Sports
Michigan and Arizona have shown they’re the 2 best teams in college basketball. It’s just a shame they won’t play for the title
CHICAGO — Even back in November, when the nascent college basketball season was barely a ripple on the national sports radar, Michigan and Arizona were eying each other like boxers in opposite corners, waiting for the bell to ring.
Though their paths did not cross, they were practically mirror images, their dominance made obvious by the wins they were racking up against quality teams — often by big margins. As far back as Thanksgiving week, when Michigan polished off the Players Era tournament with a 40-point win over Gonzaga while Arizona had already banked wins over Florida, UConn and UCLA, it would not have been a hot take to suggest they would be on a collision course for the Final Four.
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“There were glimpses of this happening,” Michigan athletic director Warde Manuel said Sunday amid the net-cutting celebration at United Center, where the Wolverines had dominated Tennessee, 95-62. “But there was a long season.”
A long season that will end much as it began: With the two teams who flashed the earliest Final Four potential facing each other in the Final Four.
“We always wanted to play against that team,” Michigan forward Yaxel Lendeborg said. “That’s what everybody goes to college basketball for, to play those blockbuster-type games. They got a bunch of NBA guys. We got a bunch of NBA guys. It’s gonna be a fun matchup, man, and I hope everybody’s ready to play because I am.”
Yaxel Lendeborg and the Michigan Wolverines have won every game this NCAA tournament by more than 20 points. (Kamil Krzaczynski-Imagn Images)
(IMAGN IMAGES via Reuters Connect / REUTERS)
Is it the de facto national championship game? That’s probably unfair. UConn and Illinois, who will be paired in the other semifinal, are excellent teams.
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Should the Final Four be reseeded? Now that’s a good debate topic because it certainly appears that the two best teams — and the two best teams all season long — are going to be playing Saturday night rather than Monday.
How hard is it to be as good as Michigan and Arizona from start to finish? Well, you saw it Sunday when Duke, the overall No. 1 seed, melted down in the second half against UConn.
College basketball deciding its champion with a single-elimination, six-round tournament has long been the sport’s blessing and curse. It makes the stakes of every game sky high and creates Cinderella storylines out of nowhere. It also means the national champion is sometimes not the best team but rather the team that got hot at the right time and avoided bad luck or injury. The uniqueness of March Madness has made that tradeoff worthwhile.
But thanks to Michigan and Arizona making it this far, there will be no such caveats this year.
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Even before conference play began, you could have reasonably watched those two teams shred everyone in sight and conclude they were on a level above everyone else.
This wire-to-wire trend, however, goes against much of what we’ve learned over the decades about college basketball. Sure, there have been a handful of outlier teams that were locked and loaded from the beginning, but coaches have generally looked at the season as a way to prepare and peak for March.
When a team flashes national championship potential so early the way Michigan did — there was a 10-game stretch in November and December when the Wolverines were beating teams by an average of 34.5 points, including some true quality opponents — it’s almost problematic.
“The most difficult part is that everyone starts getting so much more attention, advice — literally everything they get more of,” Michigan coach Dusty May said. “And it’s difficult not to make it about you because the people you’re talking to are making it about you. There’s just a lot of distracting information, and if you’re not mature and you’re not connected to this group and not willing to be held accountable by the staff and each other, then it’s not going to work.
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“And once it creeps in, it’s almost impossible to weed it out. So our guys never let it in. And trust me, they all had different fires that were ignited.”
Brayden Burries and the Arizona Wildcats haven’t lost since Feb. 14. (Eakin Howard-Imagn Images)
(IMAGN IMAGES via Reuters Connect / REUTERS)
If you lump this tournament in with last year, where all four No. 1 seeds made it to the Final Four, it seems like we may be moving away from an era of parity in college basketball and toward a cluster of superpowers. Michigan won its four tournament games by an average of 22.5 points, while Arizona’s margin was 20.5. Neither faced a true second-half challenge on their way to winning their regional.
Tennessee was a top-15 team in the predictive metrics and not some overachieving mid-major, but it was almost comical how overmatched the Vols looked trying to generate decent offense against this Michigan squad.
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“Some teams have a little more room for error than others,” Tennessee coach Rick Barnes said.
