U.S. reaches WBC final, but struggles at the plate threaten its title hopes
The U.S. is the favorite to win the World Baseball Classic championship, but the team is still trying to execute “a complete game” after semifinal win.
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Luka Doncic scores 51 points in Lakers victory
From Thuc Nhi Nguyen: In this game of “he said, he said,” Luka Doncic got the last laugh.
Doncic, fueled by trash talk from his opponents Thursday, recorded his first 50-point game with the Lakers, checking out with 1:41 remaining to a standing ovation with 51 points, 10 rebounds and nine assists to lead the Lakers to a 142-130 win over the Chicago Bulls.
The Lakers (41-25) jumped into third place in the Western Conference with their seventh win in their last eight games, climbing from sixth in just one week despite not having LeBron James for the last three games.
James, returning from elbow and hip contusions sustained in a fall against the Denver Nuggets on March 5, had 18 points with seven rebounds and seven assists. Austin Reaves scored 30 points with seven assists to reach 5,000 career points, and Deandre Ayton had his second consecutive double-double with 23 points and 10 rebounds.
The Lakers let the struggling Bulls (27-39) go on a 12-3 run to tie the score at the end of the first quarter but started to heat up when Doncic scored 10 consecutive points in the second quarter. The streak signaled to the six-time All-Star he was going to have one those nights.
“Somebody started talking to me,” Doncic said, “so I woke up.”
Donovan Dent leads UCLA men past Rutgers
From Ryan Kartje: This was hardly a masterpiece of Big Ten basketball, what with the barrage of bricks and busted possessions. Nor was it the sort of night to convince you of UCLA’s chances as a surefire conference contender.
But amid the mess of its 72-59 win over 14th-seeded Rutgers on Thursday night, UCLA showed the sort of mettle it may need to keep its season kicking this March.
It started with Donovan Dent, whose masterful month continued with his first career triple-double — and the first triple-double in Big Ten tournament history. The senior tallied 12 points, 10 rebounds and 12 assists. He and Tyler Bilodeau, who added a game-high 21 points, were the rare bright spots on offense for the Bruins.
Otherwise, UCLA struggled to find any sort of rhythm. It shot just 38% from the field, worse than it had in any win this season. And still, the Bruins were in control for most of the game after pulling away early in the second half.
None of that will fly against No. 3 seed Michigan State on Friday at 6 p.m. PDT, which beat UCLA by 23 points the last time they met.
Controversy about L.A. Marathon finish
From Anthony Solorzano: Just 0.18 seconds separated Michael Kimani Kamau from $15,000. Sunday’s 41st L.A. Marathon was decided by a late-charging sprint from Nathan Martin, the winner who received $25,000 for first place. The runner-up earned $10,000.
With five miles to the finish line and no one else picking up pace, Martin decided to push himself to the end. Kamau’s experience down the stretch was different. Less than a quarter mile from the finish, his race took an unexpected turn because of a fan.
With many fans cheering him on, one interfered and led him off course. A video posted on Reddit shows Kamau following a fan off course for roughly 10 seconds.
He briefly followed the lead vehicles off the designated course while trying to avoid a spectator who ran into his path. Fans immediately stopped him and pointed him in the right direction.
“I actually thought he won until I got home later that day and saw the news channels reporting that Nathan had an amazing kick at the end,” said Ivan Torres, who filmed the scene.
Organizers are aware of the video but no protests were filed and the results are unchanged.
Trent McDuffie’s wish comes true
From Gary Klein: Trent McDuffie was a young high school player in Southern California when the Rams returned from St. Louis to Los Angeles in 2016.
In 2020, McDuffie watched HBO’s “Hard Knocks” episodes about the team, and he was enamored by coach Sean McVay.
“I remember just being like, ‘Dang, I would like to play for that guy,’” McDuffie said Thursday.
