Tag: Fox Sport News

SAN DIEGO — Brooks Koepka walked off the final green late Friday afternoon and immediately found his wife, Jena Sims, and their 2-year-old son, Crew, waiting for him.

Koepka greeted his wife and quickly scooped up an excited Crew for the walk back from the ninth green at the North Course down to the scorers’ room at the clubhouse at Torrey Pines, safe for the weekend.

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That moment, he said earlier in the week, was the entire reason he wanted to leave LIV Golf and come back to the PGA Tour. He wanted to be able to spend more time with his family after a rough couple of months for them off the course.

“I don’t know the last time I’ve actually made a cut and they’ve still been there,” Koepka said, smiling.

“It was so nice to have them out there, and it felt good. I don’t know, my son doesn’t really know what’s going on, but it’s cool for me to have them here.”

Koepka posted a 4-under 68 on Friday in the second round of the Farmers Insurance Open, which marked his first non-major championship PGA Tour event in nearly four years. That, after his 1-over opening round on the South Course on Thursday, got him to 3-under for the week — which was just good enough to make the cut on the number.

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As a result, Koepka will make it into the weekend and get all four rounds in his first Tour event back.

While his round was significantly better than the initial outing — Koepka even made a birdie at the par-5 17th before carding two birdies in his final five holes — he was still a bit anxious as he settled back into life on Tour. It was just a different kind than what he felt 24 hours earlier.

“It was definitely different,” he said of his second round. “I think yesterday I was excited to play, nervous and kind of didn’t know what to expect. Today felt more normal, I guess.

“I mean, don’t get me wrong, I definitely still got antsy. But I guess maybe a little bit of nerves, just trying to figure it out and see where my game’s at too, right? I feel like I’m playing really well. It’s just been a long layoff.”

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Koepka very likely won’t be able to catch Justin Rose and make a run at the title this weekend. The deficit he’s facing is massive. But he’s going to get to play all four rounds, and have Jena and Crew by his side.

Justin Rose sets 36-hole record, extends lead

Unlike plenty who took it on before him this week, the South Course was incredibly easy for Justin Rose.

Rose erupted on the North Course on Thursday, where he carded a 10-under 62 on the easier of the two courses to begin the tournament and instantly jump into the solo lead. Friday was nearly as dominant, too. Rose seemed to handle the South Course, which got just about everyone in the opening round, with ease to grab a four-shot lead.

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Rose went 5-under on his front nine in the second round, thanks to a huge eagle at the par-5 sixth. Rose stuck his second shot on the front of the green and then easily rolled in an 8-footer with ease.

He did bogey once on Friday, but immediately offset it with another birdie. Rose then birdied the final two holes to get to 17-under, thanks in part to an absolute dart he landed on the iconic par-5 18th. That broke his own 36-hole record at the event.

“That was two special rounds of golf,” Rose said. “Today probably even more so just given it’s hard to often follow up a low one.”

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Rose has won 12 times on Tour in his career, most recently in a playoff at the FedEx St. Jude Championship last fall. Rose forced a playoff with Rory McIlroy at the Masters in April, too, but couldn’t quite pull off the upset win at Augusta National.

Though he’s still got a ways to go to grab his first win of the season, Rose is in full control at the midway point. And he’s well on his way to surpassing the near-record 21-under he posted to win the event seven years ago.

Yet even knowing where he’s at, Rose isn’t going to adjust a thing.

“I felt like I was even thinking about it [late in my round] and I thought that actually, I don’t think anything changes. … You go out and play this golf course as it’s designed to be played,” he said. “There’s going to be pin placements that you can’t take on. You have to play it with some patience and respect, and you’re going to have to play well. You’re going to have to play from the fairway.

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“So yeah, whether I was four back or four ahead, like, I don’t think it actually changes the task that much tomorrow.”

UPDATE: Framber Valdez and the Detroit Tigers reportedly agreed Feb. 4 on a 3-year, $115 million deal.

Pitchers and catchers are due at spring training in less than two weeks, yet several of the top free-agent arms still don’t know which complex in Arizona or Florida they’ll be reporting to. Eight of the 18 starting pitchers on our Top 50 free agents list remain unsigned with February fast approaching. Chief among them is No. 8 overall and our top hurler in the class, left-hander Framber Valdez.