In a way, college basketball and college football have switched roles in the NIL era. Whereas there used to be no parity at all in college football because of how stacked the superpowers like Alabama and Georgia used to be, conference commissioners are now talking about expanding the playoff beyond 12 because we might be leaving out viable teams.
Meanwhile, March Madness has played out pretty true-to-form for two straight years.
It’s hard to know exactly what to make of that. You can point to the transfer portal and the ability for a program like Michigan to go get an established star like the 23-year-old Lendeborg out of UAB, but here’s Arizona with three freshmen in its starting lineup. Perhaps there’s something to the idea that teams like Michigan and Arizona, which play big frontcourt lineups and don’t rely on making a bunch of 3-pointers to win, aren’t as susceptible to being upset.
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Still, college basketball programs are judged by what happens in March. And we have decades of history telling us that it’s extremely hard, and rare, for two teams to be on a collision course all season and actually end up playing each other in the Final Four.
“This was obviously one of the goals because of the talent we had,” May said. “We have a sign in our locker room — “April Habits” — and from Day 1 we’ve challenged these guys to develop championship-level habits that would allow us to win a Big Ten championship and would also allow us to turn the calendar from March until April. Now we put ourselves in position to do that.”
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Even though Michigan and Arizona showed four months ago that they were probably on a level above almost everyone else in college basketball, there was no guarantee they’d actually get to settle it on the floor. So many obstacles to overcome and landmines to avoid.
But they will finally touch gloves next Saturday in Indianapolis. Let’s get ready to rumble.
French heptathlete Auriana Lazraq-Khlass has been provisionally suspended for anti-doping whereabouts failures, says the Athletics Integrity Unit.
The World Anti-Doping Code states an athlete cannot miss three anti-doping tests and/or filing failures within a 12-month period.
Lazraq-Khlass, who won silver at the European Championships in Rome in 2024, faces a two-year ban if the charge is upheld.
“The AIU has provisionally suspended Auriana Lazraq Khlass (France) for Whereabouts Failures,” the AIU said in a social media post., external
Lazraq-Khlass, 26, competed at the 2024 Olympics in Paris and finished 16th in the heptathlon.
The AIU website states that a provisional suspension means that an athlete cannot take part “in any competition or activity in athletics prior to a final decision at a hearing conducted under the World Athletics Anti-Doping Rules or the Integrity Code of Conduct”.
In a recent case, former world 100m champion Fred Kerley, of America, was banned for two years for anti-doping whereabouts failures.
Europe’s youngest nation, Kosovo, stands on the brink of an historic achievement: a potential spot in the World Cup finals for the first time.
This marks a stark contrast to the 1990s, when football was banned under Serbian rule, forcing private games and players to wash in rivers or melted snow after matches.
Independent from Serbia since 2008 and only sanctioned to join world football in 2016, Kosovo will host Turkey in a decisive play-off on Tuesday.
Following a thrilling 4-3 victory over Slovakia last week, the winner will secure a place in the North American tournament this June.
Eroll Salihu, former secretary general of Kosovo’s federation, described the potential qualification as “historic, truly epochal.”
He added: “This would be the realisation of a dream, for the generations who played in muddy fields and meadows to defend the honour and spirit of the sport.”
For a nation of 1.6 million, Kosovo’s football journey has been one of resilience. They lost nine of 10 games in their 2018 World Cup qualifying campaign.
Fortunes shifted when the federation began recruiting from its diaspora. This campaign has seen positive results, including victories over Sweden and Slovenia, securing their play-off spot.
Every match holds profound significance for a conflict-scarred country. Kosovo’s fight for independence, secured by a NATO air campaign in 1999, claimed over 13,000 lives.
Samir Ujkani, Kosovo’s first captain and goalkeeper, who moved to Belgium as a child, emphasised this duty: “People have suffered here, each of us has lost many family members. It is our duty to come back here and represent our country.”
Excitement is reaching fever pitch across Kosovo. The national stadium, holding just 12,500 people – a fifth of many World Cup venues – saw tickets for Tuesday’s game sell out within minutes.
Now resold on the black market for up to 20 times their price, towns plan big screens in main squares for those unable to attend.
Adding to the high stakes, Kosovo’s government has pledged a bonus of one million euros (£850,000) should the team emerge victorious.
