Tag: 홀덤

The news is obviously welcome among Patriots fans, even considering that 10 of the franchise’s 11 Super Bowl appearances have come wearing modern uniforms. (The other saw the team fall 46-10 to the Bears in Super Bowl 20.) The Sporting News’ Bill Bender said as much in his ranking of the NFL’s top 20 throwback uniforms.

The Patriots aren’t the only ones breaking out retro looks in the near future. The Eagles will bring back their Kelly green uniforms in 2023, and the Buccaneers will unveil the Bucco Bruce throwbacks the same season.

The Patriots have used their throwback unis on occasion, starting with a 2002 Thanksgiving Day game against the Lions. The team didn’t use them again until 2009, though they remained in rotation through 2012 — specifically, a Week 7 win over the Jets — before a 2013 NFL rule limited teams to using only one helmet in a given season. The league will repeal its “one shell” rule as of the 2022 season, however, enabling New England to once again use its throwback uniforms.

The Patriots Hall of Fame Twitter account announced on Dec. 3, 2021 that the team would once again use the throwbacks in the 2022 season. The team overhauled its look for the 1993 season, forgoing the traditional look and red jerseys in favor of the modern iteration, which featured blue as the team’s primary color and the “Flying Elvis” logo on the helmets.

New England cornerback Jalen Mills posted to his Instagram story showing off the team’s legendary throwback helmet, which includes “Pat Patriot,” a fixture in the team’s uniforms from 1961 all the way through 1992.

On April 12, the Giants ticked off the Padres in a different manner. Mauricio Dubon bunted for a base hit with the Giants leading 11-2 in the sixth inning. San Diego’s dugout was outraged.

After the inning, it appeared as though Kapler was yelling at Dubon in the dugout, but Kapler publicly backed his player after the game.

Kapler said then that he wants his offense to maintain constant pressure on opponents in hopes of wearing down the other team’s bullpen during a series.

“They did some things that we felt like was uncalled for,” Nats manager Dave Martinez told reporters (per Susan Slusser of the San Francisco Chronicle). “But you guys can ask (Giants manager) Gabe Kapler about that.”

Estrada kept running and tried to score. He was thrown out at the plate, receiving a hard tag to the body from catcher Keibert Ruiz. Nationals shortstop Alcides Escobar and center fielder Victor Robles barked at the Giants’ dugout as they were coming off the field.

Neal was one of the top college football prospects who made the decision not to participate in the 2022 NFL Combine, but that was largely because teams already know he’s a top-10 pick in the draft. At 6-7 1/2, 337 pounds, Neal has the size to be an immediate impact offensive tackle in the NFL, and his quickness gives him the potential to be a Pro Bowl-caliber tackle. Michigan’s Taylor Lewan was a similar size (6-7, 309 pounds) and boasted impressive speed at the tackle position.

Ekwonu is not the typical offensive tackle based on his size — 6-4, 310 pounds — but he more than makes up for it with his speed. He ran a 4.93 40 at the combine and showed promising quickness with a 4.73 shuttle and 7.82 3-cone. Because of his combination of speed and size, he is similar to Oklahoma offensive tackle Donald Stephenson. The 6-5, 312-pound lineman ran a 4.94 40 and had a 4.73 shuttle, and was regarded coming out of college as a versatile lineman who would be a standout blocker both in the running and passing game.

Finding a comparison for Hamilton isn’t easy, but his profile is not one that is overly common. At 6-4, 220 pounds, he’s bigger than most safeties, yet doesn’t sacrifice much in terms of speed (4.59 40 time). He was a playmaker in 2021, with three interceptions, two tackles for loss and four passes defended in just seven games. Zierlein compared him to Virginia Tech’s Kam Chancellor, but we’re going with another physical safety in George Iloka, who was 6-4, 225 pounds coming out of the draft. He posted a 4.6 40 with a similar 3-cone (7.03 for Iloka to 6.9 for Hamilton) and shuttle (4.03 for Iloka, 4.32 for Hamilton). 

Hutchinson is an athletic defensive end with the potential to play either linebacker or defensive end. He won the Lombardi Award and Ted Hendricks Award, and posted eye-popping agility numbers, including the fastest 3-cone time of defensive end or EDGE prospects, per Stathead. His height, 6-7, adds in an extra wrinkle to comparisons, but we’ve got him compared to the 6-4 Nick Bosa. Bosa was similarly impressive in the weight room (29 bench presses to 28 for Hutchinson) and both offer the flexibility to work in various defenses. The shuttle times (4.15 for Hutchinson, 4.14 for Bosa) and 40 times (4.74 for Hutchinson, 4.79 for Bosa) both highlight a speedy end with the ability to be a force in the pass-rush.