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Over the past four seasons, Valdez ranks second in MLB in innings, behind only Logan Webb, and fifth in fWAR behind Zack Wheeler, Webb, Tarik Skubal and Kevin Gausman. Among 59 pitchers with at least 500 innings pitched during that span, Valdez’s 3.22 ERA ranks seventh, and his 3.29 FIP is ninth. His terrific sinker and top-notch curveball have consistently combined for elite groundball rates, which are clearly his headlining trait as a pitcher, rather than strikeout totals or pinpoint command.

All of this has made Valdez a rotation staple for the Houston Astros during the back half of their dynastic run atop the American League, which has afforded him ample opportunities to pitch in October. He ranks sixth among active pitchers in postseason innings (85.0) and has delivered several stellar high-stakes starts along the way, including an eight-inning effort in the 2021 ALCS and two terrific outings in the 2022 World Series. His more recent showings in 2023 and 2024 weren’t quite as effective, but Valdez is unquestionably battle-tested, and that experience should appeal to teams.

So what’s the hold up? Why would a pitcher of this caliber linger on the market this long? For starters, the number of teams willing to dole out a nine-figure deal was limited from the get-go. If Valdez and his representation are targeting a contract somewhere between what the two other top arms received (5 years, $130M for Ranger Suarez; 7 years, $210M for Dylan Cease), a wholly reasonable ask considering his track record, that immediately shrinks the pool of possible landing spots to almost exclusively big-market clubs.

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Age is also paramount in free agency, and Valdez, who turned 32 in November, is two years older than Cease and Suarez. Teams might question how much longer Valdez will be in his prime, particularly with him coming off his worst season as a full-time rotation member. His 2025 wasn’t a bad campaign by any stretch, but unlike in each of the previous three seasons, Valdez didn’t receive any down-ballot Cy Young votes. He also finished poorly, posting a 5.20 ERA in the second half as Houston missed the postseason for the first time since 2016.

There’s also speculation that the cross-up incident in September involving his catcher, Cesar Salazar, has made some teams wary of Valdez’s character. Whether that’s a driving factor behind the hesitance to sign him is unknown, but it’s worth noting that Valdez and his agency made it a priority early in free agency to communicate to clubs about the pitcher’s makeup, crafting a video that helps tell his story and highlights his reputation as a positive presence off the field, beyond what he brings on the mound.

Whatever the exact confluence of reasons that brought us to this point, it’s hard to imagine Valdez will remain unsigned for much longer. So let’s survey the entire league and contemplate possible fits for the left-hander, organized into tiers from least to most likely landing spots.

Not happening

Teams: Brewers, Reds, Rockies, Twins, Cardinals, Pirates, Nationals, Athletics, Guardians, Rays, White Sox, Marlins

Here we have a wide-ranging tier including contending teams, rebuilding teams, ascendent teams and tough-to-decipher teams. Some of these clubs could argue against signing Valdez based on the pitching personnel already in place or more urgent needs elsewhere on the roster.

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More pertinently, this cohort shares the most relevant trait in any free-agency exercise: They represent the current dozen lowest payrolls in MLB, a natural distinction for determining which clubs are exceedingly unlikely to splurge on a premium free agent such as Valdez, especially one with a qualifying offer attached (beyond the financial considerations, small-market clubs are often particularly reluctant to forfeit draft picks). Even as we try to expand our horizons to consider potential sleepers for Valdez, any of these teams emerging to sign the southpaw would be downright stunning.

No room, sorry

Red Sox, Dodgers, Mariners, Blue Jays

These four contenders with payrolls ranging from medium (Seattle) to high (Boston, Toronto) to astronomical (Los Angeles) are already loaded with rotation options that make signing Valdez illogical.

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Decent fits but probably won’t pay up

Tigers

Maybe Detroit wins its arbitration hearing against Tarik Skubal and then, with added payroll clarity and flexibility, directs some funds to adding a formidable co-ace alongside Skubal (and perhaps a long-term replacement in the event Skubal departs next winter). That would be cool! But don’t count on it.

Royals

Kansas City’s rotation is already quite left-handed, but a trade of Kris Bubic for an offensive upgrade followed by a surprise signing of Valdez could transform the Royals into AL Central favorites. It’s an unlikely sequence but a fun scenario to ponder.

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Angels

If owner Arte Moreno wakes up tomorrow and decides he wants to sign a top free agent, as he has on several occasions throughout his tenure, Valdez could be an Angel. But nothing about the team’s offseason activity thus far suggests that is remotely likely.