Jul 19, 2019; Miami Beach, FL, USA; A general view of custom PlayStation controllers sold by a vender during the Call of Duty League Finals e-sports event at Miami Beach Convention Center. Mandatory Credit: Jasen Vinlove-Imagn Images For more than an hour, it appeared as if Team Yandex would get its revenge on Tundra Esports in the best way possible.
Then the clock struck midnight.
Despite dropping the first map and needing more than an hour to survive the second, Tundra beat Yandex 3-1 Sunday to win the ESL One Birmingham event in England.
The win came a day after Tundra swept Yandex 2-0 in the upper-bracket final to advance to the grand final and force Yandex into a do-or-die lower-bracket final to begin Sunday.
The $1 million Dota 2 tournament, featuring 16 teams, awarded $750,000 in prize money and $250,000 in club rewards as well as 35,460 ESL Pro Tour points spread among all participants.
The competition, part of DreamHack Birmingham, began with a group stage, with teams split into two groups of eight. The top two teams from each group advanced to the upper bracket of the playoffs. The third- and fourth-place teams were delegated to the lower-bracket playoffs, with the remaining eight teams eliminated.
Yandex began the day with a 2-1 win over Xtreme Gaming in that lower-bracket final. Yandex took the first map in 41 minutes, dropped the second in 34 minutes, then took the winner-take-all third map in 34 minutes. Yandex was on red all three maps.
Ilya “CHIRA_JUNIOR” Chirtsov of Russia paced Yandex with a 26/15/29 kill/death/assist ratio in the win. China’s Wang “Ame” Chunyu posted a 22/12/22 K/D/A in the loss.
In the grand final, Yandex continued the momentum with a 41-minute on green. In the next map, Tundra and Yandex battled for more than an hour before Tundra emerged with a 62-minute win on green. The next two maps combined barely lasted longer than the second map, with Tundra taking the third in 38 minutes on red and 28 minutes on green to take the match and the title.
After a quiet first map, Bozhidar “bzm” Bogdanov of Bulgaria led Tundra in kills in each of the victorious maps, finishing with a 46/15/53 K/D/A.
Alimzhan “watson” Islambekov of Kazakhstan posted a 37/16/32 to lead Yandex in defeat.
ESL One Birmingham final standings / prize pool (prize money, club reward) 1. $250,000, $40,000 — Tundra Esports
2. $100,000, $30,000 — Team Yandex
3. $80,000, $25,000 — Xtreme Gaming
4. $60,000, $20,000 — PARIVISION 5-6. $40,000, $15,000 — Team Spirit, Aurora Gaming
7-8. $27,500, $12,500 — MOUZ, Team Falcons
9-10. $20,000, $10,000 — GamerLegion, Virtus.pro
11-12. $17,500, $10,000 — BetBoom Team, paiN Gaming 13-14. $15,000, $10,000 — Yakult Brothers, OG
15-16. $10,000, $10,000 — REKONIX, Nigma Galaxy
–Field Level Media
Fabio Wardley and Moses Itauma have faced repeated questions about a potential fight despite being stablemates at the Ben Davison Performance Centre.
Wardley currently holds the WBO belt and has shown he is willing to take on anyone by accepting the hard-hitting Daniel Dubois as his first challenger.
Speaking on the DAZN broadcast post-fight, Wardley was again asked about a potential clash with Itauma.
“Right now, we’re in different places. That is an emphatic victory, he deserves all the credit in the world because Franklin is a tough opponent and no one’s done that to him. I know first hand Moses has all the talent in the world.
“But we are in different places. He’s looking towards where I am currently as world champion. I’m looking at Oleksandr Usyk, Tyson Fury, Anthony Joshua. I’m looking higher than that still. There is a gap of separation where we’re at, and that’s only due to time and experience.”
The Ipswich man then outlined the only scenario in which the fight would become a ‘serious conversation.’
“Look, there’s four belts, there’s two of us. The only time this ever becomes a serious conversation is if I have two and he has two, and we have to look around and go, ‘what are we gonna do here?’ Are we gonna do a Klitschko where we just hold on to them, do our defences and hold down the gym with all four belts in there?”
Pushed on what his thinking would be should things play out that way, Wardley admitted that the carrot of undisputed dangling would be hard to turn down.
