of room for Portis to get much run or even find a rhythm, and like many others who've found themselves out of the rotation unexpectedly, it was without much of an explanation.

"Nah, I didn't really know what I could do to get minutes," Portis said. "The one thing that I know that I always do is just come in here every day, work as hard as I can, let the dominos fall how they fall. Every day I come in here, just bust my butt for some minutes, but sometimes it wouldn't work."

Now that he has found himself into Hoiberg's good graces, his improving range has allowed both units to play similarly.

"I think Bobby has done a real nice job," Hoiberg said. "He was a huge part of our win against Boston in our game right before the break. He just goes out and plays with so much energy. What I really like about him right now is he has no hesitation on his shot. He's stepping into his 3 with good rhythm."

NBA trade deadline winners and losers.

By CSN Staff 

(Photo/csnchicago.com)

The NBA trade deadline has come and gone, so the rosters you see now are pretty much what you're going to see for the rest of the season.

Of course there will be some teams that will bolster their roster via buyout candidates, but most of those players will have a very defined and to a greater extent, limited role with whatever new team they sign with for the rest of this season.

So who were the winners and losers during this now-completed trade season?

Our CSN Insiders examine which franchises really cleaned up during the trade season, and which teams got taken to the cleaners in addition to looking at a few teams that struck gold during the buyout season as well as some that stood pat and why that was a good – or not so good – idea.

We start off North of the border where Toronto pulled off a pair of trades that in the eyes of many league executives and coaches, probably addressed their biggest needs going forward and should solidify them as a top-four team in the East with the potential now to go as high as the number two spot.

CSN New England's A. Sherrod Blakely takes a closer look at the Raptors deal, how it paid off almost immediately and what it means for the Eastern Conference going forward: 

 TRADE DEADLINE WINNERS

 Toronto Raptors

By adding Serge Ibaka, the Raptors were able to address the increasingly obvious need for them to upgrade their power forward position. Ibaka was traded from Oklahoma City to Orlando because they didn't want to pay him a near-max salary this summer. And the Magic, realizing he wasn't a good fit for them going forward, cut ties just months after acquiring him.

Playing with the Raptors has Ibaka in a familiar position, one that he enjoyed years of success in with the Thunder. Back then, it was Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook's team, with Ibaka as a really good No. 3 guy. In Toronto, Kyle Lowry and DeMar DeRozan are Ibaka's Durant-Westbrook all over again and that's a good thing. In his first game as a Raptor, Ibaka had 15 points and seven rebounds in Toronto's win over Boston.

Considering Ibaka was going to be a player Toronto planned to pursue this summer when he becomes a free agent, acquiring him now makes the Raptors the odds-on favorite to sign him.

He wasn't the only new guy for Toronto that gave the Celtics problems.

P.J. Tucker, acquired from the Phoenix Suns, had a near double-double against Boston with nine points and 10 rebounds.

The numbers they put up help, but even more important is they provide a heightened level of toughness which multiple league executives and coaches that CSNNE.com has talked with since All-Star weekend, said was sorely lacking on their roster.

If the Raptors manage to climb the Eastern Conference standings and play their way into a deep postseason run, these two trades will be seen as instrumental in making that happen. – by A. Sherrod Blakely

Houston Rockets

The Rockets bolstered their playoff push in a single trade by landing former Sixth Man of the Year Lou Williams from the Lakers. They sent Corey Brewer and a first round pick to Los Angeles in the deal. Williams gives the Rockets another high-scoring guard to complement James Harden and Eric Gordon. The addition of Williams' instant spark off the bench can make a difference in the grind of a postseason series. – by Jessica Camerato 

Los Angeles Lakers

They traded their most effective player, sixth man Lou Williams, for a player (Corey Brewer) and Houston's unprotected No. 1 draft pick. The biggest upside might be that the loss of Williams makes LA an even weaker team and therefore improves its own draft positioning. If the Lakers continue on the lottery-bound path they are on, it would mark the fourth consecutive season they will have a lottery (Top 14) selection. – by Monte Poole  

Oklahoma City Thunder

OKC needed a shake up if they had any hope of making noise in the postseason. They traded two young players in Joffrey Lauvergne and Cameron Payne, along with veteran Anthony Morrow to the Bulls for Doug McDermott, Taj Gibson and a second-round pick.

McDermott instantly improves the small forward position for Oklahoma, giving them a high end shooting option for Russell Westbrook to kick to. Gibson is a solid veteran big that defends and rebounds either as a starter or off the bench.

The Thunder gave up two young pieces in the deal, but they are in "win now" mode as they try to move up in the Western Conference standings. And while there were certainly more high profile moves made at the trade deadline, the Thunder can now set their sights on being more than just a team in the playoffs. These additions give them the kind of depth that's required in the postseason to potentially knock off a higher-seeded team. – by James Ham

Orlando Magic

If you factor in all that the Magic gave up to acquire Serge Ibaka, only to trade him away for a good but not great player in Terrence Ross, there's not a lot to like about the deal, right?

Not true.

Trading away Ibaka on many levels was a classic example of addition by subtraction.

The trade of Ibaka has allowed the Magic to play Aaron Gordon at his correct position at power forward.

The glut of forwards/centers had coach Frank Vogel trying to force Gordon to play at small forward which didn't suit his strengths. He lacks the ball-handling and shooting to make that a natural transition.

"Everybody is now in their right position," Vogel said. "Aaron being a four is better for him. He did well at the three defensively, but he's better at the four." – by J. Michael

Golden State Warriors

They took calls but made none of their own. The Warriors own the league's best record, its No. 1 offense and its No. 1 defensive rating. They have no glaring needs. They may explore the buyout market if there is an intriguing candidate, but there is zero urgency. – by Monte Poole

Washington Wizards

The addition of Bojan Bogdanovic isn't the sexiest deal to be swung during this trade season, but it meets what has clearly been one of Washington's biggest weaknesses – depth.

Specifically, Washington needed to add a scorer off the bench which is exactly what Bogdanovic has the skills and talent to provide.

The Wizards haven't ruled out another move in the free-agent market to help with the bench with a possible playoff run looming.

Trey Burke hasn't been adequate as John Wall's backup, Tomas Satoransky might not be ready for the role yet and Kelly Oubre hasn't done the job behind Otto Porter.

The next move, if there is one, could be for the best player available but a creator with the second unit is desperately needed. – by J. Michael

LOSERS

Sacramento Kings

The Sacramento Kings hit a hard reset button on All-Star Sunday, dealing center DeMarcus Cousins and forward Omri Casspi to the New Orleans Pelicans for a package that included rookie Buddy Hield, Tyreke Evans, Langston Galloway and a first and second round pick.

Sacramento received below market value for their franchise cornerstone and started a youth movement that was long overdue. They now have four first round picks from the 2016 NBA Draft and potentially two first round picks in the highly touted 2017 NBA draft.

The Kings sat just a game-and-a-half out of the eighth seed in the Western Conference playoff chase at the time of the move. They have been raked over the coals in the media for their handling of Cousins, including making promises to not only keep the star big, but hand him a $219 million extension this summer. They chose to reboot the franchise, calling for an improved culture. – by James Ham

Philadelphia 76ers

They had a cluster-you-know-what in the frontcourt with too many bodies, and they managed to clear it out a bit by trading Nerlens Noel to Dallas for Andrew Bogut, Justin Anderson and a heavily protected 2017 first-round pick.

But that in itself doesn't make this a good deal.

In fact, it was one of the worst deals made at the trade deadline and here's why:

They knew Bogut would seek a buyout immediately, so whatever benefit he could have provided in terms of his play, was out the window.

Move along to Anderson, a late first-round pick in 2015 who has shown signs of being a 3-and-D kind of player. He's a solid addition, but Noel is a better player and has significantly more upside.

But the saving grace is the draft pick right?

Nope.

The pick will likely wind up being a second-rounder this year and in 2020.

So just to recap: Philly gave away a starter in Noel, and in return they wind up with a wing player who may play his way into the regular rotation eventually along with a pair of second round future draft picks. Knowing this deal will make the Sixers a weaker team, it's almost like Sam Hinkie never left. – by A. Sherrod Blakely

Los Angeles Clippers

Their pursuit of another wing shooter came up empty, as did their perpetual search for a legitimate small forward. On the other hand, as a group that has been crippled by injuries to key players, they're happy to have a healthy starting five now that Chris Paul is back and effective. – by Monte Poole

New York Knicks

So, the Knicks are all still there. Between Carmelo Anthony and Derrick Rose, at points leading up to the deadline it seemed like a player could be on the move. In the end, the team remained intact. No better, no worse, just the same. Which in this season, the same isn't necessarily the best outcome.

New York needed to make a move to shake up a roster that's once again underachieving. No one expected the Knicks to be among the top three or four clubs, but they were seen at the very least as a legit playoff contender. Of course there's still time for them to get back in the postseason picture. But with all the drama surrounding this team, it's unlikely their direction will change anytime soon which means another season ending without a playoff berth – by Jessica Camerato

Boston Celtics

This team has been fireworks-in-waiting for years now, seemingly on the cusp of a big deal that ultimately turns into a big dud. It's hard to be critical of a team that has endured as many injuries as they have this season and still find themselves in second place behind the NBA defending champion.

Because of their lofty position, the Celtics' focus was primarily on landing a major player like Chicago's Jimmy Butler or Indiana's Paul George.

The Celtics struck out on both of those guys and wound up keeping their current roster intact.

Adding insult to injury, two players – Serge Ibaka and P.J. Tucker – were both players Boston was in the mix for in terms of signing only to get serious love from Toronto, which traded for both players. When the Celtics opened their post All-Star break portion of the schedule in Toronto, Ibaka and Tucker were huge factors in the game's outcome.

The Celtics did try to get in on acquiring the soon-to-be bought out Andrew Bogut only to learn that he's likely signing with Cleveland. – by A. Sherrod Blakely

BUYOUT WINNER: CLEVELAND

Indeed, the rich will get richer in the East with the Cavaliers on the cusp of adding both Andrew Bogut and Deron Williams who became unrestricted free agents. Bogut is nearly complete with a buyout after he was traded to Philadelphia from Dallas, while Williams was waived by the Mavericks when they could not find a partner to swing a trade for his services.

With Bogut, the Cavs add one of the best defensive centers in the NBA. Injuries have limited his impact this season, but the load he'll be asked to carry is relatively small compared to what the former No. 1 overall pick has been tasked with elsewhere.

As for Williams, he gives them a ready-to-roll backup point guard. When Kyrie Irving takes a rest, LeBron James has often been shifted to being the primary ball-handler. But the addition of Williams gives the Cavs another choice coming off the bench of a player who has played this game for a while and has a solid understanding of how to run a team effectively. – by A. Sherrod Blakely

Schroder off to rough start after All-star break

When the Hawks opted to move on from Jeff Teague, the assumption was that Dennis Schroder was ready to be the starting point guard.

Coming out of All-Star break, Schroder has served a one-game suspension for not reporting to the team on time and then was benched for the first half of the next game because he missed the team bus.

Going into Monday, the Hawks had a three-game losing streak by a total of 53 points.