The Sporting News is taking a look at who the top 32 prospects, based on Vinnie Iyer’s top 150 big board, compared among current or former NFL players. These comparisons are not exactly who we are projecting them to turn into, but rather who they were similar to by the numbers.

Included in our comparisons are those from NFL’s Lance Zierlein and RAS Football’s Kent Lee Platte, using the closest score for the latter comparison.

Miller said he watched as much Big East basketball as any conference during the 2021-22 season, when he was out of coaching and working as an analyst for the Field of 68 podcast network. He was impressed by the energized homecourt atmospheres as so many league members, from Creighton in the Midwest to Providence in the East. (And, of course, Xavier in between).

“I really believe this: It’s the envy of a lot of other conferences right now,” Miller told The Sporting News, while acknowledging the loss of Wright as an active competitor has an impact.

“In some ways, it’s disappointing, because he became an iconic figure. And when an iconic figure coaches in your conference, I think that everybody looks upon it differently, with a lot of respect,” Miller said. “And not that that respect goes away; I’m sure Villanova will try as hard as they can to continue operating as they have.

“Trust me, I wasn’t looking forward to coaching against him. That’s a tough task. But he sets the bar, all that he’s accomplished, really sets the bar for everybody else. Not to have that, in some ways is disappointing. But I think the Big East is incredibly healthy, and I’m sure the group that now takes over the reigns at Villanova will do a great job.”

“From the competitive standpoint, we’ll see. He doesn’t have the experience that Jay’s had at Villanova with respect to being the top coach, and probably the best coach in college basketball,” Cooley said of Neptune. “I’m excited for Kyle. I hope they’re horrendous when they play Providence College – I’m trying to win, too. But I think Kyle will keep it right where it’s at; that brand is built just like Duke, like Kentucky, like Kansas. That is where Jay has put Villanova for time to come.”

VIllanova took the greatest advantage of the stage provided by the basketball-first Big East, with its Fox Sports contract providing extensive coverage and national exposure. Over the past half-dozen years, the Big East ranked among the top four conferences – in either the NCAA’s NET rankings or its former standard, the RPI – in all but one season and never won fewer than 73 percent of its non-conference games. 

In the NCAA Tournament, however, the majority of league success was authored by Villanova. The Wildcats account for more than half of Big East wins over the past five tournaments. This is somewhat understandable given their two Final Fours and one NCAA championship in that stretch, but no other Big East member has more than four tournament wins since 2017.

A sample collected by the UK Anti-Doping Agency (UKAD) from Whyte before the fight returned an “adverse finding”. He was cleared to fight by UKAD and the British Boxing Board of Control, although when the information came to light the WBC provisionally suspended Whyte’s mandatory status.

“I am so disappointed with the rubbish that has been said about me over the last few days,” he wrote on Twitter. “I have lawyers dealing with it and I have been told that I can’t talk about it for good legal reasons. I was cleared to fight and I won that fight fair and square. Thanks for the support.”

This was understandably not the opinion of he the Rivas camp, who did not know about the issues with Whyte’s test. Had he been made aware, Rivas’s promoter Yvon Michel said his man would have been withdrawn from the fight.

Wilder dealt with Breazeale in a round in May 2019, meaning Whyte could finally claim mandatory status with victory that July against dangerous Colombian Oscar Rivas.

He did so superbly, outboxing Rivas before and after a heavy knockdown early on in a dramatic ninth round. However, when the events around fight night became clear, Whyte’s world-title aims and his future in the sport were suddenly in jeopardy.

This inconclusive outcome was another factor that did Whyte no favours, but he made the most of the downtime, bludgeoning Lucas Browne to a first career defeat before claiming what remains his standout win against Joseph Parker, scoring two knockdowns before coming through a final-round crisis to edge out the former WBO champion.

Further Joshua undercard action followed in October 2017, when he claimed a wide points win over Robert Helenius in Cardiff. That victory won Whyte the vacant WBC silver title and earned him top-billing with the organisation. Then-champion Deontay Wilder was in his sights.

However, the vagaries of sanctioning-body rankings meant his new lofty status did not make Whyte the mandatory challenger to Wilder. Former Joshua victim Dominic Breazeale, who had been touted by promoter Eddie Hearn as a possible dance partner for Whyte at the Principality Stadium, earned that distinction with a win over Molina.

That fight was on the same card as Wilder’s first-round KO of Bermane Stiverne, meaning the Bronze Bomber had a year to satisfy his obligation to Breazeale.

