Sports

8:59 PM ET Associated Press LOS ANGELES — UCLA coach Mick Cronin is a winner even before the college basketball season starts next month. A 3-year-old filly co-owned by Cronin won the $63,000 feature at Santa Anita by three-quarters of a length on Friday. Sent off at 6-1 odds, So Very Smart paid $14.40, $6.40

4:00 AM ET Sid LoweSpain writer No pressure, kid. Ansu Fati came on for Barcelona at half-time of their Champions League clash with Dynamo Kiev on Wednesday night, at another time when it felt like his team needed him — but on this occasion, he didn’t score. The forward, who had two goals and an

Sep 25, 2020 Editor’s note: This story was originally posted ahead of Paulo Costa’s fight against Israel Adesanya. Costa lost that fight and will make his first appearance since that bout against Marvin Vettori on Oct. 23. In February 2012, a 20-year-old realtor from Contagem, Brazil, made a quiet professional debut in mixed martial arts

4:57 PM ET Mike CoppingerESPN The snakebitten lightweight championship fight between Teofimo Lopez and George Kambosos is now set for Nov. 27 at New York’s Hulu Theater at MSG, multiple sources told ESPN on Wednesday, a bout that will be streamed on DAZN. This is the ninth new date for the fight, which was originally

12:38 AM BST Liam Napier Bankruptcy, COVID and a World Cup qualifying loss to Uruguay does not conspire to cultivate a healthy launchpad for one of the toughest challenges in world rugby. The All Blacks’ arrival in Washington D.C. this week, ahead of their money-spinning Test at FedEx Field, home of the Washington Football Team

8:00 AM ET The 2021-22 NBA season is here! Less than three months ago, Giannis Antetokounmpo and the Milwaukee Bucks were hoisting the Larry O’Brien Trophy after winning Game 6 of the NBA Finals over the Phoenix Suns. After somehow squeezing in the NBA draft, free agency, summer league and preseason into another truncated offseason,

10:06 PM ET Lindsey ThiryESPN Close Covered Rams for two years for Los Angeles Times Previously covered the Falcons Has covered the NBA and college football and basketball THOUSAND OAKS, Calif. — Nearly nine months after the Los Angeles Rams agreed to trade Jared Goff to the Detroit Lions, and with a pending reunion at

6:51 PM ET Associated Press FORT WORTH, Texas — Kyle Larson claimed the first of four championship-contending spots in NASCAR’s season finale with a dominating victory at Texas on Sunday to start the round of eight in the playoffs. Larson led 256 of 334 laps at the 1 1/2-mile track and got his eighth win

7:31 AM ET KNOXVILLE, Tenn. — Lane Kiffin stood outside the visitor’s locker room at Neyland Stadium in the wee hours of Sunday morning proudly twirling a beaten-up yellow range ball and searching for a new visor. He’d just tossed his old visor to the jeering Tennessee fans as he exited a field littered with

8:03 PM ET Associated Press INDIAN WELLS, Calif. — Paula Badosa edged Victoria Azarenka 7-6 (5), 2-6, 7-6 (2) on Sunday to win the BNP Paribas Open in her debut in the Southern California desert, where the tournament returned after a 2 1/2-year absence because of the coronavirus. She joined Bianca Andreescu in 2019 and

8:25 PM ET Associated Press LAS VEGAS — Rory McIlroy capped a big weekend in Las Vegas on Sunday by surging past Rickie Fowler and holding off Collin Morikawa to win the CJ Cup at Summit for his 20th PGA Tour title. McIlroy seized control with a 35-foot eagle putt from just off the green

2:18 AM ET Cody Bellinger produced a hit against an opposing left-handed pitcher only 12% of the time this season. But in the ninth inning on Saturday night, against the closer for a team that won its division, Bellinger came up with the line-drive single that would place the go-ahead run in scoring position. It

2:36 PM ET Austin LindbergESPN FC There is less than a month remaining in the 2021 Major League Soccer season. Already teams are locking up their places in the postseason (hello, New England Revolution and Seattle Sounders), and one team knows it’ll be watching from home (sorry, FC Cincinnati). The top seven from each of

3:36 PM ET Former UFC light heavyweight champion Jon Jones is not currently allowed inside the confines of his longtime mixed martial arts gym following an arrest last month in Las Vegas. Jackson Wink MMA spokesperson James Hallinan wrote in a statement to ESPN that Jones is “temporarily suspended” from the Albuquerque, New Mexico, gym

8:15 AM ET The New York Islanders are going to win the 2022 Stanley Cup. “Please God, no,” wrote reader “Hockey Island,” whose Twitter profile includes an image of the team’s previous four championship banners from the 1980s. People like Mr. Island understand that my predicting the Stanley Cup winner is usually the kiss of

8:16 PM ET The 2021 Australian Open and the 2022 Women’s Australian Open have been cancelled as the COVID-19 pandemic continues to play havoc with international travel plans. Golf Australia announced the tough decision on Thursday, saying it would begin planning for a return of the two Opens in the 2022-23 summer of golf. It’s

7:50 AM ET Heavyweight champion Tyson Fury delivered yet another in a long line of great performances to retain his WBC belt, stopping Deontay Wilder in their trilogy fight in Las Vegas. Fury got up from the canvas twice in Round 4, won five of the next six rounds on all three judges’ scorecards and

1:43 AM ET Associated Press INDIAN WELLS, Calif. — Upsets dominated the fourth round at the BNP Paribas Open on Tuesday, with four top-five seeds getting dismissed in straight sets. Andy Murray and US Open runner-up Leylah Fernandez were knocked out, too. No. 2 Iga Swiatek, the highest remaining women’s seed, lost to No. 24

6:51 PM BST Premiership side Wasps on Tuesday asked the country’s rugby governing body (RFU) and the league to address the issue of fans wearing faux Native American headdresses ahead of the weekend’s game against the Exeter Chiefs. The Chiefs’ logo features a Native American wearing a headdress and Wasps said fans who wore such

8:00 AM ET With less than two weeks until the start of the regular season, the uncertainty around Brooklyn Nets guard Kyrie Irving continues to swirl. The Nets listed Irving, 29, as ineligible to play in Friday’s preseason game against the defending champion Milwaukee Bucks. New York City’s COVID-19 protocols allow only NBA players with