Moses Itauma’s rise continues, and if it was up to him and ‘every heavyweight was free’, he be would turbocharging his career.

After becoming the first man to stop Jermaine Franklin, doing so inside five rounds with a highlight-reel uppercut, Itauma said his ideal next fight would be against the durable Filip Hrgovic. That is unlikely to be the case, with Hrgovic booked to fight Dave Allen next month.

Speaking on TalkSPORT in the days following, Itauma then named WBC, WBA and IBF champion Usyk as his ultimate target, but the unified champion will face Rico Verhoeven on May 23 and, perhaps more importantly, has been openly dismissive of facing the Brit. A suggestion of Michael Hunter, made by fellow heavyweight Derek Chisora, now may be one of the leading options.

“In a perfect world I would’ve wanted to fight Hrgovic … If everybody was free, Usyk would be the one because he’s got the belts … Derek Chisora said me against Michael Hunter in America. That makes sense. Me and Michael Hunter in America would be decent. But I honestly don’t know. I’ve got a meeting with Frank Warren to find out my next date.”

Hunter – who lost to Usyk in the cruiserweight ranks before moving up to heavyweight – has been painfully inactive at the top level for some years, constantly teasing that he is targeting big fights but never quite delivering. Itauma would be an extreme test, and may be too high risk for the American without some bigger wins under his belt.

The Hrgovic fight may yet happen, just not next. If the Croatian beats Allen in May, he has said Itauma is one of the names in his contract alongside the likes of Fabio Wardley and Daniel Dubois.

As for Usyk, he appears unwilling to change his stance on Itauma, most recently saying he does not want to ‘break’ the young heavyweight. With his focus on current champions or fighters closer to his age, it looks unlikely the match-up happens.

Friday’s women’s March Madness game between UConn and South Carolina saw an eruption of tempers boil over as two of the sport’s most legendary coaches got engaged in a heated sideline confrontation.

UConn’s Geno Auriemma and South Carolina’s Dawn Staley were seen shouting aggressively at each other in the closing moments of the game. South Carolina was on the verge of a 62-48 win in the Final Four, when, with South Carolina closing in on a 62-48 Final Four win, Auriemma approached Staley, and he began to speak to her aggressively, before the conversation devolved into quickly escalated into a visible shouting match.

After the game, Auriemma did not shake Staley’s hand.

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UConn head coach Geno Auriemma watches a play late in the second half of a Sweet 16 game of the NCAA college basketball tournament against North Carolina in Fort Worth, Texas, on March 27, 2026. (LM Otero/AP)

Staley addressed the incident in an interview with ESPN immediately afterward.

“I have no idea, but I’m going to let you know this, I’m of integrity. I’m of integrity,” Staley said. “So if I did something wrong to Geno, I had no idea what I did, I guess he thought I didn’t shake his hand at the beginning of the game, I didn’t know, I went down there pregame, shook everybody on his staff’s hand, I don’t know what we came with after the game, but hey sometimes things get heated. We move on.”

Auriemma was seen shaking Staley’s hand in ESPN footage before the game.

MARYLAND BASKETBALL COACH HAS INTENSE MOMENT WITH PLAYER DURING MARCH MADNESS GAME

UConn head coach Geno Auriemma reacts to a play during the first half of a Sweet 16 game of the NCAA college basketball tournament against North Carolina in Fort Worth, Texas, on March 27, 2026. (Julio Cortez/AP Photo)

Auriemma addressed the incident in the postgame press conference.

“I don’t want what happened there to dampen what we were able to accomplish today,” Staley said.

Meanwhile, Auriemma expressed displeasure with Staley and the referees during an in-game interview on ESPN.

“There were six fouls called that quarter — all of them against us,” Auriemma said on the broadcast. “And they’ve been beating the (expletive) out of our guys down there the entire game. I’m not making excuses, ’cause we haven’t been able to make a shot. But this is ridiculous.

“Their coach rants and raves on the sideline and calls the referee some names you don’t want to hear. And now we get 6 to 0, and I got a kid with a ripped jersey, and they go, ‘I didn’t see it.’ Come on, man. It’s for a national championship.”

After the game, Auriemma declined to elaborate on the incident.

“I said what I had to say and… nothing… nothing,” he said when asked what happened with Staley, refusing to tell reporters what he said.

“Why would I say it. I said what I said and obviously she didn’t like it. I just told the truth.”

Auriemma later addressed the speculation over the handshake pre-game and his mid-game interview.

“I don’t have any regrets,” Auriemma said of his mid-game interview.

“I’ve been coaching a long time, I never had a kid have to change their jersey because somebody ripped it and the official said they didn’t see it. There were a lot of things that happened in that game. Unless you’re on that sideline you have no idea what’s happening on that sideline…

“The protocol is, before the game, you meet at halfcourt, anybody ever see that before? The two coaches meet at halfcourt and they shake hands… they announce it on the loud speaker. I waited there for like three minutes.”

