Winnipeg Jets forward Bryan Little isn’t ruling anything out after sustaining a season-ending injury in November.
“I’m not shutting the door on anything. I’m just trying to stay positive and keep that door open,” Little said in a 30-minute Zoom conference with reporters on Wednesday. “I’m not sure about a time frame on when I come back or when it’s too late. I’m in the dark as much as a lot of people.”
Little was struck in the head by a puck from a teammate’s shot on Nov. 5. He hasn’t played for the team since and the club announced in February that the veteran forward would be out for the remainder of the season for surgery to repair a perforated eardrum.
Sports Illustrated, AllLakers blog, Melissa Rohlin from
After LeBron James’ strongest performance in the NBA bubble, he talked about how wildly different it’s been for him to play without fans.
James had 31 points in 35 minutes, eight rebounds and seven assists in the Lakers’ 116-111 loss to the Indiana Pacers on Saturday. It was the Lakers’ sixth game in the NBA bubble at Walt Disney World, and James acknowledged he’s still adjusting.
“It’s a very weird dynamic,” he said. “I haven’t played in an empty gym in a very, very long time.”
… Attempting to play defense in transition, Oladipo landed awkwardly under Toronto’s Pascal Siakam. He suffered a torn quad tendon, ending his 2018-19 season.
Henderson said he walked into the Pacers’ medical room, where Oladipo was awaiting an X-ray before his MRI. That’s when Oladipo told him, “Let’s get to work on all the things we’ve been talking about doing but haven’t had time to do.”
When FC Dallas finally got back on the training ground in Frisco, Texas — after a disastrous trip to Orlando, Florida, that resulted in the club being withdrawn from the MLS is Back Tournament amid a cluster of positive COVID-19 tests, a two-week quarantine and two days off to get a mental break once they returned to Dallas — head coach Luchi Gonzalez had a simple message for his players: Enjoy.
In those first two days of training, “there were no real tactical or technical objectives, other than just play and fall in love with the game again,” he said during an interview over Zoom.
“We have to reflect as human beings: What we do? What is our purpose, whether that’s our relationships, our career, a hobby? Why do we play? Do we play because we get paid, or do we play because we love the game? Why do we have a style of play? Because coach says so, or because we understand how it can help us perform and achieve our goals, and do it in a creative way and in a way that we can control or dominate a game the best we can?
… Although the federal government recommends that Americans sleep seven or more hours per night for optimal health and functioning, new research is challenging the assumption that sleep is a one-size-fits-all phenomenon. Scientists have found that our internal body clocks vary so greatly that they could form the next frontiers of personalized medicine. By listening more closely to the ticking of our internal clocks, researchers expect to uncover novel ways to help everybody get more out of their sleeping and waking lives.
English Premier League powerhouse Chelsea FC has released its own soccer training app, Perfect Play. The app is being used by the team’s youth academy program and was developed by Chelsea Digital Ventures, the club’s commercial technology arm.
Perfect Play harnesses a smartphone’s camera and applies computer vision and augmented reality to set up and assess drills. Dozens of training games test a user’s soccer skills such as dribbling, passing, speed and shooting, as well as mental skills and soccer intelligence.
… From the time most of these Division I football players were young, they have dedicated themselves fully to their sport. These athletes begin paying football as early as age 6. By college, the average player spends over 43 hours a week on football — between practice, reviewing tapes, team meetings and games. They are also celebrated through school marketing and promotion material. In other words: it’s not ‘just’ about #wewanttoplay and missing being on the field, football is the very basis of who these players are.
So what happens when your whole identity goes under quarantine?
In the three years since UConn’s Korey Stringer Institute published its initial report examining health and safety policies for high school athletes, 38 states have adopted legislative or State High School Athletic Association changes that make high school athletes safer in their respective states, according to its latest findings.
The update, released this month, reflects the notable progress states have made in the past year (August 2019-August 2020) in adopting important new policies to protect student athletes. States adopting policy changes that went into effect this year include Alabama, Arkansas, Colorado, Delaware, District of Columbia, Florida, Hawaii, Illinois, Iowa, Louisiana, Missouri, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Texas, and Vermont.
Dr. Brian Hainline, the NCAA’s chief medical officer, appeared on CNN to talk about fall sports just after midnight on Sunday morning. The audience for CNN at that late hour was probably pretty limited, but that didn’t stop him from giving his honest, professional opinion about the possibility of college sports amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration issued an emergency authorization on Saturday allowing public use of a saliva-based test for the coronavirus developed at Yale University and funded by the NBA and the National Basketball Players Association.
The test, known as SalivaDirect, is designed for widespread public screening. The cost per sample could be as low as about $4, though the cost to consumers will likely be higher than that — perhaps around $15 or $20 in some cases, according to expert sources.
As college football heads toward an uncertain fate due to safety concerns amid the coronavirus pandemic, the issues surrounding a 2020-21 college basketball season have also begun knocking on the door. Two conferences — the Ivy League and the Pac-12 — have suspended competition until at least Jan. 1, meaning the nonconference portion of the schedule has already been altered.
Are we heading for a conference-only season in men’s and women’s college basketball? Can college basketball work in a bubble format? What must be done to save the 2021 NCAA tournaments?
… So two years ago in 2018, both semifinals in the men’s singles went five sets. They were marathons. Kevin Anderson defeated John Isner, 7-6, 6-7, 6-7, 6-4, 26-24. The match lasted 6:36. And Novak Djokovic took out Rafa Nadel, 6-4, 3-6, 7-6, 3-6, 10-8. That match lasted 5:18.
And do you know how this bastion of tradition reacted? The folks in the hierarchy did not genuflect before the grass courts, they did not talk endlessly about how matches like those reinforced the perception of Wimbledon being the toughest tournament to win.
… MLS released a list of analytics practitioners at each club, but some clubs were not listed and many were obviously not primarily analytics staff, such as a head coach. So, based upon public knowledge and private communications, and knowing full well that anyone outside a club can’t really know what is going on inside, here are the tiers of MLS analytics and what we know about each team:
Before tipoff at a summer youth basketball game, Felicia Braddy stood inside the coach’s box in front of the team bench. After a few minutes, a referee walked over, ready for the customary pre-game meeting.
“Where’s your head coach?” he asked.
Braddy laughed, wondering if her positioning along the sideline might have offered a clue.