After saying "No, gracias" to Mexico's Gold Cup squad, Carlos Vela faces FC Dallas with LAFC for the second time in four days. Also on Sunday, the struggling LA Galaxy look to get back to winning ways against Colorado. Elsewhere, Wayne Rooney makes his first visit to Texas when D.C. United faces Houston on Saturday.

Carlos stays home

One would be hard-pressed to think of a more mercurial relationship between a national team and player than Mexico and Carlos Vela. The Cancun-born striker has had a roller-coaster relationship with El Tri, providing some great moments, while at the same time turning down call-ups at various stages of his career. The latest "No, gracias" comes this week with his refusal to join Mexico's Gold Cup squad. While this is not good news for Mexico fans, LAFC backers certainly won't mind.

Whether it's the surfside living in Southern California or being on a good team where he scores lots of goals in front of an adoring fan base -- or probably both -- at age 30 it appears Vela has said enough when it comes to international commitments and just wants to stay put. So be it.

The Mexico striker is on a blistering scoring pace this season, with 13 goals through 13 games, and seven assists to boot. Days after beating FC Dallas 2-0, Vela and LAFC will hit the road to North Texas (Sunday, 7:30 p.m. ET; ESPN+) in what certainly could be a postseason matchup in the Western Conference come November.

Rooney rested and ready for Houston

It's that point in the season where midweek games really start to throw a wrench in the preparation plans of teams, but all things considered for D.C. United, Wednesday's 0-0 draw in Toronto was a near-best-case scenario.

Wayne Rooney, Luciano Acosta and Paul Arriola all took the first half off before coming on as a second-half substitutes, meaning they helped secure a road result and should be rested for Saturday's visit to Houston to face the Dynamo (8:30 p.m. ET, ESPN+).

It will be Rooney's first MLS match in Texas, and he's visiting at a good time. It is still early enough in the year that it won't feel like a sauna at BBVA Compass Stadium at kickoff; that experience will come on July 4 in Dallas. Hydrate now, Wayne.

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Meanwhile, the Dynamo continue to fly under the radar, which suits them just fine. As always, Houston is strong at home and have five wins and two draws in seven games in front of their own fans. Alberth Elis and Mauro Manotas are an unheralded duo capable of putting any defense to the sword. With Rooney and Acosta on one side and Elis and Manotas on the other, there will be a lot of attacking swagger on show in this one.

Galaxy look to bounce back vs. Colorado

After starting the season in bright fashion, the LA Galaxy have reverted to 2017-18 form in recent weeks with three straight losses. The worst one came last weekend at home against New York City FC in a 2-0 final.

Despite that letdown, the Galaxy can still call themselves fortunate as superstar Zlatan Ibrahimovic appears to have been given the let-off by the league after having grabbed NYCFC goalkeeper Sean Johnson by the neck in a late second-half skirmish. Normally, a red card would have been warranted and a fine and suspension would have followed, but the Swedish striker has avoided such a fate.

However, even if a punishment comes down in the next 24 to 48 hours, it still does not change the fact that the Galaxy are struggling in other areas. Jonathan dos Santos' absence for the past two matches has been felt, and a defense that gave up only eight goals in the first nine games has suddenly coughed up eight in the past three.

But for any team looking to get back on the right track, the Colorado Rapids seem to provide an outlet, and that's who the Galaxy will face on Sunday (8 p.m. ET, ESPN+). Still winless after 11 games and with only two points in the bank, the Rapids are absolutely dreadful, which is why it would be the most MLS thing ever for them to leave California with a win.

The 138th final of the FA Cup, the world's oldest club competition, pits all-star Premier League champions Manchester City against able underdogs Watford.

The odds may be heavily stacked in favour of Pep Guardiola's team, but there is enough cause to believe that Javi Gracia can mastermind a memorable upset that would be a fitting conclusion to what has been a thrilling tournament this season. Here's everything you need to know.

WHERE: Wembley Stadium, London (capacity 90,000)
WHEN: Saturday; noon ET, 5 p.m. UK (live on ESPN+)

BACKSTORY: This is Watford's second FA Cup final (35 years ago, they lost 2-0 to Everton) and for most of their history they've been a second-tier club, though since their most recent promotion to the Premier League in 2015 they've generally been solidly mid-table, finishing 11th this season.

Manchester City are arguably the best team in the world right now and, in English terms, have completed the most dominant two seasons ever, having gained 198 of a possible 228 in winning back-to-back titles. They retained the Carabao Cup this year and would complete an unprecedented domestic treble if they win this too.

MUSICAL ICON: Oasis' Noel Gallagher is a fixture at City games, and he led the title celebrations in the dressing room at Brighton. But Elton John has him trumped, despite having to miss the match to perform a concert in Copenhagen, Denmark. He was actually chairman of Watford on two occasions for a total of 16 years. Plus, his middle name is Hercules, whereas Gallagher's is a more mundane Thomas.

The @oasis classics were in full flow as @ManCity celebrated back-to-back @premierleague titles ? pic.twitter.com/gpA6sgFyx6

— ESPN UK (@ESPNUK) May 13, 2019

ROAD TO WEMBLEY: The FA Cup is a straight knockout competition, so luck and happenstance play a key role, especially since the rounds are one-legged: you only play the return leg if it's a draw through to the fourth round. City won all five of their games on the way to the final, but faced just two Premier League clubs (Burnley and Brighton) en route. Watford faced three top-flight clubs on the way (Crystal Palace, Newcastle United and Wolverhampton Wanderers) and only played at home once.

KEY COMEBACKS ON THE WAY: Watford had to come from two goals down in the semifinal to overcome Wolves 3-2 in extra time. Manchester City found themselves 2-0 down with 21 minutes to go away to second-tier Swansea in what would have been one of the shocks of the season. But they stormed back and grabbed a winner with two minutes to go, sealing a 3-2 victory.

KEY BATTLE: Abdoulaye Doucoure and Etienne Capoue vs. the Silva brothers

OK, the latter aren't actually brothers, they just have a chemistry and understanding that suggests either blood relations or extra-sensory perception. If City, as expected, have the bulk of possession and Watford raise the barricades, it will be up to Bernardo Silva and David Silva (or possibly Ilkay Gundogan, Kevin De Bruyne or Phil Foden -- yes, City have that many weapons) to break them down. Capoue and Doucoure form one of the best midfield duos in the Premier League, offering physicality, workrate and tactical nous. If City can't get through them, they'll need to figure out a way around them.

