Because of the COVID-19 international pandemic, the MLB cancelled the remainder of their Spring Training games on March 12th and also announced that they would delay their season until it is plausible for them to start.

Marlins CEO Derek Jeter was quoted in saying, “This is an unprecedented time and this is certainly an unprecedented decision that was made in the best interest of players, fans and communities across the country.” Rays outfielder Kevin Kiermaier said, “We want to go out there and we want to play, but at the same time, lives are at risk and looking at the bigger picture, we need to stay clear of everyone out there because this is just how crazy this thing is.”

The MLB will evaluate with national experts and guidelines to determine when it will be safe to start the season back up.

Cardinals manager Mike Shildt has made plans for his team to stay in baseball condition while still being safe and with their families. Shildt said on March 14th that there were fifteen to twenty-five players staying at their Spring Training facility in Jupiter and are planning workouts at the facility.

“No one needs to be made to feel like they need to be here to still work,” said Shildt. “Families first, big picture. Let’s figure out what this looks like for you and the safety of your family and just make sure everyone’s comfortable and confident with that, and support that 100 percent.”

The team also made sure to say that their workouts were not open to the public. Shildt and his staff worked together to put together schedules for the players, either at the facility or at home. Shildt made it clear that it is hard to put together a schedule when not knowing when the season will start back up.

“When you look at putting together schedules individually, and then for a group, you do it based on a time, and you work somewhat backward from that, but we don’t have that end date, so right now, we talked through with the medical group, with the performance group and with our baseball group, about what it looks like right now for the short view and for the long view of the season. We don’t know the end date of the season, and we don’t know when it starts.”

On Thursday, March 12, the NCAA announced that they were going to be cancelling March Madness, which is their Division I men’s basketball tournament, and every other winter and spring NCAA championship. This decision was made due to the rapid spreading of the COVID-19 virus. NCAA released a statement saying,

“This decision is based on the evolving Covid-19 public health threat, our ability to ensure the events do not contribute to spread of the pandemic, and the impracticality of hosting such events at any time during this academic year given ongoing decisions by other entities.”

The NCAA has held a Division I championship every single year since it was held first in 1939. The NCAA was not the only organization to halt proceedings. The NBA, NHL, MLB, & XFL along with many other sport leagues has postponed or suspended their seasons.

Before this decision was made, a few high profile universities said that their teams would not participate even if the tournament was being held. Included in this was five-time national champion Duke University and another high profile school, the University of Kansas.

Duke’s coach, Mike Krzyzewski, said he supported his schools decision, saying,

“The welfare of our student-athletes, and all students at Duke, is paramount, and this decision reflects that institutional priority.”

This cancellation affected many different schools and athletes in different ways, but possibly none more than the Dayton Flyers. The Flyers had a historic season, winning 20 in a row to close the regular season. After not making the tournament for the past two year, they bounced back and finished the year with a 29-2 record. Led by redshirt sophomore sensation, and eventual Naismith Trophy winner, Obi Toppin, they were projected to be a #1 seed in the national tournament. Flyers senior Trey Landers put on Twitter,

“I wish all of this was just a dream that I could wake up from… Wish I could play one more game with my brothers…”

On March 11th, 11th seed Indiana took on 14th seed Nebraska in the first, and what turned out to be the only, round in the 2020 Big Ten Basketball Tournament. Indiana would pick up the first round win, beating the Cornhuskers 89 to 64.

Indiana freshman Trayce Jackson-Davis had a double double with 11 points and 17 rebounds, which was a career high. Armaan Franklin lead the team with 13 points. Devonte Green and Justin Smith both had 12 points and Al Durham had 11. Indiana shot 53% as a team.

The Cornhuskers were led by Kevin Cross who scored 23. Haanif Cheatham score 17 and Jervay Green was third on the team with 15. From the field, Nebraska shot 30%.

Indiana led by 9 at the half and just kept adding to the lead up until the end of the game. The story for Nebraska was being down two of their better scores after Coach Hoiberg suspended Dachon Burke Jr. and Cam Mack the week before the game. Surprisingly, Hoiberg replaced them with two football players, quarterback Noah Vendral, and offensive tackel Brant Banks.

After the game, Coach Archie Miller had this to say about their performance. “They made their runs during the (second) half, got us a little bit stationary at times, but I thought overall our guys responded and were able to finish the game in a big way” He also talked about their depth in saying, “I thought we had a lot of guys. We were committed to playing a lot of guys tonight, and we had a lot of guys play valuable minutes and get some things done.”

After the game, Miller sent all of the players back to the hotel instead of going to the interview room because of the news that the NBA suspended their season. He said, “I think, once you start getting the news that we got after the game, I think right now for our players, it’s let’s get cleaned up, let’s get out of here, and let’s get back to the hotel where we can keep our group kind of tight and move forward with tomorrow.”

Indiana’s opportunity to make a run in the tournament was ultimately ended after the remainder of the tournament was cancelled due to the COVID-19 outbreak.

