SPORTS ON TV
Friday, Jan. 12 (All times Eastern)
COLLEGE BASKETBALL (MEN’S) 6:30 p.m.
FS1 — Minnesota at Indiana
7 p.m.
CBSSN — Buffalo at Akron ESPNU — Rice at South Florida ESPN2 — Dayton at Duquesne
8:30 p.m.
FS1 — DePaul at Villanova
9 p.m.
ESPN2 — Wright St. at Youngstown St.
9:30 p.m.
BTN — Nebraska at Iowa
10:30 p.m.
FS1 — Boise St. at Nevada
COLLEGE BASKETBALL (WOMEN’S) 8 p.m.
PAC-12N — Stanford at Utah
10 p.m.
PAC-12N — Arizona at Oregon St.
COLLEGE GYMNASTICS (WOMEN’S) 7 p.m.
SECN — Missouri at Alabama
8:30 p.m.
SECN — Kentucky at Auburn
9 p.m.
ACCN — Sprouts Farmers Market Collegiate Quad: From West Valley City, Utah
COLLEGE HOCKEY (MEN’S) 9 p.m.
CBSSN — St. Cloud St. at Denver
COLLEGE WRESTLING 7:30 p.m.
BTN — Iowa at Nebraska
FIGURE SKATING 1 p.m.
E! — European Championships: Men’s Free, Kaunas, Lithuania
GOLF 7 p.m.
GOLF — PGA Tour: The Sony Open In Hawaii, Second Round
2:30 a.m. (Saturday)
GOLF — DP World Tour: The Dubai Invitational, Third Round
HORSE RACING 2:30 p.m.
FS2 — NYRA: America’s Day at the Races
LACROSSE (MEN’S) 10 p.m.
ESPNU — NLL: San Diego at Las Vegas
NBA 7:40 p.m.
ESPN — Sacramento at Philadelphia
10:05 p.m.
ESPN — New Orleans at Denver
NHL 8 p.m.
NHLN — Nashville at Dallas
PICKLEBALL 3 p.m.
TENNIS — Palm Desert, Calif., Quarterfinals
SOCCER (MEN’S) 2:25 p.m.
ESPN2 — Hoffenheim at Bayern Munich
2:45 p.m.
USA — Premier League: Luton Town at Burnley
SOCCER (WOMEN’S) 8 p.m.
ION — 2024 NWSL Draft
TENNIS 8 p.m.
TENNIS — Auckland-ATP, Hobart-WTA Finals
12 a.m. (Saturday)
TENNIS — Adelaide-ATP Final
Anyone who thinks Bill Belichick parting ways with the team he’s synonymous with, the New England Patriots, means he’s done with coaching hasn’t been paying attention the last two decades. The man has six Super Bowl rings, eight if you count his two as an assistant with the New York Giants, and multiple coach of the year honors.
The one thing he doesn’t have? The NFL’s all-time record for wins as a coach.
Belichick needs 15 more victories to break Don Shula’s record of 347, and if you think he doesn’t want that mark, I’ve got a closet full of cut-off hoodies to sell you. Belichick wants to be alone on the mountaintop — especially after the last few years have clouded his legacy in New England.
He leaves the Patriots after a second-consecutive losing season, his third in four years. You have to go back to his Cleveland Browns days to find that kind of futility by Belichick teams, and it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to draw the line between when Tom Brady left New England and the Patriots’ skid into mediocrity.
Belichick is surly even when things are going well, so you just know he chafes at the suggestion he only won because he lucked into the best quarterback the game has ever seen. That alone will keep him coaching until he can prove the critics wrong. It might not require another Super Bowl title — though a seventh as a head coach would equal the number of rings Brady has — but he wants the chance to remind everyone he played a significant role in all those years of New England’s success, too.
So the 71-year-old will coach on for at least another year or two, chasing both the record and the final say on his legacy.
New England’s two decades of dominance are something just not seen in the NFL, where dynasties are meant to be fleeting. From 2001 to 2019, the Patriots never had a losing season. More impressive was the double-digit victories in all but one season during the stretch.
The question was always who deserved more credit, Belichick or Brady, the sixth-round pick who got thrown into the starting lineup when Drew Bledsoe got hurt and wound up redefining the game. It is easy to look at New England’s struggles the last four years and say it provides a definitive answer, especially when Belichick has made himself so hard to like.
He is cantankerous, treating every question like a personal affront. He is devious, being fined a then-record $500,000 by the NFL for spying on opposing teams in the Spygate
McIlroy opens with bogey-free 62 to lead Dubai Invitational
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — Rory McIlroy is playing the Dubai Invitational as a favor to a friend and to get in some early-year practice in pleasant weather conditions.
The way he has started, McIlroy might end up taking home the trophy.
The No. 2-ranked Northern Irishman made nine birdies in a bogey-free, 9-under 62 to take a two-shot clubhouse lead in the first round of the European Tour event on Thursday.
Yannik Paul of Germany was two shots behind at Dubai Creek Resort.
McIlroy sees the Dubai event — a tournament in a relaxed setting, with no cut and a 60-man field — as a gentle way to ease into 2024.
