Good morning, I’m Josh Rosenblat. If this weekend was a preview of the basketball that we’re going to get next month, then March can’t get here quick enough.
In today’s SI:AM:
🔴 More embarrassment at Alabama
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February freakiness
With the clock winding down in February, hoopers at all levels saw opportunities for the greatest play the sport has to offer: the buzzer beater. With big-time matchups in the NBA and men’s and women’s college basketball littering this past weekend’s sports schedule, we were blessed with last-second heroics that could have long-lasting implications.
Let’s start in the NBA, where two of the East’s top teams met in a Saturday-night showdown. The Sixers came back in the fourth quarter to tie the Celtics at 107 with Boston holding for what they hoped would be one final shot. What followed was surely one of the season’s wildest sequences:
Jayson Tatum, struggling as a scorer to that point in the game, knocked down a three with the clock ticking toward zeroes. Then, in desperation, Joel Embiid tossed up a three-quarter-court heave in an attempt to beat the buzzer… and nailed it. Embiid seemed to know it was just a hair late, and it was. But the combination of Tatum’s clutch make, Embiid’s near-heroic response, a charged atmosphere in Philly and the stakes at hand (the Celtics stayed just ahead of the Bucks at the top of the East, who narrowly beat the Suns on Sunday) made for one of the top moments of the NBA season so far.
Just hours later Sunday afternoon in Atlanta, Trae Young had his teammates clear out for him with time winding down as the Hawks were tied at 127 with the Nets. Crossover, step back, shot fake, bucket, game over.
In the final game of the weekend, Clippers star Paul George threw up a prayer from beyond midcourt at the buzzer of a 120–120 game against the West-leading Nuggets only for it to come off his hands just milliseconds too late. The bucket was waived off, and Denver pulled away in OT to extend its conference lead to 5.5 games.
But the buzzer beater really shined brightest in the world of college hoops over the weekend. There’s no way I could get to all of them in depth. … Apologies to Florida State’s Matthew Cleveland, whose three upset No. 13 Miami, and to Lamont Butler, who knocked off New Mexico for No. 22 San Diego State, and to Hunter Dickinson, the Michigan big man who sent the Wolverines to OT against Wisconsin (they eventually won).
It was an early start Saturday in Tucson, where No. 7 Arizona hosted Arizona State in a rivalry game with importance for both programs. The Wildcats are not only a national title contender but were hoping to keep pace with UCLA in the race for the Pac-12’s regular-season crown. The Sun Devils, meanwhile, were on the outside of the NCAA tournament conversation and in need of a signature win to get back on the selection committee’s radar.
Well, they got just that. A back-and-forth final couple of minutes led to Arizona holding a two-point lead with just a couple of ticks remaining. Fifth-year guard Desmond Cambridge Jr. took the inbounds pass on the run and launched a runner from beyond half court.
The Sun Devils still have some work to do, but they’ll have opportunities. Their final two games of the regular season (Thursday at No. 4 UCLA and Saturday at USC) are both chances for quality wins that would make their tourney chances even more likely.
Two teams that will have no trouble making the NCAA tournament capped off the buzzer-beating weekend yesterday in Iowa City as the No. 6 Hawkeyes hosted No. 2 Indiana in a thriller. Iowa guard Caitlin Clark may have cemented her national player of the year candidacy with another stellar performance: 34 points, nine assists and nine boards. But she found her team down two with just over a second remaining. All 15,000-plus in Carver-Hawkeye Arena knew who was getting the ball, and with just over one second left, Clark corralled an inbounds pass on the run and got up the game-winner in one fluid motion.
In an interview with ESPN’s Holly Rowe after the 86–85 finish, Clark summed up what she and every other stone-cold shotmaker thinks when hoisting up a potential game-winner.
“Honestly, I thought it was money,” she said.
Remember, this is only February. I can’t wait for the madness March will bring.
The best of Sports Illustrated
Illustration by Kyle Hilton
- In today’s Daily Cover story, Stephanie Apstein writes about MLB’s all-out search for an equipment thief.
- Alabama had “another embarrassing moment” as star forward Brandon Miller’s pregame “pat down” introduction was the men’s basketball “program’s latest grotesque moment of the week,” Pat Forde writes.
- Chris Mannix breaks down Jake Paul’s loss to Tommy Fury, noting that the rematch may be even better.
- The first wave of spring training games is in the books. And the new pitch clock is forcing hitters to adjust on the fly, Emma Baccellieri writes.
- Tom Verducci writes about how Aaron Judge could follow up his record-breaking season.
- Verducci also covers how the increase in breaking pitches thrown is impacting MLB hitters.
- The lastest turn in the Russell Wilson–Pete Carroll saga isn’t surprising to Conor Orr. Why? Because what is alleged “happens in almost every facility, every single year,” he writes.
- The Hawks are hiring Quin Snyder as their next coach, according to a report from ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski.
- LeBron James appeared to tell teammates he heard a “pop” as he grabbed his foot during the Lakers’ comeback win over the Mavericks yesterday.
The top five...
… moments from Damian Lillard’s career-high 71-point outburst:
5. Andron “Lavish Phenom” Thomas of the Blazers’ NBA 2K League team calling one of Lillard’s threes, pleading with Matisse Thybulle to give the ball back to Dame.
4. The team’s postgame celebration, which caused the Blazers’ social media employee to drop their phone.
3. Lillard’s sweet, side-step three to reach 64 points and 12 threes, breaking his previous career highs.
2. This all-too-routine pull-up three from the half-court logo.
1. A poster.
SIQ
Ninety-nine years ago this past weekend, Maryland high school student Marie Boyd set a record for most points scored in a basketball game that still stands today. How many points did she score?
- 141
- 156
- 170
- 201
Friday’s SIQ: On Feb. 24, 2018, Ester Ledecká became the first woman to win gold in two different sports at the same Winter Olympics. Which two sports did she compete in?
- Alpine skiing and snowboarding
- Hockey and speedskating
- Curling and ski jumping
- Skeleton and luge
Answer: Alpine skiing and snowboarding. She won gold in the Super-G skiing event Feb. 16 and then captured gold in the parallel giant slalom snowboarding Feb. 24.
Ledecká’s ski victory came as a massive surprise. She won by a margin of just 0.01 seconds over Austria’s Anna Veith, the defending Olympic champion, and did so racing on skis she borrowed from Mikaela Shiffrin. Ledecká was ranked 43rd in the world in the Super-G at the time and had never finished better than 19th in that event at a World Cup race. The snowboarding win was less of a shock. She had finished in the top eight at the Sochi Olympics four years earlier.
While Ledecká is the only woman to capture gold in two different disciplines at the same Winter Olympics, other Olympians have succeeded in multiple events. Russia’s Anfisa Reztsova won gold at the 1994 and ’92 Olympics in biathlon as well as a cross-country skiing gold in ’88. There are more than 70 athletes with Olympic medals in multiple sports—in combinations like swimming and water polo, bobsled and skeleton, and swimming and diving. My favorite, though, is American Eddie Eagan, who won gold in boxing in ’20 and bobsled in ’32. He’s the only person to win gold in different sports at the Summer and Winter Olympics. —Dan Gartland