Rangers

Texas’ trade for MacKenzie Gore indicates a preference to spend prospect capital rather than real dollars to add to its rotation. But if the Rangers were to shed their recently thrifty tendencies and pounce, Valdez could boost their rotation from strong to elite.

Padres

Valdez would be an awesome addition to a Padres rotation that is perilously thin even after they retained Michael King, but all indications are San Diego is still operating with significant budget limitations.

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Diamondbacks

The Snakes could definitely use rotation help, but as long as Zac Gallen also remains unsigned, Arizona bringing him back on a new deal feels more likely than the team forfeiting a draft pick and paying way more for a fresher face.

Probably won’t happen, but they have the money (and maybe the need)

Cubs, Yankees, Phillies

There is an intriguing commonality among these three clubs: All three have frontline starters coming back from injury who likely won’t be ready to begin the season (Justin Steele in Chicago, Gerrit Cole and Carlos Rodón in New York, Zack Wheeler in Philadelphia). The Cubs (Edward Cabrera) and Yankees (Ryan Weathers) have already made trades to fortify their starting staffs to a degree, while Philadelphia appears content to hold down the fort with its internal options until Wheeler is back.

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Is there still room — and time — for one of these big-market clubs to flex its financial muscles and add an impact starter anyway? Maybe!

Probably won’t happen, but they did just employ him for a decade

Astros

It’s natural to circle back to the incumbent club when free agencies drag on, but at no point this offseason did it seem realistic that Valdez would stay in Houston, and the Astros have added several other arms (Tatsuya Imai, Mike Burrows, Ryan Weiss, Nate Pearson) in an effort to restock their rotation. A reunion here would be pretty shocking.

The legitimate contenders

Mets

The recent acquisition of Freddy Peralta might’ve changed the calculus for New York in a possible pursuit of Valdez, as the need for a frontline starter is certainly lessened now. And you could also look at the current depth chart, which features a glut of rotation candidates, and argue that another major addition to the unit isn’t necessary. At the same time, Valdez would represent a sensible and exciting finish to New York’s dramatic offseason roster overhaul.

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For all the buzz about Peralta and star rookie righty Nolan McLean, major questions persist about every other rotation candidate based on last season’s showings — and acting like McLean is a sure bet based on his limited sample might be risky. As one of the few teams with the kind of spending power to add impact talent regardless of an imperfect roster fit, the Mets shouldn’t be content with their current mound options, especially in the ultra-competitive NL East. David Stearns is reportedly reluctant to give out a long-term deal to any pitcher, but maybe owner Steve Cohen can enable a shorter-term, high-AAV offer to entice Valdez to come to Queens.

Braves

Atlanta has quietly spent a healthy chunk of change this offseason as it looks to bounce back from a miserable 2025, committing more than $100 million to seven free agents to help bolster the bullpen and lineup. The rotation, meanwhile, remains untouched.

The Braves’ top four arms — Chris Sale, Spencer Schwellenbach, Spencer Strider and Reynaldo Lopez — are all wildly talented, but all have missed significant time due to injury in recent seasons. Adding Valdez, a workhorse who offers frontline upside, would be an excellent way to add some certainty to this fragile unit and is the kind of aggressive move that might be necessary if the Braves want to jump back into the NL East melee with the Phillies and Mets.

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Giants

The Giants continue to communicate that they are content with their rotation after the modest additions of Tyler Mahle and Adrian Houser, but the longer this drags on, the more San Francisco looks like the team that could benefit the most from finally opening up the wallet and adding a game-changer on the mound. The Giants’ starting staff currently ranks 22nd in projected fWAR, per FanGraphs’ Depth Charts. Adding Valdez — projected to be a top-15 MLB starter — could single-handedly vault them into the top half of rotations league-wide and significantly strengthen their case as a 2026 playoff team.

Pairing Valdez with ace Logan Webb would also give them arguably the two best groundball pitchers in the sport, a duo that could thrive with terrific infielders Matt Chapman and Willy Adames playing behind them. The Cubs and Red Sox eventually quieted their critics by acting like the big-market clubs they are and making splashes in free agency, and there’s still time for the Giants to do the same. And unlike Chicago and Boston, who are coming off postseason appearances, San Francisco should have even more urgency to do so, considering its complete lack of relevance in the NL playoff picture since its outlier 107-win campaign in 2021.

The consensus favorites

Orioles

This team has been the most obvious Valdez match for months. President of baseball operations Mike Elias has plenty of familiarity with Valdez, having been in Houston’s front office during his rise to the majors, and now Elias is heading an Orioles club that hasn’t been shy about its intentions to bolster its rotation this winter.