Soccer player Stones, F1 driver Albon invest in team from Woods, McIlroy
LISBON, Portugal — Manchester City defender John Stones and Formula One driver Alex Albon have joined Steph Curry in investing in a franchise in the high-tech golf competition created by Tiger Woods and Rory McIlroy.
Stones and Albon have through their investment in fund manager Apex joined Curry in the investor group behind the San Francisco team that will play in the TGL project that launches next year.
The Lisbon-based fund said Thursday it acquired a stake in the San Francisco franchise, one of six in TGL that will play in a domed arena in Palm Beach Gardens, Florida. scandal. He appears joyless, scowling on the sidelines and rarely cracking a smile even when his teams are winning.
Affable Andy Reid or an Energizer Bunny like Pete Carroll, Belichick is not.
But that’s an easy excuse for not giving him his due. And it’s not fair.
Of course having Brady gave Belichick an advantage. But how many other teams have had stupendous quarterbacks and not won rings? Or even won at the rate the Patriots did? Look no further than Indianapolis, New England’s foil for all those years for your answer.
The Patriots won because Belichick was never afraid to evolve, the offense shape-shifting to keep the rest of the NFL from catching up. But just as significantly, they were a complete team, as scary on defense as they were prolific on offense.
Since Belichick arrived in New England in 2000, there have been just two years in which the Patriots weren’t ranked in the top half of the NFL in points allowed. And both of those years, they were 17th. They had the stingiest defense three times and were ranked in the top five another six times. They’ve also been top five in takeaways 10 times.
Last I checked, Brady didn’t play defense. Nor was he drawing up the schemes.
Belichick is also quick to point out that the Patriots hung onto their championship core longer than maybe they should have, which contributed to their
Matches will be played over 15 holes where longer shots played off real grass or sand are hit into a giant simulator. Short-game shots are played to a hightech green complex that rotates on a turntable to create different contours.
The two-hour matches are set to be broadcast by ESPN on a three-month schedule when it starts in 2025, ending before the Masters in April.
Woods is a player and co-owner in the Florida team Jupiter Links.
Bud Harrelson, scrappy Mets shortstop who once fought Pete Rose, dies at 79
NEW YORK — Bud Harrelson, the scrappy and sure-handed shortstop who fought Pete Rose on the field during a playoff game and helped the New York Mets win an astonishing championship, died Wednesday night. He was 79.
The Mets said Thursday morning that Harrelson died at a hospice house in East Northport, New York after a long battle with Alzheimer’s. He was diagnosed in 2016 and publicly shared his struggle two years later, hoping he and his family could help others afflicted.
Throughout his health ordeal, Harrelson stayed involved with his professional pride and joy. He was part-owner of the Long Island Ducks, an independent minor league team located minutes from his home. He called his decades of work with the club — which he was instrumental in starting and running — his greatest achievement in baseball.
The team said Harrelson’s family was planning a celebration of his life for a later date.
During a major league career that struggles after Brady left. They spent so much money to keep their aging players there wasn’t much left to spend on youngsters who could keep New England from crashing when the Super Bowl rush wore off.
“It’s nobody’s fault. That’s what we did the last five years. We sold out and won three Super Bowls, played in a fourth and played in a AFC Championship Game,” Belichick said in November 2020. “This year we had less to work with. It’s not an excuse, it’s just a fact.”
This was Belichick’s choice to make, as New England’s de facto GM. But it’s a choice every other team would make, too. A million times over. Six Super Bowl titles and nine AFC championships in exchange for a handful of years as a loser? It’s not even a question.
Yes, Belichick has made mistakes these last few years. Most notably with Mac Jones and his other recent draft picks. But the Patriots didn’t conjure players like Rob Gronkowski, Devin McCourty, Julian Edelman and Dont’a Hightower out of thin air. Belichick drafted them, too.
Even after the last few years, Belichick is still one of the greatest to ever coach the game. Sometimes people just need a fresh start and, unimaginable as it might have once seemed, Belichick is now one of them.
Follow USA TODAY Sports columnist Nancy Armour on social media @nrarmour. lasted from 1965-80, the light-hitting Harrelson was selected to two All-Star Games and won a Gold Glove. Known to family and teammates as Buddy, he spent his first 13 seasons with New York and was the only man in a Mets uniform for both their World Series titles.
The first came as the infield anchor of the 1969 Miracle Mets, the other as the club’s third base coach in 1986.
Bears, Vikings to host regular-season NFL games in London in ’24
LONDON — The Chicago Bears and Minnesota Vikings will both host a game in London next season and the Carolina Panthers will play in Germany as part of the NFL’s international swing, the league said Thursday.
The two NFC North rivals will host a game each at Premier League team Tottenham’s stadium, while the Jacksonville Jaguars return to London for one game at Wembley, the NFL said in a statement.
The Panthers will host a game in Munich as the NFL returns to Germany for a third straight year.
Their opponents and the dates of the games will be announced at a later date.
The Jaguars have been regular visitors to London since 2013 and played two games in the British capital in consecutive weeks in 2023. The Vikings last came to London in 2022 as the away team, beating the New Orleans Saints. The Bears’ last trip to Britain was a loss to the Oakland Raiders in 2019, also as the away team.
— Wire reports