I Dig Sports
BARBERVILLE, Fla. Questions and fear swirled in Bill Balogs mind as he sat upside down in his sprint car.
Hed just flipped while running fourth at Volusia Speedway Parks DIRTcar Nationals. Pain burned in his right ankle. He feared the worst. But like most racers, his thoughts were only on the next race.
When I was in the car kind of upside down, I was trying to think if I could run the throttle pedal with my left foot on the next race because I thought my foot got ripped off, honestly, Balog explained. Or I wondered, Who am I going to hire to drive this thing?
World of Outlaws NOS Energy Drink Sprint Car officials carefully removed Balog from the No. 17b, and the North Pole Nightmare headed to the hospital. He expected his foot to be broken at the very least, but good news came from the doctor. Tissue damage and swelling was the extent of the injuries.
They did all the x-rays, and it wasnt broken, Balog said. It looked like a softball, and its still big. I mean, Im walking around fine on it and working. Its just a little bit sore.
It was a rapid, positive turn of events for the Hartland, Wis., resident. From thinking his foot was gone to learning there were no breaks. Fortunately for Balog, the only break was in the World of Outlaws calendar following the night of his crash. Three weeks off have allowed him enough time to rest and heal. Now, the season is set to resume, and Balog is ready to roll.
The Greatest Show on Dirt heads back to Volusia for the Bike Week JamboreeMarch 2-3.
Before his flip, the Balog and his team had ample reason for encouragement.
Balog qualified second quickest in his flight during the first full points night of the season. That led to a heat win and a personal best Volusia result of sixth in the feature. The following evening, he timed in seventh quickest before securing another top 10 in the main event. Saturdays finale looked as if it may be the highlight of his week. Despite drawing the very last pill for qualifying, Balog qualified second in the flight. He won his heat with a thrilling last-lap pass and finished third in the dash to line him up on row two of the feature. Then the crash ended a potential top five.
I feel like we learned a lot last year on the practice night, basically everything not to do, Balog said. We basically just rolled that setup into this new car with what we learned at Volusia, and it was really good. The car that we started with was a brand-new Triple X, and it scaled out really nice. Everything measured really good. We had some confidence that way.
The focus is fully back on Florida this week. Four-wheel and two-wheel worlds will collide as the countrys best sprint car drivers invade Bike Week at Volusia, kicking off a stretch of 17 consecutive weeks of racing for the World of Outlaws.
Balog had the window to heal. Now its time to hit the road again.
Im really looking forward to it, Balog said. I feel confident with what were doing with the car, definitely going in the right direction, and we want to carry that on to the other tracks.
ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. Dennis Hauger proved Friday afternoon why hes one of the more heralded rookies in recent Indy NXT by Firestone history.
Hauger, from Norway, led the first practice for the season-opening Grand Prix of St. Petersburg, turning a top lap of 1 minute, 5.2225 seconds in the No. 28 Rental Group car fielded by Andretti Global.
Haugers best lap was more than a half-second quicker than his closest pursuer, veteran Caio Collet at 1:05.7885 in the No. 76 HMD Motorsports car.
I got a good lap in the last run, but overall, theres still some things to work on, Hauger said. Its my first time out here in St. Pete, so Im still getting up to speed and figuring everything out on this track.
I think Andretti did a good job as a team and started the season in the right way. I just need to keep working with what I know now and focus on having a good day tomorrow.
Hauger joins the IndyCar development series this season after winning the FIA Formula 3 Championship in 2021 and earning five wins and 13 podium finishes in FIA Formula 2 the last official ladder step before Formula 1 in the last three seasons. He also served as a Red Bull Junior Driver for six years and was named a Red Bull Reserve Driver for the 2022 and 2023 Formula One season.
Myles Rowe was third at 1:05.9760 in the No. 99 Abel Motorsports with Force Indy car. Teammate and fellow series veteran Jordan Missig turned heads by ending up fourth at 1:05.9886 in the No. 48 Abel Motorsports car. Missigs best finish in five starts last season was ninth at World Wide Technology Raceway.
Veteran Salvador de Alba rounded out the top five at 1:05.9962 in the No. 27 Grupo Indi car fielded by Andretti Global, which matched Abel Motorsports with two drivers in the top five.
