LEXINGTON, Ky. — Mark Pope is 2-0 as the head coach of the Kentucky Wildcats in Rupp Arena.

And his team hasn’t played a game yet.

Nearly six months to the day after Pope made a triumphant return to the building he once called his basketball home, the new UK coach presided over his first Big Blue Madness.

That introductory press ...Read more

NEW YORK — The Knicks are building something new, but like any major construction project, it takes time for all the pieces to fit.

The blockbuster trade sending Julius Randle and Donte DiVincenzo to the Minnesota Timberwolves for Karl-Anthony Towns marked a seismic shift at Madison Square Garden, and the Knicks are still laying the ...Read more

MILWAUKEE — All you can ask of someone like Lakers rookie Quincy Olivari is for him to be ready, for him to not run when the opportunity to do something great presents itself, for him to step into opportunity ready to capitalize.

That happened Thursday night in Milwaukee, as he ignited a 20-0 run to give the Lakers and JJ Redick their first ...Read more

DES MOINES, Iowa — Before anyone became acquainted with Nick Nurse, he was a kid from Carroll, Iowa.

That little boy grew up to be an NBA champion coach. And on Friday, his 76ers faced the Minnesota Timberwolves in front of a sold-out crowd that included family members and friends in the “triple digits.”

Nurse didn’t get his fairy-tale...Read more

CHICAGO — The Chicago Bulls will host a halftime celebration to honor the career of Derrick Rose in January.

The team announced Friday that “Derrick Rose Night” will be held during the Jan. 4 game against the New York Knicks at the United Center.

Holding the celebration during a game against the Knicks will also allow former Bulls coach ...Read more

NEW YORK — What many will remember most about the Lynx’s victory Thursday in Game 1 of the WNBA Finals will be the big shots.

Courtney Williams getting an and-1 on a second-chance 3-pointer late in regulation, a basket that was the talk of the game after a 95-93 victory in overtime over the New York Liberty.

Napheesa Collier, the game tied...Read more

DURHAM, N.C. — Long Duke basketball’s top targets in the 2025 recruiting class, legacy twins Cameron and Cayden Boozer announced Friday morning they’ll play college basketball for the Blue Devils next season.

Sons of former Duke and NBA player Carlos Boozer, Cameron and Cayden Boozer are both five-star prospects who are in their senior ...Read more

NEW YORK — The Lynx spent the the first quarter and a half of Thursday’s game at Barclays Center digging, digging, digging.

An 18-point deficit at one point, 17 midway through the second. They were down 11 to the New York Liberty with less than four minutes left to go in regulation.

But all that did was set the stage for one of the most ...Read more

NEW YORK — The 2024 WNBA Finals will go down in history.

Not because the series features the league’s two top teams in the Liberty and the Minnesota Lynx, but because it will be the last Finals played in a best-of-five format.

The Finals will expand to a best-of-seven format in 2025, commissioner Cathy Engelbert announced before Game 1 at ...Read more

LOS ANGELES — LeBron James wasn't on the court for one of the most significant games for him last season.

It wasn't a Lakers game or even an NBA game.

It was the Dec. 10 matchup between USC and Long Beach State, during which his oldest son, Bronny James, made his collegiate debut with the Trojans less than five months after suffering sudden ...Read more

DES MOINES, Iowa — Paul George is set to make his 76ers debut against the Minnesota Timberwolves Friday night at Wells Fargo Arena. Meanwhile, the team is without Joel Embiid as they prepare to play in the home arena of the Iowa Wolves, the Timberwolves' G League affiliate.

The Sixers then will face the Boston Celtics on Saturday and the ...Read more

The Valkyries hired Natalie Nakase to be their first head coach, fleshing out more of their identity as an expansion franchise.

Nakase, 44, is believed to be the first Asian American head coach in WNBA history. She spent the past three years as the lead assistant for the Las Vegas Aces, helping them to back-to-back championships. Before that, ...Read more

LEXINGTON, Ky. — We like new things. New is fresh. New is clean. New is fun. Better yet, new can provide the possibility of something different, something better. New can give us hope.

For all its embedded history and timeless traditions, Kentucky basketball feels brand new all over again.

That’s true for both men’s and women’s ...Read more

RALEIGH, N.C. — Toward the end of each of the past three men’s college basketball seasons, the ACC has experienced something of a collective catharsis. It has become routine over the past few years, a budding tradition in a sport that has found itself fighting for sustained relevancy in a college athletics world more and more driven by ...Read more

NEW YORK — The 2-0 preseason record may look good for the Knicks, but their path to victory still leaves plenty to work on.

The Knicks secured a 117-94 victory over the Washington Wizards in a preseason matchup on Wednesday, but the slow start and inconsistent shooting signaled the need for growth ahead of their regular-season opener against ...Read more

ATLANTA — Within the first 90 seconds of his first exhibition game, Zaccharie Risacher showed that, at the very least, he knew what he was doing on the floor.

The player whom the Hawks made the first overall pick of this June’s NBA draft didn’t do anything extraordinary in those first moments of the team’s first exhibition game, Tuesday...Read more

MIAMI — The debut of the Netflix series “Starting 5,” with all 10 episodes released Wednesday, offered greater insight into the time Miami Heat forward Jimmy Butler missed last season and some of the heartbreaking background behind those absences.

The series chronicles the 2023-24 seasons of Butler, Boston Celtics forward Jayson Tatum, ...Read more

MINNEAPOLIS — A little more than three months ago, Lynx coach Cheryl Reeve pulled point guard Courtney Williams aside after a performance that apparently pleased neither.

“It was a moment after the Commissioner’s Cup game and we played Dallas and I was terrible,” Williams said. “And she said, ‘Court, I feel like you gave into hard.�...Read more