CHICAGO — The eventual end of the USC men’s basketball season came the same way that it fizzled out during the past month, with yet another second-half collapse that featured the added pain of overtime.
The Trojans led the Huskies by 13 in the second half and had chances to win at the end of regulation and overtime, only to miss all three potential game-winning or game-tying shots and go 2-for-5 from the free-throw line in overtime. For a team that was once in NCAA tournament consideration before stumbling, that failure to finish was a persistent flaw.
USC guard Alijah Arenas talks with coach Eric Musselman during the Trojans’ loss to the Huskies in the Big Ten tournament on Wednesday in Chicago.
(Michael Reaves / Getty Images)
“That’s been the story of our last eight games,” Musselman said. “I think we’ve led at halftime four of our last eight games, and as a group, we haven’t figured out how to close games, the last 20 minutes with a lead. It’s a disappointing last eight games of the season. I thought up until that point we played good basketball.”
With the Trojans likely to decline any postseason invitation, Musselman said, he was headed to the team hotel Tuesday night to get back to work filling out next season’s recruiting class, starting with more freshmen before the transfer portal officially opens next month.
That group already includes two top-30 recruits in the Ratliff twins, Adonis and Darius, but if USC learned anything from the way this season ended, all too similar to the way last season ended, it’s that whatever depth and talent Musselman has assembled in his two years at USC hasn’t been enough, whether that’s freshmen or transfers.
“We want a blend of both,” Musselman said. “It’s early in our tenure, and we’ve got to figure out a way to get better than what we’ve done the last two years.”
Tuesday, the Trojans had no shortage of chances to fend off the end.
They had a double-digit lead with 13 minutes to play. They had the ball at the end of regulation with the score tied. They had a chance to win it in overtime and were gifted a last-chance shot to tie it.
They missed all three pivotal shots — the first two by Kam Woods, the last a 3-pointer by Jordan Marsh — to see a game they once led comfortably slip away again and again.
“On the last one, I feel like I missed Ezra [Ausar] on that cut,” said Woods, a grad transfer who joined the team in midseason. “Coach trusted me with the ball in my hands, and I feel like I let him down.”
Woods finished with 24 points while Jacob Cofie scored 14, Marsh 13 and Ausar and Ryan Cornish 10 each for 13th-seeded USC (18-14) as the 12th-seeded Huskies (16-16) beat the Trojans for the third time this season.
Freshman Alijah Arenas, who led the Trojans in scoring in both games without Baker-Mazara, was held to six points on 3-for-10 shooting and sat out the final six minutes of regulation and all but eight seconds of overtime. Musselman said that was his decision, as was the virtual absence of senior Terrance Williams, who played only one minute.
That left USC with what was essentially a six-player rotation to conclude a season that began without the injured Arenas and ended without Rodney Rice and Amarion Dickerson, both hurt, as well as the departed Baker-Mazara — all of which factored into Musselman’s position on any postseason plans.
“I haven’t had in-depth conversations with the administration yet about that, but I would assume we’re not going to play, just based on the number of bodies and how we played the last eight games,” Musselman said.
It was not all that long ago that USC was thinking about the NCAA tournament. Winners of the Maui Invitational, USC was 18-6 and above .500 in the Big Ten standings after a February 8 win at Penn State, solidly in a workable position on the NCAA tournament bubble.
But as the injuries mounted and momentum waned, second-half struggles just like the Trojans’ on Tuesday became an increasingly fatal flaw as they slumped to their longest losing streak in a decade. The loss to Washington compounded the misery of a second straight frustrating season, in familiar fashion.
“As a team, we faced a lot of adversity,” Cofie said. “I felt like we did a good job sticking with it and trying to play for each other. We had to deal with a lot of injuries. I felt like that played a huge deal in it. We still fought. We tried our best.”
Miami Heat center Bam Adebayo scored 83 points Tuesday night, the second most in an NBA game in history, surpassing Kobe Bryant’s iconic 81 points two decades ago.
Congrats to Adebayo, I guess.
The way it went down was highly questionable. Nothing romantic or real about it. We thought flopping and foul-baiting made for unethical hoops, but those are but basketball misdemeanors; Adebayo’s big night was felonious.
Tuesday’s game featured intentional clock-stopping, game-extending fouls by the Heat. And it was ripe with free-throw-abetting fouls by the Washington Wizards, an actively tanking team that got itself blown out, 150-129.
So, no. Bryant’s necessary, organic 81 this was not. The Lakers trailed that game against the Toronto Raptors on Jan. 22, 2006 at halftime and actually needed Kobe’s 55 second-half points to pull away for the win.
The Heat were up by as many as 28 points in the fourth quarter with Adebayo continuing to play pop-a-shot in the historic farce — which also moved him past LeBron James, whose 61 points in 2014 stood as Miami’s previous franchise record.
“Honestly, it hurts,” said Los Angeles’ Erik Ortiz, who was 6 years old when Bryant had his 81-point night. “And it’s kind of messed up. All those free throws? No disrespect, but it didn’t feel earned.”
“A disrespect to the game,” said Robert Horry, who played with Bryant in L.A. for seven seasons. “To me, don’t cheat the game. If you’re gonna play like that, that’s cheating the game.”
“But,” Horry added, diplomatically, “scoring 83 points is still hard regardless if you cheat the game or not.”
Lakers star Kobe Bryant scores in front of Toronto’s Matt Bonner on his way to scoring 81 points during the Lakers’ 122-104 victory on Jan. 22, 2006.
(Matt A. Brown / Associated Press)
JJ Redick offered his most diplomatic two cents: “It’s incredible what he was able to do.”
The Lakers’ coach described walking in and seeing the Heat leading with three minutes left, on the verge of winning their sixth consecutive game and Adebayo on the free-throw line (naturally).
“I said to my coaching staff, ‘Ah, the Heat are rolling.’ And they kind of looked at each other and they were like, ‘Are you kidding right now? No, Bam has 77!’ I watched the last three minutes and … that was a different type of basketball.”
Adebayo scored 31 points in the first quarter, 12 in the second and 19 in the third — a legitimately impressive career-high 62 points, and in just three quarters. Precisely the same number of points that Kobe had after three quarters when coach Phil Jackson pulled him from a blowout win against Dallas a few weeks before he dropped 81.
But on Tuesday, Adebayo kept going, for no reason but to pad his points tally in pursuit of Kobe.
If only Adebayo, well respected by peers and fans alike, could’ve taken the baton from his basketball hero while playing regular old basketball. Lakers fans know ball; they wouldn’t have held it against him, they would have saluted.
Heat players celebrate with center Bam Adebayo after he scored 83 points, the second-highest single game total in NBA history, against the Wizards on Tuesday in Miami.
(Rebecca Blackwell / Associated Press)
But Adebayo shot 3 for 8 from the field in the final period, including 1 for 6 from three-point range. And he went 14 for 16 at the line in the final frame, bringing his free-throw shooting total to a historic 36 for 43 from the charity stripe, so aptly named this game.
There’s magic, and then there are magic tricks, manufactured illusions, sleight-of-hand acts of pseudo-sorcery. That’s how we should remember Adebayo’s 83. That’s how we should explain that game to our children and grandchildren.
It isn’t as though Kobe’s 81-point output wasn’t going to be eclipsed. It was only a matter of time, especially considering the offensive emphasis in today’s NBA.
In 2024, then-Maverick Luka Doncic scored 73 points in a 148-143 win against the Atlanta Hawks. But Doncic went just 15 of 16 from the free-throw line that night, and 25 for 33 from the field, including 8 of 13 from behind the arc.
Or imagine, going forward, what 7-foot-4 center Victor Wembanyama could be capable of if the San Antonio Spurs force-feed him offensively for a full game.
But records are made to be broken, not stolen. Heat coach Erik Spoelstra told reporters he was “caught up in the moment like everyone else, and I didn’t want to get in the way.”
Kawhi Leonard scored 29 points, Bennedict Mathurin added 28 points, and the Clippers beat the New York Knicks 126-118 at Intuit Dome on Monday night to climb back to .500 for the first time since early November.
The Clippers are 32-32 and have won five of their first six games in March as they try to improve their potential position in the NBA play-in tournament. They began the season in a 6-21 tailspin.
It was Leonard’s 42nd straight game with 20-plus points, the second-longest active streak in the NBA and third-longest in team history.
Mathurin scored 22 in the second half off the bench as one of five Clippers in double figures. Darius Garland had 23 points and seven assists in his second start.