While Hauger built a gap out front, the rest of the 21-driver field was tight. Less than a second separated second-place Collet the top returning driver in the series this season and 13th-place Liam Sceats in the No. 30 HMD Motorsports car.
The red flag flew three times during the session, all for contact in separate incidents by rookie drivers.
Sophia Floersch did a quarter-spin in Turn 4 and backed into the tire barrier in her No. 24 HMD Motorsports car 29 minutes into the session. Floersch was unhurt, but the rear of the car suffered moderate damage.
Hailie Deegan then brushed the tire barrier in Turn 4 with the No. 38 HMD Motorsports car 35 minutes into the session. She drove to the pits after the incident and was unhurt.
Tommy Smith clipped the barrier in Turn 10 in his No. 16 HMD Motorsports car with two minutes remaining in the session, ending the session. Smith was unhurt, but the front of his machine suffered moderate damage.
Montreal Canadiens forward Kirby Dach will miss the rest of the season following right knee surgery, the team announced Friday.
Dach, 24, is expected to be ready for the start of next season. He tallied 22 points (10 goals, 12 assists) in 57 games this season.
It's the second straight season-ending knee injury for Dach, who sustained a torn ACL and MCL in the same knee in the second game of the 2023-24 campaign.
Dach has recorded 121 points (43 goals, 78 assists) in career 269 games with the Chicago Blackhawks (2019-22) and the Canadiens. Chicago drafted him with the No. 3 overall pick in 2019.
Bayern Munich fought back from a goal down to maintain their place at the top of the Bundesliga with a 3-1 victory at VfB Stuttgart on Friday.
The win keeps Bayern comfortably atop the Bundesliga with 61 points, 11 ahead of Bayer Leverkusen, though they have played one match more.
Stuttgart took the lead in the 34th minute through Angelo Stiller, who struck a left-footed shot into the top corner from the edge of the box.
In first half stoppage time, Bayern equalised as Michael Olise made a perfectly timed run and finished with ease.
Bayern turned the match around in the 64th minute when a quick-thinking Leon Goretzka intercepted the ball from a defender inside the box and calmly slotted it home to give the leaders a 2-1 lead.
Stuttgart made another mistake just before the end when Josha Vagnoman attempted to play the ball back to keeper Alexander Nubel, only for Kingsley Coman to intercept it and slot it in from distance to give Bayern their third and final goal.
Rodri returns to Man City training after ACL injury
Ballon d' Or winner Rodri has returned to individual training with Manchester City, boosting his prospects of playing again this season after suffering an ACL injury in September.
The Spain midfielder was initially expected to miss the rest of the season after suffering the knee injury in City's 2-2 draw with Arsenal on Sept. 22. However, he was seen back at City's training ground being put through drills in a video City put out on their social feeds, featuring the caption "on the road to recovery."
The absence of Rodri, who was awarded the Ballon d'or for 2024 after helping Man City win the Premier League title and Spain lift the Euro 2024 crown, has been keenly felt by Pep Guardiola's side.
On the road to recovery pic.twitter.com/WovR8p6417
Manchester City (@ManCity) February 28, 2025
Without his commanding presence, City have fallen 20 points behind Premier League leaders Liverpool and were knocked out of the Champions League by Real Madrid earlier this month.
Rodri has said he is targeting a return in time to feature at the Club World Cup, which begins for City on June 18. Guardiola, though, has previously urged caution with the 28-year-old's recovery.
"He's positive but I don't know to be honest. An ACL is an ACL," the City manager said last month. "Always I believe in long injuries there's a time you must respect because of the human body.
"The ACL is the ACL for every football player and every athlete so there is a time.
"[The] Most important [thing] for Rodri now is to recover well."
Turkey Süper Lig club Fenerbahce said on Friday they have filed a lawsuit against rival Galatasaray for an "attack on the personal rights" of coach Jose Mourinho.
Galatasaray accused Mourinho of making racist comments after Monday's Istanbul derby, saying in a statement that he had used "unequivocally inhumane rhetoric" after he referred to the opposition bench "jumping around like monkeys."
