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This is an article version of the CBS Sports HQ AM Newsletter, the ultimate guide to every day in sports. You can sign up to get it in your inbox every weekday morning here.
Happy Friday, everyone! I’m fresh off watching 12+ hours of NCAA Tournament basketball, and I can’t wait to do it all again today on both the men’s and the women’s sides. Make sure to submit your women’s brackets, too!
Let’s get right to it.
🏀 Good morning to all, but especially to …
JOHN CALIPARI, THE (10) ARKANSAS RAZORBACKS AND THE (12) MCNEESE COWBOYS
John Calipari admitted he missed being an underdog. His team seemed to embrace it, too. (10) Arkansas defeated (7) Kansas, 79-72, behind wonderful performances from bigs Jonas Aidoo (22 points) and Trevon Brazile (11 points, 12 rebounds).
- This is surely a sweet victory for Calipari, who left Kentucky after a stunning first-round loss last year.
- It’s doubly sweet because it came against another coaching legend, Bill Self. Calipari fittingly passed Self with his 58th tournament win (fifth all-time) and joined Jay Wright as the only coaches to beat Self twice in the tournament.
- Calipari gets the chance to beat another legend: The Razorbacks play Rick Pitino’s (2) St. John’s tomorrow.
As for another coach making his own type of “legend,” Will Wade all but admitted he’ll be taking the NC State job once (11) McNeese‘s season ends.
But that end hasn’t arrived yet.
The Cowboys upset (6) Clemson, 69-67, a final score that belies the nature of the game. McNeese led by 24 before holding off a comeback attempt.
This was no fluke, either. The Cowboys hammered the paint (44 points) and the glass (18 offensive rebounds) and held Clemson to 13 points in the first half.
Wade’s disposition and his team’s talent are indicative of why NC State wants him so badly, Matt Norlander writes.
Here are more notable results:
- (5) Michigan outlasted (12) UC San Diego, 68-65, in a late-night thriller.
- Bennett Stirtz (21 points on 8 of 11) led (11) Drake over (6) Missouri, 67-57. His one-legged running 3 was a delight, and he landed among the winners in our winners and losers.
- Jamiya Neal (29 points) led (9) Creighton over (8) Louisville, 89-75.
- Here’s our recap of the entire day.
Here are the schedule and our expert picks for today’s action.
Honorable mentions
🏀 And not such a good morning for …
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THE (7) KANSAS JAYHAWKS …
Let’s start with some history:
- This is just the third time since the tournament expanded to 64 teams in 1985 that the preseason No. 1 failed to win an NCAA Tournament game.
- Kansas has been the preseason No. 1 five times and hasn’t made the Sweet 16 any of those times.
- This is the first time Kansas lost in the first round since 2006.
This Kansas team just never seemed right. There was so much talent both retained and acquired, but the Jayhawks couldn’t shoot and looked lackadaisical and disjointed offensively too often. That reared its ugly head again: Over the last 4:30, the Jayhawks had more turnovers (six) than points (five) as Arkansas finished on a 15-5 run. After 11 points in the first half, Hunter Dickinson had zero in the second half.
After a third consecutive first-weekend exit, something has to change. Kyle Boone has more on what went wrong and what’s next.
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… AND THE ACC
Downfalls, they say, come slowly and then all at once. ACC men’s basketball might not have completely fallen apart, but it’s certainly nowhere near the powerhouse it once was.
If producing just four tournament teams — its fewest since 2014 — wasn’t enough, the ACC is already down to two teams halfway through the first round. With Clemson losing to McNeese and Louisville losing to Creighton, the ACC’s final hopes are the traditional powers: (1) Duke and (11) North Carolina.
Even if both win, the ACC having two teams out of the final 32 would tie its fewest since the NCAA expanded to 32 teams in 1975.
From 2013-14 (when the ACC expanded to 15 teams) to 2020-21, no one had more NCAA Tournament teams (51) or second-round teams (34) than the ACC. But the upper and middle tiers of the conference have fallen off:
- The ACC’s last NCAA Tournament champion, Virginia in 2019, hasn’t won a tournament game since.
- Syracuse hasn’t made an NCAA Tournament in four straight years, its longest streak in over a half-century.