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Trading for Shane Baz was an important step in that direction, but that move didn’t satisfy Baltimore’s need to acquire a pitcher it could feel confident giving the ball for a postseason start — and adding Valdez would. To be clear, this Orioles offseason should be considered a success even without Valdez, but adding the left-hander would emphatically punctuate a winter spent strengthening virtually every portion of the roster.

Until Valdez signs elsewhere, this is the match we’ll be waiting to see come to fruition.

The line between college and pro sports has never been more blurred, and Amari Bailey is reportedly up for testing its obscurity.

The former UCLA guard, who was drafted by the Charlotte Hornets in the second round of the 2023 NBA Draft and then played 10 games on a two-way contract for the Hornets during the 2023-24 season, is seeking college eligibility.

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No one has gone back to play in college after logging NBA minutes. His goal is to play one more season in the collegiate ranks, according to an ESPN report Friday.

“Right now I’d be a senior in college,” the soon-to-be-22-year-old Bailey told ESPN. “I’m not trying to be 27 years old playing college athletics. No shade to the guys that do; that’s their journey. But I went to go play professionally and learned a lot, went through a lot. So, like, why not me?”

Bailey has reportedly hired an agent and a lawyer and is prepared to challenge the NCAA in court. He explained to ESPN that he has some regrets about leaving UCLA after his freshman season, during which he averaged 11.2 points, 3.8 rebounds and 2.2 assists per game in 2022-23.

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That season, the Bruins won 31 games and reached the Sweet 16. Bailey was the fourth-leading scorer on a squad that featured Miami Heat first-round pick Jaime Jaquez Jr.

He arrived at UCLA as a five-star prospect from Sierra Canyon, where he teamed up with Bronny James and other high-profile prospects outside of Los Angeles. Bailey was the No. 12 overall recruit in the 2022 class, according to Rivals.

After his rookie season with the Hornets, he signed with the Brooklyn Nets but spent the 2024-25 season in the G League. He was cut this past summer, according to ESPN.

“It’s not a stunt,” Bailey said, per ESPN. “I’m really serious about going back. I just want to improve my game, change the perception of me and just show that I can win.”

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Last month, in the wake of 2023 second-round pick James Nnaji joining Baylor, NCAA president Charlie Baker insisted the NCAA “has not and will not grant eligibility to any prospective or returning student-athletes who have signed an NBA contract (including a two-way contract).”

Nnaji, a 21-year-old 7-foot center from Makurdi, Nigeria, never signed an NBA contract. Instead, he remained in the FC Barcelona organization, although he did play in NBA Summer League games for the Hornets and New York Knicks, as recently as last year for the Knicks.

Nnaji’s arrival at Baylor has been overshadowed recently by another 7-footer, Charles Bediako, and his return to Alabama. Bediako, 23, hadn’t played for the Crimson Tide since the 2022-23 campaign. He went undrafted after that season and ultimately embarked on a G League stint. He did, however, sign a two-way contract with the San Antonio Spurs in 2023.

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Last week, a judge granted a temporary restraining order to allow Bediako to return to Alabama and play for the Crimson Tide.

Bailey heard his name called in the draft 10 picks after Nnaji, and he signed the same type of contract as Bediako.

Bailey believes playing 65 NBA minutes shouldn’t differentiate him from those two players. He’s aiming to join a college team for next season, per ESPN, which reported the potential team would have to petition the NCAA for a waiver to permit him to play.

If denied that waiver, Bailey and his legal team could file a lawsuit.

Mere months after the Minnesota Vikings hired Kwesi Adofo-Mensah as general manager and Kevin O’Connell as head coach, I sat down with each during their offseason practices to better understand their philosophy.

I learned about their visions for elevating the talent on their roster and their beliefs about the threshold of talent required to win a championship.

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Discussions, particularly with Adofo-Mensah, turned to his philosophy around quarterback.

“I’ll be frank: The one asset where you get nervous about not burning it down is quarterback,” he told me in May 2022, because teams are “more likely to win” the Super Bowl “if you have that quarterback.”

Then he added: “It’s very unlikely to have that quarterback.”

With the Vikings firing Adofo-Mensah on Friday after four seasons and an additional four-week delay, those sentiments are worth revisiting.