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X FACTOR, WATFORD: Gerard Deulofeu

He doesn't always start, but he has the unpredictability and one-on-one ability to create something out of nothing and, of course, his heroics in this very stadium in the semifinal are what got Watford here.

X FACTOR, MANCHESTER CITY: Leroy Sane

The fact that you can chuck the German roadrunner on the pitch late in games, against tired, glassy-eyed opponents is a huge boost. He gets in the box with the ball with an ease rarely seen at this level.

HEART AND SOUL, WATFORD: Troy Deeney

It's the ninth season at the club for this battering ram of a striker who leaves nothing on the pitch and has worked under 11 different managers. Not always the prettiest to watch, but his effort and underdog redemption story -- he spent time in prison for his involvement in a brawl when he was 22 and later passed the equivalent of a GED (General Educational Development) exam -- make him appealing to neutrals.

HEART AND SOUL, CITY: Raheem Sterling

His is also a redemption tale, though more a factor of how he was perceived rather than anything he did. Cruelly and unfairly lampooned as greedy and bling-obsessed when he moved from Liverpool to Manchester City, he is now adored in England and has established himself as a thoughtful commentator on social issues as well. At 24, his star is still rising ...

OLD TIMER, WATFORD: Heurelho Gomes

He's 38, he's no longer a regular, and he's meant to be leaving at the end of the season, even though Watford have asked him to stay another year. But he's immensely popular at the club and the chief cheerleader, whether he starts or not. Definitely one of the good guys.

OLD TIMER, MANCHESTER CITY: Vincent Kompany

He's been here for 11 years, pre-dating the Emirati owners and the transformation of Manchester City into a super-club. Once one of the best defenders in the world, he was slowed by injuries the past three years only to come roaring back this season with some vintage performances (and an improbable key goal against Leicester City) down the stretch. Articulate, bright and a natural leader, when (if?) he leaves then he can pretty much write his own ticket whatever he chooses to do.

WHAT WATFORD HAVE TO DO TO WIN IT: Impose themselves physically in midfield with the Doucoure-Capoue partnership. If, as expected, Gracia opts for two strikers, ensure that they pin back City's full-backs when not in possession and disrupt the build-up as much as possible. Exploit the size advantage on set pieces.

WHAT CITY HAVE TO DO TO WIN IT: Let their superior talent and know-how shine and carry them to victory. Do not get frustrated if the goals take time to come. Drop Sterling into central positions to wreak havoc if Watford pack the penalty box. Dominate the wide areas to stretch the opposition and create gaps for the midfield to exploit.

PREDICTION: Manchester City to win 3-1

It's a combination of nous and firepower. Watford can be very awkward to play against, so if things don't pan out early for City boss Guardiola he may need to find other solutions. Luckily for him, he has a whole array of options to call upon, either from the bench or simply by switching players around.

Big picture

On the eve of the World Cup, there's still time for a tune-up fight or two for a former champion as they gear up for the main event. In one corner, wearing purple and gold trunks, stands the Associate annihilator. Across the ring in the other corner, wearing plaid blue and white, stands the Associate on the rise.

Arguably no Full Member has feasted on global cricket's second-tier opposition more than Sri Lanka. The unorthodox styles of their various talents often pose an unsolvable riddle for Associates. It has meant Sri Lanka has especially enjoyed their fill when raiding European shores.

Before new-age England made 400 totals passe in their drive towards 2019, Sri Lanka's total of 443 for 9 against Netherlands at Amstelveen in 2006 stood as the ODI benchmark for more than a decade. Swinging the pendulum in the opposite direction, they humiliated the same opposition at the 2014 World T20 by bowling them out for 39.

They continued to show no mercy against Ireland on a visit to Malahide in 2016 by sprinting to 377 to close out a 2-0 sweep. The likes of Seekkugge Prasanna made up for lost time by striking 95 off 46 balls having entered the day with 193 runs in 23 career ODI innings.

But they arrive in Edinburgh having lost eight straight ODIs, including a 5-0 sweep at the hands of South Africa. If traditions are made to be broken, then Scotland helped end the wretched run for Associates against Sri Lanka with a seven-wicket win in an unofficial warm-up at Kent in 2017 leading into the Champions Trophy.

After two decades of futility against Test nations, that win became a catalyst to galvanise Scotland's playing group into seeing themselves as serious contenders. It gave them the belief that they no longer have to hope heavyweight opposition shows up overweight and out of shape to be vulnerable enough for a sucker-punch.

Scotland's players know that not only can they stand toe-to-toe and absorb a few stiff shots to the jaw or the ribs, but they have an incredibly effective jab and the ability to score points via power combos of their own through stinging uppercuts, crosses and hooks. They aren't afraid to stand in the middle of the ring and trade punches with a bloodied and bruised opponent, to wear them down and go all 12 rounds if not knock them down to the canvas. Just ask Zimbabwe, Afghanistan and a No. 1 ranked England.

Though Netherlands claimed the WCL Championship and a spot in the 13-team ODI Super League beginning next year, it is Scotland who have made an even more compelling case over the last two years to become the 13th Full Member by virtue of their sustained competitiveness against Test nations. That feistiness was on display once again last week in a two-run loss on DLS to Afghanistan. In fact, a win over Sri Lanka will tick off one of the ICC's defined criteria for applying for Full Membership: having three wins in ODIs or T20Is over top-10 ranked opposition inside 24 months.

That run of form since 2017 has put ringside seats in hot demand. Cricket Scotland announced on Thursday that the malleable capacity at The Grange, capped at 1500 with temporarily imported stands for this series, had sold out for the first ODI. The Stockbridge faithful and a loyal Sri Lankan traveling fan troupe await the ding-ding-ding of bat on ball to signal the opening bell.

Form guide

Scotland LWLLW (last five completed matches, most recent first) Sri Lanka LLLLL

I

n the spotlight

A former MCC Young Cricketer, wicketkeeper Matthew Cross had been simmering with the bat for several years before a breakout 106 not out as part of a 201-run opening stand with Kyle Coetzer in the seven-wicket warm-up win over Sri Lanka in 2017. He followed it with his maiden ODI ton last year, then another against UAE at the World Cup Qualifier in Zimbabwe. Though Kyle Coetzer gets most of the plaudits at the top of the order, Cross remains a threat.

