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Friday, June 2, 2017
CS&T/AllsportsAmerica Friday Sports News Update and What's Your Take? 06/02/2017.
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TRENDING:Victor Cruz feels 'close' to returning to star level he was with Giants.What kind of impact will Kevin White, Victor Cruz have on the 2017Bears?(See the football section for Bearsnews andNFLupdates).
(Photo/mlbinjurynews.com)
TRENDING:WhyBlackhawkscould use Trevor van Riemsdyk as sweetener in trade with Golden Knights.(See the hockey section forBlackhawks updates and NHLnews).
TRENDING:Fred Hoiberg should be talking Dwyane Wade into a 6th Man role. (See the basketball section for Bullsnews andNBA updates).
TRENDING:The sky is not falling: Reason for optimism regarding Cubs' playoff chances.How social media could affect who the White Sox take in the amateur draft.(See the baseball section forCubs and White Sox updates).
TRENDING:Dufner, Lingmerth share Memorial lead. (See thegolfsection for PGA news and tournament updates).
TRENDING:NASCAR’s weekend schedule and Driver rankings for Dover International Speedway. (See the NASCAR section for NASCAR news and racing updates).
TRENDING:With Under-20 World Cup back,Fire'sSerbian coaching trio relive historic title.(See the soccer section for Fire news and worldwide soccer updates).
TRENDING:Follow-Up Update from 05/26/2017:Bruce Arians explains why he's 'happy' overtime has been cut to 10 minutes.What's Your Take?Please read the last article on this blog and let us know what you think. We can't wait to hear from you!!!
BearDown Chicago Bears!!!!!Ryan Pace, Chicago Bears. SI, Sports Illustrated
(Photo/ Sports Illustrated, Yahoo Sports)
Team’s record during his tenure: 9–23, zero playoff berths
Key move(s) this off-season: Traded up to draft Mitchell Trubisky
Outlook: It’s quite apparent that the Bears have reached a fork in the road. This is year three of the Pace/John Fox era, which thus far has produced records of 6–10 and 3–13. Pace spent this off-season completely reshaping Chicago’s QB position: He released Jay Cutler and signed Mike Glennon, then spent significant draft capital to acquire the No. 2 pick and use it on Trubisky. Reports out of the Windy City were that Fox had been kept in the dark until the late stages of that draft decision.
Trubisky’s situation could buy Pace time, even if it makes Fox’s life more difficult. With Glennon expected to be the starter in 2017, Trubisky is a prime sit-and-develop candidate, which means returns on the trade for him may not be available until ’18, at the earliest. Still, this roster is nowhere close to being a finished product, with potential trouble spots all over the field. Pace may be offered time to make those repairs, but the clock is ticking.
Victor Cruz feels 'close' to returning to star level he was with Giants.
By JJ Stankevitz
(Photo/USA TODAY)
The Bears receiving corps is filled with plenty of “maybes.” Maybe Kendall Wright can find that form he had during his productive time with Dowell Loggains in Tennessee. Maybe Kevin White can stay healthy and be the guy the Bears thought was worth the 7th pick in 2015. Maybe Victor Cruz can overcome a pair of significant injuries and be some version of the salsa-dancing star he was with the New York Giants. As Cruz sees it, he’s not far off from answering his own “maybe” question with a yes. “I think I’m close,” Cruz said. “I think it’s just about getting my bearings. The more routes I run, the more I build a rapport with Mike (Glennon) and get myself out there learning the plays and learning everything that needs to be learned, I think I have that potential to be that guy you saw a few years ago.” That guy averaged 132 targets, 80 receptions, 1,209 yards and eight touchdowns per season from 2011-2013. His 10 catches and 142 yards in the 2011 NFC Championship helped push the Giants to Super Bowl Bowl XLVI, where he caught a touchdown in New York’s 21-17 win over the New England Patriots. But Cruz tore the patellar tendon in his left knee six games into the 2014 season, then suffered a calf injury before the 2015 season that kept him sidelined that entire year (he said the calf injury was due to overcompensation for the patellar tear).He missed 26 consecutive regular season games, and when he returned to the Giants last year, Cruz caught 39 passes (on 72 targets) for 586 yards with one touchdown. “It was more mental for me,” Cruz said. “Just mentally understanding that your leg is fine, you're going to be fine, you just have to go out there and play football, and the rest will take care of itself. So physically I understood my body would get back to 100 percent, but the mental part was probably the hardest.” The Bears attracted Cruz largely because of opportunity, with only Cameron Meredith (66 receptions, 888 yards) having significant success in 2016 among this current group of receivers. There’s also an opportunity for Cruz, who’s been in the league for seven years, to help the growth of Meredith and White. Whatever teaching Cruz does, though, it may not involve his signature touchdown salsa dance. “I was watching their hips, it's not the best looking hips out here,” Cruz smiled. “We have to give them a little more time to open up the hips and we'll see how the salsa works.” Bears Talk Podcast:What kind of impact will Kevin White, Victor Cruz have on the 2017 Bears? By #BearsTalk
(Photo/USA TODAY)
In a wide receiver-heavy Bears Talk Podcast, Chris Boden, John “Moon” Mullin and J.J. Stankevitz dive into some of the biggest questions that will impact the 2017 receiving core. They also discuss whether the drafting of Trubisky actually raises the likelihood of Fox/Loggains being here in 2018. Listen to the full episode at this link here. Bears sign fullback Michael Burton, waive tight end Franko House.
By Scott Krinch
(Photo/csnchicago.com)
The Bears announced on Wednesday they have signed free agent fullback Michael Burton and waived undrafted rookie tight end Franko House.
Burton, 25, was waived by the Detroit Lions on Tuesday after spending the first two years of his NFL career with the club. Burton, originally a fifth round pick in the 2015 NFL Draft out of Rutgers, has appeared in 31 games and has accumulated six receptions for 39 yards and a touchdown. Burton will likely head into training camp to compete with undrafted free agent Freddie Stevenson as the Bears' starting fullback. House was signed by the Bears out of Ball State earlier this month after a a standout basketball career for the Cardinals.
How 'bout them ChicagoBlackhawks?Why Blackhawks could use Trevor van Riemsdyk as sweetener in trade with Golden Knights.
By Charlie Roumeliotis
(Photo/csnchicago.com)
The Blackhawks and Vegas Golden Knights are thinking outside the box by reportedly discussing a trade that would benefit both sides for different reasons as the June 21 expansion draft looms. According to TSN's Frank Seravelli, the Blackhawks would allow the NHL's new franchise to select defenseman Trevor van Riemsdyk in the draft, if Vegas also takes Marcus Kruger in a trade. For Chicago, it would mean getting out from underneath Kruger's $3.08 million cap hit over the next two years, and using van Riemsdyk as a sweetener to do it — a tactic the Blackhawks have used in the past, most notably in 2015 when they attached Teuvo Teravainen to Bryan Bickell that sent both to Carolina. For Vegas, it would mean acquiring a young, promising and inexpensive defenseman and a two-time Stanley Cup winner who has the ability to shut down opponents' top players, despite coming with a fairly heavy price tag. Insider Tracey Myers detailed Tuesday that the Blackhawks will be forced to make some tough decisions after NHL deputy commissioner Bill Daly admitted Monday he expects the salary cap to stay flat or go up slightly from the current $73 million, depending on whether or not the NHL Players' Association agrees to exercise the five-percent inflator. If it remains stagnant, the Blackhawks are projected to be $4.5 million over the ceiling, according to CapFriendly.com, which is why a deal like this makes sense for a Chicago team looking to shed salary. NHL teams must expose at least two forwards and one defenseman that have played at least 40 games in the 2016-17 season or more than 70 games in the 2015-16 season and 2016-17 seasons combined, and must still be under contract for the 2017-18 campaign. They can protect either seven forwards, three defensemen and one goaltender or eight skaters — regardless of position — and one goaltender. All signs point to the Blackhawks choosing the former option. They are expected to protect Jonathan Toews, Patrick Kane, Marian Hossa, Artem Anisimov — all of whom have no-movement clauses — along with Richard Panik and Ryan Hartman up front, Duncan Keith, Brent Seabrook and Niklas Hjalmarsson on defense and goaltender Corey Crawford. First- and second-year players are exempt, which includes Artemi Panarin. Jordin Tootoo, Michal Rozsival and Jeff Glass are eligible to be exposed, limiting the Golden Knights' pool to pick from if you eliminate Kruger and van Riemsdyk from the equation. The league will release all 30 teams' protected lists at 9 a.m. on Sunday, June 18. Flat NHL salary cap would be major problem for Blackhawks. By Satchel Price
(Photo/Christopher Hanewinckel-USA TODAY Sports )
There’s little need to mince words here. If the NHL salary cap holds steady at $73 million for the 2017-18 season, as deputy commissioner Bill Daly said is possible Monday, then the Chicago Blackhawks are in big trouble. Yes, they’ll still find a way to ice a team next season, but you may not like what they’ll be required to do to achieve it.
Right now, the Blackhawks have a total cap hit of $77.52 million for next season with a full roster and a $3.558 million cap overage, per Cap Friendly. Daly said that the cap could increase to as much as $77 million if the NHLPA uses its full five percent escalator clause, but that’s highly unlikely.
Last year, the cap only went up 2.2 percent from the previous season. Part of the tricky situation for the NHLPA is that salary cap increases have a negative impact on escrow. That’s a more complicated situation than I can detail here, but the succinct point is that the players have a downside to maxing the cap increase.
And it appears that with the Vegas Golden Knights providing more jobs and more available money to players this offseason, it’s possible they’ll vote for no increase in the salary cap and lower escrow.
If they matched last year’s 2.2 percent increase, the cap would go up to $74.6 million. Either way, it’s going to be an issue for the Blackhawks.
The reality is that trades will need to solve this issue. The Blackhawks are going to lose someone in the expansion draft, but most likely, that’s Trevor van Riemsdyk, who has a $825,000 cap hit. Marcus Kruger is the ideal expansion casualty for Chicago with a $3.08 million cap hit, but the odds aren’t great that Vegas will want him at that cost. According to The Athletic’s Scott Powers, the Hawks may need to attach a prospect or pick to Kruger in order to shed his whole contract.
Kruger has a partial no-trade clause on his contract starting with the 2017-18 season, so he can block trades to a list of seven teams starting on July 1. Presumably the Hawks will treat that as a soft deadline for making sure to get out of his deal before he can submit a block list.
But even after the Hawks move Kruger, which seems like a near-certainty at this point, they’ll still have more work to do to get under the cap. Moving Kruger and replacing him with someone on an ELC like Alex DeBrincat would only save the team a little over $2 million in cap space. They’d still be millions over the cap.
That means more trades are coming, whether you like it or not. Brent Seabrook seems like the ideal candidate, although his no-movement clause and onerous contract make it possible the Hawks can’t find a suitor. In that case, they may need to turn to someone with a partial no-trade clause (Corey Crawford, Niklas Hjalmarsson, Artemi Panarin). The loss to the Hawks’ roster would be significant, but it’s not like there’s an alternative to icing a team below the salary cap.
So it might be time to start admitting this offseason has greater urgency than we might’ve expected. The Blackhawks are already in a major cap crunch before the summer has even started, and with so many no-movement clauses, a difficult situation becomes even more trying.
The NHLPA hasn’t voted on the escalator clause yet, so it’s still possible they decide to increase the salary cap, even if it’s not by the full five percent. At this point, the Blackhawks will use any help they can get.
Just AnotherChicagoBulls Session.....Fred Hoiberg should be talking Dwyane Wade into a 6th Man role.
By Tyler_Pleiss
(Photo/Jonathan Daniel/Getty Images)
The guard from Louisville would look great alongside Jimmy Butler in the backcourt.
