First Four Start Today!

Good morning!

We've got a wild Tuesday for the sports world. We've got:

🏀 Two of the first four playing games for the NCAA tournament

🏀 NBA Stats and Scores

🏒 NHL Scores

🏈 Football News

⚾️ Unhappy Major Leaguers

Let’s get going!

 NCAA First Four

📺️ We've got #16 Wagner vs #16 Howard. Gametime is 6:40 pm on TruTV in Dayton, Ohio. The winner of this game will play #1 North Carolina in the West on Thursday.

📺️#10 Colorado State is playing #10 Virginia at 9:10 pm on truTV. The winner of this game will play #7 Texas in the Midwest region.

NBA Stats and Scores

Let’s take a look at some NBA scores and stats.

🏀 Jalen Brunson led the New York Knicks to a 119-112 against the Golden State Warriors last night. Brunson scored 34 points and had five rebounds and seven assists.

🏀 Anthony Edwards continues having a great season as he helped the Minnesota Timberwolves get a 114–104 win against the Utah Jazz. Edwards scored 32 points in the win and had seven rebounds and eight assists and this incredible dunk.

🏀 The Philadelphia 76ers picked up a big win against the Miami Heat. It was a low-scoring affair, with the final score being 98–91. Tyrese Maxey scored 30 points, had eight rebounds, and had 10 assists against a team without Jimmy Butler and Tyler Herro. Bam Adebayo did his best to pick up the slack, having 20 points and 13 rebounds, but it wasn’t enough.

🏀 LeBron and Co had a big win against the Atlanta Hawks, where the final score was 136–105. LeBron scored 25, Anthony Davis scored 22, and D’Angelo Russell scored 27 and Russell made the record books in LA. D-Russ tied the Lakers franchise record for 3-pointers in a season, something he’ll surely break in the next game.

🏀 The Celtics continue to win, as expected, against the Detroit Pistons. They picked up a 119–94 win last night. Derrick White had 22 for Boston and ten rebounds and ten assists to pick up the triple-double. Jaylen Brown also scored 31.

NHL on a Monday

We had two games in the NHL last night, and both were high-scoring games.

🏒The Washington Capitals beat the Calgary Flames 5–2. Alex Ovechkin scored his 20th and 21st goals last night, which gives him 20+ goals for 19 straight seasons. That is insane.

🏒 The Buffalo Sabres won 6–2 against the Seattle Kraken last night, and Jeff Skinner had a hat trick. Buffalo is trying to sneak its way up the rankings in an effort to grab a wild card spot for the playoffs. Currently, the Sabres sit fifth in the wildcard spot, and they need to find a way to get points fast, as they are four points behind the Washington Capitals.

Football News

💰️ Alabama has given us contract details for their new head coach, Kaelan DeBoer. Guess how much he is making! He’s making $10 million a year. His total compensation will be $87 million over the next eight years. Will it be a disaster following Saban, or is he going to continue to lead Alabama down the road to success?

👋 LA Rams defensive tackle and QB nightmare, Aaron Donald has retired from the NFL at 32 years old. Donald finished his career with 111 sacks and played his entire career with the Rams.

👋 Leighton Vander Esch has retired from the Cowboys after spending 6 years with the team. Vander Esch struggled to remain healthy and missed games in multiple seasons, including a neck injury last year. It’s something that seems to plague Cowboys LBs, as Sean Lee struggled with injuries while he was in Dallas before Vander Esch arrived.

🖊️ Chase Young has signed a one-year, $13 million deal with the New Orleans Saints. Have no fear NFC South, I’m sure the Saints defense will let us all down again and be terrible!

✈️ Did we mention the other day that Hollywood Brown has signed with the Kansas City Chiefs? Brown is definitely an improvement to the receiver’s room, and I can only imagine how high his stock will go after a season with Mahomes.

Drama With The Major Leaguers

Major-league baseball players are unhappy, but this time it’s not about what a player is doing on the field or what the unwritten rules say; This time, they are frustrated with their MLBPA executives, and the player leaders called for the replacement of the players association executive director.

Why are the players unhappy?

• In simple terms, free agency saw a $1 billion decrease in spending. Last year, teams spent a record $3.9 billion on free agents, but this year, they spent only $2.9 billion.

• Of the $2.9 billion this year, $1 billion of that went to two players for the Dodgers. Shohei Ohtani signed a $700 million deal, and Yoshinobu Yamamoto signed a $325 million deal.

I think this is a very baseball thing to be unhappy about, and no one sees the nuance. This year’s free agents just don’t stack up to the free agents from the year before. Last year, The Mets were spending like crazy; the Yankees had to resign Aaron Judge, Trea Turner, Xander Bogaerst, and Carlos Correa were all getting big deals. On top of this, teams like the Dodgers, Cubs, Giants, Rangers and Cardinals were making big signings that were going unnoticed.

Is there a bit of a problem? Sure. Baseball is becoming more localized, national advertisers are spending less, and TV deals probably aren’t going to be worth what they used to be. Does this mean that MLBPA executives should be canned? I guess that’s truly for the players to decide.

I guess if I was playing in the Majors, I would be looking after my future payday as well, and the $1 billion decrease isn’t nothing. What I’m confused about is they want to replace the current executive with the guy who helped the Minors get better pay and amenities for the players in the lower leagues. This isn’t really that type of discussion, though, and if the teams are making less (if that’s actually true), I’m not sure how you’ll convince owners to spend more money.

Good luck, though!

Enjoy the play in games tonight. We’ll be back with more sports tomorrow!

-The Daily Breakroom