"We continue to hold our entire roster, all of our players, accountable," Hawks coach Mike Budenholzer said. "Our culture is important to us. Respect for your teammates is important to us. That's our job and that's our organization's job is to continue to build on our culture." – by J. Michael

Knicks waive Jennings, Rose next?

Brandon Jennings had expressed a desire to join a title-contending team.

Well he got his wish – partially anyway – when the New York Knicks waived him on Monday. The eight-year veteran will surface with another team, but the question is where?

Frank Isola of the New York Daily News reports that the Knicks might also be interested in waiving Derrick Rose. The Knicks are a bad team and judging by some of the moves being made by the front office, they're not going to be better anytime soon. – by A. Sherrod Blakely

CUBS will dominate regular season again, according to oddsmakers.

By Chris Cwik

The Cubs are expected to dominate the regular season once again. (Photo/Getty Images/Ron Vesely)

In what has become the least surprising development since the Washington Nationals signed another Scott Boras client, the Chicago Cubs are once again expected to dominate the regular season. The Cubs are projected to win a league-high 95 1/2 games in 2017, according to Bovada.

That shouldn’t come as a surprise. The Cubs return with virtually the same team that propelled them to a league-best 103 regular season wins in 2016. Though they lost Dexter Fowler in free agency, the defending World Series champs are still considered the best team in the majors.

While the Cubs are still considered the best team in the game, the Los Angeles Dodgers, Boston Red Sox and Cleveland Indians are right on their toes. All three clubs are projected to win at least 92 games in 2017.

None of that seems out of line. With that said, the fun of over/unders is identifying which teams look drastically overrated or underrated by the oddsmakers. With that in mind, here’s the full list of team win total projections, courtesy of Bovada.

Now that we’ve had a chance to look over the full list, here are some of our initial observations:

• It’s tough to argue with Bovada’s top-6 teams. The Cubs, Dodgers, Red Sox, Indians, Nationals and Houston Astros are all strong contenders to make the playoffs, and will be popular picks to win the World Series.
• The New York Mets are projected for 88 1/2 wins in 2017. That seems fair. The team did win 87 games last season despite losing most of its rotation. But that also makes them risky heading into this season. The Mets could have the best rotation in baseball if everyone stays healthy, but four of their five projected starters are coming off surgery. Depending on pitching is always is scary, even if we think that’s a fair win projection.
• The biggest surprise near the top of the list might be the Seattle Mariners. At 85 1/2 wins, the Mariners are projected to be the ninth-best team in baseball. They would be the fourth-best team in the American League, meaning Bovada expects them to break their lengthy playoff drought. It’s worth noting that the Mariners won 86 games last year, so the projection isn’t that farfetched. Still, Seattle reaching the postseason seems significant, which is why we’re including it here.
• No one believes in the Baltimore Orioles. It seems like the club outperforms their projections each season. This year might be no different. Despite winning 89 games in 2016, Baltimore is projected for just 80 1/2 wins in 2017.
• Everyone’s favorite sleeper candidate, the Colorado Rockies, are also projected to win 80 1/2 games. Despite the Ian Desmond signing and the fact that the rotation has promise for the first time in forever, Bovada is hesitant to fully embrace a Rockies resurgence.
• The Minnesota Twins will need to improve by 15 games in order to hit their over. After winning 59 games in 2016, Minnesota is projected at 74 1/2 this season.
• The lowly San Diego Padres are projected to win a major-league worst 66 1/2 games. That shouldn’t come as a huge shock. Everyone knows the team will struggle this season.

What stands out to you? Which team have the oddsmakers drastically overrated? Which team are they sleeping on? Where are you laying down your gummy bears this year?

March Madness: Projecting Opening Day roster for Cubs.

By Patrick Mooney

(Photo/csnchicago.com)

The Cubs have already decided who should face Dexter Fowler and the St. Louis Cardinals in front of a sellout crowd at Busch Stadium and a national audience on ESPN's "Sunday Night Baseball."

"Of course," manager Joe Maddon said Tuesday at the Sloan Park complex. "But I just got to talk to the people. And I just can't say it without talking to them first."

Jon Lester – who started Game 1 in all three playoff rounds last year – would be the obvious choice for the Opening Night assignment on April 2. But the Cubs also have a Cy Young Award winner (Jake Arrieta), an ERA titleholder (Kyle Hendricks) and another three-time World Series champion (John Lackey) in their rotation.

Recognizing the wear and tear from back-to-back playoff runs – and anticipating another stressful October – The Big Four is being held back until at least the second weekend of Cactus League play and slowly ramping up again.

It's another sign March Madness isn't happening at a camp where maybe 23 or 24 spots on the 25-man roster had been secured before pitchers and catchers even reported to Arizona and the franchise no longer has to deal with the 1908 baggage.

A look at where things now stand for the defending World Series champs, with injuries being the biggest X-factor between Mesa and St. Louis:

• Whether or not Brett Anderson has the inside track to the fifth-starter job, it's still extremely difficult to see the Cubs stashing him in the bullpen, given his extensive medical file, inexperience as a reliever and Mike Montgomery's comfort level as a swingman.  

Why mess with Anderson's routine if he can click with pitching coach Chris Bosio and resemble the groundball pitcher who made 31 starts and put up a 3.69 ERA for the Los Angeles Dodgers in 2015?

"He's really baseball bright," Maddon said. "He knows what he's doing out there. I love his stuff. I know him and 'Boz' are working on different thoughts mechanically to help prevent injury. But I like it a lot – not a little bit. This guy is really good. The big thing is just health with him. You keep this fellow healthy – he can throw some significant numbers up there."

There's an element of luck involved – and some came into the organization with durability on their resumes – but the Cubs had five pitchers make at least 29 starts last season and hope that infrastructure will help Anderson.

"We've addressed it with him," Maddon said. "We've given him different thoughts. I'm sure every team that he's played with has had the same kind of thoughts. But maybe just the mechanical tweak, maybe a different method of work within a clubhouse, strength and conditioning, trainers, etc., maybe that'll help."

There are a lot of maybes with Anderson, a Tommy John survivor who underwent surgical procedures on his lower back in 2014 and 2016. But the Cubs also see a lot of upside and motivation in a lefty working on a one-year, $3.5 million incentive-laden deal.

"I would be curious to see this guy with a full season of good health," Maddon said, "because it might even be better than a lot of teams' third and second starters. This guy is that good. With health, there's no telling.
   
"If we could get him out there for like 160-175 (innings), if he could do something like that, my God, it would be like outstanding."

• Working backwards from All-Star closer Wade Davis and Maddon's "hybrid moment" for Anderson or Montgomery, the Cubs appear to have six relievers for six slots on what figures to be a 13-man pitching staff: Koji Uehara; Pedro Strop; Hector Rondon; Carl Edwards Jr.; Justin Grimm; and lefty Brian Duensing.

"The pitching's really gotten significantly better," Maddon said. "With good health, it's going to be very difficult (making those decisions). These guys have been impressive. I'm not all about the spring-training evaluation. Going off their track records and maybe projecting a little bit, we have a lot of interesting pitching candidates. It's gotten a lot thicker."

• One wild card is Rule 5 lefty Caleb Smith – who spent last season with the New York Yankees' Double-A affiliate – and how creative the Cubs get with the roster sleight of hand. (Remember how Major League Baseball took away a Cubs' pick in the 2013 Rule 5 draft and gave it to the Philadelphia Phillies to settle the Lendy Castillo grievance.)

"We're going to be forced to try to look under the hood a little bit more," Maddon said. "If you're overwhelmed, then you're going to probably try to manipulate it to the point where you can keep a guy like that."

• The Cubs have 11 locks among the position players, a group of versatile defenders who give Maddon so much flexibility with lineup decisions and in-game moves: Willson Contreras; Miguel Montero; Anthony Rizzo; Ben Zobrist; Addison Russell; Kris Bryant; Javier Baez; Kyle Schwarber; Jason Heyward; Jon Jay; and Albert Almora Jr.  

That means the last bench spot could come down to outfielder Matt Szczur (no minor-league options left) or the whims of infielder Tommy La Stella (who initially refused to report to Triple-A Iowa last summer and talked about considering retirement).

"That's probably a fairer question on March 25," general manager Jed Hoyer said. "So many things can happen between now and then, as far as injuries and things like that. We're going to have some hard decisions at the end of camp. We have a lot of talent here.

"People know what the bones of our team are, but we definitely have to make some tough decisions as far as the construction of the pitching staff and the bench."

Brett Anderson’s main takeaway from Cubs pitching coach Chris Bosio.

By Patrick Mooney

(Photo/csnchicago.com)

The pitching section of The Cubs Way manual might not be spelled out this way, but it can be summed up in five words: Have 'em work with Boz.

Or at least that's how it sounds whenever the Cubs add another fading prospect or injury case, rolling the dice on raw stuff, change-of-scenery psychology and the wizardry of pitching coach Chris Bosio.

While the Theo Epstein administration is still waiting on the drafted-and-developed pitchers to put around the Wrigley Field marquee next to the images of sluggers Kris Bryant and Kyle Schwarber, the Cubs already have the infrastructure in place that helped turn Jake Arrieta into a Cy Young Award winner and transform Kyle Hendricks into an ERA leader.

One of Bosio's ongoing projects is Brett Anderson, who underwent surgery to repair a bulging disc in his lower back last March, yet another injury in a career that hasn't lived up to his own expectations.

"It's one of those things where he's not trying to reinvent the wheel," Anderson said. "It's more trying to limit the pressure on my back and mild mechanical adjustments where I don't land on my heel as much and kind land on the ball of my foot or my toes, so it's not such a whiplash effect.

"He's had a good track record with health, especially the last couple years, and hopefully I can fall in line there, too."

Anderson made it through his first Cactus League outing, throwing a scoreless first inning during Monday's 4-4 tie with the White Sox in front of another sellout crowd at Sloan Park in Mesa. The Cubs are taking a calculated risk here with a one-year, $3.5 million that could max out with $6.5 million more in incentives if Anderson makes 29 starts this season.

The Cubs can put the best defensive unit in the majors behind a lefty groundball pitcher and don't need to make a dramatic overhaul with a guy who grew up around the game. Anderson's father, Frank, is an assistant at the University of Houston and the former head coach at Oklahoma State University.

"I've been going to the field since I could walk and talk and annoy college kids," Anderson said. "I could take that one of two ways: I could get burnt out quick and kind of shy away from baseball. Or I could eat it up. Fortunately for me, I've eaten it up all the way through."

The entire question with Anderson revolves around health. He won 11 games for the Oakland A's in 2009 – finishing sixth in the American League Rookie of the Year voting – and hasn't topped that number since. There's been a Tommy John surgery and disabled-list time for a stress fracture in his right foot, a broken left index finger and a separate surgery on his lower back.

"If you dwell on the negative, you're going to worry yourself sick," Anderson said. "Pitching's fun – good, bad or indifferent – (so) you have to have a positive outlook, because otherwise you just walk around with a black cloud over your head."