Few players at the forthcoming World Cup find themselves in as strange a position as Dimuth Karunaratne. Not part of Sri Lanka's ODI side since the 2015 World Cup, he has been parachuted in as an emergency captain, following eight successive losses under Lasith Malinga. He must now not only band together a struggling team, but also prove his own worth in the XI. Whether the selectors made the correct choice in installing him as captain remains to be seen, but he will feel a lot better about his leadership if he can produce runs at the top of the order.

Team news

Scotland vice-captain Richie Berrington suffered a broken left pinky in the field after making unbeaten 170 off 145 balls on Monday playing for Western Warriors in Scotland's domestic 50-over competition. Dylan Budge has been drafted into the squad but Berrington's slot will more likely be a toss-up between specialist batsman Michael Jones or Michael Leask's all-round package.

Scotland XI (possible): 1 Kyle Coetzer (capt.), 2 Matthew Cross (wk), 3 Calum MacLeod, 4 Michael Jones, 5 George Munsey, 6 Craig Wallace, 7 Tom Sole, 8 Mark Watt, 9 Alasdair Evans, 10 Safyaan Sharif, 11 Brad Wheal.

It's difficult to pin down Sri Lanka's exact XI, but Lasith Malinga has not yet arrived in Scotland, having played in the IPL final last Sunday, giving an opportunity for some of the medium pacers to make a final argument for being in the first choice World Cup starting XI against New Zealand at Cardiff on June 1.

Sri Lanka (possible): 1 Dimuth Karunaratne (capt.), 2 Lahiru Thirimanne/Avishka Fernando, 3 Kusal Mendis, 4 Kusal Perera (wk), 5 Angelo Mathews, 6 Dhananjaya de Silva, 7 Thisara Perera, 8 Isuru Udana, 9 Suranga Lakmal, 10 Jeffrey Vandersay, 11 Nuwan Pradeep.

Pitch and conditions

Regardless of the finish being decided by Duckworth-Lewis, Scotland's first innings total of 325 looked below par in the loss to Afghanistan last week and the pitch may force bowlers to toil once more. The forecast is calling for rain in Edinburgh from midnight until 1 pm on match day, though the drainage at the Grange is excellent so the probability of completing a reduced-overs match is high.

Stats & Trivia

• Dimuth Karunaratne is one of the few players to have been in the XI on Sri Lanka's last visit to the Grange in 2011. Both he and Mahela Jayawardene made half-centuries opening the batting in Sri Lanka's 183-run win.

• The only other official ODI between the sides was at the 2015 World Cup, which Sri Lanka won by 148 runs.

• Calum MacLeod needs 47 runs to become the second Scotland batsman to cross 2000 runs in ODIs. Captain Kyle Coetzer became the first during his 79 last Friday against Afghanistan.

Quotes

"I think the thing we remember most about the match is the style of cricket we played. We talked about being aggressive with the ball and bat, stamping our authority on the game. It kind of kickstarted from there for everything that followed that so it was quite an important day in Scottish cricket." - Scotland wicketkeeper Matthew Cross reflects on the impact of their 2017 win over Sri Lanka

"We had a bad year for one-dayers but I think we did really well in the Test series. In South Africa, the major thing was team spirit. We played together. There was no senior-junior things. We played 11 as a team. So that sort of thing I want to get into the one-day side as well." - New ODI captain Dimuth Karunaratne on trying to end Sri Lanka's eight-match losing streak

Sri Lanka's national spin coach Piyal Wijetunge will be travelling with the A team to India later this month, with new head coach Roy Dias stressing on the need to get frontline spinners Akila Dananjaya and Lakshan Sandakan back and firing.

Wijetunge has been working closely with struggling Dananjaya after the off-spinner remodelled his action at the start of the year following an ICC ban. He has picked up just three wickets in his last seven limited-overs internationals. Wristspinner Sandakan, meanwhile, has picked up six wickets in nine ODIs since the start of last year, four of which came against Bangladesh and Zimbabwe in January 2018.

With both players missing out on Sri Lanka's World Cup squad, Dias believes having Wijetunge on tour will greatly benefit the pair, especially against a quality India A batting unit.

"Akila and Lakshan Sandakan are very important for Sri Lanka Cricket in the future, which is why Piyal is with me. The both of us will work together to make sure they come back strongly," explained Dias at media briefing in Colombo.

"[Akila has been] working on it [his action] with Piyal Wijetunge for some time now, and that's one of the main reasons we're taking him on the tour. This will also be an ideal tour for them because the Indian players are very good against spin, so we can see how they fare there."

Dananjaya, Dias revealed, has also been working on his batting, which going forward could provide an added route into the national side with the national selectors having previously stated their desire for more spin-bowling allrounders to choose from.

"Right now we have Lakshan Sandakan, Akila Dananjaya and Malinda Pushpakumara [as our frontline spinners on tour] but I wouldn't say they're spinning allrounders as such. Only person you can think as a spinning allrounder is Akila. Right now he's batting well, so most probably he can be a spinning allrounder for Sri Lanka."

On the injury front, Lasith Embuldeniya and Dushmantha Chameera have withdrawn from the squad. Embuldeniya, who had trained with the squad after recovering from a dislocated thumb, had shown some discomfort in the field, while Chameera suffered a recurrence of a niggling back injury. Embuldeniya will be replaced by Malinda Pushpakumara, while Chameera's replacement is yet to be decided.

"Lasith practiced with us and we felt that he's not 100 percent, we were worried about his fielding," Dias said. "There's this emerging team to South Africa and we thought that would be a good opportunity for him, especially after he had picked up five wickets there for the national side there recently.

"Chameera has picked up an injury as well, and we will need to select a replacement. He's most probably out of the whole tour. The prognosis is that he'll take at least two weeks to heal."

Sri Lanka will play two four-day games and five one-dayers over the three-week long tour, with the first four-day match set to take place in Belgaum on May 25. Both squads, which will be captained by Ashan Priyanjan, have a blend of international experience and youth with no less than 13 players having played for the national team.

However, while the team are going in with every intention of winning, Dias, who took over the reins last month, is hopeful of giving as much game time as possible to his new charges.

"The places that we're going to play it's the first time we're playing there, but we'll have two practice days so we can see what the wickets are like and decide on the composition of the team. Definitely our idea is to give everyone a game, because there's no point taking players and keeping them on the bench.

"We have five one-dayers, and just two four-day matches; it's not going to be easy to play everyone in those two games, but we'll try our best. Because this is the beginning for the most of them, especially guys like Pathum Nissanka, Kamindu Mendis, and also Sangeeth Cooray."

