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 three goals as the New York Rangers beat Philadelphia 5-2 on Saturday for their seventh straight win over the Flyers.
Jeremy Lin hit a free throw with 4.9 seconds left to overcome a dreadful second half and lift the New York Knicks to their fifth straight victory, 100-98, over the Minnesota Timberwolves on Saturday night.
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 title chances now.
CFT: Jordan Jefferson makes it clear he wasn't happy with LSU's game plan in the Tigers' BCS Championship Game loss to Alabama.
Move over, Hollywood and NFL types, golf's two real A-listers take center stage Sunday at Pebble Beach, both in need of a win.
The United States swept favored Switzerland out of the Davis Cup on Saturday when Mardy Fish and Mike Bryan beat Roger Federer and Stanislas Wawrinka 4-6, 6-3, 6-3, 6-3.
Luis Suarez's refusal to shake hands with Patrice Evra overshadowed Manchester United's 2-1 win over rival Liverpool that lifted the defending champions to first place in the Premier League on Saturday.
Marlies Schild of Austria won her sixth World Cup slalom of the season Saturday after overall leader Lindsey Vonn and defending champion Maria Hoefl-Riesch crashed out in the opening run on the windy Pyrenees course.
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.
AP
NASHVILLE, Tenn. - Alex Tyus scored 24 points, and Florida snapped a three-game skid by beating Auburn 78-69 Thursday night in the opening round of the Southeastern Conference tournament.
Coach Billy Donovan didn’t want to discuss how many wins his Gators need to ensure their first NCAA tournament berth since they won their second straight national title in 2007. Now Florida (21-11), already 7-0 against the SEC West, has a chance to add another win Friday night against Mississippi State, the West’s No. 1 seed, in the quarterfinals.
Auburn (15-17) beat Florida in the quarterfinals last year. But the Tigers now have lost 12 of 13 games to Florida in what could be coach Jeff Lebo’s final game with Auburn.
Chandler Parsons scored 21 points for Florida, and Vernon Macklin had 10.
Frankie Sullivan scored a career-high 27 points for Auburn. DeWayne Reed added 18.
No. 15 Tennessee 59, LSU 49
Tennessee coach Bruce Pearl slowed his Volunteers down against LSU in the opening round of the SEC tournament, hoping to conserve energy with Mississippi waiting in the quarterfinals.
The 15th-ranked Vols nearly conserved too much energy.
Wayne Chism had 17 points and 11 rebounds, and Tennessee overcame 25.9-percent shooting in the first half — its worst performance of the season — to beat the Tigers.
“If we would have lost that game I would have put that one on myself,” Pearl said. “I’m already putting it on myself that we didn’t come out as aggressively as we should have.”
Despite being ranked ahead of No. 2 seed Vanderbilt, the Vols (24-7) drew the third seed in the East Division, making them the only ranked team to play on the first day of the Southeastern Conference tournament.
That set up the possibility of playing four games in four days, including a quarterfinals matchup with the Rebels, a team Tennessee struggled to beat at home in the regular season.
So Pearl put the Vols in a zone defense against the Tigers (11-20) to conserve energy, but it was LSU’s zone that seemed more effective. The Vols missed open shots on the perimeter in the first half, held the ball for much of the shot clock and then made sloppy passes trying to get inside, committing 17 turnovers by the end of the game.
“The zone always gives Tennessee problems,” LSU’s Tasmin Mitchell said. “The’ve never been a real good shooting team beyond the arc. The zone was working, and I feel we played OK, we just didn’t grasp it at the end of the game when we could’ve captured the game.”
LSU, the SEC’s least-productive offense, couldn’t take advantage of Tennessee’s struggles and scored only 11 points off the giveaways, shooting 35.7 percent from the field.
The Vols also outrebounded the Tigers 41-34.
With the teams tied at 30, Cameron Tatum stretched across the lane to hit a layup with 14:28 left and launch a 16-4 run for the Vols. J.P. Prince dunked off an alley-oop pass from Brian Williams to extend the lead to 46-34, their largest margin of the game.
“We sort of lost momentum there. We could never get that back,” LSU coach Trent Johnson said. “We don’t have a margin for error when that happened. That took the wind out of our sails.”
Mitchell hit consecutive 3s to cut Tennessee’s margin to 54-49 with 1:02 left, but Aaron Dotson missed a layup and a foul on Storm Warren sent Bobby Maze to the free-throw line. Maze sank both of his shots to help Tennessee preserve the lead.
“The difference (in the second half) was the type of shots we took,” Maze said. “We drove the ball outside and then kicked it out. We were able to get to the free throw line. I think we took the first available shot instead of waiting.”
Maze finished with 14 points and Prince added 11. Brian Williams, who was suspended for the teams’ regular-season meeting, grabbed a career-high 14 rebounds.
Mitchell entered the game needing 21 points to reach 2,000 but finished with 10 to end his career with 1,989. Storm Warren led LSU with 18 points.
The Vols, who have won 13 of the last 18 between the two teams, also struggled in their Feb. 4 meeting with the Tigers, hanging on 59-54. LSU fought back after trailing by 14 points in that game, but Mitchell missed a potential tying 3 with 6 seconds left.
The two teams last met in the tournament in 2007, too, but the Tigers won 76-67 in overtime.
The Vols now face a rested Mississippi team that grabbed a first-round bye as the West’s No. 2 seed. Pearl said Tennessee’s 71-69 overtime win at home against the then-No. 21 Rebels was one of his team’s toughest wins of the season.
Tennessee’s previous worst single-half shooting performance was 28.6 percent in the first half against Southern California. The Vols’ worst single-half shooting against an SEC team was 28.9 percent against Mississippi.
“If we play like that (Friday), we won’t advance,” Pearl said. “We will get beat. We have to play better to beat Ole Miss.”
Georgia 77, Arkansas 64
Trey Thompkins had 23 points and 14 rebounds, and Georgia beat Arkansas.
Travis Leslie scored 21 for the Bulldogs (14-16), the No. 6 seed in the SEC East Division.
Georgia took a 43-32 lead immediately after halftime on a 3-point play by Jeremy Price.
Arkansas’ Mike Washington made all four free throws on back-to-back trips to the charity stripe to cut the Bulldogs’ lead to 52-49 with 10:22 left. The Razorbacks (14-18) continued to threaten in the second half but never pulled any closer.
The Bulldogs grabbed 16 offensive rebounds, nine more than Arkansas, and turned them into 19 second-chance points.
Washington finished with 20 points and Courtney Fortson added 16.
The Bulldogs will face the East’s No. 2 seed, No. 20 Vanderbilt, on Friday.
Alabama 68, South Carolina 63
Mikhail Torrance's 9-foot jumper broke a tie at 62 with 57 seconds left, and Alabama rallied from an 18-point deficit in the second half.
Alabama (17-14) won a third straight game against an SEC opponent for the first time this season and beat the Gamecocks (15-16) for the second time in eight days after ruining South Carolina's Senior Night last week.
The Tide will play No. 2 Kentucky in Friday's quarterfinals.
Torrance finished with 17 points, Justin Knox had 16 and JaMychal Green added 10 for Alabama coming off the bench.
Devan Downey led South Carolina with 21 points. Ramon Galloway had 14 and Sam Muldrow 13.
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 title chances now.
Beyond the Arc: No. 11 Michigan State ends No. 3 Ohio State's 39-game home winning streak with a 58-48 victory.
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Jeremy Lin hit a free throw with 4.9 seconds left to overcome a dreadful second half and lift the New York Knicks to their fifth straight victory, 100-98, over the Minnesota Timberwolves on Saturday night.
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.
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.