Because going forward, NFL decision-makers may re-examine the decision Adofo-Mensah made and pivot in another direction. But a year ago, the Vikings’ GM followed a decision-making path that was common in the NFL: Trying to avoid overpaying a player at a key position if they didn’t believe that player could take them to the Super Bowl.

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When the Vikings decided last March not to re-sign quarterback Sam Darnold, they factored in multiple variables.

There was, of course, 2024 10th overall pick J.J. McCarthy in the building, and he was expected to fully rehabilitate before the season’s start.

There was also, the Vikings believed, a chance to keep the quarterback whom they’d signed in November when he became available: former New York Giants starter Daniel Jones.

And then there was the philosophy of Adofo-Mensah, who believed in a threshold of championship talent.

“If you don’t have [that threshold], you don’t win — that’s very binary,” Adofo-Mensah said during the 2022 OTAs sit-down. “The way you can screw up in this job is deceiving yourself that you’re there.”

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[Get more Vikings news: Minnesota team feed]

Adofo-Mensah’s discussion of a talent threshold may have been cast in more quantitative language than that of most NFL decision-makers. But his reasoning and philosophies resembled those which teams had preached for decades.

Realism about a team’s place in the competitive lifecycle is integral, coaches and executives often admit off the record and occasionally on it (see: the Cleveland Browns’ statement this week when hiring head coach Todd Monken). And the most important position, they say often, is quarterback.

Adofo-Mensah agreed with that. He believed in maintaining draft picks to increase the chances of finding the next Patrick Mahomes or Tom Brady. And he worried about going all in on a quarterback who had not proven to be that ultimate winner.

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So when Darnold had one very good season last year, to follow six NFL seasons with nowhere near that level of success, the Vikings were not ready to ignore their high draft pick.

Adofo-Mensah reflected on that in a Jan. 13 interview with Vikings reporters, discussing how he’d stay up at night wondering about the process. But ultimately, as he said, disappointing results don’t always mean the process was poor.

“It’s easier to go and be revisionist and results-based, but going to really think through what we had at the time, I still understand why we did what we did,” Adofo-Mensah said earlier this month. “In my conversation with Kevin, just doing the analysis we’ve done, we’ve set a standard here for winning when we’ve gotten a certain level of play in that position, allowing us to be explosive enough on offense to set the table for how we play defense, special teams and things like that.

“So our conversation is about returning the room to a competitive, deep-enough standpoint to get that play style, that ability to win games.”

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Darnold, whom the New York Jets selected third overall in 2018, posted his career-best year in the process, completing 66.2% of his pass attempts for 4,319 yards, 35 touchdowns and 12 interceptions.

The Vikings won 14 games in that process, but they also lost their regular-season finale and wild-card game. In those two games, Darnold completed 53% of his 81 pass attempts and threw one touchdown to one interception. In the playoff loss to the Los Angeles Rams, he absorbed nine sacks.

So the Vikings decided not to offer the three-year, $100.5 million payday the Seattle Seahawks did. Seattle gave Darnold $37.5 million guaranteed at signing and $55 million in total guarantees, per Spotrac.

Minnesota also lost Jones when the Indianapolis Colts paid him $13 million with the chance to start. Jones led the Colts to an 8-5 start before tearing his Achilles, completing 68% of his passes for 3,101 yards, 19 touchdowns and 8 interceptions.

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The Vikings made a key firing right after two men at the position he was most tasked with fixing succeeded elsewhere. That influenced the decision to move on. But this dismissal is not as simple as a one-year quarterback failure. And it’s not as simple as a firing on the basis of Darnold advancing to the Super Bowl.

“It’s not about any one decision or move,” team owner Mark Wilf said Friday after the team announced Adofo-Mensah’s dismissal. “We looked at the decision cumulatively. We just didn’t feel confident going through the entirety of the offseason, an additional draft and free agency with this structure.

“We have an urgency to create a winning football team and establish sustainable success.”

The Seahawks showed this season that a quarterback without All-Pro histories, a track record of playoff wins and a cemented place in the top tier of the position in the league can, indeed, make it to the Super Bowl.

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The recipe is leaning not only on the quarterback but also on a strong run game, excellent scheme and top-tier defense. The recipe also included giving a quarterback time to develop: Darnold is succeeding with his fifth team in his seventh NFL season. He’s succeeding in his third year learning the Shanahan-McVay system.

The Vikings can remind themselves that McCarthy is only one year into playing and two into learning the principles.

His story is not yet closed.