Let’s face it: Dwyane Wade will likely opt in to the second year of his contract for $24 million. Per Bobby Marks at The Vertical, Wade has until June 27th to inform the Bulls if he’s declining that option. Maybe there’s some reason Wade wants to become a free agent again, such as having had enough of John Paxson and Gar Forman’s incompetence, or Fred Hoiberg’s ineptitude, or a Jimmy Butler trade. But he’s likely in a Bulls uniform next fall.
Assuming Wade’s back, it should be with the understanding that he should be the sixth man. This course of action falls back on the Bulls head coach, in what may be the biggest test of his young coaching career.
We can sit here and go through multiple on/off numbers about Wade, Butler and (also presumably returning) Rajon Rondo being on the floor together, and how it didn’t work. We know this. Shit, we had to suffer through 80+ games of it this past season. These three work more efficiently when two are sharing the floor at a time, when all three do everything regresses. The Bulls had their ‘surge’ towards the playoffs last year when Wade was out injured.
And we can assume that Hoiberg knows this as well. At least I’d like to give him the benefit of the doubt, but then again you never know. With that evidence, what this comes down to is whether Hoiberg has it in him to make the decision to move Wade to the bench, and then also effectively communicate this with him.
We know Wade’s Hall of Fame resume, that he’s a very prideful person, and that he’s making superstar money next season. For his part, Wade considered himself ‘open-minded’ about the idea when asked at the end of the season. Sitting down a player as such and getting him to buy into a sixth man role will be awfully intimidating to Hoiberg. But as an NBA coach, it’s these types of tough decisions that need to happen and be made, this one preferably before Wade’s contract deadline.
The ideal scenario is that Hoiberg (perhaps along with management) discusses with Wade directly his new role for the upcoming season. Does Wade take the $24 million, put his pride aside for the sake of the team and take a reduced role? Or does he opt out and search for similar money with a better, more competitive situation?
Because it could cause major friction if Hoiberg waits too long to address this, like after Wade’s contract decision. Doing so before the deadline allows Wade to mull over his final decision and would be a respectable move on management and Hoiberg’s part. We’ve seen in the past how Hoiberg bumbled a similar situation with Joakim Noah.
Getting Wade committed to a bench role (or leaving) is the scenario that should happen in the next few weeks if hasn’t happened already. Then again, this is also the Bulls were talking about. Can they finally do the right thing at the right moment? We’ll find out soon enough.
Donovan Mitchell could be the two-way player Chicago needs. By Vijay Vemu
(Photo/Brian Spurlock - USA TODAY Sports)
The guard from Louisville would look great alongside Jimmy Butler in the backcourt.
Although it looked downright atrocious most of the time, there were some silver linings when it came to the Chicago Bulls offense. It was when Jimmy Butler was surrounded by shooters who can spread the floor along with some decent defenders where it looked watchable. Ideally since Chicago’s offense does run through Butler (and should always run through Butler), the guy who plays alongside him in the backcourt should be a “3 and D” type player. Someone who can spread the floor while being capable of holding their own defensively. They had the chance to take a player like that in Wade Baldwin Jr. last year but passed on him to take Denzel Valentine. If Chicago really wants to complement Butler, they need to really consider Louisville guard Donovan Mitchell, who is a solid two-way player.
The sophomore was a big part of Louisville’s success last season, averaging 15.6 points on 40.8% shooting while grabbing 4.9 rebounds per game. Let’s take a look at his game.
Strengths
One of the things that stands out about Mitchell is his athleticism. Although he is only 6’3, he has a 40.5 inch vertical, which allows him to get up to the rim and resulted in some crazy alley-oops last season. Mitchell is a very good defender, registering a 4.8 defensive box plus/minus last season. His athleticism aids him out a ton on defense as he is able to use his 6’10 wingspan to help contest on jump shots. The long arms also helped Mitchell average 2.1 steals per game which led the ACC last season. His quick feet allows him to stay in front of his man and he is tenacious on defense. Even though he isn’t tall, Mitchell’s length and speed allows him to guard multiple positions, not just at shooting guard. This type of versatility could be key for a Bulls team which doesn’t have a lot of good wing defenders. Given Chicago’s inability to deal with fast point guards this season, Mitchell’s quickness on defense will be of use and could help take some pressure off Butler defensively if need be.
Offensively he has shown promise too, especially when it comes to shooting the ball. After shooting a dismal 25% from three in his freshman year, Mitchell improved his shot and bumped up the percentage to 35.4% the following season. It’s even more impressive when you consider Mitchell’s 3-point attempts increased from 2.3 to 6.6 and his percentage jumped up by a significant margin.
His speed also helps him offensively. Mitchell uses that quickness to get to the rim with ease as well along with getting to his comfort spots on the court. He is a shot maker and is comfortable being the guy on offense as he showed while playing for the Cardinals, attempting 13.1 field goals per game. Mitchell’s aggressiveness can be viewed as positive since it shows he can be a guy who you can rely on when Chicago rolls out their bench lineups. His three-point shooting is something that will be much needed, especially when Butler drives and needs a consistent kick-out option. Weaknesses
Most, if not all, of Mitchell’s weaknesses are on the offensive end. One of them is poor percentages when it comes to scoring at the rim. As noted by Draft Express, Mitchell only shoots 49.4% at the basket, which is something he needs to improve drastically. He can get to the basket with ease with his speed and athleticism but it doesn't mean anything if he can’t make the shot. This also points to another problem in Mitchell’s game: his decision making. He is prone to making things tougher on offense for himself and his team by taking tough jumpers instead of passing the ball off. It’s less of him being a ball-hog and more of him being more aggressive than he needs to be at times.
He just needs to let the game come to him and figure out when are the best times to be aggressive. A lot of these things will come to him as he plays more and more minutes in the NBA. It takes time to adjust for any rookie and Mitchell is no exception. This problem will also surely cut down in Chicago where Mitchell doesn’t have to be the man offensively. He just needs to work on his three-point shooting, which is showing improvement but at 35.4%, he still has work to do. The key for Mitchell will be his ability to shoot well from deep. It will help keep defenses honest and it takes away a huge part of his game if he can’t knock it down on a consistent basis.
His size will certainly be a problem defensively and he will be overmatched against bigger players. But his speed and length will surely make up for it.
Overall, Mitchell would be a very solid fit for the Bulls. Jimmy Butler needs a “3 and D” player alongside him for the offense to really flourish. It will help spread the floor and allow Butler’s playmaking abilities to take over. Defensively Mitchell will be a great help as his ability to check both guard positions along with some forwards will allow Fred Hoiberg to roll him out in different lineups.
Donovan Mitchell would be a natural fit with the Bulls if they really did decide to put the ball in Jimmy Butler's hands on a regular basis. If that were to happen, the Bulls would need someone to defend point guards on the other and Mitchell is naturally suited for that.
I would really like Mitchell because I think he could play off Butler well, perhaps flanked by Denzel Valentine at the three. That would give the Bulls some shooting, some passing, some defense and some athleticism all on the floor at the same time.
The Bulls need to get more younger and athletic, and drafting Mitchell would be a great step in that direction.
CUBS:What we learned about the Cubs in May.
By Tony Andracki
(Photo/USA TODAY)
What a difference a week makes. This time last week, the Cubs were leaving Wrigley Field dressed like Ron Burgandy and Champ Kind and Joe Maddon was delivering lines about foot fetishes. The Cubs were feeling themselves...and LOOKING themselves. They had just wrapped up a 7-2 home-stand, plowing through the likes of the San Francisco Giants, Milwaukee Brewers and Cincinnati Reds at Wrigley Field and starting to play more like the 2016 version of themselves in all facets of the game: pitching, defense and offense. Now, the Cubs are enjoying a much-needed off-day to unwind from an 0-6 West Coast trip that saw them get shut out twice by the Los Angeles Dodgers, rock Clayton Kershaw but still lose the game and then get outscored 13-5 by the San Diego Padres, the only team that has a 0.0 percent chance of making the postseason by FanGraphs' metrics. In fact, it was the first time in 44 years the team with the most losses in baseball swept the defending champs this late in the season, as the Elias Sports Bureau pointed out. May was more than just the ups and downs of the last two weeks, however. Here are five things we learned about the 2017 Cubs in the season's second month: These aren't the 2016 Cubs. No, the Cubs are not struggling because David Ross and Dexter Fowler are gone. But things are definitely different this year, even though much of the roster is intact from the World Series run. A year ago at this time, the Cubs were sitting atop baseball with a 35-15 record and dominant +128 run differential. They're now 25-27, 2.5 games out of first place and have an even 0 as a run differential. The Cubs didn't lose their 27th game in 2016 until the last few days of June. All that being said, FanGraphs still pegs the Cubs with an 81.9 percent of making the playoffs and a 10.6 percent chance of winning the World Series. The American League style offense hasn't shown up yet. I thought the Cubs would take a step forward offensively with full seasons of Kyle Schwarber and Willson Contreras and a potential return to form. But that hasn't occurred. The Cubs woke up Thursday morning ranking 14th in baseball in runs scored, just two runs ahead of the rebuilding White Sox. If you look at OPS, the numbers paint a much bleaker picture: The Cubs rank 23rd out of 30 with a .728 team OPS. And all this with Kris Bryant building off his MVP campaign by posting a .933 OPS and on pace for 34 homers, 106 runs and 109 walks. Ian Happ isn't the savior. The second week of May brought about what seemed like a revolution on the roster as Happ exploded onto the scene and became the latest in a long line of impact rookies immediately finding success in the big leagues. But even with that scorching start, Happ's average is down to .214 and his OPS sits at .741. He's also striking out in more than a third of his plate appearances (34.4 percent) even if he is walking at an above-average pace (10.9 percent). Those struggles are to be expected from a guy that played just 91 games above the Class-A level. Nobody figured he would basically average an extra-base hit a game forever. Happ's arrival has pushed one thing that may stick throughout the season: Moving Ben Zobrist to the leadoff spot. All along, it seemed Zobrist's skillset bore the closest resemblance to Fowler on the 2017 roster, but Joe Maddon always deployed Zobrist in that cleanup spot to help provide protection to Anthony Rizzo. When Happ emerged as an offensive force, Maddon was able to move Zobrist to the leadoff spot and bump the slumping Schwarber down a spot, utilizing Happ as the Rizzo protection (for a time, anyways). Obviously the short-term results haven't been perfect given the Cubs just lost six straight games and scored only nine runs on the West Coast trip. But overall, it seems Zobrist will be an ideal fit atop the lineup in the long run. The rotation has not found its groove yet. Coming out of spring training, pitching — namely the rotation — was the main concern regarding this Cubs team. Sure, there are a whole host of long-term pitching questions with this franchise, but focusing just on 2017, the question of depth has already shown itself. Overall, I thought the pitching staff would be solid because any fall back to Earth from the starting rotation would/could be offset by the plethora of high-powered options in the bullpen. Of course, that hasn't played out, but that's mainly because the starting rotation has taken an enormous leap backwards. Jon Lester, Jake Arrieta and Kyle Hendricks have had their ups and downs, but the real issue stems from the fact the four and five starters (John Lackey plus a Brett Anderson/Eddie Butler combo) have combined for just five quality starts in 20 tries. That's putting a lot of stress on the bullpen to get a lot of outs. The Brett Anderson experiment hasn't worked out and Eddie Butler may be 2-1 in four starts, but he's walked 13 batters in 18.1 innings and carries a 1.58 WHIP and 4.42 ERA. As Jake Arrieta said Wednesday, the Cubs' turnaround hinges on the starting rotation at least taking steps toward their 2016 form, even if they can't duplicate the driving force behind the 103-win campaign. Patience is key. It has to be. What else can the Cubs do? Maddon has already shaken up the lineup and there's always the risk his Mad Scientist ways can become stale or be tuned out by the players. Theo Epstein's front office still has two months until the trade deadline and their top trade piece (Happ) is currently playing on a daily basis in the big leagues. Schwarber will not continue to struggle this much offensively. Neither will Addison Russell. Or Rizzo for that matter. Signs point to Arrieta being pretty unlucky during these first two months, even if his velocity is down. Jon Lester and John Lackey have long track records of success at a higher level than they're achieving right now. Apart from a rough start in San Diego (that was dragged down by a grand slam), Kyle Hendricks has been really good since the middle of April. The Cubs are simply too talented and deep to continue to play at a .500 clip for the rest of the season and they are fortunate to play in baseball's worst division, where no team has shown any indication of separating from the pack. If the same problems still exist to this level in next month's "what we learned" column, then you could convince me much more easily that it's time to "panic." But the baseball season is a marathon and we all knew the Cubs weren't going to just coast to a second straight championship. Let's see what happens in June.