Four-Day Squad:

Ashan Priyanjan (Capt.), Pathum Nissanka, Sadeera Samarawickrama, Sangeeth Cooray, Bhanuka Rajapaksa, Kamindu Mendis, Priyamal Perera, Niroshan Dickwella, Akila Dananjaya, Lakshan Sandakan, Malinda Pushpakumara, Chamika Karunaratne, Vishwa Fernando, Asitha Fernando, Lahiru Kumara

One-Day Squad:

Ashan Priyanjan (Capt.), Danushka Gunathilaka, Niroshan Dickwella, Bhanuka Rajapaksa, Pathum Nissanka, Kamindu Mendis, Sadeera Samarawickrama, Shehan Jayasuriya, Dasun Shanaka, Akila Dananjaya, Lakshan Sandakan, Ishan Jayaratne, Chamika Karunaratne, Lahiru Kumara

Surrey 380 (Burns 107, Elgar 103) and 255 for 8 (Burns 78, Jacks 54) drew with Somerset 398 (Gregory 129*, Hildreth 90)

Rain ruined the prospect of an exciting finish to the County Championship match between Somerset and Surrey at Taunton, which ended tamely in a draw.

Only six overs were possible in the morning session before the umpires announced an early lunch. Surrey, who had begun the day on 152 for 5 in their second innings, leading by 134, progressed to 187 without losing a wicket.

Play did not resume until 2.15pm because of a wet outfield. Will Jacks reached a half-century but was out for 54. Somerset also dismissed Morne Morkel for 27 and Dean Elgar on 17 to leave Surrey at 247 for 8 by tea.

A total of 34 overs had been lost to the weather and only 33 remained to be bowled. Surrey were 229 runs ahead and the outcome certain before bad light, despite the new floodlights at the County Ground being on, interrupted the final session at 4.15pm. After 15 minutes, the players took the field again, only to shake hands two overs later with the visitors on 255 for 8, leading by 237.

Somerset took 11 points from the game, having won their opening two Championship matches, while title-holders Surrey claimed 12 points.

The first period of play saw nightwatchman Morkel, on nine, dropped by James Hildreth at first slip off Lewis Gregory with the total on 175.

Somerset could not afford such errors as Jacks, who had shown excellent temperament the previous day, progressed from his overnight 31 to a half-century off 84 balls.

Play ceased at 11.25am. On the resumption, Morkel, who had done his job, skied Jack Leach to long-on where Craig Overton took the catch.

For a short while it looked as though England left-arm spinner Leach might go through the Surrey tail, but the only real turn was out of the rough.

Jacks' impressive innings ended when Overton pinned him lbw with the total on 204 the over after Morkel had been dismissed.

Elgar, batting despite suffering from kidney stones, helped take the score to 235 before nicking a Tim Groenewald outswinger through to wicketkeeper Steve Davies.

At 247 for 8, Somerset took the second new ball, but by then any chance they had of forcing a win had long gone.

Rikki Clarke and Gareth Batty were soon facing the occasional leg-spin of Azhar Ali and medium pace of Somerset skipper Tom Abell as an excellent game reached a disappointing conclusion.

Jacks said it was a "frustrating way for the game to end".

"We felt that we could get a big enough total on the board to exert some pressure," Jacks said. "I have been short of a few runs recently, so it was nice to contribute a decent score.

"It was tough batting last night, but having Rory Burns at the other end playing brilliantly was a big help to me. In the end we have come out of a decent performance with 12 points and can move on with confidence."

© ESPN Sports Media Ltd.

Yorkshire 210 (Milnes 3-63) and 469 (Ballance 159, Leaning 69) beat Kent 296 (Robinson 103, Crawley 81, Coad 3-66) and 211 (Coad 6-52) by 172 runs

Prolonged Kent resistance eventually counted for little as Yorkshire's persistent attack mopped up the seven wickets required to secure a 172-run Specsavers County Championship win in Canterbury. Facing an improbable victory target of 384, the hosts did superbly well to take the match into its final session before White Rose seamer Ben Coad mopped up the tail with a season's best 6 for 52.

The fourth day started with a stoical fourth-wicket stand between Daniel Bell-Drummond and Fred Klaassen which frustrated the Tykes' attack throughout the opening session in adding 54 runs inside 34 overs either side of lunch. Yorkshire finally broke through soon after the resumption when Klassen, the 26-year-old nightwatchman making his Championship debut for Kent, steered one from Duanne Olivier to second slip to end his two-and-a-half hour, 110-ball stay for 13.

Hampered by the loss of Tim Bresnan to a calf injury - the former England seamer slipped over when delivering his first ball of day and limped off after completing only two overs - Yorkshire's attack continued to chip away to pick up three more wickets in the mid-session.

Interim Kent captain Heino Kuhn, who has one first-class fifty to date this season, went for a seven-ball duck when nicking to second slip after an ugly, low-handed defensive prod. Bell-Drummond, who offered two chances that were both dropped in the cordon by Lyth, moved past 5000 first-class career runs during his 170-minute stay and was nine short of a battling fifty when he played across one from Steven Patterson to go lbw.

Then, after being checked out for concussion following a fearsome blow on the helmet from an Olivier bouncer, Kent's first innings century-maker Ollie Robinson drove a slower ball away-swinger from Coad to Gary Ballance at cover to make it 142 for 7.

Alex Blake and Harry Podmore resisted for 22 overs either side of tea until the introduction of offspinner Jack Leaning accounted for Blake, leg before when prodding outside the line of an arm-ball. With 24 overs remaining Yorkshire took the second new ball through Coad and Olivier, but Podmore and Matt Milnes continued Kent's defiance into the final hour of the match.

Moments later, Coad ran one up the slope to pluck out Podmore's middle stump for 29, scored in a shade under two hours then, in his next over same bowler had last man Mitch Claydon caught at short leg to secure victory with 15.1 overs to spare.

Coad led the bowling plaudits with six wickets, two go with his two previous five-wicket hauls this summer, and Olivier 2 for 92 in clinching unbeaten Yorkshire's second win of the campaign that takes them to second spot in the table. After their second defeat on returning to Division One Kent slip to fifth.

© ESPN Sports Media Ltd.

Former UFC champion Tyron Woodley has been forced to withdraw from a welterweight bout against Robbie Lawler on June 29 due to a hand injury, sources said.

Woodley (19-4-1) was supposed to headline UFC Fight Night in Minneapolis opposite Lawler (28-13). UFC is seeking a replacement to keep Lawler on the card.