Karl-Anthony Towns led the Knicks with 35 points on 13-of-17 shooting, 12 rebounds and seven assists before fouling out in the final seconds. Jalen Brunson added 28 points and OG Anunoby had 22 points.
Buoyed by chants of “Let’s go Knicks!” at Intuit Dome, New York cut its deficit from 15 points with a 17-9 run, including six in a row from Brunson, to go into the fourth trailing 88-81.
The Knicks three times closed within five over the final four minutes. But the Clippers controlled the final two minutes, helped by Mathurin’s three-point play and a three-pointer by Derrick Jones Jr.
Clippers star Kawhi Leonard celebrates a basket during a win over the Knicks on Monday at Intuit Dome.
(Eric Thayer / Los Angeles Times)
Standing third in the Eastern Conference race, the Knicks split the season series with the Clippers, and have not beaten them in Los Angeles since 2022. New York has dropped three of four.
The Clippers opened the game by making four consecutive three-pointers and led most of the first half, which ended in a scoring duel between Leonard and Towns. Leonard scored 10 in a row for the Clippers and Towns had eight straight for the Knicks, who trailed 64-55 at the break.
Up next for the Clippers: vs. the Minnesota Timberwolves at Intuit Dome on Wednesday.
COLUMBUS, Ohio — Adrian Kempe scored his second goal of the game with 1:26 left in overtime to give the Kings a 5-4 win over the Columbus Blue Jackets on Monday.
With the victory, the Kings moved within a point of Seattle in the race for the final Western Conference wild-card spot.
Columbus tied the score late for the second straight home game. Kirill Marchenko scored on the power play at 18:04 to force the extra period.
Brian Dumoulin had a goal and two assists. Scott Laughton scored for the second straight game since joining the Kings from Toronto and added an assist. Artemi Panarin also scored. Anton Forsberg made 28 saves for the Kings in the opener of a five-game trip.
Connor Garland scored twice — his first goals since coming to Columbus from Vancouver — and Denton Mateychuk added a goal and an assist. Jet Greaves made 26 saves for Columbus, which has lost two straight at home.
The Blue Jackets are two points behind Boston in the race for the second Eastern Conference wild-card spot, and three points behind the Islanders for third in the Metropolitan Division.
The Kings killed off a high-sticking double minor to start the game before Dumoulin set up Laughton in front of the net at 6:46 of the first. Panarin made it 2-0 at 14:47 with his second goal since joining the Kings from the New York Rangers on Feb. 4.
Garland cut the lead in half with 2:25 left in the period, snapping a career-long 24-game scoring drought. Mateychuk tied it with 9:07 remaining in the second period, and Garland’s second goal put Columbus ahead 81 seconds later.
The lead was short-lived as Kempe tied the game with 5:51 remaining in the second period. Kopitar’s assist was his 167th on a game-tying goal, the most in Kings history.
Dumoulin scored with 9:53 left in the third period, but Marchenko tied it with a power-play goal with 1:56 left,
Columbus defenseman Erik Gudbranson, who missed 42 games earlier this season due to injury, left in the first period with an upper-body injury and did not return.
The game had a rare afternoon weekday start after being rescheduled from Jan. 26 because of a blizzard in Columbus.
If they were men, they would have been in the national headlines for the last six months. But from those shadows they have emerged stronger, more connected and loudly prepared to bring home a long-awaited national championship.
UCLA guard Kiki Rice drives under pressure from Iowa guard Chazadi Wright during the Big Ten tournament finals on Sunday in Indianapolis.
(Michael Conroy / Associated Press)
Listen up, that roar at your door is the UCLA women’s basketball team, bursting on to the national headlines Sunday after delivering the kind of Big Ten tournament title beating that sounds, well, fake.
Fifty-one points. Fifty-one points! Who wins a game of such import by 51 points?
A team that should be the No. 1 overall seed in the NCAA tournament, that’s who.
Seriously, when officials reveal the women’s March Madness bracket next weekend, even though one-loss UCLA is ranked second behind defending champion and unbeaten Connecticut, the Bruins should be the top-line No. 1 team.
They have won 25 straight games, all but two by double digits, against a much tougher schedule than the one faced by UConn.
Yes, the Bruins’ one loss is to Texas, but the Longhorns just won the SEC and are going to be another No. 1 seed. And yes, the Bruins lost to UConn by 34 points in last season’s national semifinals, but the Huskies lost Paige Bueckers and the Bruins just got deeper and better and more committed.
By earning the No. 1 overall seed, the Bruins would have a smoother ride to the finals, where a UConn rematch for the national championship seems destined.
The Bruins deserve it. The Bruins have earned it. Were you watching the carnage at Indianapolis’ Gainsbridge Fieldhouse Sunday? If so, you probably turned the channel after 15 minutes. Maybe sooner.
“What they’ve done this year has been extremely impressive,” said Iowa coach Jan Jensen after the throttling. “I think you saw a lot of senior leadership on their end, a team that’s been on a mission since the Final Four last year.”
UCLA center Lauren Betts shoots over Iowa guard Kylie Feuerbach during Big Ten tournament title game Sunday in Indianapolis.
(Michael Conroy / Associated Press)
On Sunday, it was a mission of mauling. The Hawkeyes took the lead with a quick three-pointer before the Bruins reeled off 13 straight points while holding Iowa to two total baskets in a first quarter that ended with the Bruins holding a 17-point lead.
For the next three quarters, the Bruins made the Hawkeyes look like a grade-school team, not a program that reached the national championship games twice in the last three years.
No, Caitlin Clark isn’t walking through that door. Not that she would have helped much. These Bruins overwhelmed the Hawkeyes by displaying every necessary strength required to take the final step and finish the job next month in Scottsdale.
“I just want to say thank you to the incredible players that really fulfilled their mission and stayed committed to the hard character qualities that we knew we needed to make this kind of run,” Close said.
It helps that they have six veterans who will be taken in the next WNBA draft. It also helps that Close will be steering them into her 10th tournament in 15 coaching seasons, she’s been here enough to know all the madness moves.
In search of the school’s second women’s basketball national title — and first in 48 years — they are doing everything right.
UCLA guard Kiki Rice celebrates with a trophy after receiving the Big Ten tournament most outstanding player honors.
(Michael Conroy / Associated Press)
They play near-perfect team basketball.
On Sunday they set a Big Ten tournament record with 34 assists on 40 baskets, the highlight being an over-the-head backward pass from Angela Dugalic to Kiki Rice in the fourth quarter.
“This group has the potential to do whatever it wants,” said Rice.
They are deeper than any team in the country.
They won by 51 points and their unquestionably best player, Lauren Betts, took all of nine shots. Lauren was even outscored by her little sister Sienna, who Lauren wildly cheered while standing in front of the bench.
The tournament most outstanding player was not Lauren Betts, but Rice, who wasn’t the leading scorer but had eight assists and three steals and didn’t crack a smile until she heard her teammates on the trophy stage chanting her name.
“She’s one of the most selfless people I’ve ever played with,” Lauren Betts said of Rice. “She really could [not] care less about all the attention. She just wants to win.”
In all, nine different players scored for UCLA, and when is the last time you’ve seen a scoresheet so full in a game of such magnitude?
Oh yeah, they can also shoot. All of them can shoot, as they made half of their 26 three-point attempts, led by Gianna Kneepkens’ four treys and team-high 19 points.
The Bruins could have used Kneepkens last season against UConn, but she was playing for Utah. She’s here now, and that could be the difference.
Compared to last spring’s surprise Final Four run, everything feels different. These Bruins know they belong on this big stage, know how to win here and calmly and precisely play as if they know they can pull this off.
During Sunday’s postgame celebration, the three Bruins who briefly, but famously, joined the UCLA dance team during a recent men’s game repeated the dance on the Indianapolis court. They’re feeling it. Their fans are feeling it. Soon an entire city could be feeling it.
“I’m joyful,” said Close, and the dance is just beginning.
Eric Musselman sat behind a microphone at the bitter end of a bitter regular season for USC, armed only with the same explanations for how a once-hopeful season could come so undone.
There were unfortunate injuries to point to, he said, and continuity issues to contend with. Then there was the pesky problem of Big Ten travel. And at home, well … “Our home court has not been much of a home-court advantage,” Musselman said, after UCLA chants rang out through Galen Center all night.
But none of that rationale, as true or convenient as it might sound, could adequately explain how the Trojans ended up here at their season’s nadir, with seven straight losses heading into the Big Ten tournament, the latest an 89-68 rout at the hands of their crosstown rival.