Fenerbahce rejected the accusation and said the comments were "deliberately taken entirely out of context and distorted in a misleading manner."
On Friday, they went further and said they had initiated legal action to recoup around $52,000 in damages.
"We would like to announce to the public that a lawsuit for moral damages of 1 million 907 thousand Turkish liras has been filed against Galatasaray Sports Club by Fenerbahçe Sports Club lawyers due to the attack on the personal rights of our Technical Director Jose Mourinho," Fenerbahce said in a statement.
The figure appeared to be a reference to Fenerbahce having been founded in 1907, a number that is on the club's crest.
Galatasaray said this week that Mourinho had "persistently issued derogatory statements directed towards the Turkish people" and intended to initiate criminal proceedings concerning the "racist statements" made by the Portuguese coach.
The Turkish Football Federation on Thursday handed Mourinho a four-match ban and fined him 1.6 million Turkish lira ($44,000) for comments made after about Turkish referees after the Galatasaray match.
In his post-match news conference Mourinho welcomed the decision to bring in a foreign referee -- Slovenian Slavko Vincic -- for the game and also praised the official for a "top performance."
Mourinho said he'd gone to see the referee and thank him following the game.
When he saw the fourth official, a Turkish referee, Mourinho said he told him: "If you are the referee ... would be a disaster."
Mourinho moved to Turkey from Roma last year after stints at high-profile clubs including Chelsea, Manchester United, Real Madrid and Inter Milan.
He was fined and suspended earlier in the season for a tirade against local match officials and the league.
Warwickshire appoint Manchester City's James Thomas as performance director
Thomas, who played rugby union professionally, was previously performance director at British Gymnastics for five years, and oversaw the sport's push for medals at the Tokyo Olympics.
Warwickshire's chief executive, Stuart Cain, said that Thomas' expertise would be utilised to "create something special" at the club.
"James is recognised in high performance sport as a real talent and has demonstrated ability to cross sports and quickly grasp what's important in order to deliver success," Cain said.
"We wanted someone with real strategic experience of creating world-class, successful performance environments. He's done that in football, arguably one of the toughest performance environments in world sport, and been equally successful with individual athletes in high-pressure Olympic sports.
"He's proved that he can move in to a new sport and quickly create a successful performance environment that leads to medals and trophies by developing the facilities and structures needed to create world-class players and teams.
"The cricket leadership team has more than 200 years of technical cricket experience and 75 years' experience of being a Bear. Combining this with James' expertise will create something special.
"He knows how to build teams as well as individuals that can handle high-pressure situations and deliver success. This was one of the areas of improvement identified in the recent high performance review.
"Having worked globally, he also understands the impact of other leagues on domestic structures, something we really need to get our head around as franchise cricket develops.
"The review also demonstrated our need to modernise the way we recruit and prepare for games with greater use of data and analysis. James has some really interesting ideas and plenty of experience in this space which will help us build more accountability and structure in to how we bring in and develop players, as well as create winning teams.
"He's also used to working with multiple coaches working across different disciplines in men's and women's sport. Another important consideration as he will be accountable for success across three different teams playing four different formats of the game.
"I think James' desire to become a Bear illustrates how the world of cricket is changing and professionalising as a global sport to rival football."
Although Thomas does not make the switch to Edgbaston until the summer, Warwickshire said he would spend time with the men's and women's squads in pre-season "as well as other leading names from the world of cricket" to prepare him for the role.
Thomas said: "I am delighted to take on the role of performance director at Warwickshire County Cricket Club. Throughout the recruitment process I was impressed by the club's desire to retain and celebrate its proud Bears culture, whilst embracing the opportunity to evolve and build a high-performance environment that's capable of achieving sustained, long term success.
"I am excited to meet the players, coaches and wider staff, as we look to work together to achieve extraordinary cricket performances in the future."
India wary of keeping bowlers fresh for semi-final, says Ryan ten Doeschate
New Zealand have also already qualified for the semi-finals and Sunday's match will decide the Group A topper.
"We've had two pretty tough training sessions, so that's been the preparation," ten Doeschate said. "In terms of the bench strength, I think the priority is making sure that we have our best guys available and fully fit for the second game [the semi-final on March 4].