“I would always want to be undisputed … The title of undisputed is something that I’m sure Moses himself will want to claim at some point and something I want to claim. Like I said, that’s the only time there would be a serious question, but it’s in the distant, distant future right now.”
As it stands, the division offers plenty of match-ups without splitting Ben Davison’s gym and forcing either Wardley or Itauma to seek another trainer. The intrigue from fans, however, only seems to be intensifying, and an expected order from the WBO to install Itauma as mandatory challenger – should Wardley keep his belt against Dubois in May – makes the situation a little more complicated.
Devin Haney is back in the market for his next opponent.
The three-division world champion moved up to the welterweight ranks in November of last year, dropping and outpointing Brian Norman Jr to win the WBO belt.
There are several options for ‘The Dream’ at 147lbs, including three potential unification fights. Lewis Crocker holds the IBF belt, Rolando Romero the WBA and Ryan Garcia the WBC.
A rematch between Haney and Garcia following their controversial 2023 fight – overturned from a Garcia win to a no contest after a failed doping test – would be the preferred option for fans, but Haney had instead been in talks to face ‘Rolly’ Romero.
Romero beat Garcia last year to win the WBA Regular strap and was subsequently elevated to full champion when Jaron Ennis vacated to move up in weight. He has a mandatory challenger in Shakhram Giyasov, though appeared close to securing a two-belt bout with Haney for May in Las Vegas.
However, talks now seem to have fallen apart, with Haney taking to social media to express his frustration.
“Rolly [is] delusional acting like he some kind of draw but can’t sell out a ballroom. Thats why the fight hasn’t been made yet. The money isn’t right. I’m looking at other options he can go fight his mandatory since he’s such a draw.”
Whether or not negotiations with Romero can be salvaged remains to be seen, but this development opens the door to the Garcia rematch, and the latter’s promoter, Oscar De La Hoya, has said he is very keen to make that happen next.
NHL Highlights, March 29
After another dominant display, Moses Itauma is once again being linked to a shot at unified heavyweight ruler, Oleksandr Usyk. In response, Carl Froch has offered his thoughts on that proposed contest, admitting that he ‘does not like the fight’ for one man.
On Saturday night, atop a British bill for the first time in his career, Itauma dispatched of Jermaine Franklin with a special knockout, taking the American out with a crisp and clean left uppercut followed by a devastating right hand that will no doubt appear in his future highlight reels.
With Dillian Whyte and Anthony Joshua unable to halt Franklin in their fights with the game Michigan operator, Itauma’s fifth-round stoppage has sent a major statement to the rest of his division – his power now proven to be real.
As a result, talk of a clash between him and 39-year-old WBC, WBA and IBF heavyweight champion, Usyk, is rife yet again, with hopes that young Itauma, now 14-0 (12 KOs), can intervene on the Ukrainian’s three-fight plan before retirement.
Speaking on his YouTube channel, super-middleweight legend Froch, declared that he ‘does not like that fight for Usyk’.
“I just think that a peak Usyk against a peak Itauma, you would have to say Usyk, but Usyk is a natural cruiserweight and Itauma is a big lump. Have you seen the size of him? Tall, big, strong, heavy, and lightening-fast hands like a middleweight.
“I don’t like the Usyk-Itauma fight. I don’t like it for Usyk. I think that Usyk has done what he needs to do and I’d like to see him hang his gloves up and retire as the number one king. He is the kingpin of the division, of cruiserweight and heavyweight, but he loves fighting and he wants to fight again.
“Would Moses Itauma fancy the fight with Usyk? I am not even sure if his team would fancy it. You wouldn’t usually put someone like him in, at his level, with somebody like Usyk. But, he might have no option and no choice because if he keeps his obliterating opponents the way he has been doing it then that might be a fight that happens.”
However, when predicting how the bout would play out if it were to happen, ‘The Cobra’ found himself unable to go against the dominant world champion, ultimately siding with Usyk due to his superior experience.
“I think that Usyk has got too much experience and that he would be too good for him but you just never know because Moses Itauma looks that good.”
Moses Itauma is set to return to the ring in July, ahead of a planned world title shot before the end of the year.