Jake Arrieta knows turnaround starts with Cubs rotation: 'There's no time to panic'. By Patrick Mooney
(Photo/csnchicago.com)
The Cubs need Jon Lester to keep pitching like a $155 million ace while hoping for Jake Arrieta to show that he deserves that kind of megadeal somewhere else. Kyle Hendricks, the young Ivy Leaguer, has to keep building off his breakthrough season before John Lackey, the almost-40 cowboy, breaks down and disappears to Texas. Maybe Chris Bosio and the pitching infrastructure coaches up Eddie Butler or Theo Epstein’s front office trades for a frontline starter before the July 31 deadline. The point is there is no quick fix for a team that will wake up on June 1 with a 25-27 record and out of first place in the National League Central. While a young lineup that scored nine runs during an 0-6 West Coast trip will take a lot of heat, Arrieta understands where the Cubs will find any sense of momentum. “Starting pitching is where it starts and ends,” Arrieta said after getting a tough-luck no-decision in Wednesday’s 2-1 loss to the San Diego Padres at Petco Park. “If we’re able to alleviate some of the pressure and some of the thought of, ‘We’re going to have to score five or six runs to win today,’ then we’ll be OK. “That’s our job as starting pitchers, to go out there, set the tone and allow the hitters to settle in and get comfortable and just kind of do their thing.” After super-agent Scott Boras drove multiple news cycles by pushing back on the idea that his client is compromised by slightly diminished velocity at the moment, Arrieta put together a quality start against a lineup of guys you probably never heard of before. But Arrieta did show off that big curveball that’s now part of his arsenal, a sense of efficiency through six innings and the sustained sharper command (seven strikeouts against two walks) that should allow him to pitch deeper into games and cut down that 4.60 ERA. The only pitch out of 84 that Arrieta really regretted was the cutter that Ryan Schimpf drove 384 feet into the right-field seats. “With what we accomplished last year, obviously, the expectations are really high and they should be,” Arrieta said. “We’ll deal with the criticism and continue to move forward and do everything we can. “We’ve haven’t been doing really anything collectively well, so things have kind of been magnified. But we’ve talked as a team. We understand what we’re capable of. It’s just not happening for us at the moment.” To finish with 90 wins, the Cubs will need to go 65-45 the rest of the way. It’s hard to see that happening if the rotation that had been the backbone of a championship team maintains a 4.64 ERA. It’s the same idea behind an All-Star pitcher/Cy Young Award winner and a team that won the World Series seven months ago. There’s a fine line between keeping things in perspective and assuming it will happen again. “What good is the opposite going to do?” Arrieta said. “If you panic, if you’re worried, we still got to show up and play a game every day. There’s no time to panic. And if that happens – especially at this point of the season when we’re two, two-and-a-half games out of first place – it’s going to work against us. “We have to just maintain a positive vibe in here.”
The sky is not falling: Reason for optimism regarding Cubs' playoff chances.
By Tony Andracki
(Photo/csnchicago.com)
The Cubs are obviously not off to the start they want in their title defense campaign, but things aren't as gloomy as their 25-26 record would indicate.
Yes, the 2017 Cubs have 20 more losses than they did a year ago at the time of their 25th victory (they began 2016 on a torrid 25-6 pace). In fact, the Cubs didn't even reach their 26th loss until June 25 last season and they had already racked up 48 wins and 10-game lead in the division by that point. By comparison, on the final day of May last season, the Cubs were 35-15 with a +128 run differential and 6.5 lead over the 29-22 Pittsburgh Pirates in the NL Central. Following five straight losses, the Cubs woke up Wednesday morning with only a +1 run differential, but they're also only 1.5 games out of first place thanks to the St. Louis Cardinals and Milwaukee Brewers winning just three of their last 10 games apiece. Currently, the NL Central is far and away the worst division in baseball, which is interesting given this is the same unit that sent three teams to the playoffs in 2015. But it's the weakness of the division that is the Cubs' saving grace right now, at least in terms of panic. In fact, FanGraphs' playoff odds still give the Cubs an 85.6 percent chance of making the postseason:
That's down from 95.6 percent at the start of the season, but the Cardinals (46.3 percent down to 44 percent) and Pirates (15.5 percent down to 9.4 percent) have also seen a drop in their own playoff odds while the first-place Milwaukee Brewers are only handed a 6 percent chance of making the postseason. Coming off the 7-2 home-stand a little over a week ago, the Cubs were 25-21 and sitting atop the division heading into a weekend in Los Angeles. At that time, the Cubs' playoff odds sat at 93.3 percent with an expected won-loss record of 93-69. So things have dropped a bit thanks to this five-game losing streak — Cubs arenow projected to go 90-72with those 85.6 percent odds of making the postseason — but it's not as precipitous as it may seem. Part of the freak-out is because two of those losses have come to the San Diego Padres, the only team that woke up Wednesday morning with a 0.0 percent chance of making the playoffs. FanGraphs still gives the Cubs an 11.7 percent chance to win the World Series, down only slightly from the 15.3 percent on Opening Day. Only the Los Angeles Dodgers (19.4 percent), Cleveland Indians (15.3 percent) and Houston Astros (15.1 percent) have better odds to win it all. Cubs: Why Joe Maddon still has so much faith in Addison Russell.
By Patrick Mooney
(Photo/USA TODAY)
Even as he managed with a much different kind of urgency, turning Jason Heyward into a $184 million part-time outfielder, freezing out certain relievers and pushing Aroldis Chapman to the limits, Joe Maddon never seriously considered benching Addison Russell during last year’s playoffs.
Even as Javier Baez became an October star, Russell went through a 1-for-24 stretch to start the postseason and the Los Angeles Dodgers shut out the Cubs in Games 2 and 3 of the National League Championship Series. That belief paid off when Russell slammed a 94-mph Julio Urias fastball over Dodger Stadium’s right-center field wall for a two-run homer, that Game 4 swing helping him turn into a .300 playoff hitter (12-for-40) from that point forward, including a grand slam in Game 6 of the World Series.
So Maddon will look beyond these snapshots: Russell is batting .148 in his last 25 games and hasn’t homered in two weeks while only six big-league shortstops have committed more errors so far this season. “It’s a cyclical year, man,” Maddon said near the end of a brutal West Coast trip. “I have a hard time getting upset or whatever you want to call it. I know our guys are going to go through these moments. And we’ll come out on the right side at the right time.” Maddon said Wednesday had been a scheduled day off for Russell at Petco Park, where Baez and Ben Zobrist became the up-the-middle combination for a team with so many defensive options and so many hitters scuffling, even against the last-place San Diego Padres. Russell – who put up 21 homers and 95 RBI during his age-22 season – now has a .653 OPS that ranks close to the bottom 10 percent of all qualified big-league hitters. “It’s not just him,” Maddon said. “A lot of our guys are off-track a little bit. For me, the key component is the word patience. I think patience is a very powerful tool. I think a lot of times people overlook patience. I don’t. I got it from my dad. I’m kind of a patient guy. I just think you got to stay with ‘em. It’s the nature of a young player. “Yes, they’re World Series champs. They did a great job last year. But your mind works differently maybe the next year. So, honestly, for me, I just have to continue to show faith in them. “I think they’re outstanding. You’re going to see that kind of performance again soon. It’s just one of those moments where everybody’s struggling. It’s not just one or two guys.” As a team, it looks like the Cubs have allowed their offensive frustrations to spill over onto the field, with Russell’s throws to first baseman Anthony Rizzo bouncing in the dirt or going high or wide with an unusual frequency. Maddon indicated Russell isn’t dealing with any lingering issues with his right shoulder. “I’ve never seen him throw the ball so well with so much on it,” Maddon said. “I just think technique-wise, he’s off to the side of the ball a little bit, which is causing it to sink somewhat or sail. But physically, arm strength-wise, I thought L.A. was the best I’ve seen him throw the baseball since I’ve known him, just from purely a velocity perspective. “He hasn’t been on top of his game, there’s no question. That’s why, again, I want to make sure I give him time off, and I can with Javy. Having both of those guys going back and forth, I think, is going to benefit us by the end of the season.”
WHITE SOX:Pitching reinforcements coming for White Sox as rehab assignments near.
By Vinnie Duber
(Photo/csnchicago.com)
The White Sox should soon see a couple pitchers return from long stays on the disabled list.
Both Jake Petricka and James Shields are scheduled to head out on rehab assignments in the next couple of days, according to manager Rick Renteria, meaning their returns to the big league team shouldn't be far off. Strained right lats have been the reason both pitchers have been on the disabled list since April. Petricka's stay dates back to April 5, Shields' to April 18. While the bullpen has held up without the services of Petricka and fellow injured arms Zach Putnam and Nate Jones, the White Sox starting rotation could certainly use Shields back and healthy. With Dylan Covey going on the disabled list last Friday, the team needed a spot start from David Holmberg on Monday, getting just four innings. Covey said he threw a bullpen Wednesday and will continue his rehab at the team facility in Glendale, Ariz. After turning in a hideous 6.77 ERA in 22 starts with the White Sox last season, joining the team in a midseason trade with the San Diego Padres, Shields had a very strong start to the 2017 campaign. He gave up just three runs in 16.2 innings over three starts. In other recovery news for the White Sox, Carlos Rodon is set to throw four innings in a simulated game Thursday. Rodon hasn't pitched for the White Sox this season and was transferred from the 10-day disabled list to the 60-day disabled list on May 4. "He’s in a simulated (game)," Renteria said Wednesday. "He’ll be getting up and down five times. Hopefully it goes well, he feels good, and we’ll progress him. "He’s been feeling really, really good. Obviously, his outings will determine where he’s at and what we’re doing going forward. You never want to put anything in stone because you never know if there’s going to be a setback or whatnot. Right now we’re very happy with where he’s at. Hopefully that intra-squad game tomorrow goes flawless and we’re happy moving forward." How social media could affect who the White Sox take in the amateur draft. By Dan Hayes
(Photo/csnchicago.com)
Not only have they shifted their draft philosophy to include more analytics, the White Sox have also adapted their methodology in collecting background information on players. The club’s social media team is now heavily involved in the process as they help the amateur scouting department by researching prospective draftees' personal accounts. If a potential draft pick has Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and Snapchat, the White Sox won’t hesitate to use it as a tool to gather more information. Amateur scouting director Nick Hostetler said it’s just another way to attempt to fill out the picture when considering players, which is significant given the amount of uncertainty already involved in prospects. “It’s huge,” Hostetler said. “It kind of gives us a comfort who we’re sinking our investments in. And look, these guys don’t perform, my kids don’t go to camp, they might not be in private school, whatever it may be. We’ve got to continue to make sure we’re minimizing our risk from the personality standpoint.” One of the hardest parts of assessing amateur athletes is figuring out what kind of person the player is away from the field. Whereas you can use a radar gun to clock how fast a pitcher throws or TrackMan can tell you a college hitter’s average exit velocity, determining the personality is limited to interactions with players and those that surround them. Scouts can interview players during the process. Colleges set up scout days so players can knock out a series of interviews with interested teams in a one sitting. But what prevents a player from telling a team exactly what they want to hear instead of the truth? Scouts also can ask coaches and friends and family members about the player to try and establish who he is. Still, it’s not an easy process when there are millions of dollars involved. The San Diego Padres had seen Matt Bush play when they selected him with the first overall pick of the 2004 draft. The talent was undeniable. But they hadn’t thoroughly investigated who he was off the field. Had they, who knows if the Padres would have taken Bush, who had a series of off-field incidents, including a felony hit and run and a DUI in March 2012. “It’s difficult,” Hostetler said. “A lot of kids can put on a face in front of you. Far more goes into it than just the meetings. It’s talking to friends, enemies, teachers, opponents, umpires, etc.” Social media adds another layer for teams. It can offer them a glimpse into the player’s personal life. Hostetler said it’s not so much about what an athlete posts — though clearly the potential for red flags exists — but rather what else an account provides. Now teams can get a sense for what a player’s interests may be as well as who they hang out with off the field. Hostetler has spent part of this week reviewing information about potential draftees as his department prepares for the June 12 amateur draft. “We have our social media team always checking who they are associated with, who they might run with, not necessarily maybe what they post,” Hostetler said. “The background work that our area scouts put in, the time that they spend as well as all the other researchers we have, it’s part of the puzzle, just as the analytics are and the player evaluations are.”