The only other time Anderson hit the 30-start mark would be 2015, when he threw a career-high 180.1 innings, put up a 3.69 ERA and led the majors with a 66.7 groundball percentage. He couldn't repeat that performance with the Los Angeles Dodgers, accounting for 11.1 innings last year and not making the roster in either playoff round.

The "hybrid" fifth/sixth starter idea manager Joe Maddon floated sounds good in theory and we'll see how it works with Anderson and Mike Montgomery and a veteran rotation with strong opinions and clear ideas about routines. But the Dodgers needed 15 different starting pitchers to survive the 162-game marathon last year and seemed to run out of gas by the time the National League Championship Series returned to Wrigley Field.

"You can't have too much depth coming from where I was last year in L.A.," Anderson said. "We used so many starters. Obviously, that wasn't really the case here, which you can't really bank on year in and year out. But if I'm healthy, everything else will work itself out and I'll take my chances.”

Contreras learns firsthand by catching Lester.

By Carrie Muskat

(Photo/chicagocubs.com)

David Ross isn't squatting behind Willson Contreras each time the young Cubs catcher works with Jon Lester. Ross isn't even watching throwing sessions. Contreras asserted himself and told Ross he'd like to figure out Lester by himself. Ross agreed.

"I told [Ross], 'I want to get to know Lester by myself,'" Contreras said on Tuesday. "He was a catcher and he retired. Every catcher is different. He has his ways to play catch and play defense, I have my ways, and everything is different. I told [Ross] I'd like to get to know Lester by myself, ask him any questions, and that's what I'm doing."

Ross, now a special assistant to the front office, is there for backup.

"He told me, 'If you have any questions, I'll be here, but I don't want to tell you anything,'" Contreras said. "[He said] 'You get to know Lester. You'll do great, better than I did. I trust you.' That's what he said. That was key.

"It made me feel really, really good, more comfortable than I was," Contreras said of Ross' message. "Right now, I'm just focusing on Lester, [John Lackey] and all my pitchers."

Ross, who retired after helping the Cubs win the World Series last season, was behind the plate for the most innings with Lester (578 1/3), but Ross ranks second in games (89) to Jason Varitek (91 games). Lester compiled a 2.75 ERA with Ross, a 3.41 ERA with Varitek.

"We've been talking about pitch sequences, how the cutter works, how the fastball works, who do you throw the changeup to -- [things like that]," Contreras said of his sessions with the pitcher, pitching coach Chris Bosio and catching instructor Mike Borzello.

It's not that Lester wants Contreras to position himself a certain way, but learning how the lefty wants to deal with hitters.

"I know what he wants to do and he knows what he wants to do," Contreras said. "Everything will be easier than I thought."

WHITE SOX: Facing Cubs for first time, Rick Renteria happy with White Sox.

By Dan Hayes

(Photo/csnchicago.com)

If there's any lingering awkwardness from how his stint as Cubs manager ended, Rick Renteria has done well to keep it buried for several months now.

The White Sox manager reiterated on Monday afternoon how comfortable and content he is in his new position. Renteria also brushed off the idea it'd be weird to see his former players and face his old team for the first time since they dismissed him after the 2014 season and installed Joe Maddon as manager. The White Sox and Cubs ended in a 4-4 tie after nine innings at Sloan Park.

"I'm in a great place," Renteria said. "Baseball does what it does and I think we all have to take account of ourselves. We keep perspective and we try to find some balance. There are worse things that have happened to people and always in the initial you feel a sense of a little blow. But you put it in perspective and you realize things keep moving forward and here I am now with the Chicago White Sox. Things happen."

Almost always upbeat, Renteria said last week he has never been one to allow himself to be consumed by his own misfortune. Still, it couldn't have been easy to be removed after only one season in the big leagues in favor of Maddon, who in his second year led the Cubs to their first World Series title in 108 years. Renteria returned to Chicago last season to take over as the White Sox bench coach and insisted he had moved on. He and Maddon -- who share a mutual friend in Colorado Rockies manager Bud Black -- have since talked briefly several times.

"Listen, he's awesome," Maddon said. "There's nothing there. He's fine. We're fine. I think he's a wonderful man. Love to have a beer with him sometime if we can hook up in Chicago if the schedule's being proper. But there's nothing."

Back in October, Cubs general manager Jed Hoyer acknowledged the team wasn't "entirely fair" to Renteria. Hoyer made it clear he wished his former manager well and thought Renteria did a good job managing the Cubs. Theo Epstein said Monday he thinks Renteria would fit in well with the rebuilding White Sox.

"It seems like he's got a lot of talented young players to work with over there," Epstein said. "His energy and his personality will be real assets and will help develop those kids and will keep them positive, keep it moving forward."

Monday's Cubs starting lineup featured only one player who was part of Renteria's team -- Anthony Rizzo. Renteria said he would say hello to any former players he came across and said his situation isn't strange -- "It's just baseball," he said. "I'm just on the other side of town now."

Renteria said the season he spent on Robin Ventura's bench gave him an advantage in knowing the players in his clubhouse. Although he can see "some irony" in his second managerial position coming in the same town as his first, Renteria feels good about where he landed.

"It's all good," Renteria said. "I'm happy. I'm really happy to be here. I'm happy to be in the situation we're in. The organization is taking the step that is hopefully leading us as many organizations have done over the last six or seven years, trying to create something more sustainable over time. The foundation is being laid both with the players and the way they're going about doing everything. So hopefully it will be something good for us."

Prospect Lucas Giolito debuts for White Sox in tie against Cubs.

By Dan Hayes

(Photo/csnchicago.com)

One of the main points of emphasis for Lucas Giolito this spring is to consistently throw his curveball for strikes so hitters respect it.

The White Sox prospect was partly pleased with how he commanded his offspeed pitch on Monday as he debuted in a 4-4 tie between the White Sox and Cubs at Sloan Park. Giolito allowed a run, three hits, walked one and struck out two in two innings pitched. He also surrendered a long home run to Addison Russell.

"I'd say in the first inning, I did an OK job of commanding a curveball for a strike," Giolito said. "I feel like when I throw it for a strike and can show I can throw it for a strike, that's when I can get more swings on it. The second inning, I kind of got away from it. I was kind of yanking them, throwing a lot in the dirt low and away, and a big-league hitter is just going to spit on that. I'm just going to continue to work on that, throwing a curveball for a strike, commanding a fastball especially down and away to righties."

The team's top pitching prospect was pleased with how he commanded his fastball in to righties and away to left-handed hitters. He also was happy with his changeup.

Beyond that, Giolito displayed some fight when he worked his way into trouble. Courtesy of a nice diving stop by Yoan Moncada, Giolito induced a double play off Anthony Rizzo's bat after Kyle Schwarber and Kris Bryant singled to start the bottom of the first inning. Following Russell's no-doubt homer in the second inning, Giolito struck out Miguel Montero and Willson Contreras and worked around a two-out walk.

"I didn't really translate the stuff I was doing in the 'pen, the stuff I've been working on very well in the game," Giolito said. "I got into the game, and it's a pretty packed stadium, adrenaline going, I got a little quick, got a little ahead of myself and missed, especially with the four-seam fastball. I missed quite a few. Obviously the homer, the line drive, you could see where the misses were."

"I did a better job today throwing fastballs away to lefties and inside to righties than the opposite. So we continue to work on that in the pen, but I'll have plenty more opportunities, a lot of stuff to work on in the spring."

Jose Abreu homered and singled and drove in two runs in three at-bats and Tim Anderson doubled in a run and singled in three trips. Afterward, Abreu left the team for personal reasons to return to Miami. He's expected to be back in camp on Wednesday.

Juan Minaya struck out four batters in two scoreless innings in relief to keep the score tied.

Third baseman Todd Frazier took 35 swings and 35 ground balls prior to Monday's game. Frazier, who has a mild oblique strain, said he's made good progress since he hurt himself last Monday.

"Feeling good," Frazier said. "See how we feel tomorrow, you never know. Some people don't believe mild strain, but it really was. Work in slow, but when I get in game, get in game.

"Could be a couple of days, could be five or six or after off day. Don't need much time. At the back end of March we'll be getting after it."

Improved defense high on list of White Sox prospect Yoan Moncada this spring.

By Dan Hayes

(Photo/csnchicago.com)

Yoan Moncada applied some of his early work in camp to the field on Monday afternoon when he started a double play with a spectacular diving stop.

In his first start of the spring, the White Sox second baseman's dazzling play helped pitcher Lucas Giolito out of a first-inning jam. Moncada struck out in his only plate appearances as the White Sox and Cubs finished in a 4-4 tie in nine innings at Sloan Park.

"Definitely that play was unbelievable," Giolito said. "It really helped me get out of that inning. They had the momentum going, guys on base, nobody out. (Moncada) makes a play like that and they turn the double play, it's fantastic. It's really good defense to have behind you."

The top player acquired in the Chris Sale trade, Moncada has been described by some as not having a set position. There's a thought he might be better suited for third base or perhaps even center field. But Moncada prefers second base and that's where the White Sox intend to give him a chance.

White Sox manager Rick Renteria said earlier this spring that Moncada has all the requisite tools needed to play second base, he just needs to fine tune. Renteria said the biggest area of refinement is footwork and getting Moncada to take less circular routes to the ball.

Moncada feels good about the work he's put in so far.

"It's nothing really hard, but you have to make adjustments," Moncada said through an interpreter. "I'm trying to have my legs a little more open. That's work we're doing right now on my defense.

"My focus is just to try to get better in every aspect of the game, my offense, my defense, my base-running too. It's the mentality we have here right now, and I'm just trying to take advantage of it."

Moncada has appeared in all three White Sox games this spring. He's 0-for-4 with three strikeouts and a walk. 

Golf: I got a club for that..... Power Rankings: WGC-Mexico Championship.

By Ryan Ballengee

The World Golf Championships kick off for 2017 in a new location, with a new tournament. The WGC-Mexico Championship starts Thursday from Club de Golf Chapultepec in Mexico City, with a 77-player field taking on a free payday in the no-cut event.

Played at an elevation of nearly 7,800 feet, the ball will go far this week as players take on a classic, tree-lined layout.

Here are our top five players for this week:

1. Dustin Johnson – He’s the best player in the world, and this place could be a pitch and putt for him.

2. Jordan Spieth – Spieth has been brilliant all year, and the course isn’t long enough to give him any kind of trouble.

3. Rickie Fowler – Fowler finished off a big lead at Honda, and he’s been strong throughout the season. Keep it going.

4. Hidecki Matsuyama – Matsuyama is now fourth in the world, and he should thrive this week at a place that demands great tee-to-green ball-striking.

5. Rory McIlroy – McIlroy would be ranked higher, but there has to be a smidge of doubt about his form coming back from injury.

The PGA Tour's Drug-Testing Policy Needs a Big Fix.

By Pete Madden

The PGA Tour's Drug-Testing Policy Needs a Big Fix. (Photo/Golf/yahoosports.com)

A couple of months ago I attended a media symposium hosted by the World Anti-Doping Agency. Seated around a conference table at the agency's sleek headquarters in historic Old Montreal were some of the world's foremost authorities on performance-enhancing drugs (PEDs) and the athletes who abuse them: Juliet Macur of The New York Times, author of a hard-hitting book called "Cycle of Lies" about Lance Armstrong's fall from grace; Nathaniel Vinton of the New York Daily News, whose sports-investigations team chronicled Alex Rodriguez's battle with Major League Baseball and the New York Yankees following his year-long PED suspension; and Pete Madden from … GOLF.com?