Footage of the shouting exchange quickly went viral on social media, with many fans shocked to two of women’s basketball’s most respected figures clash so publicly.

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Dawn Staley of the South Carolina Gamecocks argues with Geno Auriemma of the UConn Huskies during the second half of an NCAA Women’s Final Four semifinal game at Mortgage Matchup Center in Phoenix, Ariz., on April 3, 2026. (C. Morgan Engel/NCAA Photos via Getty Images)

ESPN star Stephen A. Smith blasted Auriemma for the incident in an X post.

“That was some straight B.S. from the GREAT Geno Auriemma. Never — ever — thought I’d see the day when the greatest woman’s college coach in history would go down so CLASSLESSLY!!! Horrible look, and should be called out for it. He got OUTCOACHED,” Smith wrote. “Plain and simple. And gets in her face like she did something wrong to him instead of being gracious. Had Dawn Staley acted like that we would be all over her.”

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Jordan Spieth has a knack for putting himself in dastardly predicaments. Sure, he’s on TV a bunch, so golf fans are prone to seeing his wild, wicked and sometimes even life-threatening lies, but still, the guy seems to be a magnet for messiness.

The latest case in point: the par-4 12th hole at TPC San Antonio’s Oaks Course, where, in the second round of the Valero Texas Open on Friday, Spieth blocked his tee shot into the native area right of the fairway. When Spieth and his caddie, Michael Greller, arrived in the woods — this was on Spieth’s third hole of the day — they found Spieth’s ball pinned next to a loose impediment that didn’t look, well . . . all that loose. It was either a large rock or a small boulder, and it would take the might of both men to move it.

“Want to try to do it together on [the count of] three?” Spieth said to Greller.

The scene called to mind a famous (infamous?) Tiger Woods episode at the 1999 Phoenix Open. That’s when Woods, in the fourth round, left a stray shot a couple of feet from a thigh-high boulder. After a rules official confirmed that the rock was not attached to the desert floor beneath it, Woods and his caddie, Fluff McCowan, recruited no less than a dozen fans to help remove the impediment from Woods’s intended line of flight.

Spieth and Greller moved their own impediment with far less fanfare, shifting the rock just a few inches to free up Spieth’s ball.   

“When you’re Michael Greller, when you wake up, you have no idea what to expect,” a commentator joked.

As Spieth took relief, a commentator on the broadcast said, “This could end up being a massive break.”

To which another commentator replied, “I would say 90 percent of the field would have just taken an unplayable — not even a thought of doing something like this.”

Spieth still didn’t have much of a look at the green, though. From his new lie, he pitched safely back to the fairway and made a bogey 5.

Still, Spieth’s rules savvy likely saved him at least a shot — and it’s a shot that proved consequential. Spieth signed for a one-under 71 Friday, good enough to make the two-under cutline on the number.

Congo scored in extra time to edge Jamaica 1-0 and become the 47th of 48 teams that will play at the World Cup.

Axel Tuanzebe scored following a corner kick in the 100th minute of the intercontinental playoff. The Jamaican defenders failed to clear the ball and Tuanzebe, who plays for Burnley in the English Premier League tapped it into the net.

Congo has never played in a World Cup under that name, although it participated in the 1974 edition in Germany as Zaire.

With its victory in the intercontinental playoff at the Akron Stadium in Guadalajara, Mexico, the Congolese team completes Group K at the World Cup, where it will face Colombia, Portugal, and Uzbekistan.

“We’re going to enjoy the qualification, but we’ll keep working. We know we’ll be facing top nations who play in the World Cup every four years,” Congo captain Chancel Mbemba said. “We’ll stay humble, keep our feet on the ground, and continue to work. We’ll give everything to make our supporters and our people proud.” 
The Jamaica team, known as the Reggae Boyz, missed out on what would have been a second World Cup appearance. They have only took part once in the world’s biggest football tournament, in 1998.

Congo had chances to take the lead twice during regulation time. Nathanael Mbuku’s 4th-minute effort and Samuel Moutossamy’s in the 85th were ruled out for offside.

The full list of 48 teams participating in the World Cup was set to be finalized later Tuesday in Mexico when Bolivia played Iraq at Monterrey. The winner will join Group I, which already includes France, Norway, and Senegal.

Ademola Lookman’s debut, after joining Atletico Madrid, and his first goal for the club, came against Barcelona, and only a few months later, he’ll now prepare to face off against the LaLiga side a whopping three times in only 10 days. In a unique outcome, that has only happened due to both teams progression in the Copa Del Rey and Champions League, the two clubs will meet six times this season, with Lookman standing to be involved in five of those meetings.