McDuffie, an All-Pro cornerback acquired by the Rams in a blockbuster trade, recalled those thoughts during an introductory news conference at the team’s facility in Woodland Hills after he signed a record-breaking four-year extension that reportedly includes $100 million in guarantees.
Concerns about L.A. Olympics
From Kevin Baxter: A report on how Olympic organizers will tackle civil rights, homelessness and human trafficking ahead and during the 2028 Games has not been made public by the city more than two months after it was filed and no date for its release has been set, leaving human rights advocates fearing the issues will not get the attention and funding they deserve.
Council president Marqueece Harris-Dawson, who chairs the ad-hoc committee on the LA28 Games, has not included the human rights report on the committee’s agenda. His office did not respond to requests for comment and Sharon Tso, the city’s chief legislative analyst, and Matthew Szabo, the city’s administrative officer, both said they have not seen the report and “nothing appears on the council file,” according to Tso.
The delay is limiting discussion on an important topic, said Stephanie Richard, a clinical professor who leads the Sunita Jain Anti-Trafficking Initiative at Loyola Law School, which released its own comprehensive report on human trafficking and the 2026 World Cup and 2028 Olympics in December.
Ducks lose to Toronto
William Nylander broke a tie on a power play 36 seconds into the third period and the Toronto Maple Leafs beat the Ducks 6-4 on Thursday night to end an eight-game losing streak.
The victory was tempered by the loss of captain Auston Matthews on a knee-on-knee hit from Ducks defenseman Radko Gudas with four minutes left in the second period. Matthews stayed down favoring his left leg before being helped to the locker room. Gudas was assessed a major penalty and game misconduct.
Matthews scored earlier to end a 12-game goal drought.
Cutter Gauthier, Ian Moore, Pavel Mintyukov and Alex Killorn scored for the Pacific Division-leading Ducks. Lukas Dostal stopped 23 shots.
This day in sports history
1894 — J.L. Johnstone of England invents the starting gate for horse racing.
1920 — NYU wins the national amateur basketball championship in Atlanta. The Violets beat Rutgers 49-24 in the final of the AAU tournament.
1961 — Floyd Patterson knocks out Ingemar Johansson in the sixth round to retain the world heavyweight title in Miami Beach.
1982 — Elaine Zayak of the United States wins the world figure skating championship.
1983 — Randy Smith’s consecutive game streak ends at 906 games, the longest in NBA history. Smith played for Buffalo, San Diego (twice), Cleveland and New York during the streak.
1997 — The America’s Cup, the oldest trophy in international sports and yachting’s most coveted prize, is all but destroyed by a Maori protester who struck it repeatedly with a sledgehammer in Auckland, New Zealand.
1998 — Bryce Drew hits a leaning three-pointer as time expires to give Valparaiso a shocking 70-69 upset of Mississippi in the first round of the NCAA Midwest Regional.
2001 — Philadelphia’s Mark Recchi picks up his 1,000th point during a 5-2 win over St. Louis. He’s the 60th player in NHL history to reach the mark.
2007 — Lance Mackey wins the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race, becoming the first musher to win major long-distance North American sled dog races back-to-back. On Feb. 20, Mackey won his third consecutive Yukon Quest International Sled Dog Race, a 1,000-mile race between Fairbanks and Whitehorse, Yukon.
2007 — Dallas’ Mike Modano becomes the 39th player in NHL history and second born in the United States to reach 500 goals, scoring with 10:24 left in the third period of a 3-2 victory over Philadelphia.
2008 — Bode Miller clinches the men’s overall World Cup ski title. Miller earns his second title in four years with a 12th-place finish in the super-G combined, along with Didier Cuche’s announcement that he would not enter the season-ending slalom in Bormio, Italy.
2011 — The NCAA men’s basketball selection committee releases its 68-team draw, which included a record 11 teams from the Big East, the deepest conference in the nation. The tournament adds three more at-large teams that will open the tournament in what the NCAA is calling the “First Four.”