The seventh of those losses looked strikingly similar to the other six. Once again, USC’s defense collapsed in the second half, as UCLA shot better than 60%. And once again, the Trojans’ streaky shooting and lack of presence on the glass made it impossible for them to keep up.
“Obviously our struggling down the stretch has not been characteristic of our past programs,” Musselman said. “It’s actually been the exact opposite.”
Yet at USC, it’s all we’ve seen through two seasons with Musselman at the helm. The Trojans lost eight of 10 to finish out the regular season a year ago, and at the time, the coach also blamed injuries to their top two guards, Desmond Claude and Wesley Yates, for the collapse.
USC guard Alijah Arenas, right, drives past UCLA guard Skyy Clark during the Trojans’ loss Saturday night at Galen Center.
(Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)
Injuries proved even more devastating this season. USC was without five-star freshman Alijah Arenas until late January and lost Rodney Rice, its starting point guard, to an injury in November. He referred to his Trojans as “the most injured team in college basketball.”
“It’s not an excuse,” Musselman said. “It’s a fact.”
But there were inexcusable losses along the way, losses that didn’t hinge on one player’s absence — and might’ve singlehandedly changed the conversation over USC’s season. Among them: A second-half collapse at home to Washington, a blown lead in the final minute to Oregon and an unraveling at the hands of Northwestern, which was winless in conference at the time.
Even still, the Trojans might have salvaged their tournament hopes if they found something down the stretch. Instead, the team’s top scorer, Chad Baker-Mazara, was dismissed last weekend. Musselman wouldn’t offer any further comment on that decision. But by Saturday night, USC looked as lost as ever.
“We just have to stay together,” said senior Terrance Williams. “I feel like when adversity hits, sometimes we tend to go our separate ways. We’ve got to just stick together, man.”
It looked, for a brief time, like USC might manage that against UCLA. Even as busloads of Bruins fans descended on Galen Center, turning USC’s arena into hostile territory, the Trojans showed signs of life early on. Midway through the first half, the Trojans had played their crosstown rivals to a tie, 21-21.
Any hope stitched together during that stretch came apart just a few minutes later, though. USC hit just four shots the rest of the half, while UCLA hit 10 of 12 at one point. For the final 4:40 before halftime, the Trojans didn’t pull down a single rebound.
Arenas would do his best to drag USC back from the brink. He scored 13 in the second half and 20 overall. During one spurt, the freshman put up eight points in less than four minutes, cutting UCLA’s lead to 11.
But the spark was brief. The Bruins came firing back, led by Donovan Dent, who basically took a blowtorch to the Trojans’ defensive plans. After scoring a season-high 30 points against USC in their last meeting, Dent tallied 25 in the rematch.
“We had a problem staying in front of Dent,” said forward Jacob Cofie. “Eleven for 15, that’s unacceptable.”
That was just the start of USC’s issues. But as its season continues to descend further into disaster, Musselman assured that things were still moving in the right direction ahead of Wednesday’s game against Washington in the conference tournament.
“We feel this is an NCAA tournament team if we were healthy,” Musselman said. “We have no doubt that it was — or would be.”
Except now, we’ll never know for sure. And after a seventh-straight loss and a second straight season left spiraling, hypotheticals could only carry USC and its coach so far.
INDIANAPOLIS — As it turns out, the UCLA women’s basketball team was more than ready for the moment.
After competitive games in their first two Big Ten tournament contests, the Bruins dismantled No. 2 seed Iowa from start to finish during a 96-45 victory from Gainbridge Fieldhouse to seal an NCAA tournament berth and win the Big Ten.
The 51-point win was the largest margin of victory in Big Ten championship history, eclipsing the 33-point mark Iowa set in its 2023 win over Ohio State. UCLA’s 34 team assists were also a Big Ten championship record, and a season-high for the Bruins.
In front of a Iowa-heavy crowd, the Bruins put up one of their best shooting games of the season, firing 63% from the field. Gianna Kneepkens tallied 19 points and all five starters reached double digits.
It was UCLA’s 25th consecutive win dating back to November.
Kiki Rice finished with 15 points and eight assists, earning Big Ten tournament most outstanding player honors.
After Iowa (26-6, 15-3) held down Michigan in the semifinal, the Bruins (30-1, 18-0) returned the favor. The Hawkeyes tallied just five first-quarter points, their season-low in any period.
Iowa missed nine consecutive shots and committed four turnovers during a five-minute run during which UCLA mounted an 11-0 run. By the second quarter, the Bruins built a 25-point lead.
UCLA scored netted back-to-back three-pointers in 25 seconds early in the third quarter to take a 32-point advantage — 55-23.
As the Bruins did Saturday against Ohio State, UCLA relied on its defense to extend its lead. The Bruins forced 19 Iowa turnovers that led to 22 points in transition. They also held Iowa to 28% from the field.
The Hawkeyes likely earned themselves a No. 2 seed in the NCAA tournament with their conference performance.
UCLA will learn its seeding and bracket placement during Selection Sunday next week before hosting first and second round contests.
Call it the Mick Cronin Say Something Nice Challenge.
Not something nice-ish, not a chocolate-covered diss or an insult teased as affirmation. Just a compliment, no chaser.
It’s not impossible, it turns out.
“We have great guys,” Cronin said about his team, which demolished USC 89-68 at Galen Center on Saturday to finish the season 21-10. “I have to make myself yell at some of these guys, because they’re such good guys. And I did that by design.”
He’ll have a funny way of showing it, but Cronin likes the guys he recruited or plucked from the transfer portal. He really, really likes them.
They put up with him, after all. They get him.
Coming after an impressive 72-52 triumph against No. 9 Nebraska on Tuesday, Saturday’s victory launched his Bruins men’s basketball team into tournament play, starting with a third-round Big Ten tournament game Thursday, and then the NCAA tournament.
And, no, the controversial coach won’t likely be excused from his post anytime soon. Not with another four years on his contract, a current buyout price of $22.5 million and now a not-terrible finish to this strange season of all peaks and valleys and no plateaus.
The Bruins are on the way up at the right time, even playing enough defense for Cronin’s taste — though, of course, he’s prepared for that to change.
“I’ve been around these guys for five months,” he said, “so I know that the fight is not over with that. We can go right back to who we were, which was a bad defensive team.”
What can you say? The man’s service might be questionable, but his backhands are unparalleled.
UCLA coach Mick Cronin talks about the Bruins’ win over USC on Saturday.
His opening statement the last time UCLA clocked USC, 81-62 on Feb. 24: “Proud of the guys, they got the job done …” and, wait for it, “I’m well aware you’re going to ask about rebounding, and as I tell people, you can’t be great at everything. And we’re surely not.”
There was the time he actually fell on the proverbial sword after his team’s 86-74 loss to Ohio State: “Blame me — blame me,” he said, only kidding: “I recruited ’em, I signed them as free agents.” (The bums!)
He isn’t exactly dropping jewels of inspiration suited to be posted in classrooms beside John Wooden’s “Pyramid of Success.”
But after five up-and-down months with him, his players say they’re cool with Cronin, who has shaken off what feels like an annual wave of national criticism. This time it hit after he booted his own center Steven Jamerson II from a game at Michigan State on Feb. 17, overreacting because he mistook a clean basketball play for something else.
UCLA coach Mick Cronin shouts instructions to a player during the Bruins’ win over USC on Saturday.
(Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)
“I’ve adapted to how he coaches and how he runs stuff,” said Donovan Dent, the Bruins’ sure-handed point guard who had 25 points on 11-of-15 shooting to go with his seven assists without a turnover Saturday.
How does he coach? “Fun, very fun,” Dent laughed, acknowledging that, yes, “absolutely” players have to have some thick skin if they’re going to play for Cronin.
“He can get on you,” Dent said, “but he just wants the best for you.”
“I mean,” forward Tyler Bilodeau said, “he’s intense. Coach Cronin has no off days, he is who he is every single day. You gotta respect that.”
And Cronin’s bait-and-switch bit? It would kill at a comedy club, but working a locker room? Maybe he’s found the right audience of young athletes.
“I’m at a point in my career, I want guys who are good guys,” said Cronin, whose team went 17-1 at Pauley Pavilion and 4-9 away from it. “I don’t want to be fighting with guys, I don’t have the energy for it. I won enough games, it’s not worth it.”
Well, about that.
The Bruins will have made the NCAA tournament five times in Cronin’s seven-year tenure with the team, and they’ve advanced to the Final Four and twice to the Sweet 16. But the Final Four run was six seasons ago, and in the past two years, UCLA made just one tournament appearance and got only as far as the second round.
