Jack Tien-Dana Articles - Page 6

The San Diego Padres don’t really have history. Sure, they had Tony Gwynn and Trevor Hoffman and the only brown jerseys in professional sports, but their narrative arc largely bends towards mediocrity. Seven playoff appearances in 55 years, a .464 lifetime winning percentage, a lifetime of 75-87 seasons: hardly inspiring stuff. In this sense, the […]

Just over two weeks ago, the Carolina Panthers made one of the biggest trades in NFL history, swinging just the 13th deal ever for the first pick in the upcoming NFL Draft. Their motive was clear: get a franchise quarterback. The mystery remains which one. With four top-tier quarterback prospects  available, the Panthers have kept […]

For true college basketball heads, this Final Four is perfection—all four teams have distinct styles and identities and are packed with intriguing backstories. For NBA Draftniks, though, it’s pretty fallow ground. The cocktail of the transfer portal, NIL and an extra year of post-COVID eligibility have caused the best teams to skew older and load […]

As far as FAU basketball has a “star,” it would be Johnell Davis, their third year shooting guard. The Conference USA Sixth Man of the Year, Davis has joined FAU’s starting lineup for their 2023 NCAA Tournament run and has acquitted himself well, averaging 17.3 points, 7.8 rebounds and 3.3 assists per game over the […]

It’s a cliche because it’s true: guards win in March Madness. The 2023 NCAA Tournament has been no different—it’s why Fairleigh Dickinson upset Purdue, why Arkansas shocked Kansas, why Markquis Nowell took over Madison Square Garden. And it’s why Florida Atlantic basketball will cap off their shocking Final Four run by becoming one of the […]

With free agent signing Derek Carr providing a steady hand at quarterback, the New Orleans Saints have shifted from rebuilding to reloading. While Carr is certainly no Drew Brees, his presence is a massive upgrade from last year’s rotation of Andy Dalton and Jameis Winston and should be able to put the Saints in good […]

For the first time in nearly a decade, Derek Carr won’t be under center when the Las Vegas Raiders break training camp. With the Raiders releasing Carr (and Carr subsequently signing a four year, $150 million contract with the New Orleans Saints), this marks the end of an era for the franchise, signaling a fresh […]

Next year, all eyes will be on Utopia Parkway and Rick Pitino in his first season as head coach of St. John’s basketball. Although Pitino has a difficult road ahead of him to revive a moribund St. John’s program, it’s a dream pairing between coach and school—Pitino is the New York-iest coach in college basketball […]

Lamar Jackson, the unanimous 2019 NFL MVP for the Baltimore Ravens and most electrifying quarterback in league history, is on the trade market. In fact, he’s been on the market for weeks already, having demanded a trade from the Baltimore Ravens all the way back on March 2nd. Although Baltimore placed the non-exclusive franchise tag […]

Throughout the University of Miami basketball’s dream season, Jordan Miller was always kind of an afterthought. Isaiah Wong was the ACC Player of the Year; Nijel Pack was the big money transfer with a $800,000 NIL deal and a sports car; Norchad Omier was the Hurricanes’ heart and soul in the paint; Miller was the […]

The vibes in Dallas aren’t great; the basketball is even worse. Not even a full year removed from a Western Conference Finals appearance, the Dallas Mavericks are in free fall, losing six of their last eight games. At 36-39, the Mavericks have slipped all the way to 11th in the Western Conference, putting them in […]

Forward Dylan Disu, Texas basketball’s fifth-leading scorer and their breakout March Madness star, will miss their Elite Eight tilt against the Miami Hurricanes because of a foot injury. One of the key players for Texas basketball throughout the year, Disu played just two minutes against Xavier in the Sweet 16 after he suffered a bone […]

Ok, let’s do it: it’s time to talk about the NBA MVP race. With Giannis Antetokounmpo, Joel Embiid and Nikola Jokic all putting up superlative seasons, the MVP race has moved beyond Basketball Reference stat sheets and entered thornier, more abstract territory. Jokic’s case is predicated on his historically good advanced stats; Embiid, closing in […]