Mike Pelfrey lifted after five scoreless innings as White Sox end home stand with loss to Red Sox.(Wednesday night's game, 05/31/2017). By Vinnie Duber
(Photo/csnchicago.com)
Mike Pelfrey was coming out of the game after five innings. Rick Renteria had determined that much hours earlier. Even after the veteran right-hander held the visiting Boston Red Sox scoreless and to just two hits in five innings of work Wednesday night, Renteria was sticking to his game plan of lifting Pelfrey for a reliever. Unfortunately, Anthony Swarzak surrendered four runs in the sixth inning, and the White Sox lost 4-1 to finish off a seven-game home stand at Guaranteed Rate Field. “He gave us a solid five innings of work,” Renteria said after the game. “Got into the game today with our game plan already set up. He was going to give us five, hold them there and then we were going to hand it over to the bullpen, basically. Unfortunately it didn't work out for us in that particular inning.” It might not have mattered, really, as batters have done an awful lot of damage against Pelfrey when facing him for the third time in a game, entering Wednesday with a .556 batting average in the third plate appearance. That’s an insane jump compared to the .220 and .143 averages in the first and second plate appearances, respectively. And you can’t blame anyone for having confidence in Swarzak, who had allowed just three runs on the season coming into this one. Eighteen of Swarzak’s first 19 appearances this year were scoreless ones, hence the lack of concern in handing him a 1-0 lead. But the Red Sox did their damage, with back-to-back one-out singles in the sixth followed by an intentional walk to load the bases. Swarzak got the ground ball he wanted, but the White Sox couldn’t come up with an inning-ending double play. The tying run scored on that play, and the go-ahead run scored on Pablo Sandoval’s base hit. Christian Vazquez then smacked a double into the gap and boosted the lead to 4-1 with a pair of RBIs. “I feel like I made some quality pitches, but at the same time I didn’t put guys away when I had the opportunity to,” Swarzak said. “I’m trying not to think about it too much, obviously. The results weren’t there. It’s extremely unfortunate because I really believe that if I throw up a zero right there, we’re going to go on to win that game 1-0. That wasn’t the case, some balls fell in and couldn’t put the ball past somebody when I really needed to. The result was four runs.” While hindsight often criticizes unfairly, you can’t help but wonder what might have been had Pelfrey stayed in the game. It was just three starts ago against the Los Angeles Angels that Pelfrey couldn’t get out of the fifth and gave up four runs in that game. But Wednesday’s effort marked his third straight strong performance. His five scoreless innings Wednesday followed five innings of one-run ball against the Detroit Tigers on Saturday and six innings of one-run ball against the Seattle Mariners on May 20. Pelfrey has a 1.13 ERA and 15 strikeouts in his last three starts. For the man himself, 12 years in the big leagues have taught him to listen to the man in the managerial chair. “I just look at it, my job is to give it everything I have until you come take the ball,” Pelfrey said. “Obviously he’s the boss and he felt good about it. We’re on the same team, we’re trying to win games. And Swarzak’s been great all year. Had some bad luck there with some flares and stuff. I didn’t try to talk him out of it. I felt fine. But I guess he thought that was enough, and that was enough. “When I was a lot younger, I definitely didn’t like coming out of the game and always had something to say. Maybe that’s a little selfish. I know that in Anaheim he left me in there, and it ended up costing us. I just go out there and give you whatever I have until you say enough's enough and move on. I feel pretty good about that situation every time you hand the ball over to Swarzak, as good as he’s been. Unfortunately he just had some bad luck.” Of course, the White Sox offense didn’t help any of its pitchers out Wednesday. After pushing across a run in the second inning against Red Sox starter Drew Pomeranz, the White Sox couldn’t do much of anything against him the rest of the night. Pomeranz stranded seven runners in his seven innings of work as the White Sox bats fell completely silent after getting back-to-back singles to lead off the home half of the sixth. The final 12 hitters of the game were put down in order. So while Renteria might have gotten some second-guessing for his pregame plan Wednesday, remember that the offense didn’t hold up its end of the expected bargain. “I think all our pitchers, I'm hoping, will continue to extend their usage,” Renteria explained. “It also depends on the availability of our ‘pen. If you're able to shorten your ‘pen, you can't do it all the time because then you're using your ‘pen all the time. You have to be able to give those guys opportunities to go out there and eat up some innings. “The caveat to that is on the offensive side we give them some room to be able to work and allow then to get back out there and give you another inning or two.” Wednesday’s loss ended the White Sox once-promising home stand at a mere 4-3, a stretch that doesn’t look quite as good as it did ahead of Tuesday’s game, when the South Siders entered the matchup with former teammate Chris Sale at 4-1 on the stay. But there are positives that are clear to see, the latest being Pelfrey’s string of solid performances. "I feel good about where I'm at,” Pelfrey said. “I feel good about my off-speed pitches, I think they're probably better than they've ever been. But as I said, I've thrown a lot more than I ever have. I just want to get a little deeper into games and I've got to find a way to be a little more efficient to be able to do that. That's my next goal.”
Golf: I got a club for that.....Dufner, Lingmerth share Memorial lead. By Will Gray
(Photo/Golf Channel Digital)
Conditions were ideal for the opening round of the Memorial Tournament, where a number of big names went low. Here's how things look in the early going, as Jason Dufner and David Lingmerth share the lead:
Leaderboard: Jason Dufner (-7), David Lingmerth (-7), Daniel Summerhays (-6), Jordan Spieth (-6), Justin Thomas (-5), Lucas Glover (-5) What it means: Lingmerth earned his lone PGA Tour win at this event two years ago, and he set the early mark with a 65 that came despite a bogey on the final hole. He was later joined by Dufner, nearly four years removed from his major title at Oak Hill, while Spieth and Thomas headline the chase pack who made the most of calm conditions in the morning wave. Round of the day: Dufner was a ball-striking machine, hitting 17 greens in regulation before finding a greenside bunker on No. 18. Dufner made three front-nine birdies to go along with an eagle on the par-5 seventh hole, then added three more birdies in a five-hole stretch from Nos. 11-15 before making his only bogey of the day on the home hole. Best of the rest: Lingmerth beat Justin Rose in a playoff here in 2015, and he again rekindled that form during the opening round. The Swede rattled off five birdies on the front nine, including four in a row on Nos. 5-8, then had a tumultuous inward half that included three bogeys, an eagle on No. 15 and only two pars. Biggest disappointment: Dustin Johnson hasn't finished outside the top 15 since January, but he'll be lucky to make the cut after a 6-over 78 in the opening round. The world No. 1 didn't make a single birdie all day, carded a three-putt double on No. 6 and a watery triple on No. 16. At 6 over, he's already 13 shots off the lead and ahead of only three players in the 119-man field. Main storyline heading into Friday: The leaders both have some positive experience at this event upon which they can build, but the player to watch in the second round is Spieth. Whatever issues he had last month appear to have been ironed out, as he quickly translated the momentum from a runner-up at Colonial into an opening-round 66 that has him poised to contend for his second win of the year. Shot of the day: Rickie Fowler was facing a treacherous up-and-down from a bunker behind the 18th green, but after taking a mighty lash he got the ball to quickly spin and ultimately creep over the front edge of the hole for an unexpected birdie. The shot capped a roller-coaster day for Fowler, who shot a 2-under 70 after eight birdies, three bogeys and a triple. Quote of the day: "Kind of figured it could be a good day when on your off shots, you're making birdie." - Spieth who, like Fowler, converted a tricky bunker shot into an improbable birdie when his shot hit the pin and dropped on the par-3 12th.
Good times lead to good scores for Spieth, Thomas.
By Nick Menta
(Photo/Golf Channel Digital)
Jordan Spieth found the front bunker at the par-3 12th at Muirfield Village, his third hole of the day, and started forming a plan with caddie Michael Greller.
“I told Michael, I’m going to aim for the steepest slope, get it to about 15-18 feet and knock it in there from there,” Spieth said after his round Thursday. But he wouldn’t need the putter. “The last thing I said before I hit it was, ‘The idea is to have the pin stop it.’ And I hit it and it landed right in the hole. I’ve never done that before. “So that was awesome.” The hole-out was one of the highlights of a round of 6-under 66 that put Spieth just one off the early lead held by David Lingmerth at the Memorial. But Spieth could only enjoy his good fortune for a moment, because he knew what was coming from his playing partners, Justin Thomas and Kevin Kisner. “I knew that I would immediately take crap from Kis and Justin. Justin said he was so flustered that he wanted Kis to putt first. They already give me the nickname ‘Golden Child,’ so they were feeding off that from that hole on.” If Thomas was actually flustered, it was only for a moment. He rolled in an 18-footer for birdie on the 12th as part of a four-birdie run from Nos. 11-14. Later on, as Golden Child was detailing his hole-out, Thomas was just a few feet away, working through his own round of interviews following his round of 5-under 67. Spieth, Thomas and Kisner, who signed for 2-under 70, are all friends. Spieth and Thomas’ relationship dates back to their time as junior golfers. In their short PGA Tour careers, the duo has combined for 13 wins, two Spring Break trips, and one round of 59, fired by Thomas earlier this year in Hawaii, when he was playing in the same group with – guess who – Spieth. “I don’t know, I guess [it helps],” Thomas answered when asked about playing with Spieth. “It’s easy to say that since I’ve had some good rounds and success with him. But I’ve had poor rounds with him, too. “The easiest part is just between the shots and being able to talk and catch up because there’s not too often we get to sit down and relax. But that’s kind of the closest thing we have to it is walking the fairways and … just kind of BS-ing a little bit and having fun. Between him and Kis, we had a good time out there today.” While Thomas started hot early, Spieth made the turn just 1 under after back-to-back bogeys at 17 and 18. But he “stayed patient, set a goal for the back nine,” and circled five holes on his second nine, including four of his last five, to close in 5-under 31. As he was waiting to clean-up a 2-footer for birdie at the par-4 ninth, the group’s final hole of the day, Spieth watched as Thomas tried to finish with a birdie of his own from 20 feet. When the ball just missed on the high side, Spieth’s knees buckled as if he was watching his own ball miss the hole. “I guess at times you can get caught up,” Spieth said, “but that’s also really fun. Thursday, Friday, the intensity is not quite as high. It’s more fun-loving. And Kis, coming off the win last week, and all of us kind of having good years, it was pretty even-keeled out there and a lot of fun to be playing.” The group has enjoyed its fair share of success this season. Kisner is coming off a victory last week at Colonial, where he edged Spieth by a shot when he got up and down for par on the 72nd hole. Spieth, who won at Pebble Beach, has enjoyed success on this golf course. He's never missed the cut and finished T-3 during his stellar run in 2015. But Thomas, who won three times in the early part of the season, has missed the Memorial cut the last two years. That said, he was once victorious on another Columbus-area track, when he won the Web.com Tour’s 2014 Nationwide Children’s Hospital Championship on the Scarlet Course at Ohio State University Golf Club. “I’ve had success in Columbus, but not at this event, for sure,” he mused. “It’s just nice being here. This is as close I can get to a hometown event, unfortunately. And I’m very fortunate to have some friends come up, and my mom and dad. It’s an easy drive for them and my grandparents. I don’t get to see them very often. It’s a lot of fun." Spieth, Thomas and Kisner will continue their good-time-had-by-all on Friday when they rejoin for their second round at 1:16 p.m. “Playing with both of those guys, you have to back off a little bit and get refocused,” Thomas said, “because you’re joking around and trying to enjoy it, and almost forget that you’re in the middle of a golf tournament. There’s times like that where it’s difficult. “But it’s easy walking down the fairways and having conversation. It keeps the mood light.” WATCH: The rough being cut for the 2017 U.S. Open at Erin Hills looks insane. By Kyle Porter There are going to be some angry golfers competing in our nation's championship in two weeks. Wesley Bryan will play in his first U.S. Open in two weeks at Erin Hills, and he will have some gnarly rough with which to contend. Bryan recently took a trip to test out the course, and stepped just two paces off the fairway to get a better look at the thick stuff. It wasn't pretty. "Stuff is about 2 feet tall," said Bryan. So it looks like we already have ourselves a proper 2017 U.S. Open. Between the course playing, like, 15,000 yards from the back tees and this stuff, it could be a long week for those trying to break par at this track.