That hardly seems sufficient for a UCLA program that’s regularly supposed to be breathing rarefied air without caveats or qualifiers.
But he thinks he’s found the right players to roll with his punchlines, and to play defense too.
“We can keep winning games,” Cronin said, “if we stop the other team.”
MEMPHIS, Tenn. — Kawhi Leonard had 28 points, Darius Garland scored 11 of his 21 points in the fourth quarter and the Clippers held on for a 123-120 victory over the Memphis Grizzlies on Saturday night.
Bennedict Mathurin finished 21 points and 10 rebounds, and Derrick Jones Jr. added 16 points as the Clippers won for the fourth time in five games despite hitting only four three-pointers, a season low.
Ty Jerome led Memphis with 23 points and seven assists. Taylor Hendricks scored 18 and Cedric Coward 15 as Memphis lost its third straight.
The game was close throughout, and the Grizzlies held a 118-117 lead with about two minutes left. Leonard and Jordan Miller each made a pair of free throws to give the Clippers a 121-118 edge. Mathurin’s two free throws with 4.4 seconds left sealed the win as Jerome’s closing three-point try for Memphis was off the mark.
The Clippers, who were 15 games under .500 earlier this season, now sit at 31-32. The are in ninth place in the Western Conference, and in the running for a postseason bid.
Meanwhile, the Grizzlies’ season has been marred by injuries. Six rotation players were on the injured list for Saturday’s game, including guard Ja Morant, who missed his 20th game with a left elbow ulnar collateral ligament sprain.
Before the game, Morant said he wanted to remain with the franchise, even referring to a Grizzlies logo tattooed on his back as a sign of his loyalty.
Memphis got off to a fast start building a 19-point lead against the Clippers, playing on the second night of a back-to-back.
The advantage was short-lived. The shooting touch left Memphis, which committed 10 turnovers in the second. Leonard scored 15 points and the Clippers trailed by a point at 59-58 at the break.
The Lakers 128-117 winwon, Luka Doncic dominated and then the conversation moved forward, because even though a 128-117 win over the slumping Indiana Pacers on Friday counts all the same in the tight Western Conference standings, it doesn’t say as much about the Lakers as what comes next.
Buoyed by four recent wins over struggling teams, the Lakers are still searching for a statement victory to announce themselves as legitimate contenders in the crowded Western Conference. The Lakers (38-25) are comfortably in sixth place in the West, but just 3-11 against teams that are .600 or better.
Two of the wins came in the first two weeks of the season. The losses have been ugly: an average margin of 19.9 points per defeat.
Now with five of their next six games against teams that are .600 or better — starting with Sunday’s 12:30 p.m. contest against the New York Knicks — the Lakers get a chance to prove their potential to make a playoff run.
Lakers guard Austin Reaves drives to the basket as he’s chased by Indiana Pacers guards Quenton Jackson and Aaron Nesmith Friday at Crypto.com Arena.
(Gina Ferazzi/Los Angeles Times)
“You play teams that are playing winning basketball and [have] winning records, it definitely can build some confidence in the group,” guard Luke Kennard said Friday. “But I know even some of the close games we’ve lost just recently, I know we’ve done some really good things. … We know what we have in the locker room and in this group.”
Even a day and a win later, the Lakers were still ruing Thursday’s road loss in Denver. With a chance to jump to fifth place in the standings, they let the Nuggets (39-25) open the game on an 11-point run. Denver opened up a 14-point lead in the fourth quarter.
But unlike many of their other losses to playoff-contending teams, the Lakers answered Denver’s run. They cut it to one with 2:05 left before the Nuggets held on for the victory.
“That was a game that we’ve broken throughout the year, in games like that,” coach JJ Redick said. “And they made a number of runs that went to double digits and we just kept playing and had a chance. … I’m confident we’re going to find it. How we’re going to find it, that’s where it’s —”
Redick cut off his own thought as he searched for the words.
“You got to figure it out on a daily basis sometimes,” the coach concluded with a tight smile.
Lakers center Jaxson Hayes scores at the rim in front of Indiana Pacers guard Ben Sheppard Friday at Crypto.com Arena.
(Gina Ferazzi/Los Angeles Times)
The Lakers figured it out Friday behind a dazzling 44-point performance from Doncic, who leads the NBA with 10 40-point games this season. The NBA’s leading scorer didn’t even play during the fourth quarter of the blowout.
Doncic’s brilliance was more than enough against the bottom-feeding Pacers, who, at 15-48, are playing more for lottery position than postseason hopes. But the Knicks (41-23) have won four of their last five games, including convincing wins over San Antonio and Denver. The only recent loss was a three-point defeat to Oklahoma City.
Lakers forward LeBron James is expected to be available for Sunday’s marquee game after injuring his elbow late in the loss to the Nuggets and missing Friday’s game. Centers Deandre Ayton (left knee soreness) and Maxi Kleber (lumbar back strain) are day-to-day.
Led by Jalen Brunson’s 26.2 points and 6.5 assists per game, the Knicks have the NBA’s third-best offense. Conversely, the Lakers are 21st in defensive rating.
The Lakers emphasized the importance of team defense all season, but Marcus Smart is “the only one that consistently is just doing what he’s supposed to do” on defense, Redick said Friday. Sometimes the former defensive player of the year is forced to overcompensate for his teammates’ mistakes.
Doncic’s defensive lapses are magnified, especially with the team’s recent inconsistencies. But Doncic’s oft-criticized defense has provided some bright spots, Redick said.
When he switches onto the ball, Doncic gives up the lowest number of points per possession among the Lakers’ perimeter players, Redick said. He led the Lakers in rebounding Friday with nine boards, all defensive. Doncic had both of the team’s blocks against the Pacers.
“He’s shown that he can contain the basketball,” Redick said of Doncic’s defense. “He’s obviously one of the best wing defensive rebounders in the NBA. He’s able to generate steals and deflections. And, with some prodding, he’s taking charges as well.”
Doncic has drawn 11 charges this season, the most for a single year in his NBA career.
Luka Doncic scored 44 points despite not playing the fourth quarter, and the Lakers defeated the struggling Indiana Pacers 128-117 on Friday night with LeBron James and Deandre Ayton out because of injury.
Doncic showcased his offensive wizardry, joining Kobe Bryant, Elgin Baylor and Jerry West as the only players in Lakers history to record at least 40 points in a season 10 times.
Doncic was 14 for 25 from the field, seven for 14 from three-point range and nine for 10 from the free-throw line. He also had nine rebounds and five assists.
“I always want to be productive. But it’s just next-man-up mentality,” Doncic said. “We have great guys on the bench. So, they help us win this game.”
He had 22 points on seven-for-nine shooting in the first quarter, making all five of his three-pointers. It marked the fifth time in his career he scored at least 20 in the first quarter.
“I felt great,” Doncic said. “I felt like I had my legs working. But definitely needed to win this game, so we came out aggressive.”
The Lakers led 64-51 at halftime and Doncic had 29 points.
Doncic ended the third quarter by banking in a three-pointer with 5.3 seconds left and then pointing to his teammates on the bench. The shot gave the Lakers a 19-point lead.
“He can make every shot,” coach JJ Redick said. “I mean, he can make a step-back, left-wing bank shot that line drives and barely goes above the rim. He can make floaters. He can make floaters going left, right. He’s a shot-maker, but he’s also a playmaker.”
Doncic also had a solid game on defense, recording three steals and two blocks.
“I know people are not going to talk about it,” Doncic said. “So, I’m just trying to do my job, trying to be more aggressive, be more engaged. So, just trying to do better defensively.”
Luka Doncic shoots a three-pointer over Indiana Pacers forward Jarace Walker in the first half Friday.
(Gina Ferazzi/Los Angeles Times)
Austin Reaves had 19 points and five assists before fouling out with 4:58 left. Luke Kennard had 15 points and Rui Hachimura scored 13 points as the Lakers (38-25) bounced back from a tough loss at Denver on Thursday.
Pascal Siakam led Indiana (15-48) with 26 points, five rebounds and three assists.
James did not play after sustaining a left elbow injury against the Nuggets. Redick said James was “still banged up” but said the Lakers think he will play Sunday against the New York Knicks.
Ayton (knee) and reserve center Maxi Kleber (back) also are day to day, Redick said.
The 7-foot Swiss center was injured Wednesday night in a 130-107 win against the Indiana Pacers. Niederhauser was diagnosed with a Lisfranc injury in his right foot and will require surgery, the team said. The injury involves damage to the ligaments or bones in the middle of the foot.