The UCLS Bruins and USC Trojans continued their rivalry this Saturday at the Galen Center in Los Angeles, California. Coming in to the game, UCLA was top of the PAC-12 with a conference record of twelve wins and five losses and an overall record of nineteen and eleven. The USC Trojans came in to the game with a record of ten and seven in the conference and twenty one and nine overall.

There was not much action in the first half at all, with the halftime score being 24-22 with a two point USC lead. USC missed four-straight free throws in the last few minutes of the game to give UCLA a late lead. After a UCLA turnover, with seconds left in the game, the ball was given to Senior Jonah Mathews on his Senior Night for the opportunity for the game winner. After a screen he drove to the left wing, shook off his defend, and nailed the three pointer to win the game with a second left for the Trojans.

Jonah Mathews scored nineteen points in the game and made five 3-pointers. Those made him the career leader in USC history with 247. He also had five rebounds and three steals. His teammate, Freshman Onyeka Okongwu had sixteen points on eight of twelve attempts and six rebounds. in the Trojan win. This was most likely his final game in the Galen Center as he is projected too get drafted to the NBA. This game made Mathews and teammate Nick Rakocevic the winningest players in USC basketball history with their eighty-eighth win.

For UCLA, Cody Riley led them with thirteen points, hitting five of his six free throw attempts. Chris Smith had twelve, but was only four of twelve shooting attempts and had six turnovers.

Both of the teams have earned byes in the upcoming PAC-12 tournament and hope for good performances in order to make the NCAA National Championship Tournament.

On February 1st, the Evansville Thunderbolts took on the Birmingham Bulls at home in the Ford Center. It was a back and forth game, with the Thunderbolts eventually picking up the win.

In the first period, the Thunderbolts got the scoring started in the second minute with a power play goal by Demico Hannoun, assisted by Austin Plevy and Derek Sutliffe. Birmingham struck back in the eighth minute with a goal by Cole Stallard that was assisted by Cole Golka and Karel Drahorad. Immediately after in the ninth minute, Matthew Barnaby had an unassisted goal to put the Thunderbolts up two to one. The Thunderbolts would go up three to one after a goal by Derek Sutliffe, assisted by Braden Hellems and Seth Swenson.

In the first period, there were four penalties called. Three were called on Birmingham: holding on Lane Valimont, roughing on Russell Jordan, and delay of game on Karel Drahorad. The Evansville penalty was roughing on Noah Corson

The second period was pretty evenly matched, with the only goal being scored for Birmingham by the SPHL 2017-18 Rookie of the Year, Jacob Barber on the power play and being assisted by Russell Jordan and Josh Harris in the eleventh minute. Two penalties were called on Evansville, the first being a tripping call on Zane Jones, and Stanislav Dzakhov was called for high sticking. Birmingham’s Alex Johnson was called for slashing.

There was a lot of action in the third period. Evansville scored back to back with another goal from Matthew Barnaby in the ninth minute, assisted by Noah Corson and Braden Hellems, and a goal by Stanislav Dzakhov in the twelfth minute on the powerplay, assisted by Braden Hellems and Matthew Barnaby. That would make the score five to two in Evansville’s favor. Birmingham started to mount a comeback when Cole Stallard scored back to back goals, one being assisted by Aaron Huffnagle and Karel Drahorad in the fifteenth minute and the other being assisted by Aaron Huffnagle and JM Piotrowski in the nineteenth minute. Evansville would put away the Bulls with an empty net goal by Derek Sutliffe and assisted by Austin Plevy in the last few seconds of the game.

This goal would cause a fight to break out between the two teams. Demico Hannoun started it with an elbow and got into a fight with Burminghams’s Cole Golka. They both got fighting penalties. Braedyn Asselstine (Thunderbolts) and Josh Harris (Bulls) were both given continuing altercation penalties for continuing the fight after the game.

On February 20th, the NBA hosted their 69th edition of the NBA All-Star Game. This year it was held in Chicago, Illinois in the United Center. The last time it was in Chicago was in 1988. It was televised by TNT across the nation. The teams were captained by Giannis Antetokounmpo and LeBron James.

The draft was on February 6th. LeBron had the first pick and chose fellow Lakers teammate Anthony Davis. Giannis took Joel Embiid with his first pick. LeBron’s picks in order were as follows: Anthony Davis, Kawhi Leonard, Luka Doncic, James Harden, Damian Lillard, Ben Simmons, Nikola Jokic, Jayson Tatum, Chris Paul, Russell Westbrook, and Domantas Sabonis. Devin Booker ended up replacing Damian Lillard because of injury.

Giannis’ picks were as follows: Joel Embiid, Pascal Siakam, Kemba Walker, Trae Young, Khris Middleton, Bam Adebayo, Rudy Gobert, Jimmy Butler, Kyle Lowry, Brandon Ingram, and Donovan Mitchell.

