Silva: Each NFL team enters the offseason with a series of pressing needs. Sometimes a team can address them all, sometimes they ignore them all. But if a team's smart, they'll listen to us. These are the most crucial aspects for NFC teams.
SportsTalk: Albert Pujols signs with the Angels and Prince Fielder joins the Tigers. Which team is better now?
Ryan Callahan scored for the fifth time in four days and defenseman Ryan McDonagh snapped a second-period tie to lift the New York Rangers to a 3-2 victory over the Washington Capitals on Sunday.
Kobe Bryant hit a baseline jump shot with 4.2 seconds left and the Los Angeles Lakers wrapped up a six-game road trip by holding on to beat the Raptors 94-92 on Sunday, their eighth victory in nine meetings with Toronto
Arc's five up, five down: After No. 11 Michigan State's 58-48 upset of No. 3 Ohio State, you'd be a fool to discount the Spartans' national title chances now.
Miami coach Al Golden says the worst is behind him, but his headaches figure to continue now that former booster Nevin Shapiro, now in jail, says his involvement with the Hurricanes program will result in stiff penalties.
Eleven shots separated Phil and Tiger Sunday at Pebble Beach as Lefty secured his 40th Tour win. Jason Sobel had hole-by-hole reports.
The United States completed a 5-0 rout of Switzerland in the Davis Cup on Sunday, with 19-year-old Ryan Harrison and John Isner winning closing singles matches.
Zambia has won the African Cup of Nations, beating pre-tournament favorite Ivory Coast 8-7 on penalties in a dramatic final at Stade de l'Amitie.
Tessa Worley of France fought off gusting winds to win a second consecutive World Cup giant slalom Sunday in the Andorran Pyrenees. Overall leader Lindsey Vonn was more than a second behind and finished eighth.
Robins: It’s the Year of the Dragon on the Lunar calendar, and this Chinese influence could extend to it also being the year of the Pekingese on the green carpet at the 136th Westminster Dog Show on Tuesday.
AP1990-91 UNLV RUNNIN’ REBELS
Backstory
In 1989-90, UNLV won its only NCAA title, setting a record for margin of victory in a final game with a 103-73 pasting of Duke. And everybody was coming back for 1990-91. A compromise worked out by UNLV’s president allowed the Rebels, under NCAA watch since nearly the first day coach Jerry Tarkanian set foot on campus in 1973, to delay a probation for one year so they could defend their title.
The regular season
The John Wooden UCLA teams had sustained excellence, but no one had ever seen a basketball team so thoroughly stomp through its competition as the 1990-91 Rebels. A lineup featuring Larry Johnson, Greg Anthony and Stacy Augmon went 20-0 before winning a game by only single digits (a 112-105 win at Arkansas). They wouldn’t have to worry about a margin that close the rest of the regular season, finishing 34-0.
Even with a weak, Big West schedule, the defending champions looked monstrous. They won at Michigan State, a tournament team, by 30. They beat Florida State, another tourney team, by 32. Arkansas was the No. 2 team in the nation when UNLV played them. They seemed also a sure thing to become the first undefeated team, including the NCAA tournament, since Indiana in 1976.
The postseason
The Rebels blew through the NCAA tournament, with only one single-digit margin (a 62-54 win against Georgetown) before reaching the Final Four. But Duke exacted revenge in the semifinal, coming back from a late 76-71 deficit to win 79-77 and eventually take the NCAA title itself.
Postscript
The game was a crossroads for both UNLV and Duke. The Blue Devils and coach Mike Krzyzewski both shed their reputations as postseason chokers and became the standard-bearers for NCAA basketball.
Meanwhile, UNLV immediately went down the toilet. Two months after the NCAA Final Four loss, the Las Vegas Review-Journal printed photos, taken in the fall of 1989, of four UNLV players sharing a hot tub with Richard “The Fixer” Perry, who among his crimes was his involvement in the infamous Boston College point-shaving scandal. No evidence was ever found of point-shaving by UNLV, but it still doesn’t look good when your players are sharing a bath with a guy named “The Fixer.” Tarkanian resigned effective the end of the 1992 season, and UNLV fell off the basketball map. It didn’t win another NCAA tournament game until 2007 — as a plucky, mid-major upstart.
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Silva: Each NFL team enters the offseason with a series of pressing needs. Sometimes a team can address them all, sometimes they ignore them all. But if a team's smart, they'll listen to us. These are the most crucial aspects for NFC teams.
Wesseling: Each NFL team enters the offseason with a series of pressing needs. Sometimes a team can address them all, sometimes they ignore them all. But if a team's smart, they'll listen to us. These are the most crucial aspects for AFC teams.
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Zambia has won the African Cup of Nations, beating pre-tournament favorite Ivory Coast 8-7 on penalties in a dramatic final at Stade de l'Amitie.
Wesseling: Each NFL team enters the offseason with a series of pressing needs. Sometimes a team can address them all, sometimes they ignore them all. But if a team's smart, they'll listen to us. These are the most crucial aspects for AFC teams.
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