Niederhauser averaged 4.3 points and 2.9 rebounds in 41 games. After being selected 30th in last year’s NBA draft, he began the season in the G League, but after the Clippers traded Ivica Zubac last month, he was earning more minutes.
In his last five games, Niederhauser was shooting 52% from the field and averaging 8.2 points and 6.2 rebounds while playing 18 minutes a game.
INDIANAPOLIS — The UCLA women’s basketball team’s tear through the Big Ten continued on Friday, as the Bruins defeated Washington 78-60 to advance to the conference tournament semifinals.
Behind 26 points from center Lauren Betts, the No. 1 seed Bruins took down No. 8 seed Huskies with an explosive second half to stay undefeated in conference play.
Washington (21-10, 11-9), which defeated No. 9 seed USC on Thursday to advance to the quarterfinal, struggled to respond to UCLA’s second-half surge and trailed by 19 in the fourth quarter.
UCLA (22-1, 19-0), the second ranked team in the nation in the Associated Press top 25 poll, started slow, missing five consecutive shots in a five-plus minute scoring drought in the first quarter. The Bruins’ six first-quarter points were a season low.
The Huskies extended a 10-point lead into the second quarter. Betts, though, kept the Bruins’ deficit from growing with 10 points in the first half, sparking a 15-2 run during the final 6:10. UCLA, which boasts the best three-point percentage in the Big Ten, didn’t make any treys in the first half and didn’t hit one until Kiki Rice’s with 5:27 left in the third quarter.
It tied for the worst three-point shooting performance from the Bruins this season (one for 10).
UCLA led 27-24 at halftime.
Washington went up briefly in the third quarter, powered by 18 points from guard Avery Howell, but the Bruins scoring finally found their rhythm shortly after. UCLA shot 54% overall from the field.
It was UCLA’s 10th consecutive win against the Huskies. It was the Bruins’ 23rd straight win overall after last losing on Nov. 26.
UCLA will face the winner of No. 4 seed Minnesota and No. 5 seed Ohio State in a Big Ten tournament semifinal on Saturday, with a berth in the Big Ten championship game on the line.
If Democrats expect to flip a U.S. Senate seat in Texas, they’ll need all the stars to align. This almost never happens, because politics has a way of scrambling the constellations. But on Tuesday, the first star blinked on.
I’m referring to state Rep. James Talarico’s victory over Rep. Jasmine Crockett in the Democratic primary. Most political prognosticators agree that Talarico, an eloquent young Democrat who speaks openly about his Christian faith, is their best hope in a red state that Donald Trump won by 14 points.
The second star was Crockett’s conciliatory concession — far from a foregone conclusion after a nasty primary — in which she pledged to “do my part,” adding that “Texas is primed to turn blue, and we must remain united because this is bigger than any one person.”
The third star — a vulnerable Republican opponent — has not yet appeared over the Texas sky, although forecasters say it might.
Most observers agree that scandal-plagued Atty. Gen. Ken Paxton would be beatable in the general election, while incumbent Sen. John Cornyn would present a much tougher challenge. Cornyn is the kind of steady, conventional politician who tends to win elections, and so, of course, modern voters are extremely suspicious of him.
In the GOP primary on Tuesday, Cornyn’s 42% share of the vote edged out Paxton by about a point. Unfortunately for Republicans, neither candidate garnered enough votes to avoid a May 26 runoff election.
Conventional wisdom suggests that when a majority of Republican voters choose someone other than the incumbent in the first round of voting, an even greater majority will inevitably break toward the challenger in the runoff. If that happens, Paxton would become the nominee, and Democrats would get their third star to align.
Even better for Democrats — a fourth star, so to speak — would be for this protracted runoff to become a “knife fight,” as one Texas Republican predicted, in which Paxton staggers out of the fight as the battered GOP nominee.
The only problem is that Republicans can see these stars aligning, too.
And while the Texas Senate seat matters a lot on its own, it matters even more in the context of nationwide midterm elections, in which a Texas win would help Democrats take back the Senate.
Enter the cavalry — or, more accurately, President Trump, who is now entering a second war in the span of a week, this one a civil war in the Lone Star State.
The day after the primary, Trump announced that he would be “making my Endorsement soon, and will be asking the candidate that I don’t Endorse to immediately DROP OUT OF THE RACE!”
Reports suggest Trump may endorse Cornyn in order to save the seat for Republicans. But who knows? Trump is famously unpredictable. And it’s likely he admires Paxton’s ability to survive scandals that would have caused most normal politicians to curl up in the fetal position. As they say, “game recognizes game.”
Whomever he backs, conventional wisdom also says Trump should make his endorsement “soon,” as he promised. That would save Republicans a lot of time and money. But Trump currently has enormous leverage. Right now, people are coming to him, pleading for his support.
Do you think he wants to resolve that situation quickly?
Me neither.
With Trump, you never know what you’re going to get. In 2021, he helped torpedo Republican Senate candidates David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler in Georgia, handing Democrats control of the Senate. The following year he backed football legend Herschel Walker in another Georgia Senate race, which did not exactly work out great. Democrat Raphael Warnock won and holds that seat, though Walker is now ambassador to the Bahamas so that’s something.
This is to say: Trump’s political assistance does not always assist.
It’s unclear whether Trump’s endorsement would be dispositive — and whether he could muscle the other Republican out of the primary race.
Paxton, for example, initially vowed to stay in the race, no matter what. (He later suggested he would “consider” dropping out if the Senate passes the SAVE America Act, a bill to require proof of citizenship to vote.)
There’s also this: Trump’s endorsements tend to either be made out of vengeance or to pad the totals of an already inevitable winner, so his track record is probably overrated.
Case in point: While most of his endorsed candidates won their Texas elections, his endorsed candidate for agriculture commissioner lost reelection. And according to the Texas Tribune, “at least three Trump-endorsed candidates for Congress were headed to runoffs, one of them in a distant second place.”
Another issue is that Cornyn needs more than a perfunctory endorsement: He needs a clear, full-throated endorsement.
In a 2022 Missouri Senate race, Trump endorsed “ERIC,” which was awkward because two candidates named Eric were running.
More recently, he endorsed two rival candidates in the same 2026 Arizona gubernatorial race — like betting on both teams in the Super Bowl.
This is all to say that the only thing standing between Texas Democrats and a rare celestial alignment may be the whims of the Republican Party’s one and only star.
Sure, establishment Republicans can beg Trump to quickly step in and settle the race, and maybe he will. But it’s entirely possible the president will find a way to blow up his party’s chances for holding the U.S. Senate — and there’s nothing they can do to stop him.
Running free during a game of catch on the empty field at SoFi Stadium is a fantasy most Angelenos will never experience. For comedians Jo Koy and Gabriel Iglesias, it’s just a warm-up to a dream that’s been a lifetime in the making.
Gripping the football with fingers covered in Filipino tribal tattoos extending in a sleeve up his arm, Koy looks across the expanse of emerald green turf at his son jogging toward the south end zone of the Inglewood stadium on a recent afternoon. “To be able to throw at SoFi is crazy,” Koy said with a sparkling grin of bright white veneers.
The 54-year-old comedian with a beard full of gray stubble drops back to pass, launching a tight spiral underneath SoFi’s massive technicolor halo scoreboard hovering above a sea of empty stands. Joseph Jr. — a wiry 22-year-old with a head full of curly dark brown hair — runs briskly toward the goal line with a black cast on his left arm. He raises his right arm just in time to scoop it into his chest for a touchdown. The imaginary crowd goes wild.
“Yes!!!” Koy shouts, his excitement echoing in the stadium. He jogs over to Joseph in his navy blue coverall jumpsuit and L.A. Dodgers cap to deliver a satisfying father-son chest bump.
A few yards away, Iglesias is watching Roka, his tiny black chihuahua, dart around the field like four pounds of rambunctious entitlement. The plus-sized comedian — better known as “Fluffy” — is sporting his typical loose-fitting vintage Hawaiian shirt, denim shorts and black flat cap. Whenever they stand together, the duo’s dynamic is like a modern-day Laurel and Hardy.
Nearly 70% of tickets for Koy and Iglesias’ SoFi show sold within days, making this the largest stadium stand-up performance to date.
(Christina House/Los Angeles Times)
“The fact that we’ve known each other as long as we have is wild … we’ve known each other since we both had hair,” Iglesias, 49, says as they both lift up their caps in unison, laughing and exposing their shiny bald heads.