2012 — BYU pulls off the biggest comeback in NCAA tournament history on a wild opening night. Noah Hartsock scores 16 of his 23 points in the second half and the Cougars rally from 25 points down to beat Iona 78-72 in the first round. It marks the biggest comeback in an NCAA tournament game. Previously, the largest deficit overcome was 22 points in 2001 when Duke fought back to beat Maryland 95-84 in the national semifinals. It’s the second incredible turnaround of the night in Dayton. With President Barack Obama and British Prime Minister David Cameron watching, Western Kentucky comes back from a 16-point deficit in the final 5 minutes to beat Mississippi Valley State 59-58.
2018 — Russell Westbrook picks up the 100th triple-double of his career and the Oklahoma City Thunder uses a 16-0 run late in the fourth quarter to pull away from the Atlanta Hawks for a 119-107 victory. Westbrook scores 32 points, dishes out 12 assists and grabs 12 rebounds to become the third-fastest player to reach the milestone.
2020 — Elite football in Britain, including England’s Premier League, EFL, Women’s Super League plus in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, is suspended until at least April 3 because of COVID-19 pandemic.
2022 — After a 40-day retirement, record breaking quarterback Tom Brady announces he will play at least one more season in the NFL with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.
Compiled by the Associated Press
Until next time…
That concludes today’s newsletter. If you have any feedback, ideas for improvement or things you’d like to see, email me at houston.mitchell@latimes.com. To get this newsletter in your inbox, click here.
Bam Adebayo used a cheat code to score 83 points
From Mirjam Swanson: Wham, Bam, pfft.
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.
Now a Laker, LeBron cheered the effort on X, writing: “BAM BAM BAM” with a bunch of fire emojis.
Clippers run up big score in victory
Kawhi Leonard scored 45 points and the Clippers routed the Minnesota Timberwolves 153-128 on Wednesday night, moving above .500 with their third straight victory and sixth in seven games.
Eighth in the Western Conference at 33-32 after opening 6-21, the Clippers had their highest point total of the season. They blew out Minnesota after beating New York on Monday night to open a five-game homestand.
Leonard was 15 of 20 from the the field, six of nine on threes and made nine of 10 free throws. Los Angeles made 19 of 37 threes.
USC men’s basketball season ends with a thud
From Luke DeCock: 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.
Tuesday’s 83-79 overtime loss to Washington in the Big Ten tournament, the Trojans’ eighth straight defeat, brought to a close what USC coach Eric Musselman called the toughest stretch of his coaching career. It included not only USC’s longest losing streak in a decade, but a pair of 19-point losses to UCLA and the dismissal of leading scorer Chad Baker-Mazara from the team in the past 10 days alone.
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.
Iran won’t play in World Cup
From Kevin Baxter: Iran’s sports minister said his nation will not participate in this summer’s World Cup following the attacks on the country by the U.S., one of the tournament’s hosts.
The U.S. bombing campaign against Iran, which began two weeks ago, has triggered a region-wide conflict and killed more than 1,300 Iranians including Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the country’s supreme leader, according to Iran’s U.N. ambassador Amir-Saeid Iravani.
“Considering that this corrupt regime has assassinated our leader, under no circumstances can we participate in the World Cup,” sports minister Ahmad Donyamali said on state television Wednesday.
“Our players do not have security, and fundamentally the conditions for participation do not exist.”
Donyamali’s statement came just hours after FIFA president Gianni Infantino said he had received assurances from President Trump that Iran would be allowed to participate in the tournament, which will be played in the U.S., Mexico and Canada.
This day in sports history
1937 — The first National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA) men’s basketball tournament is won by Central Missouri State. Central Missouri wins the eight-team, single-elimination tournament by defeating Morningside College (Iowa) 35-24.
1966 — In the last race of his 40-year career, John Longden wins the San Juan Capistrano Handicap at Santa Anita, aboard George Royal. He retires with a then-record number of victories, 6,032.