As you can see from the flyovers, the course was built essentially on farmland in the middle of Wisconsin, so this kind of grass should be expected.
Erin Hills Hole 8 Flyover (Video/You Tube)
Nordqvist eyes three-peat at ShopRite LPGA Classic.
Associated Press
(Photo/Golf Channel Digital)
Anna Nordqvist of Sweden has owned the ShopRite LPGA Classic for the past two years and will seek her third straight win in the event beginning Friday as she competes against 143 of her fellow LPGA pros on the Donald Ross-designed Bay Course at the Stockton Seaview Hotel and Golf Club's Bay Course in Galloway, N.J., across Reed's Bay from Atlantic City. Nordqvist, who already has a win this season (Founders Cup in Phoenix in March), will try to join fellow Swede Annika Sorenstam as the only three-time winner of this event. To do so she will have to beat a field that includes 13 of the top 21 in the Rolex Rankings, eight winners of tournaments from this year and 75 of the top 100 on the 2017 LPGA Tour money list. This is only a three-day (54-hole) event (one on just three such events on the LPGA tour), but still carries a $1.5 million purse, with $225,000 and 500 Race to the Globe points going to the winner. Last year, Nordqvist shot a final-round 64 to tie the tournament scoring record set by Sorenstam (17 under par in both 1998 and 2005) and held off Haru Nomura by one shot to defend her title. Nordqvist, who has won seven times on the LPGA tour, is 12th on the money list with nearly $372,000 in eight events. After leading the tour in greens hit in regulation (78.6 percent) last year, she is sixth this year (77.1 percent). She has trimmed her usually busy schedule some this season to enjoy some things away from the golf course and the grind of the tour. "Maybe there is a maturity in that strategy that allows me to enjoy the game in a different way, being out on tour and embracing opportunities instead of putting so much pressure on myself to succeed," Nordqvist said. "I don't want to be looking back in five years and asking why didn't I enjoy this more. I'm trying to enjoy the moment a little more than just trying to chase the future." With Shanshan Feng's win at the LPGA Volvik Championship last week in Michigan, the LPGA has now gone 12 events without having a repeat winner, the second-longest such stretch to begin a season in LPGA history. In 1991, there was not a multiple tournament winner until the 16th event of the year. Six of this year's 12 events have been won by players from South Korea, with three being captured by Americans and one winner each from Japan, China and Sweden. The ShopRite Classic is the third in a stretch of 11 consecutive weeks of competition on the tour. The field here is well represented by the event's past winners, including Stacey Lewis (2012, 2014), Cristie Kerr (2004), Karrie Webb of Australia (2013), Angela Stanford (2003), Juli Inkster (1986, 1988) and Brittany Lincicome (2011). The next great player from South Korea might be Sung Hyun Park, the LPGA's top rookie, who is also in the field after finishing second last week. She led after the second round and made a spirited run at Feng with a final-round 66. "I hadn't played well in events prior to this tournament and I felt I'd lost a bit of confidence," Park said after her runner-up finish. "But I played well this time and got some confidence back. I think that was the biggest take away from this event." Through the first 12 events, So Yeon Ryu of South Korea leads with 1,695 points. Ryu's streak of 11 consecutive top-10 finishes was snapped last week when she tied for 56th. Ryu is in the field this week and will have a fourth straight chance to replace Lydia Ko of New Zealand at No. 1 in the world. Ko's reign at No. 1 ends Sunday after 84 weeks. By Randall Mell
(Photo/Golf Channel Digital)
Lydia Ko’s reign as Rolex world No. 1 will end with Sunday’s conclusion of the ShopRite Classic.
Come Monday morning, Ariya Jutanugarn or So Yeon Ryu will ascend to the top spot with the release of the newest rankings, according to LPGA projections. It’s all in Ryu’s hands this week at the Stockton Seaview Hotel and Golf Club outside Atlantic City. Ryu is the only player among the three who is teeing it up at ShopRite. Ryu is No. 3 in the world rankings. If Ryu finishes third or better, she has a chance to leapfrog No. 2 Jutanugarn and go to No. 1. It all depends on how many players Ryu may tie with if she doesn’t win. If Ryu is fourth or worse, Jutanugarn moves to No. 1. No scenario allows Ko to remain at No. 1 as she continues to lose points off the two-year rolling window used to measure Rolex rankings. “Since I dreamed about the LPGA tour, I also dreamed about becoming the No. 1 player in the world,” Ryu said. “I definitely want to become No. 1 at some point, and I’m working really hard for that, as well, but I think the more important thing is to enjoy this moment and enjoy playing golf. I believe that will get me to No. 1.” Ko has reigned as No. 1 for 84 consecutive weeks, 103 weeks overall. This marks her second of three consecutive weeks off, as she rests up for a run of big summer events, including three majors over the next 10 weeks. Jutanugarn is also off this week. Ko, 20, hasn’t won in more than 10 months, since the Marathon Classic last July. Jutanugarn, 21, hasn’t won in nine months, since the Canadian Pacific Women’s Open in late August. Ryu, 26, is enjoying a big year. She won the year’s first major, the ANA Inspiration, to leap into the race for No. 1. She’s the most consistent player on tour this year, with top-10 finishes in eight of her nine starts. She has two second-place finishes to go with her victory. Ryu also leads every important statistical category on tour, ranking first in Rolex Player of the Year points, money-winnings, Race to the CME points and scoring average. Here are the No. 1 scenarios as projected by the LPGA: • If Ryu finishes 4th or worse, Jutanugarn will become No. 1 • Jutanugarn can also take over No. 1 if ... Ryu finishes T-2 with four or more other players. Ryu finishes T-3 with one or more players. • Ryu moves to No. 1 if ... Ryu wins. Ryu finishes second alone. Ryu finishes T-2 with no more than three others. Ryu is third alone.
NASCAR’s weekend schedule for Dover International Speedway.
By Daniel McFadin
(Photo/Getty Images)
All three of NASCAR’s national series will be in one place this weekend as they race at Dover International Speedway.
The weekend begins today with two Camping World Truck Series practice sessions at the “Monster Mile.” Here’s the full weekend schedule for Dover. Friday, June 2 6:30 a.m. – 5 p.m. – Xfinity garage open 8 a.m. – 5:30 p.m. – Cup garage open 9 a.m. – Truck garage opens 9:30 – 10:25 a.m. – Xfinity practice (Fox Sports 2) 10:30 – 11:55 a.m. – Cup practice (FS2, Motor Racing Network) 1:30 – 2:25 p.m. – Final Xfinity practice (Fox Sports 1) 2:35 p.m. – Truck qualifying; multi-truck/three rounds (FS1) 3:40 p.m. – Truck driver-crew chief meeting 3:50 p.m. – Cup qualifying; multi-car/three rounds (FS1, MRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio) 5:00 p.m. – Truck driver introductions 5:30 p.m. – Bar Harbor 200; 200 laps/200 miles (FS1, MRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio) Saturday, June 3 6:30 a.m. – Xfinity garage opens 7:30 a.m. – 4 p.m. – Cup garage open 9 – 9:55 a.m. – Cup practice (FS1, MRN) 10:05 a.m. – Xfinity qualifying; multi-car/three rounds (FS1) 11:15 a.m. – Xfinity driver-crew chief meeting 11:30 a.m. – 12:20 p.m. – Final Cup practice (FS1, MRN) 12:30 p.m. – Xfinity driver introductions 1 p.m. – OneMain Financial 200; 200 laps/200 miles (FS1, MRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio) Sunday, June 4 7:30 a.m. – Cup garage opens 11 a.m. – Cup driver-crew chief meeting 12:20 p.m. – Cup driver introductions 1 p.m. – AAA 400 Drive for Autism; 400 laps/400 miles (FS1, MRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio) Yahoo Fantasy cheat sheet: Driver rankings for Dover.
By Don Beaver
Chase Elliott talks to a crew member at Charlotte Motor Speedway. (AP Photo/Chuck Burton)
Dover International Speedway is one of NASCAR’s unique tracks and as such, fantasy players are not going to find much help comparing it to other courses. This week, concentrate on how drivers have run on this one-mile, high-banked oval in the past and also how much momentum they bring with them from the last several unrestricted speedway races.
1. Chase Elliott: Last week was one more frustrating race in a series of them for Elliott, but he knows that the poor finish was not his fault. Last year, he finished third twice at Dover.
2. Martin Truex Jr.: In 22 starts on what he considers his home track, Truex has earned only two top-fives. Both have been victories, which makes him one of the top values again this week just like the past two.
3. Matt Kenseth: Last week’s fourth-place finish at Charlotte put Kenseth in the right frame of mind for Dover. He enters this week as the defending race winner with three consecutive results of seventh or better.
4. Jimmie Johnson: Seven of Johnson’s 10 career Dover wins have come in the past seven years, but two of his last three efforts there ended 25th or worse.
5. Kevin Harvick: NASCAR is filled with peaks and valleys. Harvick finished first and second in two Dover races in 2015; last year, he was 15th and 37th after experiencing trouble in both.
6. Brad Keselowski: Five drivers swept the top-10 last year at Dover. Keselowski was one of them with a sixth in the spring and a fourth in the fall.
7. Kyle Larson: One day after hitting the wall and scoring his worst finish of the season at Charlotte, Larson traveled to Lawrenceburg, IN and finished second in a sprint car race. Guess which he’ll remember this Sunday?
8. Denny Hamlin: With only three top-10s in his last eight Dover starts, it will be difficult to build a roster around Hamlin. The good news is that two of those three strong runs came last year.
9. Kyle Busch: The fastest car did not win last week and that frustrated Busch, but his second-place finish in the Coke 600 was the third consecutive top-five for the No. 18.
