Yahoo Sports AM: Pete Maravich's son on Caitlin Clark's scoring record chase
In today's edition: Pete Maravich's son on Caitlin Clark, sounding the alarm in Winnipeg, Erling Haaland won't stop scoring, Fantasy Baseball Mock, and more.
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🚨 Headlines
🏀 59-foot miracle: Max Strus hit the second-longest game-winning buzzer-beater of the 3-point era to give the Cavaliers a 121-119 win over the Mavericks.
⚾️ Ohtani goes yard: Shohei Ohtani homered in his Dodgers spring training debut, because of course he did.
🏀 Streak snapped: BYU rallied from a 12-point deficit to beat No. 7 Kansas, 76-68, ending KU's 19-game home winning streak.
⛳️ Ghosted: Jon Rahm says Tiger Woods won't answer his texts about his LIV Golf move, which he finally admitted was about the money.
⚾️ Royals keep lettering: MLB's new uniforms have smaller, cheaper-looking lettering, but the Royals will keep the old, sewed-on version, simply because they asked if they could.
🏀 As Clark chases Pistol, mixed emotions for his son
Pete Maravich scored an NCAA record 3,667 points in three seasons at LSU. With Caitlin Clark 50 points shy of matching Pistol Pete with two regular-season games left (tonight and Sunday), Yahoo Sports' Jeff Eisenberg spoke with his son, Jaeson Maravich.
When Clark passes his late father, Jaeson hopes basketball fans will appreciate what she has achieved. He describes Clark as a "phenomenal talent" and "must-see TV." He speaks with sincerity when he says, "I'll be rooting for her and I'll be happy for her when she does it."
And yet Jaeson also bristles at the idea that Clark will supplant his father as college basketball's rightful career scoring champion. The way Jaeson sees it, these are "two totally separate records" attained very differently.
Pete Maravich played in an era when freshmen weren't yet varsity-eligible. For three seasons, he averaged an unfathomable 44.2 points per game despite not having the benefit of a shot clock or 3-point line. By contrast, Clark has averaged 28.3 points per game in three-plus seasons at Iowa. She will need at least 128 games to match the number of points that Maravich scored in 83.
The comparisons get more murky when viewed through a different lens. Maravich hoisted 38 shots per game for an LSU team that finished .500 or better in all three of his seasons but never made the NCAA tournament. Clark has never attempted 38 shots in the same game and has averaged just under 20 shots per game for her career.
"The circumstances are so different that it's hard to say it's really the same record," Jaeson said. "I don't want to make it seem like I'm bashing her because I'm not. I just find it to be an apples-to-oranges comparison."
The last word: "I think my dad would have been a big fan of hers," Jaeson said. "She's just so much fun to watch."
🏒 Sounding the alarm in Winnipeg
The Winnipeg Jets are in first place in the Central and have the sixth-best record in the NHL. But off the ice, the franchise isn't doing so hot.
Sounding the alarm: Amid declining season-ticket sales and low overall attendance, buzz is building that the Jets could be facing relocation (again) if the situation doesn't improve.
Season-ticket sales have declined 27% over the course of three years, from approximately 13,000 to 9,500, team chairman Mark Chipman told The Athletic ($).
"We've got to get back to 13,000," said Chipman. "This place we find ourselves in right now, it's not going to work over the long haul. It just isn't."
The Jets are drawing just 87.4% capacity this season, and their average attendance of 13,306 is the lowest of any team other than the Coyotes, who are playing in a college arena.
The stakes: The Jets left town once already, when they moved to Phoenix in 1996. Losing the team again would likely mean the end of major sports in Canada's sixth-largest city.
Bettman pays a visit: NHL commissioner Gary Bettman was in Winnipeg on Tuesday, where he downplayed those fears: "This is a place, Winnipeg, where hockey matters. I believe this is a strong NHL market," said the commissioner. "Obviously, the attendance needs to improve, but it will. I have confidence in the organization and … in this community."
🏀 What if the NBA ditched the corner three?
Amid the NBA's points explosion, the league's competition committee has "officially begun reviewing whether the game has tilted too far toward offense and whether changes need to be implemented."
One half-serious idea: Shift the 3-point line (as depicted above) to get rid of the corner three, which has become the easiest — and most frequent — jump shot in the NBA.
From ESPN's Kirk Goldsberry in 2019:
If you watch the game these days, you'll see almost every team station at least one, often two, players in the remote corners of the offensive chessboard.
All they do is stand around waiting for shot opportunities that usually don't come. So most of the time 20-40% of offensive players in the NBA are just standing around picking dandelions like little league right fielders.
But unlike 10-year-old outfielders, who rarely affect the game, even when these rooks don't get a look, they influence most possessions by stretching out defenses and preventing help defenders from helping. They keep defenses honest, and they accomplish all of this by standing still.
But is this interesting? Is it good for the league to place such a high value on two stationary shooting specialists camping out in the corners? Maybe, who knows.