I'm almost certain I was the first golf writer to darken WADA's doorstep, and my attendance created no small amount of confusion. "What are you doing here?" I heard more than once. "Do golfers juice?" It’s a good question, and the answer is, well, complicated.

Since the PGA Tour adopted an anti-doping program in 2008, only three players have been suspended by the Tour for using PEDs, and none -- Doug Barron (2009), Bhavik Patel and Scott Stallings (both 2015) -- are boldface names.

That list of violators might not sound like a cause for alarm, but there's a corollary concern: The Tour’s drug-testing program is riddled with holes, and that helps the Tour do brisk business. Commissioner Tim Finchem said as much last year.

"We went to drug-testing because the perception across the board in sports is that athletes dope," Finchem said last February. "We even had questions raised about our sport. We felt that the image of our sport and our athletes is the number one asset by a big margin. And in our defense we want to be able to demonstrate that our players don’t [use PEDs]."

Translation: The Tour's drug-testing program was designed not so much to catch cheaters as to reassure sponsors that there are no cheaters to catch. The resulting program is too simple, too soft and too secretive to combat the increasingly sophisticated science of doping, according to top officials from WADA and the United States Anti-Doping Agency (USADA).

In a series of interviews with GOLF.com, WADA Director General David Howman and USADA CEO Travis Tygart expressed concerns that the Tour's reluctance to perform blood tests on its players (as do the NFL, MLB and NBA) has opened the door for athletes to gain an advantage by using performance-enhancing substances such as human growth hormone (HGH) that are undetectable by other means.

"The [Tour's] own anti-drug policy admits that HGH can enhance performance," Tygart said. "If it does all that good, and there's no way to get caught using it, call me crazy, but logic tells me that unless these athletes don’t want to win, it's a hard sell not to do it."

Said Howman, "It's an invitation to break the rules."

The Tour admits that golfers might be tempted to take HGH to add valuable yards off the tee because of its "potential to increase driving distance, which is contingent on club-head speed." In the modern game, driving distance is one of the surest predictors of success on Tour; the top five players in that category in 2015 cumulatively won more than $27 million.

Andy Levinson, the Tour's vice president for tournament administration and anti-doping, has resisted blood-testing players because of concerns that the act of drawing blood could harm a golfer's performance. However, this refusal makes the Tour’s ban on certain substances all but unenforceable, irking anti-doping officials. "Other [athletes] can give blood without it affecting their play, but golfers can't?" Howman asked. "What's the difference? It's a pinprick."

Several of the world's top players, however, expressed enthusiasm for, or at least ambivalence toward, more extensive testing as long as the Tour wasn't drawing blood during competition. "I'm all for more testing, the better," World No. 3 Rory McIlroy. "I don’t think they should blood-test at tournaments. If you've ever had a needle in here [pointing to his arm], you get a dead arm for a day. But out of competition, testing is no problem at all."

Therein lies another problem. The Tour claims to conduct random testing in and out of competition, as well as at and away from tournament sites. But Tiger Woods, Phil Mickelson and McIlroy headlined a group of Tour stars who told The New York Times in 2013 that they had never been tested away from a tournament venue. Last March, John Daly called the Tour's testing policy "a big joke" and said he and other Tour pros know exactly when they will be tested, a claim the Tour denies.

"If all you're doing is testing at the events, there's a huge window for athletes to use PEDs and not get detected," Tygart said. "You could use them, stop a few days before the tournament and the drug could be out of your system so it doesn't show up on a test but you're still getting the performance benefits." Those gaps could force clean golfers into the unenviable dilemma of having to choose between their livelihoods and their integrity. Are you going to lose? Are you going to quit? Or are you going to cheat?

Tour officials say their testing program is robust. But when called upon to prove it, they hide behind semantics. According to Section 2.M of the program manual, "The PGA Tour may publish statistical information about the Program, including a list of occasions on which each player has been tested."

Tour spokesman Ty Votaw, however, prefers to keep such details secret. "The operative word in the section you cited is the word 'may,' which means that we reserve the right to publish," Votaw said in response to GOLF.com's request for program statistics. "However, it is safe to say that there have been thousands of tests administered since the inception of the program."

Instead, the Tour promises to publish "the name of the player, the fact that the player committed an anti-doping rule violation, and the sanction imposed" if a player tests positive for PEDs and the commissioner decides to suspend or disqualify him. In other words, the Tour left the back door open. If there’s no punishment, there’s no announcement, and since player discipline is handed down at the sole discretion of the commissioner, Finchem has the option of keeping word of any potentially explosive positive tests under lock and key. 

The policy puts Finchem in a tough position. Faced with adverse test results, would the commissioner bring discipline against a player even if it meant damaging the reputation (not to mention the bottom line) of the sport he's pledged to safeguard? Which of his dual roles comes first: policeman or promoter? 

In 2013 the Tour announced a 90-day suspension of Vijay Singh after the Hall of Famer admitted to Sports Illustrated that he used deer-antler spray, which was not explicitly prohibited by the Tour, but contained IGF-1, a banned growth hormone. The Tour dropped its suspension after WADA determined the spray did not contain enough of the hormone to be performance-enhancing. But Singh sued, alleging that the Tour treated him differently than other golfers who ran afoul of its anti-doping program and thus not only "exposed [him] to public humiliation and ridicule" but also caused him to lose his endorsement deal with longtime sponsor Cleveland Golf. The suit remains before the New York State Supreme Court with a pre-trial conference scheduled for April 5. The lawsuit has threatened to drag the Tour’s (allegedly arbitrary) drug-testing details out of the shadows, but the Tour argued for and won a sweeping protective order that made sure anything controversial remained confidential. 

Singh's lawyer, Peter Ginsberg, a seasoned litigator known for taking on the NFL and NCAA, told GOLF.com that the Tour's strategy of secrecy has few precedents. "I have rarely seen an insistence upon hiding information from the public in the manner pursued by the PGA Tour," Ginsberg said. "Certainly the players and the public are not served by being kept in the dark about how the PGA Tour functions."

The Tour and its critics have reached a stalemate. Howman has urged the Tour to adopt the WADA Code, the full list of rules and regulations governing the international sports federations within the Olympic movement; the Tour has refused.

What should be done? Roger Pielke, a professor at the University of Colorado who studies drug testing and athletic governance, has been critical of WADA and believes adopting the WADA Code "would seem to be a hammer when you need a scalpel instead." He suggested that the solution could come from inside the ropes. "The players have a voice," Pielke said. "If there's evidence that there's a doping problem on the PGA Tour that the players want to address, let's open up a conversation with the athletes about what actions might be needed." The Tour is unique among professional sports leagues in that the commissioner serves at the pleasure not of the owners but of the players. They have real power and should use it.

If the players are concerned that the use of performance-enhancing substances such as HGH could be upsetting the competitive balance on Tour, they should lobby for and submit to random blood testing.

If the players want to know how prevalent doping is in their sport, they should demand that the commissioner respond to calls for increased transparency and release annual drug-testing program statistics.

If the players hope to preserve the integrity of that program, they should create an independent tribunal comprised of anti-doping experts, Tour officials and player representatives to take control of test management, the handling of results and the announcement of discipline.

Finchem wants a drug-testing program that tells him -- and sponsors and fans -- that the players don't dope. Only the players can tell Finchem that they want a drug-testing program that won’t let them.

R&A and USGA set to announce highly anticipated first changes to golf's rulebook.

By James Corrigan

Martin Slumbers, the R&A chief executive, has called the amendments 'the biggest change for our generation'. (Photo/2017 Getty Images)

The R&A and the USGA, the game’s two governing bodies, will on Wednesday announce the first amendments in the highly anticipated modernization of the rulebook.

Martin Slumbers, the R&A chief executive, has called it  “the biggest change for our generation”. Professionals on both the PGA Tour and European Tour have been briefed on the alterations, which include cutting the time allotted for find a ball from five minutes to three and allowing pitch marks to be repaired on greens.

This will merely be the start of a raft of changes, aiming to simplify the Rules of Golf.  “The feedback so far is very positive,” Slumbers said. “They like the way that we're thinking about modernizing the game, and they like the way that we've sort of codified it and brought things into what you call more logical groups of rulings, and I would expect that most of the people will welcome the proposals.

“Will somebody have a different view? Of course they will, and that's fine, that's why we're going into consultation for eight to nine months.”

The R&A and USGA hope to bring the rules into effect on January 1, 2019. Players will also be permitted to drop a ball from any height when taking relief rather than the current stipulation of shoulder height and the use of club lengths for taking relief will be eliminated.

This is an overhaul that has been four years in the making as it seeks to update the image of golf as a stuffy sport with ludicrously complicated rules. John Bodenhamer, the USGA’s senior managing director of rules told Golf Digest that “everything had been on the table”. “Every aspect of the rules, from the content to how they’re delivered, to how they’re written, to what they look like in writing, is all going to be different,” he said.

Mike Davis, the USGA’s executive director, revealed his vision. “How come we can’t have an instance where someone can [take their phone and] say ‘Siri, I hit my ball into a water hazard. What are my options?’ ” Davis said.

NASCAR: Belated Daytona takeaways: What was Brian France trying to tell drivers?

By Nick Bromberg

Brian France used some curious phrasing in his pre-race address to drivers. (Photo/Getty)

• After thinking for 48 hours about what NASCAR chairman and CEO Brian France tried to tell drivers before the Daytona 500, we think we know what he was trying to say. But if you asked us if we were sure, we’d say no stinking way.

France awkwardly addressed the 40 drivers in the packed tent for the drivers’ meeting Sunday and said the following as a segue to introducing the CEO of Monster Energy.

What I want you to think about — we realize blocking is part of racing. We understand that, we accept that. But do not look for NASCAR — if you block somebody out there, and it’s going to happen today, it causes almost all the big incidents. Do not look for NASCAR, you’ve got to hope there’s a good Samaritan behind you who is going to accept that block because they have that lane and the right to that lane. I don’t often make those statements, but I think it’s important today as we go into our most important event to make that really clear with our competitors. And that said, we are in the fun business.

Odd, isn’t it? We think France was trying to inarticulately tell drivers to avoid the wreck-fests of Friday night’s Camping World Truck Series race and Saturday’s Xfinity race. The truck race kicked off with a big crash on lap two and ended with Matt Crafton’s truck flying through the air. And there were two red flags in the Xfinity race before lap 30.

But the reason we’re not sure is because blocking was only the direct cause of one accident leading up to the Daytona 500. And that was in the Clash, when Denny Hamlin blocked late on Brad Keselowski because it was a non-points race. The scourge of blocking was non-existent. And to that point, drivers have to move back and forth between lanes to manage the raft as the lead car in a pack. It’s a necessary tactic given the rules of France’s series.