10. Kurt Busch: A sixth-place finish at Charlotte was the fourth top-10 in the past six races for Busch. He hasn’t been in the top five since the Daytona 500, however.
11. Joey Logano: It seemed that things were beginning to turn around for Logano at Charlotte, but when he had to pit for fuel he dropped outside the top 20 for the third straight week.
12. Jamie McMurray: A 12th-place finish in the Coca-Cola 600 ended a perfect record of top-10s for McMurray on similarly-configured, 1.5-mile tracks, but it is his 10th top-15 in the past 11 races.
13. Clint Bowyer: With a 14th at Charlotte, Bowyer extended his current top-15 streak to 11 races. He has been running on the lead lap at the end of all of those events.
14. Erik Jones: He thought he had even more in the car than a seventh-place finish showed, but Jones should be happy with the fact that he scored a career-best finish at Charlotte.
15. Dale Earnhardt Jr.: Junior Nation will take their good news however it can be found. Last week was the second time this season that their hero finished inside the top 10, but it is too soon to form a bandwagon for the No. 88.
16. Daniel Suarez: The rookie battle is fierce this year. Last week, Suarez missed earning his fourth top-10 of the season by a single position. Dover will be challenging, but fantasy players should expect a solid result in the teens.
17. Ricky Stenhouse Jr.: Last year, Stenhouse swept the top 15 at Dover. He finished eighth there in fall 2015, but he has not yet cracked the top five on this tricky track.
18. Ryan Newman: The No. 31 team has shown consistency over the past four weeks, but they have not shown speed with results of 16th through 19th.
19. Austin Dillon: Richard Childress Racing now has two drivers locked into the playoffs. Both of them achieved that honor with fuel mileage gambles, but strategy is part of the sport.
20. Kasey Kahne: An accident on lap 244 was the first DNF for Kahne in his last 12 attempts. Unfortunately, he has been uneven recently with only a handful of top-15s to his credit.
21. Chris Buescher: This team often gets overlooked, but while teammate Allmendinger struggled for several weeks, Buescher enters the AAA 400 Drive for Autism with a four-race, top-20 streak.
22. Ryan Blaney: It is time to leave Blaney in the garage for a few weeks. He has shown a lot of promise recently, but something keeps happening to relegate him outside the top 20.
23. Paul Menard: Could Menard be the next driver to stretch his mileage and win a race for Richard Childress Racing? If he takes the risk, he could earn his first ever Dover top-five.
24. Ty Dillon: A broken rear end at Charlotte snapped a 10-race streak in which Dillon was running at the end of Cup races.
25. Trevor Bayne: After finishing well down the order in his rookie season, Bayne came back last year as a sophomore and scored a 10th at Dover in the spring AAA 400.
26. Michael McDowell: Winning a NASCAR fantasy game often comes down to picking the right sleeper. McDowell enters the AAA 400 with back-to-back top-20 finishes and that should put him on your radar.
27. David Ragan: The No. 38 team needs to regroup quickly to regain momentum. Ragan entered Charlotte with three consecutive lead-lap finishes but fell three laps off the pace in NASCAR’s longest race of the season.
28. AJ Allmendinger: He entered the Coca-Cola 600 with a four-race streak of 30-something finishes, so an 18th at Charlotte must have been quite the relief.
29. Landon Cassill: With this same team last year, Cassill earned a career-best 19th at Dover in the spring. His previous best of 23rd came one year previous, so he seems to be learning where the groove is on this high-banked monster.
30. Cole Whitt: He will not earn maximum points in Yahoo’s Group C, but Whitt might fit onto a roster in another game. His last three Dover attempts ended between 26th and 28th.
31. Danica Patrick: A 25th-place finish was nothing to crow about, but after crashing in three of her last four races Patrick was happy to get to the checkers with her car running.
32. Matt DiBenedetto: In similar equipment to what he will wheel this week, DiBenedetto finished 27th in last fall’s Citizen Soldier 400. If he can repeat, he will be a provisionally good bargain.
33. Gray Gaulding: He was seven laps off the pace last week in Charlotte, but Gaulding kept his car running until the end and moved up the order as others crashed or experienced mechanical problems.
34. Jeffrey Earnhardt: Consistency has been the hallmark of Earnhardt’s two Dover runs. He started 39th and finished 35th there last spring and went from 38th on the grid to 36th last fall.
35. Ross Chastain: The No. 15 car this week will be handed over to Xfinity Series regular Chastain. The team is not prepared to finish well, but he will get some laps and experience.
36. Ryan Sieg: Dover is a good track to give racers some exposure. It’s tough, but once a rhythm is established, Sieg can learn a lot in a short period of time. He takes over the No. 83 this week.
37. Cody Ware: There will be several fresh faces at Dover this week. Ware climbs into the No. 51 to join Ross Chastain and Ryan Sieg in debuts on this track. They will be cheap, but will not earn many points.
38. Carl Long: With only 39 cars on the entry list, Long will race this weekend and try to run to the end, but that is as much as can be said for his potential.
NASCAR will probably change it rules again next year. By Alanis King
(Photo/Jerry Marklund/Stringer/Getty Images)
Before the 2017 race season, the powers that be in NASCAR decided to overhaul the sport’s rules—like, seismic levels of change here. But they couldn’t leave it alone for more than 11 races, changing the race format for the Coca-Cola 600 on Sunday. And now, they’re considering more rule changes for 2018.
The idea to change things yet again appears to have come after the Coke 600, which NASCAR announced a major change to about two weeks before the race took place. Likely looking to curb the, uh, lengthiness of 600 miles on a cookie-cutter race track and the resulting feelings that go along with it, NASCAR added a fourth stage to the race. At the start of the season, NASCAR planned for all of its races to have three stages with points awarded at the end of each. Having four stages did seem to make the race go by more quickly, but it’s hard to tell if that was due to the extra stage or the two-hour rain delay in the middle of it all. Even then, deciding to change things a couple of weeks before the race isn’t the best way to do things. The changes being considered for the 2018 season aren’t a complete overhaul, which is better than it could be considering that NASCAR is pretty rules happy. But according to Motorsport.com, NASCAR executive vice president Steve O’Donnell went on Sirius XM NASCAR after the Coke 600 and said the sanctioning body will look at additional stages and bonus points for future races.
Oh, come on. Really? First, we’re told NASCAR will to have segments, overtime and “playoffs” like a real, old-fashioned ball sport—except ball sports don’t change their rules every day—with a far more confusing points system, and now NASCAR could switch things up on us again. The biggest problem with additional points and stages, if they happen, is that some races automatically become worth more than others. Other racing series do that, but the problem with implementing that kind of thing in NASCAR is the existing disparity between race time at different types of tracks on its schedule.
Of the 36 points races in the top-level Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series, 11 are on 1.5-mile ovals like the Coke 600’s Charlotte Motor Speedway. Five of the 10 races that decide the championship in the playoffs are on 1.5-mile ovals, and in the more than 10 years of the playoffs, there has never been a road course. The championship, decided in one race these days, happens on a 1.5-mile oval. NASCAR got so much grief from viewers about the vanilla, 1.5 mile-dominated schedule that the sanctioning body added a road race to the playoffs for 2018, around Charlotte Motor Speedway’s interior roval. That makes three road races for the entire Cup Series season.
Here’s where the bonus points and extra stages—which equal more points—come in: If NASCAR wants to make certain races worth more, hitting even an acceptable balance between 1.5-mile dominance and other tracks is not going to be easy and it could open the sport up to more complaints about the schedule.
O’Donnell said NASCAR is considering the bonus for its major races, such as the Daytona 500, the Coca-Cola 600, the Brickyard 400 and the Southern 500. Only one of those races occurs on a 1.5-mile track, but none on a road course—the most lacking category on the schedule. The Coke 600 already got a fourth stage, making a race on a 1.5-mile track worth more points than any of the others when 1.5-mile tracks already decide the title.
Even without all of that in mind, it just doesn’t make sense to change the rules so often. If a person—whether an avid or casual fan—tunes in to watch his, her or their football team play, no one wants to have to wonder if there will be five “quarters” or three, or to have to question if a touchdown will be worth six points or nine. It’s confusing, it helps no one and it certainly isn’t welcoming. But NASCAR isn’t a democracy, and we’re all just here to watch how things play out—that is, if we feel like watching them at all.
SOCCER:With Under-20 World Cup back, Fire's Serbian coaching trio relive historic title.
By Dan Santaromita
(Photo/csnchicago.com)
In the early hours of the American morning on Thursday, the United States Under-20 men’s national team beat New Zealand 6-0 in South Korea to advance to the quarterfinals of the U-20 World Cup.
It is the second straight U-20 World Cup in which the U.S. has made it to the quarterfinals. The last time the Americans were knocked out in penalty kicks by Veljko Paunovic’s Serbia.
Paunovic and Serbia went on to win that tournament. Serbia’s historic victory, the first for Serbia in any World Cup at any age level, was the big boost to Paunovic’s coaching resume that led the Chicago Fire to hire him five months later.
“Of course it gave me I think recognition,” Paunovic said after Fire training on Thursday. “Winning the World Cup is always one of the greatest achievements so it gives you also the confidence that what you are doing is the right way to do (things), even (when) you always believe in your work. The title like that gives you the extra motivation and actually shapes and opens the path for you to keep working and improving on yourself and gives you more opportunities for a job obviously.”
Two of Paunovic’s countrymen from the coaching staff of that victorious Serbian team followed him to the Fire. Marko Mitrovic is one of the Fire’s assistant coaches and Aleksandar Saric coaches the goalkeepers. For everyone involved in that Serbian team, it was a life-changing event.
Serbia has had success in other sports. Tennis star Novak Djokovic has won 12 Grand Slam titles. Serbia has Olympic gold medals in men’s volleyball (2000), men’s water polo (2016) and the men’s basketball team won a pair of FIBA World Cups (1998 and 2002).
In soccer though, Serbia had never won a World Cup at any age level before. As a combined Yugoslavia, the country won the 1987 U-20 World Cup, but independent Serbia hadn’t found success on its own.
“That’s probably the biggest achievement in history of Serbian soccer,” Mitrovic said. “We are always the generation. Like the Cubs here with people waiting 100 years for the Cubs to win the World Series. That’s something that people in Serbia dreamed that Serbia would become the World Cup champion. We had more 100,000 people waiting in the streets for us after that. (It) is probably everyday that I think about that. That’s something that stays behind us through all our lives.”
With a population of just over 7 million, Serbia has fewer people than the Chicagoland area.
“It’s difficult to win MLS here with one city,” Saric said. “Imagine to win the world with the population the size of Chicago winning the world championship, which really is a great achievement.”
The coaches are able to keep in touch with the players from the championship team through a WhatsApp group. They communicate regularly.
“They are now all around the world, but we are still in touch,” Saric said. “We celebrate the date also when we win that.”
With a new set of players and the coaching trio now with the Fire, Serbia didn’t make it to the final round of European qualifying tournament. With Serbia out, all three took note of the success of the U.S. team.
“They are doing a great job,” Mitrovic said of the U.S. “We played against them (two years ago) and they are there again now, which I think that (coach) Tab Ramos is doing great things with that national team. Doing it twice in a row, quarterfinals, it’s a big achievement.”
Saric fondly recalled the penalty shootout in the quarterfinal between the U.S. and Serbia. Serbia goalkeeper Predrag Rajković, who was named goalkeeper of the tournament, and American goalkeeper Zack Steffen, now the starter for the Columbus Crew, both made three saves in the first eight rounds before Serbia finally won in the ninth round.
“I said because I respect what I saw in Steffen’s game before we play America, I said who wins this game, he will be probably the best goalkeeper of the tournament,” Saric said. “I said that for our newspapers. It was an amazing (shootout). We lead three times. Rajkovic saved three penalties and Steffen always when we need to score, he saved... Then it happened Rajkovic saved one extra penalty and our captain scored.”