"But we also don't want to rest them for another two days [India have had a week off]. So to get that balance right, we might just try to share the bowling out a little bit. But we obviously want to win against New Zealand as well. It's important that we keep that momentum going and obviously to top the group as well. So the balance of those two things I just mentioned [is] to be thought about."
Ten Doeschate also said he was happy with the rest his players have had since their last game against Pakistan on February 23.
"They've had a lot of rest now. But it's how you back the two games up. So if all the seamers are going to bowl 10 overs, and then say we bowl second in the first game, we're bowling 36 hours later, we're bowling first, that's quite a workload.
"So that's what I was alluding to. One of the options is to make sure the guys don't bowl their full quota of overs, if that opportunity allows itself. But we're ready to manage that in the field and try and keep the guys as fresh as possible for the first and the final."
Doeschate admitted that Sunday's match could be a contest of spin. "They [New Zealand] have [many] spinners as well, so it could be a contest of spin," he said.
"Coming into the competition, we weren't expecting such an over-reliance on spin. But the guys have bowled nicely and the pitch has helped a little bit, so I'm sure it's going to be the same for the next game here."
"KL has been good. He didn't get many chances... [But] we've got to keep Rishabh up and running. We never know when we're going to need him. But certainly to have two wicketkeepers of that calibre is a nice thing to have."
On whether scoring has been difficult on the Dubai pitch, he said, "I won't say difficult. I think we've become used to a standard where you score 320 without thinking too much about it. [Here] getting to 320 has been difficult.
"The pitch has played slightly differently, in my opinion, in those two games [against Bangladesh and Pakistan]. But they are probably like 280-290 pitches if you bat really well. So in the bigger picture, yeah, it's not like playing in Pakistan, where you expect to get 320-330. But you've got to adapt yourself and get a score that's good on these wickets. And we think it's right about 280-290, judging from the first two pitches."
Buttler goes down with the ship as England journey comes full circle
Though we did not know it at the time, that was the beginning of England's Bazball journey. Legend has it how, by degrees, the fates of England and McCullum would entwine and interlock: first, through his close personal friendship with his counterpart Eoin Morgan, who would adopt and adapt his mentor's aggressive methods to glorious effect for the 2019 World Cup, and then, in 2022, with the relaunch of the Test team under McCullum and Ben Stokes - essentially a transfusion of that new unfettered attitude from white ball to red.
Lest it be forgotten amid the navel-gazing, Buttler did achieve that aim magnificently at the first time of asking. And yet, even as he piloted England to the T20 World Cup in 2022, there were doubts as to whether he had placed his own stamp on the team that Morgan rebuilt, or simply pressed the right buttons and got the requisite response from men that he had already gone the journey with: Stokes and Adil Rashid chief among them.
These doubts were redoubled in 2023, when England's bid to get the 2019 band back together came such a spectacular cropper at the 50-over World Cup in India. And since then, even though McCullum's arrival as all-formats head coach implies a renewed focus on white-ball cricket, this winter's Ashes is surely the more pressing reason for the realignment. Irrespective of the setbacks in the short term, the consistency of messaging to the likes of Harry Brook, Jamie Smith and Ben Duckett, not to mention England's cohort of hard-worked fast bowlers, could yet be crucial in a legacy-defining campaign.
"There have been few players of Buttler's generation whose performances have seemed so dependent on his mood. His famous bat-handle message has long been a prop to remind him to snap out of it, but his innate pessimism was even in evidence in the Afghanistan defeat"
By the time of his ODI debut in February 2012, Buttler was already a star of the county one-day scene, having amassed 854 runs at 71.17 in his first two seasons with Somerset, including two Lord's finals. In an early example of the ECB's fretting about attention spans, the format back then was 40-overs not 50, and yet, as Matt Roller and Tim Wigmore noted in White Hot, their book about England's white-ball renaissance, this had the unexpected benefit of drawing out the players' aggressive tendencies, but not at the expense of technique and endurance.
By contrast, the advent of the Hundred has taken all such long-haul considerations out of the picture, and with it the very best players. Brook, Buttler's heir apparent, had not played a single List A game since May 2019 until his ODI debut against South Africa in 2023, and while Smith averaged 63.00 in Surrey's run to the One-Day Cup semi-final in 2021, his elevation to Hundred marquee status means he may never again feature in a competition that ticks over as a county development project in those overshadowed summer weeks.