And while Adofo-Mensah’s successor, like most NFL general managers, may wonder if he should worry about not burning down the quarterback position, Darnold will be a glaring reminder that players given time, and plans given a chance, can succeed just as a superhuman like Mahomes, who waited behind Alex Smith his rookie year.

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“We understand there will be questions on the timing and why now,” Wilf said Friday. “I think you know how we want to operate as owners. We want to avoid knee-jerk reactions, be pragmatic, thoughtful, methodical making these decisions.”

Perhaps the Vikings then will be pragmatic, thoughtful and methodical with their next decision at quarterback.

The Washington Wizards likely would’ve preferred for Luka Dončić to sit out Friday’s game to give his sore left ankle a rest.

Instead, the Los Angeles Lakers’ star played against the Wizards after being listed as questionable earlier in the day on the NBA’s injury report due to left ankle soreness. And he was explosive from the game’s opening tip of a 142-111 win.

Dončić scored 11 of the Lakers’ first 20 points and assisted on two Deandre Ayton baskets on his way to finishing the first quarter with 17 points, 7 rebounds and 7 assists as the Lakers scored 41 points in the opening 12 minutes.

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By halftime, he already had a triple-double with 26 points, 10 rebounds and 11 assists as the Lakers went to the locker room with a 77-48 lead. Oh, and he only played 19 minutes in the first half.

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Demonstrating that it was simply his night, Dončić posed after making a lob pass to Jaxson Hayes (before Hayes even finished the dunk) and banked in a 3-pointer for the Lakers’ final score of the second quarter. Lakers coach JJ Redick wasn’t too impressed by the bank shot during his halftime interview, however.

“Sometimes, he gets bored. So it did not surprise me,” Redick said on the Spectrum SportsNet broadcast. “He did not call it, though.”

Dončić insisted after the game that he intended to bank the shot in, however.

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He hrottled down in the second half, sitting out the entire fourth quarter with the Lakers holding a big lead. Dončić finished with 37 points, 11 rebounds, 13 assists and 3 steals. The NBA’s leading scorer has tallied 30 points or more in seven of his past 10 games.

By the end of the game, it was Bronny James who entertained the fans at Capital One Arena with a breakway dunk from a steal by Jake LaRivia.

Prior to that, LeBron James gave the fans a highlight with a reverse dunk on a lob pass from Marcus Smart.

The elder James scored 20 points, while Bronny tallied four. Ayton added 28 points (his second-highest total of the season) with 13 rebounds, while Rui Hachimura provided 11 points off the bench.

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[Get more Lakers news: Los Angeles team feed]

The Lakers have won of five of their past seven games and improved to 29-18 as they wrestle with the Phoenix Suns for the No. 6 spot in the Western Conference. Los Angeles continues its eight-game road trip with a Sunday primetime matchup against the New York Knicks.

For the Wizards (12-35), Malaki Branham scored a team-high 17 points. Alex Sarr followed with 16 points, 6 rebounds and 5 assists, while Kyshawn George and Bub Carrington each scored 13 points. Washington next hosts the equally struggling Sacramento Kings (12-37) on Sunday.

Kansas freshman Darryn Peterson was not listed in the injury report for Saturday’s ranked matchup against No. 13 BYU.

Peterson missed No. 14 Kansas’s last game against Kansas State after suffering an ankle injury in the second half of Tuesday’s win over Colorado. He has played in only 10 of 20 games this season after dealing with a hamstring injury and cramps.

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When Peterson is on the floor, he produces. The 19-year-old is averaging 21.6 points, 4.6 rebounds and 1.9 assists, and shooting 42% from behind the arc.

On the other side will be BYU 6-foot-9 freshman AJ Dybantsa. Dybantsa was the only freshman in the 2025 class ranked above Peterson coming out of high school.

The 19-year-old freshman is second in the country in scoring, averaging 23.6 points, and adds 6.7 rebounds and 3.6 assists per game. Last weekend, Dybantsa scored 43 points on 15-of-24 shooting and going 4 of 5 from three against Utah.

Dybantsa and Peterson also have a history of matching up against each other in high school. Peterson has won both of their two matchups. In their last matchup, Peterson stole the show with 58 points and the game-winning 3-pointer in Proflic Prep’s 88-86 win over Utah Prep. Dybantsa finished the game with 49 points.

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The two freshmen also faced off against each other in the McDonald’s All America Game. Peterson scored 18 points and was named the Co-MVP with Duke’s Cam Boozer. Dybantsa scored 13 points.