Whyte’s journey towards a shot at heavyweight glory truly began before his stint at the top of the WBC rankings and with a bitter and painful knockout loss.metasports

Anthony Joshua dropped a decision loss to Whyte when both men were amateurs and the London 2012 golden boy agreed to face his rough-and-ready rival in his 15th professional contest in December 2015.

An acrimonious build-up spilt over at the end of round one, a session in which Joshua had battered and wobbled his then-similarly unbeaten foe. Shots were thrown after the bell sounded — elaborately so by Whyte — and men from the teams of both fighters piled into the ring.

However, the sense of Fury’s world collapsing in September 2016 was only heightened by news that Tyson and his cousin and then-training partner Hughie had tested positive for the banned steroid nandrolone in 2015.

Both Furys strenuously denied ever taking performance-enhancing drugs and blamed the findings on eating uncastrated wild boar.

The Rolling Stone interview came a month after his scheduled rematch with Klitschko was cancelled. A statement declared Fury to be “medically unfit” to fight and a Voluntary Anti-Doping Agency (VADA) drugs test that showed him to have positive for cocaine.

“What the f*** has that got to do with anything? That ain’t a performance-enhancing drug,” was Fury’s succinct take on the matter, but he would soon be stripped of his WBA and WBO titles – each of which would be hoovered up by Anthony Joshua, much like IBF belt that was taken off him for agreeing to a Klitschko rematch as opposed to a bout with unheralded mandatory Vyacheslav Glazkov.

In the ring in Dusseldorf, the clown became the circus master. Fury was magnificent as he outboxed, perplexed and befuddled Klitschko to take his WBA, WBO and IBF belts via a unanimous decision. It would be the last time he boxed for more than two-and-a-half years.

“I’ve not been in a gym for months. I’ve not been training. I’ve been going through depression. I just don’t want to live anymore, if you know what I’m saying,” Fury told Rolling Stone magazine in an October 2016 interview that remains an utterly harrowing read.

“I’ve had total enough of it. They [the boxing authorities and the media] have forced me to the breaking edge. Never mind cocaine. I just didn’t care. I don’t want to live anymore. So cocaine is a little minor thing compared to not wanting to live anymore.”

During this period, in a 2011 interview with The Guardian, Fury said: “There is a name for what I have, where, one minute I’m happy, and the next minute I’m sad, like commit-suicide-sad. And for no reason – nothing’s changed. One minute I’m over the moon and the next minute I feel like getting in my car and running it into a wall at a hundred miles an hour. I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I’m messed up.”
 
Under the guidance of his uncle and trainer Peter Fury, Tyson put the pieces together. A slick, switch-hitting version of Fury handed out a comprehensive beating to Dereck Chisora in their second meeting for the European and British heavyweight titles in November 2014.

Embiid has battled a number of injuries throughout his career, including foot injuries that delayed his NBA debut by two years.

In recent years, Embiid’s playoff runs have been impacted by injuries.

During his playoff debut in 2018, Embiid was forced to play in a mask due to a fractured orbital bone. In 2021, Embiid suffered a torn meniscus in his left knee but missed just one game.

This past season, Embiid appeared in a career-best 68 games. He missed five games because of injury/rest and nine games while in the league’s health and safety protocols.

Based on the above reporting and Embiid’s postseason history, he will likely play through this latest injury.

The Sixers hold a 3-0 series lead over the Raptors. Through those three games, Embiid is averaging 27.7 points and 13.0 rebounds while shooting 51.0 percent from the field. He hit the game-winning 3-pointer in Game 3 on Thursday.

Is there something to be made of the attention placed on Embiid’s hand? Here’s everything we know about his status.

Just when it appeared as if things were going perfectly for Joel Embiid and the 76ers during their first-round series against the Raptors, a potential injury setback has emerged.

Embiid was seen wearing a brace on his right wrist at practice Friday between Games 3 and 4, indicating a hand injury suffered in-game. He was seen holding his thumb during Game 3.

“I didn’t have any doubt if I shot it I was going to make it,” Young said post-game. “But I was really trying to make the right read. I was driving to the middle and waiting to see if somebody helps and I was going, to be honest, find a shooter if they helped. Or if they didn’t help, I was going to get to the basket. I was able to get to the basket and get my floater.”

So what does this win mean for the Hawks moving forward in this series? Can they pull off an upset and progress to the next round? 

Atlanta will have to be encouraged by the production of their second unit. Bogdanovic had 18 points, Delon Wright added 13 and Onyeka Okongwu had nine points, and one especially crucial offensive rebound too as coach Nate McMillan ran a tight 8-man rotation. 

The Hawks have been super consistent at home since mid-January, winning 21 of 24 games.