When you add in the fact that NASCAR hasn’t disciplined drivers for blocking in restrictor plate races (save for incidents with the yellow line), France’s comments are even harder to decipher. Can anyone remember the last time a driver asked for another to be penalized in a plate race because of blocking? While France may have had genuine intentions with his comments, they made him look out of touch and unaware of what actually goes on at Daytona.

In our eyes, it’s important heading into NASCAR’s most important event that the sport’s CEO was really clear to competitors. France was about as transparent as a pan of race used oil.

• As NASCAR’s stage format dominated the strategy for the Daytona 500, the impact of the stages is evident when you look at the points standings.

Kevin Harvick finished three laps down in 22nd after he was caught up in a crash on lap 128. But he’s fourth in the points standings thanks to his win in the second stage of Sunday’s race.

Harvick (42 points) is only behind race-winner Kurt Busch, second-place finisher Ryan Blaney and Joey Logano, who finished sixth. Logano was second to Harvick in the second segment.

Busch has 56 points. He won 48 points Sunday by finishing first and finishing third in a segment. His other eight points came from finishing third in his Duel race.

• No brakes is pretty much the only way to explain away Corey LaJoie’s crash during pit stops early in Sunday’s race. What a way to exit your first Daytona 500, a race you made by crashing out your main rival to qualify.

• Is it a coincidence three of the top four and four of the top six finishers were in Fords? Did the Ford engines get better fuel mileage than its Chevrolet and Toyota counterparts?

• There are just 39 cars on the preliminary entry list for Atlanta, meaning NASCAR is likely headed to another season of less than a full field attempting most races. You’re not going to notice one less car out on the track, especially if a 40th car is simply a field filler, but it’s more proof that the financial structure of the sport isn’t welcoming to new owners. Without any growth from established teams, 2017 presented a good opportunity for a new team to fill the void. Apparently the opportunity isn’t as good as it seems.

Power Rankings: Kurt Busch's win puts him at the top.

By Nick Bromberg

1. Kurt Busch: Not only was Busch’s sublime pass of Kyle Larson for the lead great, his performance over the final 30 laps of the race was made even better by the broken rear-view mirror he had in his car. As the mirror dangled from the rook of his car, Busch was unable to see behind him.

It does stand to reason that the conservative nature of the final 20 laps of the race is probably why Busch was able to win the Daytona 500 with a broken mirror. If drivers had been more aggressive late in the race, it’s easy to see how Busch would be at a major disadvantage. But with no runs to defend — even with the help of a spotter — Busch was in position to win.

“I thought of the times I raced my dwarf car with my dad as my owner and crew chief,” Busch said after the race. “I watched that little dwarf car without a mirror. You go off intuition, off momentum, off sound of other cars. I envisioned a track that the top groove was the primary groove when I was growing up at a kid. I said, I just got to stay up high, take advantage of other people’s mistakes, and I have to leave two to three feet to the right side of my car to try to absorb guys from the left side, and make my car as wide as I could.

“Just going off of feel. Everybody kept making moves. I knew that I was sticking to the top side. I couldn’t believe it all worked out.”

2. Joey Logano: Busch didn’t have to defend anything on the low side of the track for the final 10 laps of the race because Logano and quasi-teammate Ryan Blaney couldn’t get anyone to go with them on the bottom side of the track.

Watching from the press box, we were convinced Logano would be able to work his way to the front of the field over the final six laps of the race. But at a track like Daytona, that’s impossible without any help. And the two drivers simply didn’t get any assistance. Whatever ground Logano could make via the side draft in the corners was given away as cars were nose-to-tail on the straightaways.

But Logano kept trying and kept trying. He finished sixth with one of the best cars on the track.

3. Ryan Blaney: Blaney ended up second because of an insane run he got on the final lap.
As Logano tried to work the bottom of the track, Blaney would serve as his wingman, getting a run from the high side and diving low behind Logano in the corners to give the No. 22 a push. While that tactic ended up being futile, it probably helped Blaney capitalize on the opportunity he had on the final lap. Blaney dove to the bottom side of the track and had a monster run through turns 1 and 2 as Busch passed Larson.

Blaney kept the run going by sucking up to Larson’s car as it slowed due to a lack of fuel and got to within a few car lengths of Busch. If he had some help down the backstretch, who knows what could have happened before the checkered flag.

4. Kevin Harvick: Until he got caught up in a crash along with his three other Stewart-Haas Racing teammates, Harvick was one of the best on the track. He ran up front for most of the day and is fourth in the points standings despite finishing 22nd. Think of segment points as a practical version of power rankings.

5. Chase Elliott: Elliott was a sitting duck. It was obvious from the Duel races (and the Clash) that the driver in the lead near the end of the race was at a massive disadvantage. Maybe he can take solace in the fact that he ran out of gas? It’s worse to run out of fuel leading the Daytona 500 than to get passed for the lead with three laps to go, right?

6. Kyle Larson: Larson was one of the race’s most impressive drivers over the final five laps. His sprint car background was evident as he picked cars off to make his way to the front. His pass of Kurt Busch to move from fourth to third late in the race was a thing of beauty. Larson got a run, hopped out of line and jumped back in line right in front of Busch.

7. AJ Allmedinger: Will the Daytona 500 be Allmendinger’s best finish of the season? We’re not trying to douse any hopes of a good year for the No. 47 team, but Allmendinger has 10 top-five finishes in parts of 12 seasons. And he’s finished higher than third just three times. If this is his only top-five of the year, at least it came in the Daytona 500.

8. Martin Truex Jr.: Damn, Truex made his move a lap too early. Truex dispatched of Chase Elliott pretty easily, but was then a big bullseye for Kyle Larson, who took care of him. But, like Elliott and Larson, Truex had fuel problems too and finished 13th. Again, it’s better to get passed than run out of fuel while leading, right?

9. Brad Keselowski: Like Harvick, Keselowski gets a bump from the way he performed before getting crashed out. Keselowski scored 31 points thanks to NASCAR’s stage format, more than Kasey Kahne, who finished seventh, and one fewer point than Paul Menard, who finished fifth. Mind you, Keselowski finished 27th and ended the race 57 laps down.

10. Denny Hamlin: Hamlin finished 17th and scored two more points than Keselowski and four fewer than fourth-place Aric Almirola. Our favorite scanner moment of the race might have been Hamlin’s radio after Joey Gase crashed on the backstretch and Brendan Gaughan went spinning. Their issue — which came right after the big crash on the backstretch — prompted Hamlin to let out an exasperated “oh my gosh” on the radio. It was a great encapsulation of how a lot of fans watching the race undoubtedly felt.

11. Kasey Kahne: Kahne felt like a sleeper candidate for the win at the end of the race. He was up in the lead pack and, had a couple things gone his way, could have been a contender for the win. Instead, he finished seventh.

Kahne also led seven laps, which is seven more laps than he led in 2016. Progress!

12. Aric Almirola: The fourth-place finish Almirola scored is the first tip-five he’s had since Dover in October 2015 and his best finish since finishing fourth at Richmond a few races earlier that season. Almirola was 17th in 2015, so maybe he can crack the top 20 this year. If he doesn’t, well, he at least has some well-needed optimism to start 2017.

The Lucky Dog: Despite spinning, Brendan Gaughan was 11th despite running for a team that was doing the Daytona 500 as a one-off race. Not terrible.

The DNF: There are way too many to choose from.

Stages jumble up strategy throughout Daytona 500.

By Nick Bromberg

(Photo/Getty)

NASCAR’s new stage format was evident very early in Sunday’s Daytona 500 when the Toyotas of Joe Gibbs Racing and Furniture Row Racing hit pit road on Lap 18.

NASCAR is dividing all of its races into three segments in 2017. The segments for the Daytona 500 were 60, 60 and 80 laps respectively. The idea with the segments – which award points – is to incentivize drivers to race harder in the early parts of races and give Fox and NBC time to show commercials without missing any action.

With teams able to go more than 40 laps on a tank of fuel at the 2.5-mile Daytona International Speedway, there was no reason to pit so early barring a problem in the 2016 Daytona 500. But this year, it was advantageous. At least for Kyle Busch.

Because of the known caution on Lap 60, the Toyota teams wanted to be the first cars on pit road. Pitting on Lap 18 allowed them to make it to the end of the first segment on fuel and, potentially, stay on the lead lap at one of the biggest tracks in NASCAR.

While Toyota’s idea might have been sound, most of the execution wasn’t. Erik Jones and Matt Kenseth had slow pit stops, while Daniel Suarez sped on pit road and also had a tire problem.

“I flat spotted the tire coming onto pit road the first time, just didn’t compensate enough for some of the adjustments we made and I got under it a little too hot,” Kenseth said. “Then it was just a weird day because of the segments and how everybody would pit off cycle, but we had ourself in a good position to maybe have a shot at that second segment and finally get back on the lead lap.”

The strategy worked out for Busch, however. He won the first stage, which ended with a green-and-white checkered flag waved from the flagstand. After a break for commercials and a chance for teams to make pit stops under caution, the race resumed on Lap 68.

“Weird” is a good way to describe it if you’re a traditionalist. With teams trying multiple strategies to be in the top 10 at the end of a segment to score points, multiple packs formed across Daytona. And, at times, the leader of the race wasn’t even at the head of his own group. Instead of playing for Lap 200, teams were racing to Lap 60 and 120 while also keeping their eyes on the Harley J. Earl trophy.

“I thought the stages were good actually and added a nice little element to the race,” Brad Keselowski said. “I didn’t notice guys being any more aggressive than usual.”

And while the stages might have made for some confusing racing at Daytona, don’t look for the stage format to jumble up the field nearly as much at Atlanta and Las Vegas, the next two tracks on the schedule. Or during 75 percent of the season for that matter.

Laps around each of those two tracks take approximately 30 seconds; not enough time for a driver to hit pit road for a pit stop and not lose a lap. While teams at the back of the field may try some varying strategies, you’re not going to see cars at the front of the field voluntarily lose a lap to try to gain segment points.

But at Daytona, Indianapolis, Pocono and Talladega, along with the two road courses at Sonoma and Watkins Glen, what you saw on Sunday may be the new normal. If you were entertained, then NASCAR is quite happy. If you weren’t, well the sanctioning body sure hopes you warm up to it.

SOCCER: Offseason changes have brought confidence within Fire.

By Dan Santaromita

(Photo/csnchicago.com)

As has been the case in the last few years, there has been a lot of change to the Chicago Fire's roster this offseason.

However, unlike the last few years the reasons for optimism to go with those changes seem more justified. In year two of coach Veljko Paunovic's tenure, the Fire figure to at least compete for a playoff spot.

"I think we improved for sure," Paunovic said. "I think where we improved is in leadership. Obviously our players that we brought this year, they have strong careers behind them and careers that they were successful and they proved their leadership role on their teams. That's very important. I think when you have that then you bring other pieces. Now we have to make them play as a team, which I think we are doing."

Preseason results typically don't mean much, but it is possible to learn things about a team based on how it played in those matches. For example, Juninho and Dax McCarty, two of the most notable additions in the offseason, seemed to have an easy time playing with each other in central midfield. Nemanja Nikolic and Michael de Leeuw look like they should be more efficient in finishing chances than the Fire were last year.