There is no immediate time frame for Woodley's return. The 37-year-old underwent surgery on his right hand last year, due to a dislocated thumb.

Sources said Woodley is scheduled to see a hand specialist next week.

Fighting out of St. Louis, Woodley surrendered his 170-pound championship to Kamaru Usman at UFC 235 in March. The June 29 bout against Lawler was supposed to be a rematch of a 2016 welterweight title fight, which Woodley won via first-round knockout.

Five-star senior Precious Achiuwa announced his commitment to Memphis on Friday, giving coach Penny Hardaway and the Tigers the No. 1 recruiting class in the country.

Achiuwa, who is Memphis' fourth commitment in the past week, chose the Tigers over Kansas, although he also took an official visit to North Carolina.

A 6-foot-9 forward from New York who attends Montverde Academy (Florida), Achiuwa is ranked No. 17 in the ESPN 100. He slots in as the No. 5 power forward in the country but will likely play small forward at the next level.

Achiuwa is a high-level athlete with long arms, agile feet and good positional size. He has tremendous value on the defensive end of the floor, where he is capable of guarding the pick-and-roll, moving his feet laterally on the perimeter and even serving as a secondary rim protector. On offense, Achiuwa is most effective in transition, where he runs the floor extremely well, is quick off his feet as a finisher and can play through contact.

He earned McDonald's All American honors this season and was the most productive player in March's game with 22 points and nine rebounds in 17 minutes off the bench. He also averaged 14.5 points and 8.1 rebounds per game for New Heights on the Under Armour Association circuit last spring and summer.

Hardaway now has the No. 1 class in his first full recruiting cycle as Memphis coach. Achiuwa joins a loaded group that includes No. 1 overall prospect James Wiseman, five-star forward D.J. Jeffries (No. 25), ESPN 100 four-stars Rejean "Boogie" Ellis (No. 38), Lester Quinones (No. 81) and Malcolm Dandridge (No. 100), and local four-star prospect Damian Baugh.

Memphis also landed Little Rock graduate transfer Rayjon Tucker, who was ranked No. 2 in ESPN's transfer rankings.

The Tigers are now likely out of scholarships for the 2019-20 season, but they had been in the mix for elite guard R.J. Hampton (No. 5) and five-star forward Trendon Watford (No. 19).

ESPN recruiting analyst Adam Finkelstein contributed to this report.

OWINGS MILLS, Md. -- The Baltimore Ravens continued a busy second wave of free agency, striking deals Friday with two former first-round picks in pass-rusher Shane Ray and wide receiver Michael Floyd.

Floyd signed with the team Friday, it was announced. Ray's deal is pending a physical, a source told ESPN. Both are expected to be one-year deals. This comes one day after the Ravens brought back Pernell McPhee to help last year's top-ranked defense get to the quarterback.

Pass rush and wide receiver are considered the two biggest needs for the defending AFC North champions. Before they added Ray and McPhee, the only player currently on the Ravens' roster with more than seven career sacks was Matthew Judon (19).

Floyd will add competition to an extremely young wide receiver group, which had only three wideouts who had caught an NFL pass. The 29-year-old Floyd, the 13th overall pick in the 2012 draft, is on his fifth team in as many years.

He had 10 catches for 100 yards and one touchdown last season for Washington.

The Ravens lost Za'Darius Smith and Terrell Suggs, their top two sack leaders, via free agency this offseason. Baltimore had shown interest in Justin Houston and Ezekiel Ansah before they signed elsewhere.

Ray's time with the Broncos, which began with such promise, ended on a sour note, as he was a game-day inactive for the final three games of the 2018 season.

He played just 33 percent of the Broncos' defensive snaps last season, finishing with one sack. That came on the heels of 2017, when Ray had three surgical procedures on his wrist before going on injured reserve after 11 games.

Ray, who turns 26 on Saturday, has had just 26 tackles and two sacks in 19 games over the past two seasons.

His vocational life changed plenty as soon as Denver drafted Bradley Chubb with the No. 5 overall pick in 2018. Chubb was quickly put into the starting defense, opposite Von Miller, during training camp, and there were few snaps left behind.

"I still have a lot of football left in me," Ray said after the season. "I think some of my best football is still in front of me."

Ray, a first-round pick (23rd overall) in 2015, will have to prove whether those wrist surgeries have robbed him of the ability he showed in 2016, when he had 48 tackles and eight sacks in part-time duty. After that season, he was expected to team with Miller as the Broncos' top pass-rushing tandem following DeMarcus Ware's retirement.

ESPN's Jeff Legwold contributed to this report.

"DO YOU REMEMBER Timmy Timlin?" Steph Curry's college coach asks. We're sitting in a bar in Davidson, North Carolina, Bob McKillop and I, each of us working on an afternoon beer.

"Of course," I say. "He was a god."

Timmy Timlin was the senior starting quarterback when I was a junior third-stringer at Holy Trinity High School in Hicksville, New York. He also pitched for the baseball team and went on to play Division I football and baseball in college.

"Well," McKillop says, with a wince and a head shake, "I'm the reason he didn't play basketball."

It's February, and McKillop is about to complete his 30th season as the basketball coach at Davidson College. I have come to speak with him because Curry has said McKillop is a reason he did play D1 basketball, and also a reason he has been able to revolutionize the sport.

Although a stickler for discipline and a guardian of tradition, McKillop decided to let Curry shoot at Davidson with an abandon that he has never relinquished and that an emerging generation has now taken as its birthright.

But he doesn't want to talk about Steph's shot. "He had the shot when he came here," McKillop says. "I had nothing to do with it." He talks instead about something that happened 45 years ago, something that happened at the Catholic high school on Long Island where he was not just Tim Timlin's coach but also my history teacher.

STEPH'S SHOTS ARE sudden. They might come with crossover prelude and flamboyant aftermath, but the shots themselves are accomplished so quickly and with such a minimum of fuss that they amount to a kind of violence. He runs and finds space in the corner; he catches a pass and shoots, and the ball leaves his extended fingers with an elaborate spin but also a contained arc, somehow falling into the net the way a drop of water falls into the ocean, the splash straight up. He shoots so often, with such determined frequency, that's it's hard to figure out when and why he stops, but now, at the end of a practice, when he sits down at the end of the bench and puts a towel over his head, the towel is a signal. He sits with reporters who have scheduled time with him, and when the reporters leave, he sits alone. He is the last Warrior at practice, but another practice begins, and he watches, his covered head bowed as if in prayer - he watches the court fill with kids who are not yet in middle school and who all try to shoot like he does.