- Pittsburgh, a tournament regular for the first 15 years of the millennium, has missed seven of the last eight tournaments.
- None of the three latest additions — Stanford, Cal and SMU — made the tournament.
- Miami, Florida State, Notre Dame and Virginia Tech, all of whom had strong stretches in the past decade, were ACC cellar dwellers. NC State, fresh off a Cinderella Final Four run, fired its coach.
As for NC State’s (likely) next coach, Wade is crucial for the conference’s future, as are changes at Miami (Jai Lucas), Florida State (Luke Loucks) and Virginia (TBD).
But Thursday didn’t lie. The ACC Tournament runner-up getting pounded (in a quasi-home game) by the Big East Tournament runner-up and another top team becoming the first ACC program to lose to a Southland Conference opponent in the NCAA Tournament are bad looks.
The SEC also struggled, Dennis Dodd notes.
Not so honorable mentions
🏀 Women’s NCAA Tournament begins today: Buy or sell title contenders?
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The first round of the women’s NCAA Tournament opens today, and we’re playing buy or sell regarding the top title contenders.
There’s star power all over the place, especially with (1) USC‘s JuJu Watkins. Does she have enough help? Jack Maloney says …
- Maloney: “Kiki Iriafen puts up 18.2 points per game, but is the only other player scoring in double figures. And even though Watkins doesn’t have to do quite as much for her team this season, she was still third in the country in field goal attempts per game at 18.6 and scored for over 30% of the Trojans’ total points. … There’s a very real scenario where USC has to get through UConn, UCLA and South Carolina, the three favorites, to win a championship. Verdict: Sell“
There was a lot of consternation about the No. 1 seeds (shouldn’t they all be happy to be No. 1 seeds?), so Isabel Gonzalez ranked the No. 1 seeds as well.
⚽ USMNT loses to Panama in Concacaf Nations League semifinal
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Mauricio Pochettino says the USMNT can be the top team in the world within the next decade. Maybe they should start with beating Panama.
The Stars and Stripes fell, 1-0, to The Canal Men in the Concacaf Nations League semifinals in Los Angeles, another brutal loss for the U.S. Cecilio Waterman scored the stoppage-time winner, Panama’s only shot on goal all night. It was a stunning strike with a stunning celebration … with his idol, the legendary striker (and CBS Sports analyst) Thierry Henry.
It’s the first time the U.S. will not win the competition.
These losses all mix together. They’re shocking, but at this point, not surprising, and they follow the same script. The USMNT missed a bunch of chances and, despite dominating possession, lost. Josh Sargent hit a post, and Patrick Agyemang failed to convert a pair of massive chances.
Here are Chuck Booth’s player ratings. They’re not pretty. Still, even with the World Cup just over a year away, don’t abandon all hope, Chuck writes.
🏀 WNBA national TV schedule released
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The 2025 WNBA national TV schedule has arrived, with 20 games on CBS networks. Among the highlights are …
- May 24: Liberty at Fever, 1 p.m. on CBS/Paramount+
- May 24: Wings at Dream, 3 p.m. on CBS Sports Network
- June 7: Fever at Sky, 8 p.m. on CBS/Paramount+ (WNBA’s first regular season primetime game on national TV)
- June 22: Liberty at Storm, 7 p.m. on CBS Sports Network
- July 12: Valkyries at Aces, 4 p.m. on CBS/Paramount+
📺 What we’re watching this weekend
🏀 We’re watching the women’s NCAA Tournament. Here’s how.
🏀 We’re watching the men’s NCAA Tournament. Here’s how.
Friday
🏀 Rockets at Heat, 8 p.m. on NBA TV
🏀 Grizzlies at Clippers, 10:30 p.m. on NBA TV
Saturday
🏀 Warriors at Hawks, 7 p.m. on NBA TV
🏒 Red Wings at Golden Knights, 8 p.m. on ABC
🏀 Bucks at Kings, 10 p.m. on NBA TV
Sunday
⚽ USMNT vs. Canada, 6 p.m. on Paramount+
🏀 Thunder at Clippers, 9 p.m. on NBA TV
⚽ Panama vs. Mexico, 9:30 p.m. on Paramount+