1984 — Jayne Torvill and Christopher Dean of Britain become the first ice dancing team to record nine perfect marks of 6.0 during the world championships.
1985 — Larry Bird scores 60 points, including Boston’s last 16, to set a Celtics record and lead them to a 126-115 victory over Atlanta.
1994 — The Arkansas men’s track and field team wins its 11th straight NCAA Indoor Championship with a meet-record 94 points. The 54-point victory margin is the biggest in the meet’s 30-year history.
2002 — Siena (17-18), with an 81-77 victory over Alcorn State in the play-in game, becomes first team in 47 years to win an NCAA men’s basketball tournament game with a losing record.
2003 — Damian Costantino’s NCAA-record hitting streak ends at 60 games, one day after he broke Robin Ventura’s 16-year-old mark. Costantino, an outfielder for Division III Salve Regina of Newport, R.I., fails to get a hit in the first game of a doubleheader against Baldwin-Wallace. It’s the first time he finishes a game hitless since March 25, 2001.
2005 — Bode Miller becomes the first American in 22 years to win skiing’s overall World Cup title. He finishes ahead of his only remaining challenger, Benjamin Raich of Austria, in the season’s final giant slalom to capture the crown.
2008 — The Houston Rockets are the third team in NBA history to win 20 straight games and ties for the second-longest winning streak with an 83-75 victory over the Atlanta Hawks.
2009 — Syracuse outlasts Connecticut in the second-longest Division I game ever played, capping a Big East tournament quarterfinal doubleheader in which the second- and third-ranked teams in the nation both lose. Andy Rautins hits a three-pointer 10 seconds into the sixth overtime to give the Orange their first lead since regulation and they go on to a 127-117 victory over the third-ranked Huskies. Much earlier in the evening, West Virginia beats No. 2 Pittsburgh 74-60.
2011 — The No. 21 Connecticut Huskies win their seventh Big East championship by winning five games in as many days. Kemba Walker shatters the tournament scoring record, getting 19 points in the ninth-seeded Huskies’ 69-66 victory over No. 14 Louisville.
2017 — Joakim Jensen finally ends what is believed to be the longest game in hockey history, scoring in the eighth overtime in the Norwegian League playoffs. More than 8 1/2 hours after the game started — and after 217 minutes, 14 seconds of play — Jensen breaks through to give the Storhamar Dragons a 2-1 victory over the Sparta Warriors. Storhamar leads the best-of-seven quarterfinal series 3-2.
2018 — Alex Ovechkin scores twice to reach 600 goals as the Washington Capitals beat the Winnipeg Jets 3-2 in overtime. The Russian winger is the 20th player and fourth-fastest in NHL history to reach 600 goals.
2018 — Marc-Andre Fleury makes 38 saves to become the 13th goalie in NHL history with 400 wins, and Ryan Carpenter scores the winning goal with 2:40 left to lead the Vegas Golden Knights over the Philadelphia Flyers 3-2.
2020 — 2020 NCAA men’s basketball tournament is cancelled over concerns of the spread of COVID-19; first time ‘March Madness’ not held since it began in 1939; women’s tournament also cancelled.
2020 — NHL announces the pausing of the 2019-20 season due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Compiled by the Associated Press
Until next time…
That concludes today’s newsletter. If you have any feedback, ideas for improvement or things you’d like to see, email me at houston.mitchell@latimes.com. To get this newsletter in your inbox, click here.
USC basketball season ends with OT loss in Big Ten tournament
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.
Tuesday’s 83-79 overtime loss to Washington in the Big Ten tournament, the Trojans’ eighth straight defeat, brought to a close what USC coach Eric Musselman called the toughest stretch of his coaching career. It included not only USC’s longest losing streak in a decade, but a pair of 19-point losses to UCLA and the dismissal of leading scorer Chad Baker-Mazara from the team in the past 10 days alone.
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.”