The Philadelphia Eagles have had a rough offseason—major contributors to last year’s NFC champion like CJ Gardner-Johnson, Javon Hargrave, Kyzir White, Marcus Epps Miles Sanders and Isaac Seumalo  all left in free agency. Similarly, they had to rebuild their coaching staff after the Indianapolis Colts poached offensive coordinator Shane Steichen and defensive coordinator Johnathan Gannon […]

In his first season as USC football’s glitzy new coach, offensive wunderkind Lincoln Riley turned the Trojans from a Pac-12 to a College Football Playoff Contender. In characteristic Riley fashion, USC football was one of the most potent offensive outfits in the country, but were let down by a squishy defense that surrendered more than […]

North Carolina basketball is running it back running it back. Although this season was a mammoth disappointment (they became the first ever preseason #1 to miss the tournament entirely since it expanded to 64 teams in 1985), star point guard RJ Davis announced on Friday that he will return to UNC for a senior season, […]

Like Frank Costanza, Charles Barkley has a lot of problems with people—the women of San Antonio, the Phoenix Suns nacho vendors, Shaq—and they’re gonna hear about it. And now, he has politicians in his crosshairs, lambasting NCAA president Charlie Baker’s “consumer protection plan” to put regulations on the NIL marketplace. “Did he say we’re going […]

In a broad sense, Jaime Jaquez is college basketball. A 6’7, 225 pound forward from Los Angeles,  the 22 year old Jaquez has quietly become of the best UCLA players of the last 25 years, transforming from a guileless grit merchant as a freshman to the lynchpin of a title contender as a senior. Averaging […]

If the NBA stars of the 90s built their brand through pop culture crossovers and the NBA stars of the 2010s made their name through fashion world connections, 2023 is the NBA’s year of the social media sound byte. With traditional media access curtailed by COVID precautions over the previous few seasons, players like Draymond […]

Heading into their Sweet 16 showdown with the Creighton Blue Jays, most of the talk about Princeton basketball’s March Madness run to the Sweet 16 (and maybe Elite Eight and maybe Final Four) hasn’t really been about basketball. Behold, Blake Peters, a sophomore reserve point guard who plays Spanish guitar, speaks fluent Mandarin and starts […]

Kentucky basketball superstar Oscar Tshiebwe is potentially the most dominant player in college basketball. The 2022 National Player of the Year and two-time All-American, Tshiebwe is a historically great rebounder, the rare player who can fundamentally transform a game through his hard work cleaning the glass. In Kentucky’s 75-69 loss to Kansas State in the […]

Heading into his first season as the coach of Kansas State basketball, Jerome Tang faced significant challenges. For starters, the team wasn’t particularly good, coming off three consecutive losing seasons. Making matters worse, the team was barely even a team—nearly the entire roster either graduated or transferred, leaving behind just two holdovers when Tang took […]

For grumps and cranks, the World Baseball Classic is a silly, dangerous distraction from the actual important games, like a mid-April series against the Cincinnati Reds. To the players and fans, though, these games have been a revelation, a reminder of how fun and vital baseball can be. While the World Baseball Classic has been […]

During his stints with the Tennessee Titans and Carolina Panthers, D’Onta Foreman established a reputation as one of the NFL’s most dependable back-up running backs, capably filling in for injured superstars Derrick Henry and Christian McCaffrey. But after signing a one-year, $3 million deal with the Chicago Bears during amid the flurry of NFL free […]

Hasbulla, the tiny indescribable king of social media, made his celebrity row debut last week, sitting courtside in L.A. at last Friday’s thriller between the Mavericks and Lakers. The content was glorious—he wore a cool little hat, posed for a picture with Luka Doncic, sat on his buddy’s lap and was received with rapturous applause […]

When it comes to talking about basketball on television, nobody has ever been better than the Inside the NBA crew, especially the duo of Charles Barkley and Kenny Smith. When it comes to actionable life advice and self-help, please don’t listen to a word that either of these two have to say. From the same […]