Beyond player changes, Paunovic said the team has shifted formations, although somewhat subtly. As opposed to the 4-2-3-1 system the team used most games last season, Paunovic mentioned changing to a 4-4-2 for this season. For the most part, the difference between the two formations is how the two strikers interact with each other. As opposed to having Nikolic play as the lone striker with an attacking midfielder playing somewhat underneath him, de Leeuw will play as a second striker alongside him.

"I think that me and Michael are the same type of players," Nikolic said. "The both of us run a lot looking for the free spaces behind opponents and it gives us opportunities in the attack. For defenders I think this is the most difficult. They have players everywhere who also help in the team defensively and in offense."

Nikolic said playing with de Leeuw in a 4-4-2 is beneficial to both players.

"I play with somebody else in front and it gives us more opportunities and more players are close to the box and close to the goal to score," Nikolic said of the 4-4-2.

Nikolic, added this offseason, and de Leeuw, who joined in the middle of last season, give the Fire's attack a different dynamic to go along with speedster David Accam. Accam used to be the main threat for opposing teams to focus on, but that could change this season.

"I think this team in the past, a lot of the game-planning has been around David Accam," McCarty said. "Rightfully so with his speed, it's a game-changer. This team has kind of just been known as a team that wants to counterattack with David and hope that they score goals and see what happens. I think this year adding myself, Juninho, Nemanja Nikolic, Michael de Leeuw with another season under his belt, getting a new goalkeeper (Jorge Bava) that's very good with his feet and has a lot of experience. I think this team has a lot of weapons and we're going to be a pretty dangerous team."

The new pieces encourage optimism, but also likely mean the Fire will need some time to properly jell. Both Paunovic and general manager Nelson Rodriguez preached patience, a common theme from those two, while also emphasizing the importance of a strong start to 2017.

Every team will have players and coaches say they are confident just before the start of a new season and the Fire are no different.

"Last year we came out of preseason and the mood was excitement and hope," Rodriguez said. "A year of experience has taught me preseason really means nothing in terms of results. The mood this year is decidedly different. I think the mood this year is one of confidence."

Paunovic delivered the most confidence, again using that P word, playoffs, that has eluded the Fire the past four seasons.

"What I think is that we are in a very good spot and I am very confident that we can achieve the playoffs this year."

Fire putting finishing touches on roster as season nears.

By Dan Santaromita

(Photo/csnchicago.com)

The preseason has finished and it's officially a match week for the Chicago Fire.

The Fire, which travel to Columbus on Saturday for the season opener, returned from preseason training in Florida on Sunday and began the team's first full day back in Chicago with the team's annual kickoff luncheon on Monday. The team's players, coaches and staff interact with fans and the media ahead of the upcoming season.

Two players, UNC-Charlotte products Brandt Bronico and Matej Dekovic, were introduced to the audience a couple hours before the club announced the two 2017 draft picks had signed contracts. Bronico, a central midfielder drafted in the third round, and Dekovic, a center back/left back taken in the fourth round, both signed one-year deals with club options for the following three years.

Dekovic could add some much needed depth in central defense, but is a logical candidate to go out on loan to USL affiliate Tulsa. Dekovic, 23, is Croatian and counts as an international player even though he played three years collegiately with the 49ers. The Fire have nine international players on the roster with eight slots for them. The Fire could trade for an international slot, but if Dekovic goes out on loan he won't count against that number. Coach Veljko Paunovic was asked about potential outgoing loans, but didn't give specifics other than to say they have "made some decisions" and "are still working on that."

Bronico and Dekovic don't figure to play major roles this season, but there could still be more moves ahead. The lone trialist in the final week of the Fire's training camp, former Columbus Crew defender Chad Barson, was not retained. General manager Nelson Rodriguez said Ryan Taylor will be the latest right back to join the Fire on trial. Taylor, 32, made 55 English Premier League appearances with Wigan Athletic from 2005-2009 and 61 more with Newcastle United from 2009-2015. This season he has made 12 appearances for Port Vale in England's third tier, the most recent of which on Jan. 20 when he scored a penalty kick.

"Ryan Taylor will join us this week," Rodriguez said. "He's a very experienced player, he plays a lot of different positions, which we like. We like that versatility. We love the attitude that he's expressed towards coming on trial, which is not easy for an accomplished player. We'll look at him this week, maybe look at him for two weeks. I don't know how long it will take, but he is an option for us."

The Englishman would also take up an international slot.

A potentially bigger move is the one Rodriguez hinted at regarding a third designated player. Currently, David Accam and Nemanja Nikolic are the Fire's two DPs, meaning one more DP spot is available.

"We have the latitude, we have the cap space, the budget space and the resources within MLS and within our ownership to add another DP," Rodriguez said. "We've looked at a few players. Two of the players that we had on our list, we didn't make offers for so I want to be clear the two players we were tracking, one signed in Mexico with a big club in Mexico and one went to China for big money so they're off our list.

"There are still two players that we're tracking. I think as we get deeper into the start of the season, even though the first window is open, it's tougher. I would say we would likely look at the summer, or, as we did last year, forego the summer and concentrate on January. I still think it's hard to integrate players midseason."

Premier League announces schedule changes.

By Joe Prince-Wright

(Photo/Getty Images)

The Premier League have released new dates and times for games throughout April, as domestic broadcasters in the UK line up their schedules for the business end of the 2016-17 season.

Plenty of derbies, top four battles and relegation scraps will take center stage in April as a busy month of action will be pivotal in deciding the fate of teams across the league.

Remember, you can watch every single Premier League game live online via NBCSports.com.
Just click on the link above to keep up to date on when and where you can watch each game.

Below is the new schedule for games in April, and on May 1, with all times listed as Eastern Standard Time.

Saturday 1 April

7:30am Liverpool v Everton

12:30pm Southampton v AFC Bournemouth

Sunday 2 April

8:30am Swansea City v Middlesbrough

11am Arsenal v Manchester City

Tuesday 4 April

3pm Manchester United v Everton

Wednesday 5 April

2:45pm Arsenal v West Ham United*

*Consequent to Arsenal v Manchester City moving to Sunday 2 April

2:45pm Hull City v Middlesbrough*

*Consequent to Swansea City v Middlesbrough moving to Sunday 2 April

2:45pm Swansea City v Tottenham Hotspur*

*Consequent to Swansea City v Middlesbrough moving to Sunday 2 April
3pm Chelsea v Manchester City

Saturday 8 April

7:30pm Tottenham Hotspur v Watford*

*Subject to movement to Sunday 9 April should Arsenal or Leicester City play in the UEFA Champions League on Tuesday 11 April.

12:30pm AFC Bournemouth v Chelsea

Sunday 9 April

8:30am Sunderland v Manchester United

11am Everton v Leicester City*

*Subject to Leicester City’s possible participation in the Champions League on Tuesday 11 April.

Monday 10 April

3pm Crystal Palace v Arsenal*

*Subject to Arsenal’s possible participation in the Champions League quarter-finals

Saturday 15 April

7:30pm Tottenham Hotspur v AFC Bournemouth

12:30pm Southampton v Manchester City

Sunday 16 April

8:30am West Bromwich Albion v Liverpool

11am Manchester United v Chelsea

Monday 17 April

3pm Middlesbrough v Arsenal*

*Subject to Arsenal’s possible participation in the Champions League quarter-finals

Saturday 22 April

7:30am Manchester City v West Bromwich Albion*

*Subject to Manchester City’s possible participation in the FA Cup semi-finals

Sunday 23 April

7am Leicester City v Tottenham Hotspur*

*Subject to Tottenham Hotspur’s possible participation in the FA Cup semi-finals

9:15am Burnley v Manchester United*

*Subject to Manchester United’s possible participation in the FA Cup semi-finals

9:15am Chelsea v Southampton*

*Subject to Chelsea’s possible participation in the FA Cup semi-finals

11:30am Liverpool v Crystal Palace

Saturday 29 April

12:30pm Crystal Palace v Burnley

Sunday 30 April

7am Manchester United v Swansea City

9:05am Everton v Chelsea

11:30am Tottenham Hotspur v Arsenal

*Subject to Arsenal’s possible participation in the Champions League semi-finals

Monday 1 May

3pm Watford v Liverpool

NCAABKB: 2017 NCAA Associated Press Basketball Rankings, 03/01/2017.

AP

RANK	SCHOOL	POINTS	RECORD	PREVIOUS
1	Kansas (58)	1618	26-3	3
2	Villanova (2)	1487	27-3	2
3	UCLA (3)	1474	26-3	5
4	Gonzaga (2)	1419	29-1	1
5	North Carolina	1381	25-5	8
6	Oregon	1343	26-4	6
7	Arizona	1223	26-4	4
8	Louisville	1176	23-6	7
9	Kentucky	1119	24-5	11
10	West Virginia	1041	23-6	12
11	Baylor	923	23-6	9
12	Florida	807	23-6	13
13	Butler	795	23-6	22
14	SMU	738	25-4	17
15	Florida State	722	23-6	19
16	Purdue	651	23-6	14
17	Duke	622	22-7	10
18	Cincinnati	504	25-4	15
19	Notre Dame	482	22-7	21
20	Saint Mary's (Cal)	445	26-3	20
21	Wichita State	250	27-4	25
22	Wisconsin	206	22-7	16
23	Virginia	194	19-9	18
24	Iowa State	168	19-9	NR
25	Miami (FL)	123	20-8	NR

Others receiving votes: Minnesota 66, Oklahoma State 54, Dayton 32, Michigan 14, Middle Tennessee 13, Creighton 12, Southern Cal 7, Michigan State 3, Monmouth 3, Vermont 2, VCU 2, Virginia Tech 2, Arkansas 1, BYU 1, Maryland 1, Princeton 1

Previewing Championship Week: What to expect from mid-major conference tournaments.

By Rob Dauster

(Photo/Peter Aiken/Getty Images)

Championship Week kicks off in earnest tonight. Here are the eight story lines from the mid-major ranks to follow over the course of the next 12 days. 

1. Can Gonzaga get to Selection Sunday with just one loss?: Because at this point, that’s probably the only way the Zags can get a No. 1 seed in the NCAA tournament. Barring something fluky happening over the course of the next 12 days, Kansas, Villanova and North Carolina have pretty much locked up their spots on the top line of the bracket in the Midwest, East and South, respectively.

But the West has yet to be won.

As of today, the Zags are probably the leaders for that spot, but what you have to remember is that the winner of the Pac-12 tournament, if it is Arizona, Oregon or UCLA, could very well add two more top 10 wins to their profile during that run. Let’s say it ends up being UCLA that wins the tournament, and they beat both Oregon and Arizona to cut down those nets. That would give them five top ten wins on the season — only one of which came at home — with wins at Arizona and Kentucky. In total, they would have at least 13 top 100 wins and their only three losses on the season would be at Oregon, at USC and Arizona at home.

I’m all for Gonzaga getting a No. 1 seed. I don’t think I could give Gonzaga a No. 1 seed over that résumé even if they do have a 32-1 record.

2. Will the Missouri Valley be a two-bid league?: This one of our only hopes for an at-large bid coming out of the mid-major ranks, and regardless of who wins the league’s automatic bid — Wichita State or Illinois State — there is going to be some controversy on Selection Sunday.