Great athletes come and great athletes go, their exploits written in the history of the games they play. But a few - a very few - change the way their games are played. Steph found his own version of the game that is perfect for his era, and basketball will never be the same. "Everywhere you look, you see kids lining up to shoot 5 feet behind the line," Warriors coach Steve Kerr says. But how does change happen? How does an idea make its way into the dreams of boys and girls who might not even know whose example they are following? How did the jump shot become a belief?

I went to see Bob McKillop to ask these questions. He is 68 now, blue-eyed and dapper. I met him when he was 25 and teaching a high school course called Sports and American Society, which I was lucky enough to take. I was a middling football player and student, but he insisted that the games had meaning and the meaning was ours to decipher. He had us read Ball Four by Jim Bouton, Bob Lipsyte in the Sunday Times and Harry Edwards on John Carlos and Tommie Smith. And he taught us something that has stayed with me ever since - that if we learned to think critically about sports we could think critically about anything.

McKillop left Holy Trinity two years after I did. He won five state championships at another Long Island high school and became the head coach of Davidson in 1989. He never taught in a classroom again, but he taught Curry enough to prepare him for a career redefining the question of distance, something he could teach only after learning his own sometimes painful lessons.

STEPH IS THE unlikeliest of everymen. It is, of course, supposed to be essential to his influence that he is not a giant, that he is inspirational because he is relatable. People watch LeBron James and want to be LeBron James. People watch Steph Curry and want to take 35-foot jump shots.

In person, though, there is no mistaking him for anything but what he is: the rarest of birds. On the court, he is vaguely Chaplinesque, an epochal player with an underdog's mystique, indomitable rather than dominant, his assassin's timing masked by his comic presence; in front of his locker, where I speak to him at the end of the regular season, he is as radiantly self-contained as a sculpture, his body cashew-colored and nearly hairless, not so much slight as put together with a craftsmanship that doesn't allow for an ounce of excess. With his hard bop beard, he has the air of a born outsider who has willed himself into the very center of things, and his extraordinary eyes behave the way he behaves during games: They're furtive until they're not; he doesn't look at you until he does.

"When did you first meet Bob McKillop?" I ask.

"I was 11," he says. "I played AAU baseball with his son Brendan. I knew he coached college basketball and I knew where Davidson was, but I didn't know anything about his legacy until high school, and I heard his name during recruiting time. I did some research and I was like, 'I know him.'"

"What did you learn from him?"

"Everything."

"Everything?"

"He gave me all the confidence in the world, in terms of what I could be - in terms of being a man, the balance of on-the-court and off-the-court expectations. He was an example of that every day, and we had no choice but to follow suit."

"What did he tell you to give you confidence?"

"He told me when I was a freshman that I had license to shoot any shot I wanted but I'd have to work for it. I'd have to put in the time and actually commit to learning on the job. Even when I failed early freshman year, he stayed in my ear because he saw my potential before I did."

"What did he learn from you?"

"You'd have to ask him. But we were all in uncharted territory. He had been in the [NCAA] tournament a bunch of times but had never won a game until we started winning in 2008. Getting him over the hump was all the motivation we needed."

"Are you his legacy?"

"No. No. He is part of mine, but his name is basically synonymous with Davidson basketball. He had opportunities to go elsewhere, but he stayed there, he stayed there, and at a school with basically 1,900 students, look at what he's built."

McKILLOP CAME TO Davidson the same year John M. Belk Arena opened. He has won more than 500 games since, and now the Wildcats play on McKillop Court. He has aged not just gracefully but into the status of local institution, the town of Davidson as aware of the basketball coach's ritual - his solitary walk from his house to the arena before every home game - as NBA fans are aware of Steph's meticulously elaborate pregame warm-up. In February, when Davidson plays Saint Joseph's, he has the look of eminence - his hair is white, and he wears a sharply tailored black suit with a white shirt and a purple tie - but there is nothing complacent about him. He taps his shined black dress shoes with street-corner impatience. He flaps his arms like a giant flightless bird when trying to get the attention of his players and paces in front of the bench like a lifeguard teaching a pool full of drowning men to swim. He doesn't use a whistle at practice because he wants his team tuned to his voice, and now his voice is audible above the roar of the crowd, raised to a plaintive shriek. He is exactly as I remembered him, exactly what he has always been - the son of a New York City cop who grew up in Queens, played ball on Long Island and was a member in good standing of the coaching cabal that arose out of New York's ethnic diaspora. He is a hustler, the kind of coach who might have used a school like Davidson merely as a steppingstone to the big time. But he wound up using it for something else entirely, and now, at a game televised on ESPN, neither he nor his team is the main event.

Steph is.

Curry has returned because 23 miles south of Davidson, in his hometown of Charlotte, it is NBA All-Star weekend. But he has also returned because he is in the habit of returning, and he has made championing his old school and his old coach one of his causes. He has rented a coffee shop on the campus that he is making available as a gathering place for Davidson's basketball program. He has used his relationship with Under Armour to provide the team with new uniforms emblazoned with Day-Glo logos. He shows up at the Saint Joseph's game wearing his familiar No. 30 and sits courtside with his former college roommate and current business partner Bryant Barr, both of them with the letters "TCC" - after one of McKillop's motivational mottos, "Trust, Commitment and Care" - tattooed on their left wrists. He stands, he cheers, he dances, and for long stretches of time he seems to disappear.

"Even when I failed early freshman year, he stayed in my ear because he saw my potential before I did."

Steph Curry on Bob McKillop

When Curry was at Davidson, he was known for his sense of mischief and for his love of playing hide-and-seek, and he has incorporated that aspect of himself into the elaborate choreography of his game and his life. He endures the eye of the camera for most of the hours he spends at McKillop Court, but reporters repeatedly crane their necks and ask, "Is he still here?" He is the most accommodating of ghosts, and when he celebrates Davidson's come-from-behind victory by climbing into the student section, it is as much an act of will as it is of spontaneity. He is never out of control, but with mosh pit bravado he throws himself into a bunch of frat boys bumping and grinding in nothing but black bikini underwear. All around him, students dance and take pictures and rattle Easter Islandy cardboard cutouts of his face.