It's hard, then, to blame Buttler if he has struggled to greet the advent of "white-ball Bazball" with anything like the same enthusiasm and optimism that Stokes dredged up for the red-ball project. There's next to no reason for a player who has achieved as much as he has, and with such a stellar cast alongside him, to believe that the best really is yet to come. Of his 2019 team-mates, only Rashid is performing at anything like the requisite level, and he is already 37. Buttler himself has made three fifties in 15 innings across formats since November, having missed five months with a calf injury.
Neat though the parallels may be, if Buttler, of all people, could not be persuaded to suspend his disbelief at the outset of this alliance, then who realistically could fill such a void? Ten years on from that tide-turning loss, this time England's standards may simply have sunk along with their skipper.
Andrew Miller is UK editor of ESPNcricinfo. @miller_cricket
Sources: Fresno athletes played DFS on own stats
Fresno State and the NCAA are investigating allegations that two men's basketball players participated in daily fantasy contests based on their own performances, according to multiple sources familiar with the matter.
The sources told ESPN that Mykell Robinson and associates bet and entered daily fantasy sports contests involving Fresno State games in which he played. The wagers and fantasy entries included the under on Robinson's points and rebounds, according to the sources. At least one major U.S. sportsbook received increased betting interest on Robinson's props in games this season, according to an industry source.
Robinson, a junior forward, was removed from the roster after playing in a Jan. 11 game against Nevada. Attempts to reach Robinson for comment were unsuccessful.
Fresno State senior guard Jalen Weaver told ESPN on Thursday that he played a daily fantasy contest on his points total in the Bulldogs' home game against New Mexico on Dec. 31. Weaver said he risked $50 that he would score more than 11 points on the fantasy site Sleeper. He finished with 13 points in a 103-89 loss to the Lobos.
"I just made a bad decision, and I shouldn't even have gotten involved with that. Now, I'm obviously paying for it," he said. "I bet on a game I played in, but I never tried to sabotage the season. I never bet on us to lose, never bet my unders."
Weaver said the Fresno State athletic department showed him a text thread between Robinson and himself discussing betting. Weaver said he has been dismissed from the team and plans to enter the transfer portal at the end of the season.
A third Fresno State player, sophomore guard Zaon Collins, was held out of the Air Force game last Saturday for allegedly betting on professional sports, according to multiple sources familiar with the investigation. An attorney representing Collins in another matter did not return multiple messages left by ESPN this week. Collins remains on the roster listed on the school website.
On Saturday, when the gambling inquiry was first reported, Fresno State said in a statement that Weaver and Collins were "being withheld from competition as the University reviews an eligibility matter."
A Fresno State official declined comment to ESPN, citing the ongoing investigation. The Mountain West Conference did not respond to multiple messages left by ESPN. The NCAA declined to comment on the investigation, citing confidentiality, but said in a statement that it continued to advocate for the banning of prop bets on individual college players. Prop bets, it said, "significantly threaten the college athletics environment -- risking competition integrity and targeting student-athletes for harassment."
"Sports betting issues are on the rise and while the Association, conferences and schools are doing everything possible to protect the games and the students who play them, it's clear the types of bets offered and the prevalence of unregulated betting markets impede our efforts," the NCAA said.
The NCAA prohibits student-athletes from participating in sports betting, including fantasy sports. Athletes found to have manipulated games, shared information with bettors or bet on their games can face a permanent loss of eligibility.
Before the Air Force game, Weaver and Collins were two of Fresno State's top three scorers, with averages of 12.5 and 12.0 points, respectively. Collins also led the team with 4.7 assists per game.
Multiple sources told ESPN the Fresno State case is not believed to be tied to a federal investigation into a gambling ring's links to suspicious betting on college basketball games.
ESPN has reported that betting accounts associated with the ring placed wagers deemed suspicious by bookmakers against Temple, Eastern Michigan, North Carolina A&T, Mississippi Valley State and the University of New Orleans over the past two seasons.
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