Young, who struggled mightily with the Heat’s pressure defense in Game 1, found his form again in Game 2. The All-Star guard finished with 25 points while shooting 50.0 percent from the field. A comeback performance for Young as he scored just eight points in Game 1.

On Friday, he overcame a slow start (just 2-of-7 from the field in the first half) to finish with 24 points, eight assists and four rebounds. 

The Heat outscored the Hawks 31-16 in the third quarter and had a 21-0 run. The Hawks trailed by as many as 16 points at one stage of the game before they mounted their comeback in the final period led by Young and Bogdan Bogdanovic, who had nine of his 18 points in the last quarter. 

He has spoken of spending time on the driving range at his local golf club in northwest England to improve his right hand by “putting my shoulder into the shot, really driving it through.” And of his pride at the way he has come back from mental health problems and issues of drug use to become the No. 1 heavyweight and, at one time or other, the holder of each of the belts in the division.

“There’s nothing more for me to achieve,” he said. Whyte has his own memorable back-story, though, involving being drawn into London’s gang culture in his youth following his move to Britain from Jamaica, a short stint in prison, and a two-year suspension from boxing for testing positive for a banned stimulant.

He spent so long getting overlooked for a shot at the world heavyweight title, despite being mandatory challenger, that he wondered if his time would ever come. Whyte is largely unknown, except for in boxing circles in Britain. This is his big chance to make a name for himself, sending Fury into retirement in the process.

“It’s victory by any means necessary,” Whyte said. “. I’m not scared to take risks, I’ve taken risks my whole life so it’s nothing new. I’m ready to rock and roll.”

He should have too much for Whyte (28-2, 19 KOs), who is stockily built and enjoys turning fights into slugfests with his energy-sapping body punches. Certainly Fury, who is of Irish-Gypsy heritage and comes from a bloodline of bare-knuckle champions, is the more skilful of the two boxers.

What remains to be seen is whether Fury has taken his eye off the ball in recent weeks amid the controversy surrounding his links with Daniel Kinahan, one of the leaders of an organized crime gang for whom a reward of $5 million was offered by the U.S. Treasury Department for information that will lead to its destruction or arrest and conviction.

So much comes out of Tyson Fury’s mouth during fight week that it’s hard to know which aspects to gloss over and what to take seriously from one of boxing’s most colorful and controversial characters. Yet, on one matter, the world heavyweight champion appears to be consistent. His title defense against Dillian Whyte on Saturday is going to be his last fight before retirement.metasports

It’s something he’s been doing since age 6, revelling in his speed while following older brother Kunal to training in Dhar and then at Gwalior. “I tried football and didn’t enjoy. But with a racquet in hand, I just loved hitting the shuttle. Leaving home at 8 was tough, but you get used to it,” he says wryly, now having lived a decade in Hyderabad, shifting as soon as coaches saw potential. “It’s in Hyderabad that my speed, strokes perfection, accuracy, power and body fitness started falling into place.”

With the Srikanth comparison, come Srikanth-problems too. Both rushed and couldn’t contain momentum when pushing the speed throttle in younger years, and barely had the leg strength to control and channel that head-rush of specific talent. “We are still working on his need to control speed. Being aggressive, he rushes and thinks he can reach wherever on court without the ability to control the placement of the stroke,” the coach says. Crucial unnecessary errors and wild hitting follows, though the last few months have seen a marked change.

“Gopichand sir would stand behind and keep telling me to be patient. He’d pointed out the mistake very early and asked me to start meditation because I was too impatient,” he recalls of mistakes raining down on court because he just couldn’t help himself. “Being too fast is a problem. When the shuttle is fast, I’m trying to finish points quickly and I’m at the net suddenly and …” Then he recalls instances like against Belgian Julien Carraggi at the Orleans Masters recently, when he whacked without thinking much and botched the match.

Priyanshu was picked for Gopichand’s Gwalior academy at age 8, precisely because the scrawny kid from Dhar in MP had lightening feet and hands. “He was very thin, but had unbelievable leg speed and hand speed from the net and back – almost Srikanth-like,” recalls academy coach Siyadatullah of the under-10 kid. “Being lean, strength was a problem and he had no power, so he never won anything till under-16s,” he adds.

Attempting to avenge that in the rematch included strict instructions from coaches at the Gopichand Academy to ration his aggression, and earn the right to squeal. “I had lost to Kiran George in that final. So both the coaches and me analysed that loss very minutely. Thoda chillao lekin point lene ke baad hi (pump fists and scream only after taking the point), I was told. Too much aggression isn’t great,” says the youngster, a fan of Virat Kohli who tries a few cricket shots like the icon in weekend matches.