The game this year used a new format. The first three quarters were scored separately like different games. The scoreboard would reset between quarters. The team that won each quarter was awarded $100,000 for their team’s charity. After the third quarter, the combined score was put on the scoreboard. They used the Elam Ending, which put a target score of 24 points more than the leading teams score. They chose 24 to honor the passing of Kobe Bryant. To honor Kobe Bryant and his daughter Gianna, the teams wore #24 and #2.

Team LeBron won the first quarter, Team Giannis won the second quarter, and the third quarter was tied. Anthony Davis made a free throw to hit the target of 157, getting the win for Team LeBron 157-155.

Kawhi Leonard was awarded the NBA All-Star Game Kobe Bryant Most Valuable Player award.

The NBA also hosted a few other competitions like the Celebrity Game, the Rising Stars Challenge, the Skills Challenge, the Three Point Contest, and the Slam Dunk Contest. Buddy Hield won the Three Point Contest and Derrick Jones Jr. controversially won the Slam Dunk Contest.

USI Men’s basketball team played the number 19th ranked team in the country, University of Missouri, St. Louis on February 15th. They were able to pull off the upset and win by one point.

USI’s point leader was Emmanuel Little who was able to score 21 points with 16 rebounds. Mateo Rivera score 15 points with 9 rebounds and 4 assists.

UMSL’s point leader was Yaakema Rose with 17 ponints. Jalen Wilkins-McCoy and Jason Towery had 13 and 12 points respectively.

USI shot 46.4% from the field and 18.8% percent from three. UMSL shot 41.1% from the field and 39.1% from three. USI was 70.6% from the free throw line while UMSL shot 91.7%.

This game put the Screagles in a four-way tie for third place in the GLVC. They are tied with the University of Indianapolis, Southwest Baptist University, and Rockhurst University. USI faces UIndy for the final game of the regular season on February 29th.

USI began the first half on a 12 to 3 run. They went into halftime with a 34 to 23 lead. Coming out of halftime, they went on a 11 to 2 run to take a 44-33. With five minutes left, the Tritons had a 62 to 52 lead. USI then went back on a 15 to 4 run to the end of the game and tied the game 66 to 66. The Tritons could not retake the lead with 33 seconds left after Emmanuel Little blocked a shot. Mateo Rivera drew a foul with 4.2 seconds left and took the lead to win the game with the second free throw.

Last Sunday, the National Football League hosted their 54th edition of the Super Bowl at the Hard Rock Stadium in Miami Gardens, Florida. The teams competing in this years Super Bowl were the San Francisco 49ers and Kansas City Chiefs. The Chiefs pulled off the victory with a score of 31 to 20. This was the first time they won the Super Bowl since Super Bowl IV, fifty years ago. Patrick Mahomes was awarded the Super Bowl MVP after completing 26 of 42 pass attempts for 286 yards, two touchdowns, and two interceptions. He also rushed for 29 yards and a touchdown.

This years halftime show was headlined by Jennifer Lopez and Shakira. They were joined by Bad Bunny and J Balvin, two other Latin performers. Jennifer Lopez was also joined by her daughter Emme Muñiz. The pregame National Anthem was performed by Demi Lovato.

The 49ers made the Superbowl by first defeating the Minnesota Vikings in the Divisional Round. They beat them 27 – 10. They next beat the Green Bay Packers in the NFC Championship Game. They won 37 – 20 after leading 27 – 0 at half time. They set the record for fewest passes in an NFC Championship Game victory. Raheem Mostert, who played at Purdue, rushed for 220 yards and four touchdowns, setting a franchise record.

The Chiefs made the Super Bowl by coming back from two large deficits against the Texas and the Titans. In the Divisional Round, they were down 24 – 0, but came back to have a 28 – 24 lead by halftime. In the second half they dominated the Texas, eventually winning 51 – 31. They scored on an NFL record seven consecutive drives. Against the Titans in the AFC Championship Game, they were down 17 – 7 in the second quarter. They scored four unanswered touchdowns to win 35 – 24.

Patrick Mahomes joined Terry Bradshaw and Tom Brady as the only quarterbacks to win the MVP despite throwing multiple interceptions. He was also the youngest player to win the award. Tyreek Hill caught nine receptions for 105 yards. Sammy Watkins had five receptions for 98 yards. Damien Williams had 17 carries for 104 yards and a touchdown.

On the San Francisco side of the ball, Jimmy Garoppolo complete 20 out of 31 passes for 219 yards and a touchdown and threw two interceptions. Deebo Samuel had three carries for 58 yards while setting the Super Bowl record for rushing yards by a wide receiver. He also had five receptions for 39 yards.

Kansas City became the first NFL team to come back for a 10-point or more deficit in three games in the same playoffs. Also, they completed the interesting stat of each of the Missouri major sports time winning their respective title in less than 10 years. The St. Louis Cardinals won in 2011, the Kansas City Royals won in 2015, and the St. Louis Blues won in 2019.