But one thing is for sure: Outside of dunks and layups, rooks in the corners are yielding the cheapest points on the chessboard, and the numbers leave little doubt that the league is now chock-full of guys who can drain these shots at such high rates that teams would be crazy not to station them every time down the floor.
Moreover, the ability to make that shot is now a prerequisite for almost every off-ball player in the NBA. But does anyone go to NBA arenas to watch these guys stand still in the corners?
⚽️ Erling Haaland was born to score goals
Erling Haaland scored five goals on Tuesday in Manchester City's 6-2 rout of Luton Town in the fifth round of the FA Cup.
Wild stat: The 23-year-old now has 79 goals in 83 appearances for the club since his debut in July 2022, which is 30 more than any other Premier League player during that time (Mo Salah, 49).
🧊 In photos: Freediving under the ice
Croatia's Valentina Cafolla reclaimed her dynamic freediving world record on Saturday, swimming 140 meters (459 feet) in a single breath under the ice in the Italian Alps, Jeff writes.
Dynamic freediving, also called competitive apnea, requires athletes to train their bodies to slow their heart rate and go without oxygen for extended periods. With a single fin attached to her feet, Cafolla plunged into the 37-degree waters of Lake Anterselva in Bolzano, Italy.
The 27-year-old Cafolla, who'd first set the record in 2017 (125 meters), reclaimed it just 36 hours after Japan's Yasuko Ozeki had momentarily broken it (126 meters).
Highly recommend: "The Deepest Breath," a freediving documentary on Netflix that doubles as a love story.
📆 Feb. 28, 2010: Crosby's golden goal
14 years ago today, 22-year-old Sidney Crosby scored the biggest goal of his life, lifting Canada to a 3-2 victory and Olympic gold over the U.S. with an overtime winner in front of his home crowd in Vancouver, Jeff writes.
Crosby: "In terms of goals that I've scored or moments that I've had, yeah, it was the biggest one. The reaction around Vancouver and around Canada, it's something I'll never forget."
🏀 1940: Pitt beat Fordham*, 57-37, in the first basketball game ever to be televised.
🎾 1999: 18-year-old Venus Williams and 17-year-old Serena Williams won WTA titles on the same day.
*Fun fact: Five months earlier, the first televised football game also featured Fordham. The Rams beat Waynesburg University, 34-7.
📺 Watchlist: Big men on campus
College hoops takes center stage tonight, with an SEC doubleheader on ESPN2 and a Big East doubleheader on FS1, Jeff writes.
SEC: No. 11 Auburn at No. 4 Tennessee (7pm ET); No. 14 Alabama at Ole Miss (9pm)
Big East: Providence at No. 5 Marquette (7pm); Seton Hall at No. 12 Creighton* (9pm)
More to watch:
🏀 NBA: Pelicans at Pacers (7:30pm, ESPN); Lakers at Clippers (10pm, ESPN)
🏀 NCAAW: Michigan at No. 2 Ohio State (7pm, Peacock); No. 3 Texas at No. 20 Oklahoma (7pm, ESPN+); No. 6 Iowa at Minnesota (9pm, Peacock)
🏒 NHL: Blues at Oilers (8:30pm, TNT/Max)
⚾️ Spring training: Braves at Phillies (1pm, MLB)
🏒 PWHL: New York at Ottawa (7pm, YouTube)
*Game of the year: Creighton narrowly edged Seton Hall, 97-94, last month in a triple overtime thriller. What do the Bluejays and Pirates have in store for round two?
⚾️ College baseball trivia
Nine of the top 25 teams in the latest D-I baseball poll are from the Carolinas.
Question: Can you name all nine?
Hint: Six in North Carolina, three in South Carolina. (Bonus hint: Chunky soup)
Answer at the bottom.
⚾️ Fantasy Baseball Mock Draft 1.0
Fantasy baseball drafts are open for the 2024 MLB season, and the Yahoo Fantasy crew wanted to get in on the fun.
First-round, 12-team mock: Who's building the best team?
Ronald Acuña Jr., OF (Braves)
Bobby Witt Jr., SS (Royals)
Corbin Carroll, OF (Diamondbacks)
Julio Rodríguez, OF (Mariners)
Shohei Ohtani, UTIL (Dodgers)
Juan Soto, OF (Yankees)
Spencer Strider, SP (Braves)
Mookie Betts, 2B/SS/OF (Dodgers)
Gerrit Cole, SP (Yankees)
Kyle Tucker, OF (Astros)
Freddie Freeman, 1B (Dodgers)
Aaron Judge, OF (Yankees)
Cheat sheet: Fantasy Baseball Draft Kit
Trivia answer: No. 1 Wake Forest, No. 10 Clemson, No. 11 ECU, No. 12 Duke, No. 14 NC State, No. 17 UNC, No. 19 South Carolina, No. 21 Campbell, No. 22 Coastal Carolina
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