WHEN I MEET Bob McKillop for a beer the day after Davidson beats Saint Joseph's, it's the first time I've spoken to him since 1976. The game I'd seen the night before counts as evidence that he coaches an entirely different sport from the one he coached at Holy Trinity, for it could be neatly summarized in terms of each team's success in making 3-point shots. Saint Joseph's was hot in the first half and then got cold; Davidson was cold in the first half and then got hot. But it is when I ask McKillop what he told his team at halftime that I begin to learn what change really means, and that it has nothing and everything to do with the 3-point line.

"I told them to keep playing," he says. "'They were hot in the first half, but they're going to get tired, and they're going to cool off. You're still the better team. Keep playing and you'll have the opportunity to win.'"

It was not the kind of speech he'd have given at Holy Trinity, or even at the start of his career at Davidson. It's the kind of speech he had to learn to give - the kind of speech his players have taught him to give, over time. You see, the biggest change in basketball has less to do with the game itself than with the culture in which it's played and the kids who play it. They're different, McKillop says, because anxiety is such a reality in their lives - because they require greater sensitivity and greater attention to the balance between love and discipline. "You have to be careful about what you say to them," he says. "You have to give them reassurance. The things that you experienced as a player back at Holy Trinity could never happen today."

And that's when he asks, "Do you remember Timmy Timlin?"

It was 1974. Timlin was a shooter with a Prince Valiant haircut, and when he came late for practice, McKillop thought he saw arrogance. "I had to be the tough guy," he says. "I had to be the hard-ass. So I made him run suicides. I made him run until he said, 'Coach, I can't run anymore.' I said, 'Are you quitting this team?' He said, 'I'm not quitting. I just can't run anymore.' 'Then you're quitting,' I said, and when he showed up at the next practice I said, 'What are you doing here? Don't you remember? You quit the team.'"

Coaching is a lot like parenting - you can't do it without making mistakes. But some mistakes you can't forget, and for McKillop, Tim Timlin is one of them. "Because apparently he doesn't forget either. I've been told that every time we play, he checks the score, and it makes his day if we end up on the wrong side of the ledger."

NO COACH HAS had to teach Steph how to shoot. Steph's father, Dell Curry, did that, because he made his living as a shooter in the NBA. But every coach has had to contend with Steph's shot-has had to figure out a way to harness its disruptive force without disrupting his team. When Steph was playing high school ball at Charlotte Christian, his coach, Shonn Brown, had to call him in for a meeting: "We said, 'Steph, we need you to score. We need you to shoot more.' He said, 'But what are the guys on the team going to think? I'm a point guard.' We finally said, 'Hey, four shots a quarter. Sixteen a game. Because I think you're going to make at least half of them, if not more.'"

When Steve Kerr became head coach at Golden State, he had to address a variation on the same theme: "My first year of coaching him, he's taking shots night after night that every coach I ever had would have called horrible shots. And they were horrible shots for every player in the history of the game until Steph Curry. And I realized before too long that Steph was going to take some crazy shots and they were going to look insane and I was going to feel silly for allowing my player to take shots like that and oh yeah, he's at about 45 percent from 3. So finally I just realized I had to get my old coaches out of my head, and this guy is a new deal who's different from anyone else who's played the game, and I have to not only allow what he does but accommodate it."

When Steph came to Davidson, McKillop didn't see only that Steph had a unique facility for the jump shot. He saw how Steph saw. He ran in loops instead of straight lines; he changed pace; he had the ability to live simultaneously in the moment and three or four steps ahead of everybody else and then use his mastery of time to find space, "stop on a dime" and release the ball as soon as he caught it.

"I thought we had a game changer," McKillop says. "You never think of it as revolutionary as it's going on. You're just thinking he's the right guy taking the right shot at the right time because he's making it."

Curry's career at Davidson included an NCAA tournament run to the Elite Eight and positioned him to be the seventh pick in the NBA draft. But it was not just that he had nearly absolute license to shoot it - "license to drive down one-way streets, license to drive down dirt roads," McKillop says. It was that he had to earn his license by being a good teammate. He sets picks, grabs rebounds, makes layups, gets assists and gives credit. "He's a superstar who is as accommodating as a 12th man," Kerr says. "When he's on the court, he has the confidence of Superman, but when you get in the locker room or a meeting, he's unbelievably humble and accommodating to everybody, and that manifests itself in allowing everybody to play at their best."

Shooters aren't always leaders. But Steph has had to be, because his teams were built around him and he had to find a way to help build them. He had to learn to lead from the outside and to somehow play a role both centrifugal and cohesive. His jump shot is an athletic event. But it wouldn't have changed the game unless it were a social one as well.

HE IS NOT the only Warrior with a shot. Kevin Durant has a shot. Klay Thompson has the purest stroke on the team. But crowds don't gather to watch them shoot before games. They don't bring their children so that later on their children will be able to say that they watched a player of historical import. They don't continually take photos and shoot videos. They don't come early and wait for KD and Klay the way they come early and fill a portion of the arena waiting for Steph.

It's as if the culture were waiting for Steph by the time he showed up and started erasing the distinction between a good shot and a bad one. Everything has favored the 3-point shot since the game migrated from the unsupervised playground, with its steel backboards and netless rims, to the youth league gymnasium, with its routine maintenance and omnipresent expertise. Rule changes favored the 3-pointer. Analytics favored the 3-pointer. Technology favored the 3-pointer, and so did SportsCenter.

Steph became the emblem not only for the 3-point shot but for the changes that had begun overtaking the game long before his arrival. Tonight, when he makes his entrance for the pregame warm-up that has been his ritual since he joined Golden State, it is easy to see why. He not only is the greatest jump shooter the game has ever seen; he still wants to be the greatest jump shooter the game has ever seen and has never been shy about putting in the work or putting on a show. It is impossible to say whether he works on his mystique as assiduously as he works on his shot. But he gives the people waiting for him at Oakland's Oracle what they want, walking out to the floor with the hood up and the sleeves cut on his blue sweatshirt and black shooter's sleeves compressing his knobby knees and his sneakers so streamlined they look like slides. He generally covers his head whenever he can, with a hood or with a towel, and this touch of concealment lends him many looks, since it opens him up to interpretation. There's the beatnik and the desert prophet, the comedian and the ninja. And when the cowl comes down and he goes out on the court, insouciantly flipping short one-handed shots into the bucket, there's the child.

"This guy is different from anyone else who's played the game, and I have to not only allow what he does but accommodate it."