On March 21, this stadium will be filled with more than 70,000 guests as the pair takes center stage at the Super Bowl of comedy — the largest stadium stand-up show to date. Koy and Iglesias are now part of a small fraternity of comics, including Kevin Hart, Dane Cook, Bill Burr and Larry the Cable Guy, who’ve sold out stadiums across the country.
The one-night-only show, which won’t be televised or recorded as a special, is meant to be one giant party for comedy fans who’ve supported Koy and Iglesias since their early days. The comics will be passing the mic back and forth throughout the night, which will feature special guests, surprise moments and plenty of other unplanned interruptions that will make for a roughly four-hour show. Though the L.A. comedy scene tends to exist in the shadow of Hollywood, this feat managed by two of its biggest names puts a historic spotlight on stand-up.
“It’s more sweet because it’s taken so long,” Iglesias said. “This wasn’t an overnight thing. Nowadays, everybody wants everything so fast. Between the two of us, we’ve got about 60 years of comedy experience.”
“It’s insane. I can’t explain it,” Koy adds, staring up at the stadium’s glass roof, preparing to crack it with decibels of laughter. “Every time we come in here and look up, I’m like, ‘There’s going to be a stage here the size of the end zone.’ We took the stage from the arenas that we normally play and injected steroids into it.”
For comedians who’ve witnessed their ascent, which now literally includes hands and feet cemented in front of TCL Chinese Theatre and a star for Fluffy on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, the journey has been incredible to watch.
“It’s huge for stand-up, it used to be just in dingy clubs and bars and always something small and intimate and kinda like an afterthought,” said fellow comedy star Tiffany Haddish, a longtime friend to both Koy and Iglesias. “To be honest I never thought comedy would be this big.”
Jay Leno, a confidant to Iglesias and the man who inspired him to start his own insane car collection and offered Koy his first late-night appearance on “The Tonight Show,” agrees that a show like this is a huge step for comedy.
“My attitude when I came to this town was if you can’t get in through the front door, go in the back door,” Leno said. “And they didn’t do it the traditional way, they got to where they are as comedians, one audience member at a time.”
For the two L.A. comedians, the historic milestone represents decades of work and signals comedy’s arrival in mainstream entertainment venues.
(Christina House/Los Angeles Times)
When the pair of arena-selling comics announced last year they’d be joining forces to perform at SoFi, the task of filling the massive concert venue and football stadium seemed laughable. But within a week, it clearly wasn’t a joke. Nearly 70% of the tickets were sold just days after going on sale. Now, weeks before the gig, the show is completely sold out with more seats being added. If there’s one person who is not necessarily surprised, it’s Iglesias. By his calculations — including his ability to sell out Dodger Stadium twice for the filming of his 2022 Netflix special, “Stadium Fluffy,” and Koy’s ability to sell out the Forum a record-setting six consecutive times (more than any other comedian) — the math checked out.
“At a certain point it’s like we’ve been doing [huge stand-up shows] for so many years, it becomes normal,” Iglesias said. “What do you do to change things? What do you do to grow? The worst thing that happens is it fails. But at least we know we tried it. Then we know what our ceiling is. But as of now, this isn’t the ceiling.”
Despite the logic, looking at the stadium’s massive seating chart during an initial meeting with the venue made the task feel akin to climbing Mt. Everest.
“SoFi is the size of like five Forums. That seating chart on a wall was the most discouraging thing I could possibly look at,” Koy said. “And then looking at the amount of money it was gonna cost us even before we sell one ticket. Me and Gabe should’ve been looking at that and been like, ‘What … are we thinking? Hell nah we ain’t doing this … !’”
It took more than a little convincing from Iglesias to get Koy on board. “[Jo] does not like change. I had to break down the math for him and I pushed it a lot,” Iglesias said. “And I’m glad we did because now that it’s sold out, the hard part is over. We just have to show up and deliver a kick-ass show. And then we can both celebrate after, crack a couple bottles and I know I’m taking a week off after that.”
Unlike a typical arena show, which takes several months to coordinate, their big night at SoFi required a full year of planning. The production and stage will be three times the size of the comedians’ normal stages and will be managed by the same team that produces stadium shows for acts like Los Bukis and Bad Bunny.
“It’s more sweet because it’s taken so long,” Iglesias said. “This wasn’t an overnight thing. Nowadays, everybody wants everything so fast. Between the two of us, we’ve got about 60 years of comedy experience.”
(Christina House/Los Angeles Times)
“It’s almost like a chessboard,” Iglesias said. “You got to do a bunch of moves in order to pull something like this off, it’s not just we’re gonna do it. This took a lot of planning, a lot of coordinating.”
When asked how the tickets could’ve possibly moved so fast, outside of typical avenues of good marketing and promotion, Koy says it was really comedy fans making a statement of support for them and for stand-up.
“There’s no such thing as marketing on this one, to me it’s a phenom,” he said, noting the pride both he and Iglesias have to see the excitement and support from local fans, especially Filipino and Latin communities across L.A. that have been a major part of their respective fanbases. “That type of reaction and that response to us saying we’re gonna be at SoFi is almost like a bragging right and it’s ‘our night, we’re gonna be there, I don’t care where we’re sitting.’”
The SoFi gig was conceived in February of 2024 during Koy’s sixth sold-out show at Kia Forum. In the hoopla of Koy breaking his own audience record at the venue, Iglesias crashed the show, presented his friend with a plaque and laid down the gauntlet in front of 17,500 fans. When Iglesias asked Koy if they should contemplate performing “across the street” together, the crowd erupted with excitement.
“Our agents and managers were like, ‘Are you sure you wanna do that?’’’ Iglesias said. “I think they missed a couple bonuses. But at the end of the day, it’s part of history.”
“That’s what’s beautiful about Gabe, he’s not scared to take on those big risks,” Koy said. “But the whole thing was a risk. We gotta alter our tour dates and sacrifice other opportunities to make this happen.”
“Every time we come in here and look up, I’m like, ‘There’s going to be a stage here the size of the end zone,‘” Koy said about the upcoming SoFi show on Mar. 21. “We took the stage from the arenas that we normally play and injected steroids into it.”
(Christina House/Los Angeles Times)
For Koy, a life of comedy was a risk inspired by his heroes while growing up in Tacoma, Wash. He traces it back to being 15 and seeing Eddie Murphy perform at Climate Pledge Arena during his “Raw” tour in Seattle. He remembers taking a panoramic look at the sold-out crowd roaring in the darkness before the leather-suited legend even took the stage. “I’m like, ‘Wait a minute, this guy got this many people in here?’ I just thought that was the most impossible thing,” Koy remembers. “And now I get to share this moment with my son and let him walk with me and let him see that this is possible.”
When Koy was moving up the comedy ranks under his real name Joseph Glenn Herbert, the thought of calling himself a comedian felt like a pipe dream. Koy, the son of a white father and Filipina mother, saw comedy as a way to channel an overactive personality and need to make people laugh into a career. Going from coffee shop open mics in Tacoma to clubs and casinos in Las Vegas in 1989, Koy scratched out a living doing random jobs to move to L.A. in 2001 with hopes of making it big.
Working at a bank or Nordstrom Rack offered some stability as he drove up and down Sunset Boulevard in his battered Honda Prelude with one broken headlight, looking for a way forward to pursue his passion. Haddish, his longtime friend, spent years working with Koy, who served as her mentor at the Laugh Factory. Between sets on stage, the two would often take breaks to fantasize about fame.
“Jo and I would sit outside of the Laugh Factory and have these conversations and we’d be eating hot dogs wrapped in bacon and we’d be dreaming about being in a big movie, playing big theaters and helping people heal through laughter,” Haddish said. “Now here we are.”
“At the end of the day, this is a big stamp. And I think it also lets other comics know, ‘Hey, man, step up your game. Let’s grow this,’” Iglesias said.
(Christina House/Los Angeles Times)
Pulling off a show of this magnitude is jaw-dropping to think about, Iglesias said, even after having achieved a similar feat just a few years ago at Dodgers Stadium where he filmed his special over the course of two shows. He also set a record for fines incurred by a performer for going over his allotted time slot (a hefty $250,000 for not leaving the venue until 4 a.m.). The SoFi gig leaves him only one shot to get it right. This time around, Iglesias feels infinitely less pressure despite the bigger venue.
“[Dodger Stadium] for me was grueling,” Iglesias said. “I didn’t know what to expect, I didn’t know how it was gonna go. Every day we were pulling our hair out trying to figure it out. Fortunately we were still able to pull it off and we learned a lot from it. This time around, believe me when I tell you the stress of this show is not even there.”