The two have been linked to one another since their days together at the U16 trials for Team USA. They are also contenders to be the No. 1 pick in the 2026 NBA Draft.

No. 3 Michigan held off a rousing second-half comeback by No. 7 Michigan State for a 83-71 road win at Friday night.

The Wolverines looked as if they would earn a decisive victory in East Lansing, finishing off the final three minutes of the first half with a 13-6 run. However, MSU’s Coen Carr may have hinted at what was to come with a thunderous dunk for the last basket of the half.

Three minutes into the second half, the Spartans began what would become a 9-0 run to cut Michigan’s lead to 46-41. That turned into an 18-9 surge that tied the score at 55-55 on a Jason Kohler 3-pointer at the 7:57 mark.

Jeremy Fears Jr. stole an Eliot Cadeau pass 30 seconds later for a fast-break layup that put Michigan State on top, 57-55. The two rivals exchanged leads twice before a Will Tschetter 3-pointer and two Morez Johnson Jr. free throws gave the Wolverines a three-point foothold.

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Michigan State twice closed to within one point, but Michigan created some distance with a Johnson dunk and Cadeau 3-pointer for a 69-63 lead. With three minutes remaining in the game, the Wolverines outscored the Spartans 6-3 to build its margin back to 10 points, 75-65. MSU couldn’t get closer than seven points the rest of the way and Michigan pulled away by knocking down eight free throws.

Yaxel Lendeborg led the Wolverines with 26 points and 13 rebounds. He converted 13 of 15 free throws to help lift Michigan to the win. Cadeau followed with 17 points and 6 assists, as Michigan improved to 20-1 (10-1 in the Big Ten) for the season.

For the Spartans, Fears scored a game-high 31 points with 5 rebounds, 7 assists and 4 steals. Kohler added 12 points and 5 boards for Michigan State, who dropped to 19-3 (9-2 Big Ten).

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Michigan lost both of its games against Michigan State last season, including a 79-62 loss in the regular-season finale in East Lansing. But the Wolverines and head coach Dusty May seemed to be better prepared for the environment at the Breslin Center.

“This was electric; I’m not saying we got a very warm welcome,” May said afterward. “But this was a good sign for our guys to be able to battle in this type of physical game, and come up with enough rebounds and loose basketballs to get over the hump against a team we struggled with last year.”

May went on to say his team didn’t adjust well to physical play against Big Ten opponents and tried to address that with recruiting players for this season.

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Following wins over No. 5 Nebraska and the No. 7 Spartans, Michigan is off until next Thursday when it hosts Penn State (9-12). Michigan State travels to Minnesota (10-11) for a Wednesday matchup.

Veteran MLB reliever David Robertson announced his retirement Friday, ending a playing career that saw him appear with eight different teams over the course of 18 years.

Nine of those years were spent with the New York Yankees, who selected him in the 17th round of the 2006 MLB Draft. He reached the majors two years later and, in his second season, won his only World Series ring with the Yankees’ 2009 champion team.

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Robertson was the only active player remaining from that 2009 team, and that creates quite the historical fact as we head into the 2026 season.

[Get more Yankees news: New York team feed]

With no Robertson in the majors, there will not be a single active player in MLB who has won a World Series ring with the Yankees. How rare is that? It’s been true for only one other MLB season since the Yankees’ first World Series title in 1922, a span of 104 years.

That season is 1995. And now 2026 is set to join it, as well as potentially 2027, and 2028, and so on.

You don’t need a baseball historian to tell you the Yankees regularly won the World Series from the 1920s to the early 1960s. Obviously, MLB had players with Yankees World Series rings throughout that time. Most of them were still playing for the Yankees, thanks to the reserve clause.

Over the course of Yankees history, the team has had three notable World Series droughts: from 1962 to 1977, from 1978 to 1996 and 2009 to present. To find a player whose career spanned the first drought, you can look up Al Downing, who received light work with the 1961 and 1962 Yankees but lasted in MLB until his retirement with the Los Angeles Dodgers in 1977.

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For 1978 to 1996, the closest any player comes is Hall of Famer Rich “Goose” Gossage, who was an All-Star on the 1978 Yankees and kept playing until 1994, his age-42 season. He did spend a season out of MLB in 1990 while playing for Japan’s Fukuoka Daiei Hawks, but that gap is covered by former teammate Willie Randolph, who played until 1992, and assorted others.

There was the mini-drought from 2000 to 2009, obviously covered by Derek Jeter, Jorge Posada, Andy Pettite and more, and then this one.