Steve Kerr

He shoots in the company of Warriors assistant coach Bruce Fraser, a lanky, silver-bearded Californian known as Q, for his habit of asking questions and his openness to metaphysical speculation. Fraser passes Steph the ball and challenges him on each shot. He has seen Steph make 77 3-point shots in a row. He is more intimate with the physicality of Steph's shot than any other person alive. "It's all about torque," he says. "There's a physics equation involved in being able to generate that kind of power on demand. Steph's arms are not big. But it's not about how strong your arms are, it's about being able to generate force and to finish at the right time, without losing feel."

After Steph makes a series of shots from midrange - off the dribble at the top of the key - he goes to half court for the series of shots that is the centerpiece of both his workout and his exhibition. He has to make five from the jump circle, two of them on the move. The crowd optimistically cheers each ball as it spins through the air. He never flings or hoists a shot, no matter where he is on the court. "He has perfected not only that accuracy but being able to generate that kind of power from any kind of distance," Fraser says, and so the court contracts around him, and his shot is always his shot. It always looks the same, an elaborate pantomime that expresses itself with a maximum of concision.

Did he have to want to change the game in order to change it? "I don't think he sat in his room in Charlotte, North Carolina, and said, 'I'm going to change the game,'" Fraser says. "That would be like a guy saying, 'I want to be cool.' Steph is cool because Steph is always true to his shot." Yet he has to be aware of the effect he has on people, if only because people gather around him wherever he goes to cheer his distance from the basket. "He does not talk about his impact, because he knows that his story is still being written," says his business partner Bryant Barr. "But he is aware of how change happens. He has been accused of ruining the game. But 'Ruin the Game' is the term we use in our business. We've trademarked it."

And that's Steph - he has found a way to be true to his shot and at the same time true to his trademark, because by this time everything he does is his trademark, including the finale of his warm-up. It was something he started back in Davidson, back when he was first realizing the power not just of his talent but of his license. He would shoot from the tunnel so that all people would see of him - all the other team would see of him - was the ball flying into the basket. People crowd around the mouth of the tunnel, tracking the flight of the ball with their smartphones, trying to catch a glimpse of the invisible man shooting it, cheering shots that emerge from the tunnel like pieces of ordnance, each one aimed unerringly at the heart of the game.

McKILLOP HAD A chance to go home to Queens in 1998, back to where his mentor, Lou Carnesecca, had become a legend. He interviewed for an opening at St. John's but didn't get the job.

He got Steph instead.

"Is Steph your legacy?" I ask him. He is one of the most respected coaches in the game, on the NCAA's competition committee. He coached both of his sons at Davidson and is coaching with his son Matt now. He never worked again as a schoolteacher after leaving Holy Trinity, but I wouldn't have been surprised if he'd told me that his legacy consisted of teaching Sports and American Society the rest of his life.

"Absolutely," he says. "In Roman Catholic terms, he's my imprimatur."

It is an ancient term for the stamp of approval the Vatican put on books approved for print.

"Without my imprimatur," he says, "I'd still be considered a bastard."

"YOU CAN LOOK up the clip on YouTube," Steve Kerr says. "Steph took a shot against the Clippers, and it was one of the craziest shots I've ever seen. He dribbled through four people, he dribbled backwards, was looking in the other direction from the top of the key, and he just turned around and nailed the 3. And I'm on the sidelines, sort of pulling my hair out, and the cameras caught me - the game was on national TV. But he makes it, and from that moment on, I'm like, 'All right, I've got to accept it.'"

That was March 2015, and since then, of course, Kerr is not the only coach to accept the extravagance of a gifted shooter, and Steph Curry is not the only shooter gifted enough to be extravagant. The anxiety of Steph's influence has given way to the liberation of Steph's influence, and the license Bob McKillop granted Steph a dozen years ago has been extended all over the league so that now he has rivals for 3-point preeminence, like James Harden, and also descendants - "Trae Young is definitely one of Steph's descendants," Kerr says. And when Damian Lillard ended Portland's first-round playoff series against Oklahoma City in April with a 37-foot shot at the buzzer, he made the man defending him look not only bad but atavistic. "That's a bad shot, I don't care what anybody says," the Thunder's Paul George complained after the game.

But to appreciate the extent to which Steph has changed the game, think only of where the game might go next - of how far it can go next. Is basketball being played at the limits of human possibility, or does it keep going with no respect for the once seemingly gravitational obstacle of distance? "I don't know - is there life on other planets?" Bruce Fraser asks. McKillop thinks about his uncle Richie, who had a "spectacular two-handed set shot. I used to play him in H-O-R-S-E. I was a much better player than he was, but I couldn't beat him because the two-handed set shot had an almost unlimited range. And that's where I think we'll see the new frontier in shooting - some of the old shots, taken from much farther out."

"Did you think of Uncle Richie when you first saw Steph?" I ask him.

"I thought of everybody," he says. "It was the culmination of all my exposures."

I HAD NOT spoken to him since I warmed the bench for him in football. But when I find Tim Timlin on Long Island and ask if he remembers Bob McKillop, he answers as though he had been waiting for the question. "I loved him," he says. "He coached me when I was playing JV ball, and I was his leading scorer. ... But he asked me to quit football and devote myself to basketball, and when I told him no, he shook his head and that was it. I could never go to a game after that. My insides turned over every time I stepped in the gym. And that's never gone away."

I tell him about what McKillop had said about him - about how his memory of what he'd done to Timlin had not only stayed with him but changed him, and how much those changes mattered when another great shooter came along.

Timlin listens. "I forgive the guy," he says. "I was supposed to forgive him a long time ago. And the beauty of this is God giving me the chance to be a better man. It's about time I forgive him and start rooting for him a little bit. Tell him that for me."

I do, and McKillop shakes his head, his creased face still unmistakably the kind of Irish Catholic face I grew up with, the face of the choirboy, the face of the cop, the face of the coach, the face of the confessional. "I should have told him I'm sorry a long time ago," he says. "It's one of those scars I have as coach. Believe me, I have a lot of scars. You just don't think sometimes - you don't realize the weight of your words. But you keep learning, even if sometimes the learning is painful. One of the things that has helped me in coaching is the kids today. They're different. If Tim Timlin was my player today, what I would do is still throw him out of practice but then the next day ask him to come and meet with me and explain to him what I was thinking and what I need from him instead of being the tough-guy-in-charge basketball coach who's going to make a statement about him and win that war."

He shakes his head again that same way, as if recovering from a slap or trying to snap himself out of a sleep. Then he smiles.

"Tim Timlin, he could really shoot it. You got his phone number by any chance?"