Iglesias, a native of Long Beach, has spent over 30 years rising up the comedy ranks. Among his accomplishments are seven major comedy specials, a TV show (“Mr. Iglesias”) and becoming the first Mexican American comic with a top-grossing worldwide tour. Like Koy, who also has seven major specials, Iglesias went through a lot of metamorphosis on stage prior to finding his calling as a gregarious, fun-loving comedian with a penchant for doing cartoon-ish voices.
Leno says one of the key factors in Fluffy’s mass appeal is his likability.
“The great thing about Gabriel is that the kindness comes across, there’s not a mean spirit in his body,” he said. “There’s a lot of comics who are really funny but people don’t like them because they think they’re mean-spirited. … When you watch Gabe even when he does something that’s not fall-down hysterical, you smile because you like him. … I find him a joy to watch.”
Much of what Iglesias learned about marketing himself was inspired by the WWE. The costumes, witty banter and theatrics of the wrestling ring influenced his consistent look and even allowed the name “Fluffy” to become his calling card.
Comedians Gabriel Iglesias, aka, “Fluffy,” in front, and Jo Koy are photographed at SoFi Stadium in Inglewood on February 10, 2026, ahead of their March 21st show.
(Christina House/Los Angeles Times)
“There is a certain level of pandemonium, as they say in wrestling, that’s needed to get people excited,” Iglesias said. “Then there’s the marketing and the way that you do it — so I did study wrestling a lot.”
Handing the kingdom of SoFi over to the court jesters for a night is a feat worthy of celebration.
“At the end of the day, this is a big stamp. And I think it also lets other comics know, ‘Hey, man, step up your game. Let’s grow this,’” Iglesias said. “And it’s not, ‘Step up your game,’ like we’re competing with each other. It’s more so like, ‘Let’s elevate the game of comedy.’”
Right now Koy feels plenty elevated, as though he’s floating every time he enters the stadium and looks up at the stands — like the night he saw Eddie Murphy all those years ago.
“You should’ve heard the whispers me and Gabe had to ourselves walking out of the stadium tunnel, like, ‘Yo, is this really happening?!’” Koy said with a megawatt smile. “Coming from an open mic night at a coffee house, never in my wildest dreams did I say, ‘Someday, a football stadium’ … we’re literally living our dreams right now.”
Kawhi Leonard scored 29 points, Bennedict Mathurin scored 23 against the team that traded him last month, and the Clippers won their third in a row, 130-107 over the Indiana Pacers on Wednesday night at Intuit Dome.
Brook Lopez had 17 points for the Clippers while Darius Garland had 12 in his first home game since being acquired from the Cleveland Cavaliers last month. He and Mathurin, who made eight of 11 shots, provided an effective backcourt off the bench, and center Isaiah Jackson added 10 points, four rebounds and three blocks against his old team as well.
The only negative on the night was when rookie center Yanic Konan Niederhauser was helped to the locker room after he suffered a right foot injury. He didn’t return. The Clippers said he’d undergo further evaluation and won’t join them for a two-game trip.
Pascal Siakam had 29 points in his return after sitting out three games because of a left wrist sprain to lead Indiana, but the Pacers lost their seventh in a row and fell to the bottom of the Eastern Conference with a 15-47 record.
Jay Huff had 18 points and was four for eight on three-pointers, and Jarace Walker added 17 points.
The Clippers (30-31) led 42-25 after one quarter and 63-51 at halftime, with Leonard racking up 20 points. The Clippers pulled away with a 16-2 run in the third quarter to extend a seven-point lead to 21.
The Clippers shot 55.1% to the Pacers’ 42.9% as L.A. pulled within a game of .500 for the second time since recovering from a 6-21 start. The Clippers play at San Antonio on Friday and at Memphis on Saturday.
Norchad Omier, a 6-foot-7 forward on a two-way contract, became the first Nicaraguan to score in the NBA, according to the Clippers, when he made a late jump hook in the lane.
She was a two-time state champion in high school coming out of the Syracuse area. She then was a four-time NCAA champion at UConn. She’s won three WNBA titles, three World Cup gold medals, three Olympic gold medals, even two EuroLeague titles.
And now, add an Unrivaled title to the mix — a league that she co-founded.
Stewart and Mist are the queens of Unrivaled for 2026, topping Phantom 80-74 in the championship game Wednesday night to cap the league’s second season. Stewart scored 32 points, setting the tone by scoring Mist’s first 12 points of the second half and her team — which went 0-2 against Phantom in the regular season — wouldn’t trail again.
“What I’ll remember the most about this Mist team is we might not be the loudest, but we’re going to work the hardest,” said Stewart, who was picked as MVP of the final — and whose team will split a $600,000 winners’ pool.
It ended somewhat controversially: an offensive foul on Stewart was overturned to a block on review, giving her a free throw to win the title. Stewart swished the shot, and confetti fell from the roof in celebration.
“Just focused on doing it for my team,” Stewart said.
Sparks star Kelsey Plum carried Phantom with 40 points on 14-for-21 shooting, along with six rebounds and five assists.
It was a brilliant effort — but Stewart and Mist had just a bit too much.
“It’s hard when it ends like this,” Plum said. “But overall, it was an amazing season.”
Arike Ogunbowale had 19 and Allisha Gray scored 12 for Mist, while Kiki Iriafen scored 13 and Tiffany Hayes had 12 for Phantom.
“There was complete faith in this group,” Mist coach Zach O’Brien said. “I’m just glad we got it done.”
Stewart and Napheesa Collier are credited as the co-founders of the league, one that if nothing else has filled a void on calendar for the women’s pro game.
“I think that there was a space that wasn’t kind of being used as far as what professional women’s basketball players were doing,” Stewart said. “We used to have a seven-month blackout period where you didn’t know what these professional basketball players were doing. And now you know.”
The question is what comes next.
The WNBA and its players do not have a labor agreement for next season, one that is slated — at this point — to start in about two months. The WNBA has told the players’ union that it needs to get a deal in place by this coming Tuesday to start the season on time.
And for now, there’s no indication that’ll happen. That means the Mist-Phantom final could be the last pro women’s game in the U.S. for a while.
Some will point to poor television ratings as a sign of trouble, while others can point to crowds drawn this season in Brooklyn and Philadelphia as signs of potential for Unrivaled. Players say it works, and there’s no plans to stop now.
“People probably doubt us, that we can sustain it,” Unrivaled CEO Alex Bazzell said. “That’s what drives us and that’s also what drives these players They’re all competitors and we are, too.”
Unrivaled — a 3-on-3, full-court game played on a 72-foot floor, shorter than an NBA or college court — sells itself on being fast-paced, with an 18-second shot clock, 7-minute quarters and plenty of open space for players to create.
Kelsey Plum dribbles against Veronica Burton in the second quarter.
(Leonardo Fernandez / Getty Images)
The title game didn’t disappoint in that regard.
They were the top two seeds entering the playoffs — Phantom 1, Mist 2 — and Wednesday was back and forth. It was 24-24 after one quarter, 43-43 at the half, neither team having led by more than seven at any point.
Mist led 68-62 going to the fourth, an untimed final quarter where 11 points get added to the leading score as the end-of-game target.
To win the title: first team to 79 wins. Mist scored the first six points of the final quarter, going up by 12. Plum answered with five straight points, pushing her total to 35 for the night and getting Phantom within 74-67.
But Mist held the lead the rest of the way, and Stewart — as she has so many times — had a title to savor.
“It was our goal from Day One to be here, to be on this podium,” O’Brien said.
Cale Makar had a goal and two assists, Nathan MacKinnon secured his fourth consecutive 100-point season with a third-period assist, and the NHL-leading Colorado Avalanche ended the Ducks’ five-game winning streak with a 5-1 victory Tuesday night at Honda Center.
Parker Kelly scored two goals and Scott Wedgewood made 27 saves for the Avalanche, who have won three straight and four of five since the Olympic break. Martin Necas got his 27th goal and Gabriel Landeskog also scored to complete Colorado’s back-to-back sweep of the Southern California clubs.
Cutter Gauthier scored his 29th goal and Lukas Dostal stopped 21 shots for the Ducks, whose eight-game home winning streak since Jan. 2 also ended.
The Ducks would have moved into first place in the Pacific Division with a point, but the loss kept Vegas one point ahead. The Ducks are in a playoff race down the stretch for the first time since 2018.