The U.S. plays its quarterfinal against Venezuela on Sunday. Paunovic, Mitrovic and Saric have their eyes on this year’s tournament, but from a different vantage point. They are looking for potential players to bring to the Fire, although memories of two years ago are still strong.
“It’s one of the competitions that for me has a very personal and deep root inside of my feelings because of what we achieved for my country, but also it’s the great opportunity to see great young players performing and competing for the World Cup,” Paunovic said.
Three key battles in the UEFA Champions League Final.
By Nicholas Mendola
(Photo by Denis Doyle/Getty Images)
Real Madrid aims for its third UEFA Champions League crown in four seasons on Saturday when it takes the pitch at Millennium Stadium in Cardiff for a showdown with Juventus. Real is the winningest team in UCL Final history, going 11-3 in the marquee match of the club football season.
2015 is the only final Real hasn’t qualified for, and that’s when Juventus fell to Barcelona. In fact, Juve has lost more UCL finals than any club (2-6). Juve is also one of only eight teams to contest six or more UCL finals. So what will tip the scales between the two titans which have split 18 matches to the tune of 8-2-8? In our opinion, these three battles: 1) Juve: Simply stop Ronaldo and win? Follow me here, because this isn’t simply us regurgitating the easiest answer on Earth. Real and Juve have matched up four times since the start of the 2013-14 UEFA Champions League, and Real has only won one of those matches. That affair saw Juve sink to 10 men in a group stage loss. Juve has not kept a clean sheet in any of those matches, allowing six goals. One came from Gareth Bale and the other five came from Cristiano Ronaldo. Two were penalty kicks, but there’s little denying that Juve’s stingy defense has been able to deal with much of what Real has to offer. CR7 is a different animal altogether. 2) Dani Alves’ crosses versus Sergio Ramos and Raphael Varane. Alves plays further up the flank than you remember from his time at Barcelona, and Juve has used Mario Mandzukic on the left wing to give a pair of big targets. Ramos will likely see himself drawn into several tricky situations when Alves either works past left back Marcelo or takes advantage of the marauder. Varane won’t often match up directly with Alves, but both he and Ramos will likely have to deal with the Brazilian’s pinpoint crosses and creative passes. 3) Will Real’s overlooked weapon dominate Dybala? Casemiro is about as important a piece to Real’s mix as anyone not named Ronaldo, though he rarely gets deserved credit for his work in the center of the park. He’s the reason Ramos and Varane don’t have to deal with as much as most center backs, and has the potential to neutralize any attacker. Dybala, the slippery 23-year-old Argentine, has 19 goals and nine assists in all competitions this season and a solid connection with center forward Gonzalo Higuain (not to mention Alves). Payments to Premier League clubs revealed. By Joe Prince-Wright
(Photo/Getty Images)
This is a lot of cash.
On Thursday the Premier League revealed how much each team received in 2016-17 from broadcast revenue, an equal share of central income and a merit payment depending on their final finish in the league table. Overall $3.09 billion was dished out to the 20 PL clubs. Chelsea sit on top as the 2016-17 PL champs received $194.4 million, while Sunderland still received $120.4 million despite finishing bottom of the Premier League standings. As well as these “payments to clubs” each season, the Premier League also pointed out the huge role it plays on developing and growing the game at all levels in the UK.
Along with our Clubs we provide a range of support for the development of football outside the Premier League, including solidarity payments for all EFL and National League clubs, and the funding of player pensions and welfare and medical insurance costs for all EFL players.
The League and its Clubs fund community facilities across England and Wales, operate national and local sports participation projects, and have recently launched Premier League Primary Stars – a program that will help to inspire primary school children in everything from maths and English to teamwork and sport.
Here’s the full breakdown of how much each Premier League club received in 2016-17.
NCAAFB:Best of Week 5: Never underestimate the Northwestern-Wisconsin rivalry.
By Tom Dienhart
There isn’t an abundance of pizzazz on a six-game slate this week that includes a Friday night tilt pitting Nebraska at Illinois.
The unquestioned top game is Northwestern at Wisconsin in a game between arguably the top two teams in the Big Ten West. A de facto Big Ten West title game? Too early in the season for that. But at the least, this will be a table setter for the division race and a contest that will go a long way in shaping the chase for the West championship.
No doubt, Nebraska will want revenge after losing in Champaign the last time the Cornhuskers visited in 2015, as Illinois scored 14 fourth quarter points to take a 14-13 decision. It was a stupefying and stunning defeat for Nebraska in Mike Riley’s first season in Lincoln.
Michigan State has won two in a row vs. Iowa, but the Hawkeyes have won the last two times they visited Spartan Stadium. It will be important for MSU to protect its home turf as it comes off a disappointing 3-9 season. Ohio State has obliterated Rutgers in three all-time meetings, winning by scores of 56-17, 49-7 and 58-0. Former Buckeye defensive coordinator and current Scarlet Knights coach Chris Ash is trying to lay a strong foundation for RU. Purdue and Michigan are off. Here is a look at the best of Week 5. Best game: Northwestern’s Big Ten opener at Wisconsin will be a challenge. These two teams may be the favorites to win the West. Wisconsin won last year vs. NU, but the Wildcats won two in a row before that. These teams are similar, as each can run the ball and has a nice defense. It may come down to which QB makes the most plays: Northwestern’s Clayton Thorson or UW’s Alex Hornibrook. Best head coach matchup: Gotta go with Iowa’s Kirk Ferentz vs. Michigan State’s Mark Dantonio. Ferentz is the dean of Big Ten coaches, as he is in his 19th season roaming the sideline of Kinnick Stadium. He already has achieved icon status as just the second Iowa coach since 1979, the year Hayden Fry began his 20-year run in Iowa City. Dantonio is an all-time great in East Lansing who took the program to nine bowls in a row before last year’s 3-9 clunker. Best coordinator clash: How about Rutgers offensive coordinator Jerry Kill vs. Ohio State defensive coordinator Greg Schiano? Yes! Kill lacks many top-end weapons in his first year at Rutgers, but the former Minnesota coach knows how to scheme … and coach. Kill worked in an off-field capacity last year at Kansas State and never has been an assistant. The former Rutgers and Tampa Bay Buccaneers coach, Schiano seems on the precipice of landing another head coaching job as he has seen Chris Ash (Rutgers) and Luke Fickell (Cincinnati) both use the Buckeye DC post as a launching point. Best QB matchup: It will be fun to watch Indiana’s Richard Lagow and Penn State’s Trace McSorley lock horns. Lagow, despite interception woes, is coming off a nice debut after arriving from a JC. In 2016, he ranked second in the Big Ten in passing yards per game (258.6, 28th nationally), third in yards per completion (13.3, 32nd) and completions (19.4, 39th), fifth in touchdowns (19) and sixth in total offense per game (250.3) and passing efficiency (128.8). McSorley was a revelation last year in leading Penn State to an improbable Big Ten title. Has thrown at least one touchdown pass in 15 straight games, breaking Kerry Collins’ school record streak of 14 from 1993-94. And in 2016, McSorley became the first Penn State quarterback with three consecutive games with both a rushing touchdown and passing touchdown since Matt McGloin in 2012. Best chance for an upset: Minnesota could be toppled by Maryland when the Terrapins visit in the Big Ten opener. Like the Gophers with P.J. Fleck, Maryland has a rising star coach in DJ Durkin, who already has one year under his belt in College Park. If the Terps are improved in the trenches and getting steady quarterback play, they could leave Dinkytown with a victory. Minnesota won last year at Maryland. Best matchup: Wisconsin LB T.J. Edwards vs. Northwestern RB Justin Jackson. Edwards will be a key player for a Badger front seven that should be stout even without linebackers T.J. Watt and Vince Biegel. Jackson led the Big Ten with 1,524 yards rushing in 2016, becoming the first Wildcat to rush for 1,000 yards in three seasons. He is poised to become NU’s all-time leading rusher, as he finished last season ranked second in program history with 4,129 career rushing yards. Player on the spot: If Iowa wants to leave Michigan State with a victory, the new QB will need to play well. And that new QB figures to be Nathan Stanley. The 6-5 Wisconsin native was one of 10 true freshmen to see action in 2016 for the Hawkeyes, as he played in seven games and completed five of nine pass attempts for 62 yards.
RANKING WEEK 5 GAMES
1. Northwestern at Wisconsin
2. Iowa at Michigan State 3. Maryland at Minnesota 4. Indiana at Penn State 5. Nebraska at Illinois (Friday) 6. Ohio State at Rutgers Alabama is just looking out for itself in not scheduling in-state opponents. By Kevin McGuire
(Photo by Kevin C. Cox/Getty Images)
Alabama has not played an in-state opponent not named Auburn since 1944, and it appears that is a trend unlikely to change course. At SEC spring meetings, Alabama athletics director Greg Byrne said he did not see the Crimson Tide looking to schedule any in-state opponents for future non-conference games at any point in the future.
The last team from the state of Alabama to play the Crimson Tide in a non-conference game was Samford, and that was before the school was known as Samford. Despite a number of options within the state boundaries that would love a chance to accept a big paycheck play Alabama such as UAB, Troy, South Alabama, and additional FCS schools like Alabama A&M and Jacksonville State, Alabama instead chooses to fill any scheduling vacancies with smaller schools outside of the state but within the southeastern region after booking multi-million dollar games against power conference opponents on a neutral field. The main criticism Alabama receives for their supposed scheduling policy is they miss out on an opportunity to help keep money in the state to help out other schools in the state. It is a fair criticism to point out, but one that is easily refuted by the idea that it is not Alabama’s mission to help keep other programs afloat. Alabama scheduling a game against another school in the state would barely chip at the Alabama pedigree, so there is minimal risk involved in playing these games. So why would Alabama choose note to sign these schools? It could be that Alabama is showing mercy in most respects. Sure, the paydays from Alabama would be nice, but those schools can likely get those paychecks from a number of other places, and they would avoid getting demolished by the Crimson Tide in the process. But that would suggest Alabama is looking out for the best interests for Alabama. But maybe there is another explanation. As I suggested in the Bump and Run bumpcast today, there could be a reason why Alabama would choose not to schedule programs like UAB or South Alabama and so on for future non-conference matchups. Why pick on the cupcakes in your own state when you can flex some muscle throughout the SEC’s footprint against other opponents from Mississippi, Louisiana, Georgia, South Carolina, Tennessee and so on? Alabama is in a position where it doesn’t need much help in recruiting, but there could be something to be gained by playing out of state opponents and thrashing them throughout the SEC’s (and ACC’s) stomping grounds. It puts more good press for Alabama in more headlines in all of those states, instead of just the ones in Alabama already buzzing about the Tide. Sure, it would be nice of Alabama to throw a bone to an in-state opponent a little more often than once every 75 years and counting, but Alabama is out to do what is best for Alabama. Playing out of state cupcakes serves more of a purpose for Alabama’s main objective. Auburn AD banging the drum for a Tigers move to SEC East, Mizzou shift to West. By John Taylor
(Photo/Getty Images)
Tuesday, SEC commissioner Greg Sankey laid talk of a potential Auburn move from the SEC West to the East at the feet of the media. A day later, that university’s athletic director picked up the talk and ran with it. Hard. After months of chatter on the subject, Jay Jacobs met the issue head-on at the conference’s spring meetings Wednesday, with the AU AD banging the drum very loudly for his football team to move from the West to the East and Missouri taking their place in the division. While it makes sense football-wise for most involved, Jacobs cited the demographics of the student population at large as one of the reasons he will push for a divisional adjustment. “It makes more sense for Auburn from the standpoint of the demographics of our students, not our student-athletes,” the athletics boss said according to 247Sports.com‘s Brandon Marcello. “Six or eight years ago, I looked at all the demographics. Most of all our students come from Georgia, Florida, Tennessee, South Carolina, Kentucky, a few from Mississippi, very few from Louisiana. “Since we went to the national championship twice we’ve got more geographical students from all over the place but still the majority of our students come from the southeast.” The Opelika-Auburn News lays out the geographical argument, as it in reality relates to athletics budgets that are impacted by more than football specifically, very succinctly:
If you look at SEC universities laid out on a map, Auburn is closer to SEC East schools Georgia, Florida South Carolina, Tennessee and Vanderbilt than it is to SEC West schools such as Arkansas, LSU and Texas A&M.