High school basketball: boys’ and girls’ regional finals results from Tuesday
HIGH SCHOOL BASKETBALL
SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA REGIONALS
TUESDAY’S RESULTS
FINALS
BOYS
OPEN DIVISION
#1 Sierra Canyon 63, #2 Harvard-Westlake 57
DIVISION I
#6 Damien 48, #4 St. John Bosco 41
DIVISION II
#3 Bakersfield Christian 59, #8 Palisades 57
DIVISION III
#3 Birmingham 73, #5 Colony 58
DIVISION IV
#3 San Juan Hills 74, #1 Tulare Union 66
DIVISION V
#2 Sylmar 66, #1 Coalinga 58
GIRLS
OPEN DIVISION
#2 Ontario Christian 73, #4 Sage Hill 51
DIVISION I
#5 Corona Centennial 81, #2 Rancho Christian 61
DIVISION II
#2 Santa Maria St. Joseph 60, #4 Saugus 55
DIVISION III
#2 Placentia El Dorado 61, #5 Leuzinger 56
DIVISION IV
#5 Palisades 54, #2 Godinez Fundamental 38
DIVISION V
#4 Laguna Hills 43, #6 Schurr 24
Note: State Championships are March 13-14 at Golden 1 Center in Sacramento.
Dodgers’ Roki Sasaki makes strides in outing against minor leaguers
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PHOENIX — It hasn’t been the smoothest spring training for right-hander Roki Sasaki as he prepares for his second season with the Dodgers.
Sasaki’s first two starts in Cactus League play featured some problems with command and plenty of hard contact. But with left-hander Blake Snell and right-hander Gavin Stone sidelined with shoulder issues, Dodgers manager Dave Roberts left no doubt where Sasaki stood as he got ready to pitch in a B-game against White Sox minor leaguers on Tuesday.
“Having Blake [Snell] late to the season, which we know, [and] Gavin Stone, late to the season, as we know, we’re going to need Roki,” Roberts said. “With the buildup, I just don’t see a world in which he doesn’t break with us as a starter, and so, we’re going to need those innings.”
Sasaki took a promising step forward on a minor-league field at Camelback Ranch.
The hard-throwing right-hander threw 59 pitches, 40 for strikes, across four innings while striking out nine of the 13 batters he faced and allowing two to reach base.
Although Roberts did not see Sasaki’s outing, he heard rave reviews from members of the organization who attended.
“They said it was electric,” Roberts said after the Dodgers’ 4-1 win over the Arizona Diamondbacks at Camelback Ranch. “They said [he was touching] 98 to 100 [mph]. The fastball was spraying a little early, but then he locked it in. And then the split was on-play, short, lot of swing-and-miss. Couldn’t have asked for a better day.”
Sasaki surrendered a single through the right side of the infield to the first batter he faced, then proceeded to strike out the next seven batters. His only other hiccup came in the third inning, when he hit Jason Matthews with a stray breaking ball on a full count.
“I actually felt pretty bad the last couple days, but today I was able to make an adjustment, so that’s what I really need for right now,” Sasaki said via an interpreter after his outing. “I think I can keep moving forward.”
Sasaki was shelled in his second Cactus League start last week, yielding four runs, three walks, a single and a grand slam to the Cleveland Guardians at Goodyear Ballpark. He was lifted from the game without recording an out, only to get re-inserted in the second inning to complete two scoreless innings.
Sasaki noted mechanical issues as the reason for his struggles after the game. Tuesday, he said he felt much better, focusing on his core and obliques.
“I was actually focusing on core, oblique stuff,” Sasaki said. “I think it’s all about mechanics. If my mechanics are really good, my command is good too.”
Roberts took away plenty of value from the outing, even one against a lineup of minor leaguers.
“There’s still value in getting hitters out and seeing guys swing and miss,” Roberts said. “I think we accomplished what we wanted to today, we built him up. Obviously, built up some confidence. So, just go from there.”