How to watch Atletico Madrid vs. Barcelona, odds

• Date: Saturday, April 4 | Time: 3 p.m. ET
• Location: Riyadh Air Metropolitano — Madrid, Spain
• Live stream: ESPN+
• Odds: Atletico Madrid +210; Draw +290; Barcelona +115

Lookman’s move to join the club from Atalanta during the January transfer window has Atletico Madrid in the midst of one of their best seasons in a while as they’re one win from securing a Copa Del Rey title while also having a chance at knocking Barcelona out of Champions League pla,y but these are things that aren’t suprising Lookman as he looks to help this team in any way that he can.

“I think obviously Atleti is a massive, massive club, on all fronts. You know, I noticed that before I came here, and being here, it’s a lot bigger and it’s right in your face. And I think that the squad is full of amazing players, qualities, and we want to compete,” Lookman said. “We’re competing on all fronts in three different competitions, which is a credit to everybody here, credit to the staff, credit to the players, and credit to the mentality here. The mentality is to win as much as we can, win the games that are in front of us, and we take every game as they come, and we’re looking forward to the games ahead.”

That mentality is part of the effect of playing for Diego Simeone. Lookman said that the manager was demanding when asked to describe what it’s like playing for him, and he also expanded that because he demands so much from his players, it makes him want to perform at his best, which will be needed to win these games. He already has two matches against Barcelona to fall back on when looking for experience, despite them ending in very different ways. Atleti won the first match for their two-legged Copa del Rey semifinal 4-0, before losing the away tie 3-0, to just squeak into the final. On the bright side, winning the two home matches by a crooked scoreline could be more than enough to see Atleti make it to the last four teams standing in the Champions League while also gaining ground in LaLiga.

With Lookman already grabbing a goal and an assist in the Copa Del Rey against Barcelona, this also won’t be an occasion that’s too big for him, although he has learned from the first two matches against them.

“There’s a lot to take away from both games, home and away, and you know, we’ve obviously learned from that, and we’re still learning from that,” Lookman said. “We’re going to take some stuff away from that. And on every occasion, you can expect something unexpected, and that’s football. But for us, it’s obviously preparing the same way that we’ve been preparing in the best way possible to get the best result.”

There’s only so much that a team can switch things up when facing someone so many times in quick succession, so it’s a good time to keep things simple and see what happens in the long run. Lookman, settling in quickly, will have him as a focus for the attack as the club has welcomed him in, and fellow former Atalanta players Juan Musso and Matteo Ruggeri were able to help Lookman get settled.

“Normally, once you join a team, you kind of go to who you’re most familiar with, and obviously, um, I kind of stuck around them in the beginning, of course, and as time goes on, you kind of speak with more people and start to form different relationships with people,” Lookman said.

Now that he’s coming into his own and also growing in the defensive side of his game under Simeone, this is a time where he’ll be expected to impact the side. He has already learned a lot while in LaLiga and is able to use his pace to make an impact, which can give Barcelona’s high line a nightmare in these fixtures. Repetition and being able to improve as an all-around player in a short period of time show how much of a difference things have been for the Nigerian so far. Now, he’ll have to keep it going on the biggest stage.

Across the Channel, Chelsea have sidelined vice-captain Enzo Fernández after the midfielder fuelled speculation of a summer transfer to Real Madrid with comments he made over the international break. The Argentine’s two-game suspension starts from this weekend’s FA Cup quarter-final ties.

The fallout from Italy’s failure to qualify for a third straight World Cup has now seen Gennaro Gattuso resign as national team head coach after less than a year in charge. Italian FA president Gabriele Gravina as well as the team’s delegation head Gianluigi Buffon have also stepped down from their positions in the wake of the play-off defeat.

One of Britain’s longest-running annual sporting events, consisting of a series of boat races between students from the universities of Oxford and Cambridge, takes place on the River Thames in West London this Saturday. This year, for the first time, both men’s teams will be captained by French students.

Suryakumar Yadav and Axar Patel (Image credit: BCCI/IPL)

NEW DELHI: Just moments before the toss, broadcasters announced that Mumbai Indians captain Hardik Pandya would not play in the match against Delhi Capitals at the Arun Jaitley Stadium in Delhi. Seconds after the announcement, Suryakumar Yadav – smiling, chewing gum, and dressed in the blue and gold jersey – walked out with the team sheet, shook hands with Ravi Shastri, and then greeted Delhi Capitals captain Axar Patel.What followed was a loud cheer from the Delhi crowd as they saw their T20 World Cup-winning captain Surya.The big question was: why was Surya leading the team, and why was Hardik missing such an important clash?The moment Axar won the toss and opted to field against Mumbai Indians, and spoke about his team combination, the focus quickly shifted to Surya.“(Hardik Pandya) He’s not well, doesn’t look good, so he was not fit for today’s game. So just getting into his shoes today,” Surya, who was the stand-in captain for the Delhi Capitals clash, said.