Tranquility Base

In the coaching staffs defense, they kind of got thrown for a mini loop when A'ja Wilson withdrew from the tournament just before the start. She was going to be the rock around which the rest of the gameplan was built and with little notice, she was out. So they were "scrambling" a little bit. The rotations have been fine. With the exception of the game against Italy, where everyone on Team USA struggled, they have been highly effective. Spain will be a challenge and we will see how they handle it. France will be the bear.

United States 108 Hungary 56 Naphessa Collier leads the US with 19 points. Kaleeah Copper, Jackie Young and Caitlin Clark all added 10 points (and Clark had a game high 9 assists). The Americans had 59 points at half. They could have gone scoreless in the second half and still won by 3, their defense was that dominant today. Up next: Spain in the Semi-finals on Saturday. This is shaping up to be an Olympic gold medal rematch with France in the finals.

Covington Catholic, by a wide margin.

Hungary tops Japan, 84-63. United States vs Hungary on Thursday. Set your alarms for the 5:30AM start on Thursday.

That will never happen, but at least they are laying down the threat.

SMU took the win, 27-24 over the Seminoles. I was asleep long before the end of the game.

Was there a power outage? If there was, why don't the announcers say something about it? (Read with EXTREMELY heavy sarcasm)

It's a conspiracy to get the Niners back into the game.

United States 105 Czechia 64 US rebounds from yesterdays underwhelming performance with a convincing route. Breanna Stewart leads the US with 19 points. All 12 players on the American roster scored. Up next is the quarterfinals on Thursday against the winner of Hungary and Japan.

41-13 Irish with just under 2 minutes left. I'd say Luke Fickell is coaching on borrowed time.

They aren't terrible, but they shouldn't have been this close to the Americans. The US beat them by 34 in the qualifiers. The United States just played that badly on offense. Their defensive effort was great, but they couldn't hit a 3 or a layup for most of the game. Hopefully just a blip. It is hard to think they will shoot that badly again.

USA 55 Italy 52 The US shot an atrocious 29% from the floor (8% (1-12) from 3) but somehow managed to survive the Italians. Jackie Young leads the Americans with 10 points. With the win, the US automatically advances to the quarterfinals. Probably best for the United States that they are back at it tomorrow to close out pool play against Czechia at 2:45 EDT.

Big Ten stands by the review https://www.espn.com/college-football/story/_/I'd/49843963/michigan-wins-second-chance-hail-mary-big-ten-stands-review And apparently. the MAC agrees? That, IMO is a direct result of the haves and have nots. The MAC knows WMU got hosed, but because they need their schools playing at Michigan, and OSU and Bama, Georgia and all the HAVES so they can take home the payday and keep things somewhat afloat, they have to shut up and take it.

Alabama, but not by 10 24-18

That one is going to be talked about and overanalyzed for 7 days.

57-0. 600+ yards of offense. Also it was the hottest game in the history of Williams-Brice Stadium. Air temp hit 99º. With the South Carolina humidity, I'm sure it felt close to 125º. 4th quarter was shortened to 10 minutes.

Conditions are not ideal, but you still need to show up and do your job.

Team USA starts off the tourney with a 94-61 win over China. Caitlin Clark scores 14 points and hands out 11 assists (with 0 turnovers) to lead the US. Paige Bueckers and Rhyne Howard also dropped 14 for the Americans. Up next: Italy on Sunday

With her 34 point 12 assist game on Friday, Caitlin Clark now has five 30 point 10 assist games this season (6 for her career.) Over the 30 years of WNBA basketball the rest of the league has only had 4 such games.

Ran across a couple goofy ones today. The Kansas City Royals (MLB) are the only team to draft 2 Hall of Fame Quarterbacks in in the same draft. In 1979 they drafted Dan Marino in the 4th Round (Pick #99) and in the 18th round (Pick #461) they drafted John ELway. The NBA record for missed 3 pointers in a game is 16. It has happened 7 times. This first time was in 2005 by Damon Stoudamire (5 for 21.) The other 6 all belong to James Harden: 1/13/2019 - 1 for 17 3/30/2019 - 7 for 23 10/26/2019 - 2 for 18 12/3/2019 - 4 for 20 1/8/2020 - 4 for 20 1/20/2020 - 1 for 17

Game isn't that old yet and I am already sick of the booth referring to Crow-Armstrong as PCA. I think they are getting paid by the referrence.

With last night's 34 points, Kelsey Mitchell is now sitting at 1001 points for the season. Only the second player in WNBA history to score 1000 points in a single season (A'ja Wilson scored 1021 points in 2024.) If she keeps her current averages, Kelsey will be the new record holder after Indiana's first post break game.

Indiana 111 Connecticut 91 Caitlin Clark scores 34 and dishes out 12 assists for the Fever. Kelsey Mitchell also pours in 34 for Indiana. Connecticut started the game hot and took the early lead in the first, but Indiana dominated the remainder of the game. Sun were led by Diamond Miller's 19. 19th game that Indiana has topped the century mark this season. Most in a season in W history. This also marked the 4th game this season that Clark and Mitchell have both scored 30+ in the same game. Now is the FIBA World Cup break. Next Fever game is September 18, at Toronto.

Sunday's Indiana at Chicago game averaged 3.3 million viewers. The most watched regular season W game since 1997. https://www.espn.com/wnba/story/_/I'd/49733157/fever-sky-most-watched-regular-season-wnba-game-1997

Best known for playing Dr. Frank-N-Furter in The Rocky Horror Picture Show and Pennywise the Clown in the original It. https://www.cnn.com/tim-curry-death