Jalen Carter, the former Georgia defensive tackle, was one of the most dominant players in recent college football history as he anchored Georgia’s legendary defense en route to consecutive national titles. Now, Jalen Carter is a similarly dominant presence in the NFL Draft news cycle, but not for the right reasons. In February, Carter was […]

Penn State: not a basketball school! While Penn State football has a long history of Rose Bowl titles and white outs and national championships, Penn State basketball has a long history of being ignored. In this sense, the Nittany Lions’ 76-59 demolition of Texas A&M wasn’t just Penn State’s first NCAA Tournament win since 2001, […]

NFL Free Agency has only been open for a few days, but the New York Giants have already made aggressive moves to improve their roster ahead of the 2023 season. Coming off their first playoff win since 2012 this season, the Giants gave starting quarterback Daniel Jones a four-year, $160 million contract and put the […]

If there’s anything that could disrupt the New York Knicks‘ immaculate vibes this season, it’s James Dolan—and, boy howdy, is the owner of the Knicks trying hard to do so. Even as the Knicks have raced to their best season in a decade, Dolan has declared war on the New York State Liquor Authority as […]

The New York Knicks are having a fairytale season—that is, except in the mind of starting center Mitchell Robinson. After their 123-107 win over the Portland Trail Blazers on March 14, Robinson took to Snapchat to bemoan is lack of involvement in the team’s offense. In the eyes of Chandler Parsons, the former NBA player […]

After poaching backup quarterback Mike White from the New York Jets earlier this week, the Miami Dolphins have double-dipped in East Rutherford to grab former Jets receiver Braxton Berrios. The Dolphins have signed Berrios to a one-year deal, according to ESPN NFL insider Adam Schefter. In his four years with the Jets, Berrios became a […]

In addition to being one of the NBA’s most prolific scorers, Damian Lillard is one of its most thoughtful and considered players. During a recent guest spot on JJ Redick’s Old Man and The Three podcast, Lillard opened up about how his career with the Portland Trail Blazers will be remembered. “When my career is over, […]

He’s here and he’s beautiful. On Wednesday, March 15, the Portland Trail Blazers unveiled their new mascot Douglas Fur, an eight-foot Big Foot kind of thing dressed in ” local hipster, outdoorsy, Northwest attire.” Named after the famous Douglas Fir trees in Portland’s Forest Park, Douglas Fur joins Blaze The Trail Cat on Portland’s mascot […]

More than any other team in the NCAA Tournament, Alabama basketball weaponizes math. In the NBA, this isn’t a radical concept. The NBA’s culture war between the True Hoopers and the math wonks has been decided and the wonks have won; this is why every team is scoring more and more similarly than ever, continually […]

Georgetown basketball is one of the few programs that has a legitimate history—you can read each of their seasons as chapters in some overarching narrative, rather than merely entries in a Basketball Reference spreadsheet. This is the program of Big John Thompson and Patrick Ewing and Dikembe Mutombo and Alonzo Mourning and Allen Iverson that […]

With the 41-30 New York Knicks rolling to the playoffs (fingers crossed!), the vibes are immaculate. At least, nearly all of the vibes are. Despite cementing himself as the Knicks’ defensive anchor, center Mitchell Robinson vented on social media after the Knicks’ 123-107 win against the Portland Trail Blazers last night, bemoaning his lack of […]

Pat McAfee is the most famous (former) punter in the world. Since retiring from the NFL in 2018, McAfee has quickly become one of the biggest names in sports media thanks to the runaway success of his daily radio show, The Pat McAfee Show. Last year, he landed a four-year, $120 million contract with FanDuel, […]

The Cincinnati Bengals‘ hopes of retooling and gearing up for another Super Bowl bid took a big hit on Monday when the Carolina Panthers poached safety Vonn Bell, signing the 28 year-old on the opening day of the NFL Free Agency legal tampering period, according to the Enquirer’s Kelsey Conway. Originally drafted by the New […]