Oleksandr Usyk’s three-fight plan has got the heavyweight contenders riled up, and one of the names that is on that hit list has admitted that he will be ‘fuming’ if the Ukrainian pursues other options.
Earlier this month, Usyk revealed plans to take on the victor of Fabio Wardley’s upcoming WBO world title defence against Daniel Dubois, after his fight with Rico Verhoeven in May, before finishing his career with a Tyson Fury trilogy clash.
However, fans have demanded that the Ukrainian fights WBC mandatory challenger Agit Kabayel, due to the German’s triumphs over Arslanbek Makhmudov, Frank Sanchez and Zhilei Zhang, which are adjudged to merit a title challenge.
Usyk has since admitted that a showdown with Kabayel could take place and potentially replace one of the three fights that he announced, but Fabio Wardley has told iFL TV that he does not believe the 39-year-old truly knows who he wants to face before hanging up the gloves.
“No one knows [who he is going to fight]. One minute he is over in Egypt fighting a pharaoh or something, the next he wants to fight me, then he wants to fight Kabayel. He doesn’t know what he wants to do.
“I will just crack on, I will keep winning and knocking people out and if he wants to have a go, he can have a go.”
Then, when quizzed whether it would be a relief to avoid Usyk, Wardley declared that he would be ‘fuming’ if he and his fellow undefeated heavyweight did not go toe-to-toe before he retires from the sport.
“Absolutely not, I would be fuming. I got through the Joseph Parker fight and I wanted Usyk. I’m going to get through the Daniel fight and I want Usyk. How many tests does he want [me to have]?
“I feel like I am going through Usyk tests. He is setting me things to do before I am allowed to fight him. So, if I do them, and then he just f**ks off, I will be fuming. I’ll be having words.”
Wardley-Dubois takes place on Saturday, May 9, at the Co-Op Live Arena in Manchester, as the Ipswich fan-favourite makes his first defence of the WBO crown since being elevated to world champion.
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The Vegas Golden Knights only have eight games remaining in the 2025-26 season, but decided to make the stunning move to fire and replace their head coach.
Vegas announced on Sunday that they relieved Bruce Cassidy as head coach and replaced him with John Tortorella.
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Vegas Golden Knights head coach Bruce Cassidy looks on during the third period of an NHL hockey game against the Buffalo Sabres, March 3, 2026, in Buffalo, New York. (AP Photo/Jeffrey T. Barnes, File)
“We thank Bruce Cassidy for his dedication to our hockey club and community over the past four seasons,” Golden Knights general manager Kelly McCrimmon said in a news release. “Under Bruce’s leadership, we reached our ultimate goal in 2023 by bringing a Stanley Cup to Vegas. Bruce will forever be remembered with the utmost regard by our organization for what was accomplished here. With the stretch run of the 2025-26 regular season upon us, we believe that a change is necessary for us to return to the level of play that is expected of our club.
“With John Tortorella, we bring in a Stanley Cup Champion as well as one of the most experienced and respected coaches in the NHL. His guidance will be a great asset to our team at the pivotal point in the season we currently face. We look forward to welcoming John to Vegas.”
John Tortorella, Philadelphia Flyers head coach, arrives for a news conference at the NHL hockey team’s arena on May 12, 2023, in Philadelphia. (AP Photo/Matt Slocum, File)
BLUE JAYS STARS CAUGHT SITTING IN WRONG SEATS AT MAPLE LEAFS GAME IN HILARIOUS MOMENT
The Golden Knights fell to the Washington Capitals, 5-4, on Saturday in a shootout. It marked the team’s third straight loss and sixth defeat in their last seven games.
Vegas is 32-26-16 this season and in third place in the Pacific Division. If the season ended Sunday, the team would be in the playoffs and have a series against the Edmonton Oilers in the first round.
Tortorella was not coaching in the NHL this season. He spent time as an assistant for Team USA at the 2026 Milan Cortina Olympics. The Americans took home the gold medal.
Washington Capitals players celebrate as Vegas Golden Knights right wing Pavel Dorofeyev (16) skates off the ice after failing to score during a shootout in an NHL hockey game Saturday, March 28, 2026, in Las Vegas. (AP Photo/Ian Maule)
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He is 770-648-37 as head coach. He won a Stanley Cup title with the Tampa Bay Lightning in 2004.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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