The Shockers are 27-4 on the season. If they lose in the final of the MVC tournament to Illinois State, they’ll be 29-5 on the year with no sub-50 RPI losses. They rank No. 10 on KenPom, which is largely considered the best site for determining how good teams are, and they have a roster laden with top 100 prospects and coached by one of the best in the business in Gregg Marshall. Logic suggests they should be in the tournament.

The problem, however, is that they have just one RPI top 75 win on the season, and that win came against Illinois State. The Redbirds are in an even worse situation, as they have three sub-100 losses and just one top 85 win which … came against Wichita State. Logic only gets you so far when you don’t have the results to back it up.

One, if not both, of those teams are going to be sweating out Selection Sunday, hoping that they see their names called. And frankly, given the decisions the Selection Committee has made in past seasons and the value they gave big wins during the bracket reveal on Feb. 11th, I’m not sure we’ll see both teams in the tournament this season.

3. First Ivy league tournament: For the first time ever, the Ivy League will be determining their league’s automatic bid by holding a tournament. They were previously the only conference that still awarded their bid to the winner of the league’s regular season title. The tournament will take place on March 11th and 12th at the Palestra in Philly, and it will be a four-team event.

And if you are Princeton, this terrifies you. The Tigers are currently sitting at 12-0 in the conference standings, all alone with a two-game lead with just two regular season games left. But, depending on how things shake out during the final week of the season, there is a good chance that Princeton will have to play a first round Ivy League tournament game against Penn … on Penn’s home floor.

That would be a hell of a way to lose out on an NCAA tournament bid.

4. Will Middle Tennessee State be back in the dance?: The Blue Raiders orchestrated one of the biggest upsets in the history of the NCAA tournament last season, knocking off the popular pick to win the national title in No. 2 Michigan State in the first round. Kermit Davis brought back a team good enough to make a run against this season, highlighted by the fact that his group has beaten UNC Wilmington on a neutral, Vanderbilt at home and won at Ole Miss and at Belmont. The problem they have is that three of their four losses are considered bad losses, and one of them — at UTEP — only recently climbed inside the RPI top 250. If they don’t win the CUSA tournament title they’ll add another sub-100 loss into that equation.

After what this team did in last year’s tournament, it would be a shame if they missed out on doing it again. But if they don’t get their league’s automatic bid, they may have to watch the likes of TCU or Georgia Tech play in the tournament during their off days in the NIT.

5. Which dominant mid-majors lose in league tournament?: Middle Tennessee and Princeton are the two easiest to identify, but they aren’t the only teams that have stormed to a conference regular season title and will not have to play a tournament to prove their league record is worthy of a tournament bid. Vermont went 16-0 in the America East and gets to host every game of the league tournament on their home floor, but that’s hardly a guarantee. UNC Wilmington won the CAA and earned the league’s automatic bid last season, but it won’t be easy to defend their title in that league tournament. UT-Arlington owns, at worst, a share of the Sun Belt title and a win at Saint Mary’s, but they’re anything but a lock for the tournament. Belmont won the OVC by a full five games while Monmouth won the MAAC by four and Bucknell won the Patriot League by three. Akron, at 13-3, is the only team in the MAC with less than six league losses.

My guess is that at least five of the nine teams that I just mentioned will lose in their league tournament, meaning that the NCAA tournament will feature a team that isn’t the best team from at least five mid-major leagues.

Is this really the best way to do things?

6. Just how healthy is Alec Peters?: The star scorer for Valparaiso, Peters was an NBC Sports preseason all-American, but between a couple of bad league losses and a surge from Oakland late in the year, the Crusaders have reached a point where they are not in position to receive an at-large bid to the Big Dance. But he’s currently dealing with a stress reaction in his foot, and while he’s expected to play in the Horizon League tournament, it’s difficult to know just how healthy he is. Peters is good enough to lead Valpo to a win as a No. 13 or No. 14 seed, and it would be a shame to see him miss out on the Big Dance.

7. Keep an eye on these mid-major stars, who may be the March darlings this year: The name that everyone knows is Marcus Keene, who is averaging 29.7 points and 5.0 assists for Central Michigan this season. He’d be thrilling to watch go up against, say, Malik Monk and Kentucky in a first round game.

Or what about South Dakota State’s Mike Daum? The sophomore big man has a 50-point game to his name already this season. Montana State’s Tyler Hall has gone for 40 once and 30 more times this season. North Florida’s Dallas Moore is one of the best point guards you’ve never seen play.

Someone, from somewhere, is going to step up and make themselves a star in March. The fun is watching it all play out.

8. Which coach earns themselves a bigger job?: The easiest way to move up the ranks of the coaching industry is to get your team to an NCAA tournament and to get a win in that NCAA tournament.

Who are the guys that might be able to parlay postseason success into a bigger job? UNC Wilmington’s Kevin Keatts is a hot name. He’s a former Rick Pitino assistant that coached in the prep school ranks before he made the jump to Division I. He’s turned the Seahawks into the flagship program of the CAA in just three years. MTSU’s Kermit Davis will also likely have some big-name suitors, as the stench of NCAA violations from nearly three decades ago are starting to wear away. Illinois State’s Dan Muller will likely being getting phone calls.

Chattanooga’s Matt McCall and ETSU’s Steve Forbes were hot names entering the season, but Furman’s Niko Medved went out and won himself a share of the SoCon regular season title. Vermont’s John Becker may have a chance to make a move, while Winthrop’s Pat Kelsey, Princeton’s Mitch Henderson, UT-Arlington’s Scott Cross and Monmouth’s King Rice all have their name mentioned with bigger openings.

Two more names to keep an eye on: UNC Asheville’s Nick McDevitt, who has kept that program at the top of the Big South despite losing two star freshmen to transfer to Louisville and Arizona last season, and Mount St. Mary’s Jamion Christian, who led the Mount to a NEC title. Both of those coaches are alums of the program they are currently coaching at.

Snubbed last season, Monmouth now most dangerous mid-major in college hoops.

By Matt Norlander

Monmouth is led by Justin Robinson, but the Hawks are older and have great balance. (Photo/Getty Images)

The biggest mid-major story in college basketball last season was Monmouth. You remember Monmouth . The fun-loving, attention-seeking, genuinely hilarious bench mob drew national headlines -- but the Hawks also had those huge wins.

This small school out of West Long Branch, New Jersey (undergrad enrollment there is fewer than 5,000) took out UCLA, USC, Notre Dame and Georgetown a season ago. The Hawks were a good story, but those four wins were seesawed by three losses to sub-200 teams.

Last year, on Selection Sunday, the team gathered in the locker room to watch the bracket reveal. Pint-sized star point guard Justin Robinson, one of the most interesting, watchable players in college basketball, left within 10 minutes of the show starting.

“When I saw we wasn’t one of the first four in, I was like, whatever,” Robinson told CBS Sports on Sunday. “I wasn’t expecting to get in. I didn’t want to get my hopes up with all the at-large talk and then get shot down in the end.”

Robinson bounced for the team gym, where he practiced alone for about 30 minutes, just him and the shooting gun feeding him balls. The rest of the team waited out the full field’s unveiling, never hearing their name called by Greg Gumbel. Monmouth went on to the NIT and lost in the second round. Prior to that, the 2015-16 Hawks had five wins over teams from power conferences; it might be the most ever in one season by a mid-major team to not get into the NCAA Tournament.

But in 2017, Monmouth (26-5) is even better. This story has a stronger second act.

The Hawks closed out their regular season Sunday with a 79-73 road win against their biggest MAAC foil, Iona. Monmouth enters postseason play on a 16-game winning streak. Only Vermont (17) has won more in a row. A year older, much stronger and with more balance, Monmouth is three wins away from an automatic bid. The Hawks haven’t hauled in headlines or huge wins this season, but they lead the short list of the most dangerous Cinderella candidates.

Last year’s loss in the MAAC title game -- to Iona, of course -- wasn’t due to nerves or to pressure.

“We were ready, we just got beat by an Iona team that was better,” Robinson said. “They just got us. They were a good team. It happens.”

Sometimes it really is as simple as that. 

Iona’s coach, Tim Cluess, is a terrific tactician. King Rice, the coach at Monmouth, knows this and respects this and damn if it doesn’t drive him a bit crazy. Sunday’s road win over the Gaels was the necessary confidence-booster for King’s club. For Monmouth to sweep Iona this season, to know it has the pieces and poise to beat such a team, it’s a vital mental edge -- because these two could well to face each other again next Monday in the league championship game.

“We don’t win this, maybe last year,” Rice said of Sunday’s push-and-pull victory. “Two, three years ago, they were beating the skin off us. I remember playing them, and their kids were always respectful, but we weren’t up to their level. What Tim does, he’s a guy that picks on what you do. Tim will get baskets on you just watching what your team does and then figuring out good things to combat it. He finds something that they get on us that nobody else gets.”

Monmouth ranks 79th at KenPom and 86th at Sagarin, respectable numbers for a team from the MAAC. Without big-time wins against major-conference competition (yeah, surprise, surprise: nobody wanted to schedule Monmouth this season), an at-large inclusion is not going to happen. But the Hawks are a better team vs. last year’s squad. The resume isn’t as strong as last year, but Robinson is not needed to be the do-it-all player some think he is, and from this the Hawks have become a premier mid-major troop. 

“It’s never been like that,” he said. “I did a lot of that last year, but it’s never been like, ‘Oh, Justin’s gotta will us to a win.’”

Robinson leads the team in scoring (19.7 ppg), but senior Je’lon Hornbeak and sophomore Micah Seaborn contribute more than 25 points per game. This team has great balance. Its weakness is on the boards, but Monmouth’s points-per-possession offense is improved from last year. For a team that likes to run, that’s a really good sign. It’s also among the most experienced teams in the country. 

That’s led in good part to this winning streak. How else has Monmouth managed to pull together the longest win streak in program history? 

“Not thinking about it,” Robinson said. “We don’t go in thinking, We’ve gotta make this one 17 or, We’ve gotta make this 12 in a row. We go in 0-0 and want to start our season with a win.”

The Hawks have options. Watching Robinson is such a treat, because he’s all of 5-foot-8, yet no one denies his will. Hornbeak’s the player who will dictate if Monmouth can pull off an upset, though. He could start on a lot of power-conference teams now. And Seaborn is set up to be an all-league guy in the coming years. Most convincingly, Rice’s team has won by margins big and small at home and away. For a team that’s set on making you run, they’re still able to adapt.

“That’s what makes our team so dangerous,” Robinson said. “We have a lot of options.” 

Earlier this season Monmouth lost in overtime at South Carolina, was beaten at Syracuse and got handled by North Carolina. But the irony to this story might wind up coming together as such: This year’s Monmouth team fails to knock off power-conference schools in the regular season, only to get the biggest win in program history in the NCAAs. If it can do that, it would be a fitting conclusion to a story that began in November of 2015, when Monmouth walked out of Pauley Pavilion with a win over UCLA to start that season. 