After two fruitless Ducks power plays in the opening minutes, Makar put the Avalanche ahead from the slot with his 18th goal.
Necas added his seventh power-play goal of the season 2 1/2 minutes later, beating his Czech Olympic teammate with a high shot. The goal was just the second on the power play in the last 12 games for the Avalanche, who inexplicably have the NHL’s worst man-advantage unit despite their overall excellence.
Gauthier hammered home a one-timer early in the second after a superb cross-ice pass from Jackson LaCombe, but Kelly got his 14th goal later in the period.
Landeskog then scored a goal in his second straight game, connecting early in the third on a one-timer from MacKinnon, who got his 59th assist to go with his NHL-leading 41 goals.
The Lakers were looking to stack wins and are not in position to judge an opponent by its win-loss record.
So, when the Lakers encountered a Pelicans team that arrived at Crypto.com Arena on Tuesday night with a 19-43 record, they knew they couldn’t afford to overlook New Orleans. Especially since the Pelicans had won four of their past five and because they have a talented core of young talent that includes Zion Williamson, Herbert Jones, Trey Murphy III and Dejounte Murray.
It took all five starters scoring in double figures and it took a strong defensive effort in the fourth quarter for the Lakers (37-24) to pull out a 110-101 win over a stubborn Pelicans team.
“Well, we knew we weren’t playing against their record tonight,” said LeBron James, who was one of the starters to score in double figures with 21 points to go along with seven rebounds, seven assists and two blocks. But he also had five turnovers.
“It’s the first time they’ve been whole in quite a while,” James, who was eight-for-12 from the field, continued. “And we know when they’ve been whole what kind of team they’ve been. So, we came in with that mindset, understanding what kind of team we were playing and they won their last four out of five before tonight, or something like that.
“But we didn’t come in with the notion that we were playing against their record. We came in with the notion that we were playing a very athletic team that’s been playing exceptional basketball of late.”
The Lakers have been a better team as of late as well, winning their third straight game after losing three straight.
They won this one over the Pelicans with just enough offense and some timely defense.
Luka Doncic led the Lakers with 27 points, 10 rebounds and seven assists. But he was just 10-for-22 from the field and three-for-10 from three-point range and he had seven turnovers.
“I think we responded in a good way,”: Doncic said. “Sometimes you got to win playing bad. That’s what good teams do. I think that’s what it is today. Obviously it wasn’t our best game, but we managed to get a win.”
Austin Reaves had 15 points on four-for-15 shooting and two for seven on three-pointers, eight rebounds and five turnovers.
Reaves injured his arm late in the fourth quarter after stripping the basketball away from Williamson. But after a quick time out, Reeves returned to the game.
“I just hit my funny bone,” Reaves said. “Whole hand went numb, called a time out, kind of went away and was able to play.”
Deandre Ayton had 13 points and eight rebounds.
There also was the defense and energy Marcus Smart and Jaxson Hayes provided the Lakers.
Smart had 10 points, four steals and three blocks. He also was big on offense, drilling a three-pointer with 1:34 left for a 105-98 Lakers lead.
Hayes had eight points, six rebounds and two blocks.
“Jaxson was guarding Zion, which is not easy,” Doncic said. “So, I think he had some big, big plays for us. And obviously Smart has been the key to our wins (this season).”
The Lakers had 20 turnovers through three quarters, which didn’t help their cause.
They had just one in the fourth quarter and that came on a late-game 24-second violation when they were running out the clock.
The Lakers didn’t help themselves by losing their composure.
Doncic was given a technical foul in the second quarter. Luke Kennard received a technical foul in the third quarter and Ayton got a technical foul in the fourth quarter after being called for a foul blocking a shot by Williamson.
Austin Reaves celebrates after making a three-pointer in the second half.
(Allen J. Schaben/Los Angeles Times)
The Lakers had 12 blocks for the game and seven in the decisive fourth quarter.
They held the Pelicans to 35% shooting in the fourth and just 23 points.
“I think we’ve made some strides defensively,” James said. “I think we didn’t play much at all zone tonight. We started the game with it, we kind of went away from it. So, I thought our man-to-man defense was pretty good. I thought Jaxson and Marcus were great on that end and then everyone else kind of trickled in as well.”
The UCLA men’s basketball team made Senior Night one to savor Tuesday, dominating No. 9 Nebraska 72-52 at Pauley Pavilion for its 20th victory of the season and third over a top-10 ranked opponent.
Trent Perry scored 20 points, Eric Dailey Jr. had 14 and three players — Tyler Bilodeau, Skyy Clark and Xavier Booker — each added eight points.
Sam Hoiberg had 12 points to lead Nebraska.
The Bruins were in control from the opening tip-off and never trailed the Cornhuskers (25-5, 14-5). UCLA improved to 10-3 in all-time against Nebraska and the win greatly strengthened its resume for an NCAA tournament berth as the Bruins also beat then-No. 4 Purdue 69-67 on Jan. 20 and then-No. 10 Illinois 95-94 in overtime on Feb. 21 on Donovan Dent’s layup with one second left.
This is the fifth time in head coach Mick Cronin’s seven seasons that the Bruins have won 20 or more games. They are 17-1 at home (their only loss in overtime to Indiana on Jan. 31).
UCLA went ahead by 15 points, 37-22, on Perry’s three-pointer with 2:41 left and led 37-24 at intermission. The Bruins shot 50% from the field in the first half (15 for 30) while Nebraska was only 31% (nine for 29).
The Bruins increased their advantage to 18 points on Dailey’s dunk less than five minutes into the second half and the visitors got no closer than nine the rest of the way.
Prior to pregame introductions the Bruins honored seniors Bilodeau, Dent and Clark; fifth-year player Jamar Brown; redshirt seniors Steven Jamerson II, Jack Seidler and Anthony Peoples Jr; and redshirt junior Evan Manjikian. In a media timeout, midway through the first half, former coach Jim Harrick (who led UCLA to its 11th national championship in 1995) was honored and got a loud ovation.
UCLA guard Skyy Clark looks to pass while under pressure from Nebraska guard Sam Hoiberg and forward Berke Buyuktuncel in the second half.
(William Liang / Associated Press)
Over the last four games, Dent has 46 assists and just two turnovers.
Bilodeau has scored in double figures in 26 of 28 games played, totaling 20 points or more nine times.
Dailey moved to within five points of reaching the 1,000-career point milestone.
UCLA has now made at least one three-pointer in 887 of 888 games dating to February 2000.
The ending was not what Jason Crowe Jr. wanted, but he got a hug from his mother and praise from his coach/father after Inglewood’s 84-65 loss to Damien on Tuesday night in the Southern California Division I regional playoff game.
He finished with 34 points, ending his high school career with a state-record 4,718 points in 124 games, according to CalHiSports.com. He’s more than 1,000 points ahead of the next closest player. His scoring average was 38.0 points.
Jason Crowe Jr. ends his fabulous high school career with 34 points in Inglewood 84-65 loss to Damien. He finishes with 4,718 points in 124 games, the most points in California history. pic.twitter.com/O1Lqcaqwzl
“I think he’s had an amazing high school career,” said his father, Jason Sr., who will join his son at Missouri next season serving as an assistant coach. “He had to go against the best defenses every night. I’m proud of him. He brought this program to the Division I level. He was on honor roll every year.”
Damien (28-7) had too much firepower for Inglewood (28-7). Eli Garner scored 25 points and Zaire Rasshan had 24 points. Garner had a five-point play and Rasshan added a four-point play. Damien will play at No. 3-seeded Crespi on Thursday. Crespi defeated Bishop Amat 83-66. Isaiah Barnes scored 20 points. Sophomore Aiden Shaw had 25 points for Bishop Amat.
Jason Crowe Jr. of Inglewood launches three against Damien. He finished with 34 points in loss.
(Nick Koza)
“Incredible career,” Damien coach Mike LeDuc said of Crowe Jr.
Damien fans get excited in state playoff game.
(Nick Koza)
Mater Dei 86, La Mirada 79: The Monarchs came back from a 12-point halftime deficit to eliminate No. 1-seeded La Mirada on the road in Division I.
St. John Bosco 65, San Marcos 55: Christian Collins scored 30 points and Max Ellis 19 for the Braves.
Venice 61, Riverside Ramona 50: Canaan Rodriguez scored 18 points for Venice in Division IV.
Girls basketball
Oak Park 72, La Jolla Country Day 57: Karisma Flores scored 27 points, including seven of seven from the three-point line, to lead Oak Park.