To be clear, this is just a fun little fact. The Yankees are not panicking because David Robertson retired. Still, it underscores how far the Yankees have drifted from their history over the past couple decades.

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The club had a chance to break the drought in 2024, but ran into a Dodgers team that has now usurped its status as MLB’s Big Bad. The pressure is going to keep building with every year that passes without a new set of players with Yankees rings.

Even a quarter of Stephen Curry is a high cost for the Golden State Warriors these days.

The Warriors star exited Friday’s game against the Detroit Pistons early with right knee soreness, finishing with a team-high 23 points on 7-of-16 shooting (4 of 10 from 3-point range). After the game, Warriors head coach Steve Kerr said he didn’t believe Curry’s knee injury was “anything major,” but the team will know more on Saturday.

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Curry went to the locker room near the end of the third quarter, grimacing and limping slightly after some awkward contact on an and-1. He remained in the locker room at the beginning of the fourth quarter, and the Warriors soon ruled him out for the rest of the game.

The Warriors managed to hang around despite Curry’s injury, cutting the deficit to three points midway through the fourth quarter, but ended up losing 131-124 to the East-leading Pistons.

Curry had been dealing with a knee issue over the course of this week. He reportedly first felt something in his knee on Saturday and was listed as questionable with right knee soreness for Sunday’s game, but still played that day. However, he did miss Monday’s game against the Portland Trail Blazers, the second leg of a back-to-back.

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He went on to play 28 minutes against the Utah Jazz on Wednesday and didn’t carry an injury designation going into Friday’s game, but clearly the injury resurfaced.

As usual, a significant Curry injury would be the last thing the Warriors need right now. The team is still learning how to navigate life without Jimmy Butler, who was knocked out for the season by a torn ACL last week.

Friday’s loss means Golden State is now 2-4 since Butler’s injury, with losses to the Toronto Raptors and Dallas Mavericks. For now, they remain in eighth place in the Western Conference at 27-33, with a 3.5-game cushion to avoid the second play-in game.

A day after a crash that threatens her availability for the Winter Olympics, Lindsey Vonn withdrew from her scheduled World Cup super-G race on Saturday but provided no definitive update on her status for next week’s Games.

Vonn injured her left knee after a fall during Friday’s World Cup downhill race in Crans-Montana, Switzerland. She posted on Instagram on Saturday that she would not be racing in the super-G.

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“Doing my best right now,” she wrote in the post.

Vonn has yet to rule herself out from competing in the Olympics despite the injury. After a social media account that tracks prediction markets declared, “Lindsey Vonn being airlifted days before the Winter Games is a brutal market correction. The public had bet on the narrative, but physics had the final say,” Vonn offered a terse reply: “Physics had the final say? No, I have the final say.”

Early in Friday’s run, Vonn lost balance following a jump and skidded into safety nets while on her back. After being tended to for several minutes by medical personnel, she stood up by using her poles to steady herself while grabbing at her left knee.

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Vonn skied slowly to the finish line, stopping several times, before limping into a medical tent. She was then airlifted out via helicopter.

In a post on her Instagram, Vonn said Friday she’s “discussing the situation with my doctors and team and will continue to undergo further exams.

“This is a very difficult outcome one week before the Olympics… but if there’s one thing I know how to do, it’s a comeback. … My Olympic dream is not over.”

The 41-year-old Vonn was the third skier to crash in the World Cup race in Crans-Montana. The race was canceled following Vonn’s run due to poor visibility.

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“The main reason is the safety of the athletes,” said Women’s World Cup Race Director Peter Gerdol. “The visibility was getting worse and worse, they couldn’t see the race line properly and it caused mistakes. We saw six athletes starting and all six had some mistakes. This was a sign that it was a high-risk situation. We know that our sport is a risky sport, but the feeling was too much risk. That’s why the Jury decided to stop the race.”

Vonn retired in 2019, but felt her competitive spark return after watching the 2022 Olympics in Beijing. She underwent knee replacement surgery in 2024 and in December won her first World Cup race in nearly six years to validate her comeback. She won again earlier this month.

Vonn won gold in the downhill and bronze in the super-G at the 2010 Vancouver Olympics and picked up another bronze medal in downhill at the 2018 Games in Pyeongchang.

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The Olympic women’s downhill will take place on Feb. 8 at Tofane Alpine Skiing Centre in Cortina d’Ampezzo, Italy.