The Hawks should have been in last year’s tournament. They remember that. This whole season is a revenge tour. Sixteen straight and counting. And now, with three more wins, this group could become one of the better redemption stories of this year’s NCAA Tournament. 

NCAAFB: After getting the boot at Texas, Charlie Strong focuses on rebirth at South Florida.

By Dennis Dodd

After getting the boot at Texas, Charlie Strong focuses on rebirth at South Florida. (Photo/yahoosports.com)

The reasons Charlie Strong is back flow with brutal honesty.

“There’s so many factors,” Strong said recently from his office overlooking the practice fields at South Florida. “I had two weeks [after being fired by Texas]. I just had to step back and take a look at myself.

“‘What would you have done differently? Would you allow this to define who you really are?’ That’s why I didn’t sit out. I just wanted to get back into it.”

To recount, USF’s new coach barely blinked after being fired by Texas on Nov. 26. Nineteen days later, Strong was at South Florida. The rebound didn’t have a chance to hit the floor.

“I was like, ‘This damn job will take my mind away from [what happened],’” Strong said in a quiet moment. “’I’m not going to give Texas that pleasure.’”

Along with a new job here, there apparently is a newfound candor. While Strong was coach speak perfect for three years at Texas, there is a bit of a willingness to let it rip now.

There is a new level of comfort. There is no shadow mafia of boosters out to get him. Perhaps it’s because he is back “home” in the state where Strong has spent 15 years of his coaching career.

Perhaps it’s the myriad of Florida’s high school coaches -- and their talent -- that he can tap into with a quick phone call. Perhaps it’s inheriting an 11-win team with a Heisman Trophy candidate at quarterback (Quinton Flowers).

This is no rebuild. It’s a rebirth.

South Florida AD Mark Harlan was convinced as much following Strong’s last weekly press conference at Texas.

“He walked off the stage basically into the arms of that team,” Harlan said. “That to me was all I needed to know about the Texas situation.”

Behind the scenes, there is another compelling need for Strong to be here at the moment. Yeah, he’s a coach who needed to scratch an itch. Yeah, he’s suddenly at a program that may be closer to a New Year’s Six bowl than Texas.

But 45 minutes north of here, well, the deal was sealed. The parents of Strong’s wife, Victoria, live close. Victoria’s mother was diagnosed with dementia about 14 years ago, Strong said.

“We were at South Carolina,” Strong recalled of his time with the Gamecocks from 1999-2002. “You could see it was happening then … It started then and we just didn’t know.”

It got worse, as these cases always do. Anyone who has a loved one affected by Alzheimer’s/dementia, it’s heart-rending to see their personality drift away along with their memory.

“She forgot where her car was,” Strong recalled. “I don’t know if we have found that car to this day. She doesn’t know where she left the car.

“It’s good we came back.”

Did we say candor? Strong has always been a bit on the reserved side. But in 2001 and again in 2009, he said the fact that Victoria is white hurt his chances of getting a head coaching job.

Now with seven years in as a head coach, Strong brought up the subject of race again. It matters to Strong that he was first black head coach of a men’s program at Texas. It matters to Strong that he is the second African-American FBS coach to get another head coaching job after being fired. Tyrone Willingham (Notre Dame to Washington) was the other.

“When you’re the first black coach at a place like that, there’s so many people counting on you. You want to see it happen,” Strong said.

“If I’m successful as a minority, [it’s going to help someone] who wants to go run and be the CEO of IBM or there’s a minority who wants to go run a hospital.”

Not only that, but in a sport known for its lack of coaching diversity, Harlan replaced one African-American head coach (Willie Taggart) with another.

“These [are] little things that didn’t even cross my mind,” Harlan said.

Strong remains successful despite departing with the worst winning percentage of any Texas coach. That may be a stain he can never wipe away. He won a couple of national championships as a defensive coordinator at Florida and guided Louisville to a Sugar Bowl win over … Florida.

His last two Texas recruiting classes were ranked in the top 10, leading Strong to say on his way out the door, “The cake has been baked. You just put the icing on it.” Your move,  Tom Herman .

“His body of work far superseded any two or three years at any place,” Harlan said. “He’s been nothing but terrific.”

Whatever the right word is, it’s going to be easier here. Spring practice begins in a week. There are 15 starters back from that 11-win team. This may be as nationally relevant as USF has been since it rose to No. 2 in the polls in 2007.

The Bulls are a member of the American Athletic Conference, now largely considered the best of the Group of Five conferences. Strong is taking a step down. A College Football Playoff berth is virtually impossible because a championship shot by a Group of Five school has never occurred in the BCS era (since 1998).

All of it would suggest that, at age 56, this is a stepping-stone job for Strong.

“This is a big-time program,” Harlan contended. “I think he’s ready to roll. He’s got nothing to prove but I think he feels like he does.”

Even before Strong started at Texas, mega-booster Red McCombs called the coach’s hiring “a kick in the face,” saying he was probably a good position coach. Three days later, McCombs apologized, but the damage was done.

Strong wouldn’t let it define him. 

“If I sat out, I would have missed those relationships,” Strong said. “From the years in Gainesville to Notre Dame to South Carolina to being head coach at Louisville and Texas, it’s still about the young men.”

In those 19 days Strong was without a job, he owned the past few years -- the 16-21 record, the underachievement, the breakdown in special teams.

He also had no shortage of opportunities. The Temple and Cincinnati jobs came open. Strong says even an NFL administrative position was possible.

“I became a fan of Jerry Springer,” he said. “I was trying to find a way to laugh. It was hard in the beginning moving past it. You want to be successful so bad.”

“I get up in the morning,” Strong continued while discussing that interim period. “I go run. I just got out a legal pad and I started writing, trying to get my mind ticking again.”

Strong made himself obvious during the transition. He slipped into town as USF was getting ready for the Birmingham Bowl under an interim coach. He stood on the sidelines for the game. It was admittedly awkward.

So what? The coach, the school and the team can’t wait for the rebirth.

“It’s not like you’re walking into a situation,” Strong said, “where a guy got fired.”

SEC Media Days 2017 Schedule Released.

By Bryan Fischer

(Photo/Getty Images)

Few things signal the transition from offseason into preseason quite like the annual gathering in Hoover, Alabama every summer that is SEC Media Week Days.

Now we not only have the dates for the annual press tour, but who’s going on what day. The conference has released the full schedule for the 2017 edition of SEC Media Days and it goes as follows:

Monday, July 10

Arkansas’ Bret Bielema, LSU’s Ed Orgeron, Tennessee’s Butch Jones

Tuesday, July 11

Florida’s Jim McElwain, Georgia’s Kirby Smart, Mississippi State’s Dan Mullen, Vanderbilt’s Derek Mason

Wednesday, July 12

Alabama’s Nick Saban, Kentucky’s Mark Stoops, Missouri’s Barry Odom, Texas A&M’s Kevin Sumlin

Thursday, July 13

Auburn’s Gus Malzahn, Ole Miss’ Hugh Freeze, South Carolina’s Will Muschamp

Things are still subject to changes between now and mid-July but it’s pretty safe to start making plans if you want to hang out by the escalators in the lobby. The names of the players from each school who will be attending have not been announced yet, but that news should come out later in the summer.

At first glance, it seems like a pretty jammed week. New Tigers coach Ed Orgeron leads off on Monday while SEC East favorites Florida and Georgia headline Tuesday (and don’t discount Dan Mullen getting asked about Ole Miss issues either). The conference king and local legend Nick Saban will be the attraction on Wednesday while Gus Malzahn, Hugh Freeze and Will Muschamp bat cleanup on Thursday.

When is WrestleMania? Date, start time, matches, predictions, rumors. 

By Joe Rivera

O CAPTAIN

The road to WrestleMania is a long, winding path, but it soon comes to an end in Orlando, Fla.

While the card is far from set in stone, there are enough pieces to at least get a semblance of a lineup for the event.

Here are the pertinent details to the latest installment of the "Grandest Stage of them All."

When is WrestleMania 33?

WrestleMania 33 is on Sunday, April 2, at Camping World Stadium in Orlando, Fla.

When does WrestleMania 33 start?

The pre-show for WrestleMania 33 will start at 5 p.m. ET (2 p.m. PT). Live stream will be available via WWE Network, WWE.com, YouTube and the official WWE App. 

How can I watch WrestleMania 33?

You'll be able to watch WWE's crown jewel on pay-per-view and the WWE Network.

What matches are in WrestleMania 33?

So far, there haven't been a ton of matches revealed for WrestleMania 33. We know for sure that Brock Lesnar will take on Goldberg, currently with no title at stake. That could change Sunday at WWE Fastlane if Goldberg defeats Kevin Owens for the WWE Universal Championship.

With his victory in the WWE Royal Rumble, Randy Orton is slated to wrestle Bray Wyatt for the WWE World Heavyweight Championship. However, Orton is currently refusing to wrestle his Wyatt Family compatriot. We should know how the main event of WrestleMania will shake out within the next few weeks.

Seth Rollins said on the Feb. 27 episode of "Raw" that he'll see Triple H at WrestleMania come hell or high water. Rollins' health is still a question mark at the moment, however.

WrestleMania 33 predictions

— The Undertaker will probably make another appearance at WrestleMania, and chances are he'll face off against Roman Reigns. It was teased at Royal Rumble, and it'll likely come to fruition at WrestleMania.

— Main-event stalwart John Cena is currently the odd man out of the high part of the card. However, rumors are that John Cena and his wife, Nikki Bella, are likely to face The Miz and his wife, Maryse, in mixed tag team action.

— American Alpha (c) vs. the Usos for the SmackDown Tag Team Championships seems to be all but a lock at this point. The Usos' recent heel turn has been one of the best things to happen to the team since debuting in WWE. This should be an excellent match, and the rest of the SmackDown tag team division needs to figure itself out.

On This Date in Sports History: Today is Wednesday, March 1, 2017.

Memoriesofhistory.com

1941 - Elmer Layden was named the first Commissioner of the NFL.

1949 - Joe Louis announced that he was retiring from boxing as world heavyweight boxing champion.

1960 - Gordie Howe was profiled in "LOOK" magazine.

1969 - Mickey Mantle announced his retirement from baseball.

1979 - The NCAA granted ESPN the exclusive rights to telecast collegiate events.

1987 - The Boston Celtics defeated Detroit 112-102 to post win number 2,235.

1988 - Wayne Gretzky (Edmonton Oilers) got his 1,050th assist to become the NHL's all-time assist leader. Gordie Howe had held the record for 26 years.

1993 - The expansion NHL team owned by Disney was named the Mighty Ducks.

1996 - Lenny Wilkens won his 1,000th game as a coach in the NBA.

1996 - The Dallas Mavericks set a record when they attempted 44 3-point shots in a game against the Vancouver Grizzlies.

1997 - "Bottom Line2" debuted on ESPN2.

2002 - The Vancouver Canucks said that they would bill Ed Belfour (Dallas Stars) for damaging the visiting team's locker room on February 28th. Belfour broke two televisions, a clock and a VCR and damaged the walls of the dressing room after he was pulled during the first period.

2005 - The NHL's board of governors met and emerged fully behind Commissioner Gary Bettman and totally committed to having a season in the fall.

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