Missouri is closer to all three of those schools than it is to the ones located in the Eastern Time Zone.
Jacobs is expected to broach the West-to-East subject with Sankey this week as the conference’s ADs talk shop with the commissioner, although it won’t be on the official agenda. As for the Iron Bowl as well as the annual matchup with the team Between The Hedges as part of any potential move? “[T]he bottom line is … we’re going to keep playing Georgia and we’re going to keep playing Alabama,” Jacobs said. Moving to a nine-game conference schedule — and this is without even discussing eliminating divisions entirely as well — would easily facilitate an Auburn move to the East as well as limit, if not completely erase, the concerns over losing long-time rivalries across the league. Of course, we all know adding another league game will likely gain very little if any traction, at least not for the foreseeable future. After all, you gotta continue to have those cupcakes as part of your Deep South college football diet.
NCAABKB:Adam Silver rethinking the NBA’s ‘one-and-done’ rule.
By Scott Phillips
(Photo/carolinablitz.com)
NBA commissioner Adam Silver appeared to soften his stance on the league’s one-and-done rule in an appearance with Fox Sports’ Colin Cowherd this week. Only months after the NBA opted to keep the current one-and-done rule in place in the new Collective Bargaining Agreement that was signed earlier this year, Silver said that he would like to ideally make some changes that he will investigate. “I’m rethinking our position,” Silver said to Cowherd on Wednesday. The one-and-done rule has effectively forced elite high school players to play college basketball for one season before they can declare for the NBA Draft thanks to the league’s draft age limit that was increased from 18 of 19 years old in 2005. While the league would like to increase that age limit, to 20 years old, the players’ association has wanted to revert back to a free system that would allow players to enter the league out of high school.
“In the last round of collective bargaining, Michele Roberts and I both agreed, let’s get through these core economic issues in terms of renewing the collective bargaining agreement, and then turn back to this age issue,” Silver told Cowherd, “Because it’s one I think we need to be more thoughtful on and not just be in an adversarial position sort of under the bright lights of collective bargaining.”
While a new seven-year CBA was signed earlier this year, that begins in July, the league could still opt to make changes if they can find a solution with the players’ association. No significant change to this rule is going to happen right away but it’ll be interesting to see what course of action Silver takes if he wants to push forward with a new idea that will get rid of the one-and-done. This will be the NBA’s decision, since it is their league and rule, but they’ll likely consult college coaches and athletic directors during this process.
NCAA allowing college coaches to watch USA Basketball U19 Trials.
By Scott Phillip
(Photo/USA Basketball)
The NCAA is making a unique change to the summer recruiting landscape this year as Scout.com’s Evan Daniels reported that college coaches will be allowed to evaluate the USA Basketball U19 trials this summer. This will be the only off-campus summer event not during the evaluation periods that the NCAA will allow Division I college coaches to attend. The trials begin on June 18th. The USA U19 team is narrowed down on the 20th and the team practices until June 25th. The FIBA U19 World Cup is played in Cairo, Egypt this summer from July 1-9. With the NCAA allowing college coaches to watch these practices, now the college coaches who work with the U19 team won’t have as much of a special recruiting advantage. This year’s U19 head coach happens to be one of the best recruiters of all-time in Kentucky head coach John Calipari — so you might think the timing of this new ruling is a bit odd. But this ruling also comes on the heels of Texas head coach Shaka Smart landing prized recruits Matt Coleman and Mohamed Bamba as Class of 2017 prospects after coaching the duo last summer with the USA Basketball U18 FIBA Americas team. Smart had the advantage of not only coaching Bamba and Coleman during the event, but he was one of the only college coaches allowed with the duo for extended training camps in Colorado Springs and Houston before the event last summer. Others around college basketball have also linked USA Basketball to Coach K and Duke when it comes to special recruiting advantages — even though Coach K works with mostly NBA players on the senior men’s level. This new rule from the NCAA limits the perceived special time advantage during training camps that USA Basketball coaches like Calipari, Smart — and their college coach assistants — may get. Since these tryouts are usually littered with the best of the best players in the country, it is easy to see why coaches would want to be around for this type of event. From an evaluation standpoint for college coaches, this event will also be a great chance to see prospects in one of the most competitive and structured high school events that they can play in. It could be valuable for some elite programs to see who is truly separating themselves among their peers. Since this is a U19 tryout, this event will also have a lot of college players who can be watched by their college coaches for some valuable offseason perspective. It’ll be interesting to see how this changes recruiting in the future with regards to special events in the summer, but this is a smart short-term move by the NCAA.
Follow-Up Update from 05/26/2017:Bruce Arians explains why he's 'happy' overtime has been cut to 10 minutes.What's Your Take?
By Ryan Wilson
(Photo/cbssports.com)
The Cardinals coach isn't alone in thinking the overtime rules change isn't a big deal.
If the initial reaction is any indication, people hate the NFL's decision to reduce overtime from 15 to 10 minutes. The most common complaints: A 10-minute overtime would lead to more ties, and possibly an unfair advantage for the team that gets the ball first, should they grind out an eight- or nine-minute opening drive that ends in a field goal, leaving only seconds for their opponent to mount a response. As always, there are exceptions and in the case of the new overtime rule, we'd like to introduce you to Bruce Arians. The Cardinals coach fully embraces the change and is happy to call out those whining about the possible unintended consequences. "Will it lead to more ties? Hell, who knows?" Arians told the Cardinals website. "We'll call the game a little differently. But I'm happy with it."
He continued: "People are worried about 10-minute drives. I don't know if I've ever seen a 10-minute drive. I guess there have been a couple. If you get the ball ran on you for 10 minutes, you deserve to lose anyway." Arians wasn't alone; here's Redskins coach Jay Gruden's response to the new overtime rule: "Who cares?" Meanwhile, the league is selling the change as a way to make the game safer. "This rule is not intended to make the game better," NFL Competition Committee chairman Rich McKay told PFT Live. "It's intended to deal with what we think are some consequences that we've seen in the last couple years from a health and safety standpoint that we're not comfortable with. We're not comfortable with the idea that you could play a Sunday night game or Sunday afternoon at 4 game, go into overtime, play 15 minutes, pick up an additional 18 to 20 snaps, and then potentially play a Thursday night game. It bothered us when we talked to coaches, one in particular, he said, 'We didn't practice. We were worn out, we didn't practice and we came to a Thursday night game.' That made us uncomfortable." McKay added: "Could we get one more tie a year? Maybe. Do we want that? No. The bottom line on the rule is we're going to do it for player safety, not necessarily to make the game better."
Chicago Sports&TravelInc./AllsportsAmericaTake; Updated from last week, 05/26/2017: We did our due diligence researching the effects of this rule change. We found out that: 1) The shorter overtime period will be used in the preseason and regular season. 2) Playoff games will also use 10-minute time blocks in overtime, but won't end in ties.
3) Coaches' concerns that too many players were exhausted and risking injuries at the end of the extra period was the key factor in the decision. Also, it should be noted that players did not have enough recovery time for short week games.
4) Research suggests the number of games that will go into overtime and end up tied will climb slightly. Over the past five years, with the 15-minute period in use, the league has averaged about one tie game each season. Projections show that could climb to three.
5) "We don't think it will lead to more ties," Goodell said. He noted a number of coaches said they expect a more aggressive approach to scoring with the shorter extra period.
For player's safety, it will be a good thing. An increase in ties will turn may fans off. Everyone would like to see a winner regardless as to whom it is. As the saying goes, "Ties are like kissing your sister." We can promise you one thing and that is if this rule doesn't enhance the game, it won't be around long.
Here are four other alternatives we looked at for overtime consideration, (By pressboxsports):
Install Playoff Overtime Format for the Regular Season This system has it’s pros and cons with the pros being that it would eliminate ties and would play under current rules and the biggest con being it could contribute to a very long game. The current playoff overtime rules are basically the same as the current regular season overtime rules with the exception that a game can’t end in a tie. Overtime in the playoffs will play as many fifteen minute quarters as it takes to determine a winner. This would be a step in the right direction, but there’s certainly better alternatives out there. College Football Overtime Format The NCAA eliminated ties in football games in 1996 when it developed their current overtime format. Basically teams start on the opponents 25 yard line and play under normal college football rules. Each team is given a possession in a series and the teams alternate between until on team comes out on top. At the start of the third series, teams must attempt a two point conversion in an attempt to make the game more challenging. This would be the most popular route the NFL could take and they could tweak the rules a bit to match the abilities of pro football players. Maybe mandating two point conversions from the beginning or starting at the 50 yard line instead of the 25 yard line. The college football overtime has also provided some of the greatest finishes in football history. XFL Overtime format This is by far my favorite overtime system that I’ve ever seen. It makes the game more of a challenge and provides some intense and exciting football action. The overtime format is basically the same as the college football overtime, but has one huge tweak. If a team scores in fewer than four downs on a possession, the other team only has that many downs to attempt to score. This system could cause teams to take more risks and give the players a chance to make the exciting big play. Nothing would be sweeter than seeing your team scoring on first down and putting the pressure on the opposing team to match that feat. Put it on the Kickers This was an idea that a buddy of mine came up with and while it may seem a little far-fetched, it’s definitely thinking outside of the box. Basically teams would line up for field goals starting at a 40 yard attempt. If both kickers are successful, then you move the attempt back five yards and continue to do so with a 55 yard cap. This format would have a soccer shootout feel, but it would certainly be exciting and nerve-racking to watch. You could also most likely see more defenses going for the block. It’s doubtful that the NFL will elect to change their overtime format with any of these or another format they create and it’s a shame because the current overtime just doesn’t seem to cut it anymore. It would be exciting to see a player like Ezekiel Elliott diving for the end zone to match a score or Tom Brady having only one down to keep the game alive. Maybe even seeing Odell Beckham Jr. making a game winning catch in overtime and once again making the highlight reel. Whichever alternative you like the best, one thing is for sure. Every alternative is better than the current NFL overtime format.
Please share your thoughts and feeling on this rule change with us. Just go to the comments section at the bottom of this blog and let it rip. We look forward to hearing your varied opinions. Thanks in advance for your time and consideration.
On This Date in Sports History: Today is Friday, June 02, 2017.
Memoriesofhistory.com
1883 - The first baseball game under electric lights was played in Fort Wayne, Indiana.
1935 - George Herman "Babe" Ruth announced that he was retiring from baseball.
1941 - Lou Gehrig died in New York of the degenerative disease amyotrophic lateral sclerosis.
1948 - The NHL announced that the Art Ross Trophy would be awarded annually to the scoring leader. Elmer Lach (Montreal Canadiens) was the first winner with 61 points in 1947-48.
1959 - Ted Williams (Boston) got his 2,500th hit of his career.
1990 - Randy Johnson achieved the first no-hitter in Seattle Mariner history.
1995 - Hideo Nomo got his first major league victory.
1996 - Tim Belcher (Kansas City Royals) won his 100th career game.
2000 - Fred McGriff (Tampa Bay Devil Rays) became the 31st major league player to hit 400 career home runs.
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