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Greetings on this Thursday in sports. We’re sad to report that, unfortunately, no NBA players scored 80 points last night. (But don’t worry, the discourse around Bam Adebayo’s 83-point outing on Tuesday will continue for many days to come, I’m sure.) There was still plenty to digest regardless, though, including Team USA managing to survive their manager not knowing the World Baseball Classic tiebreaker rules (🤦♂️) and advance anyway, thanks to Team Italy’s improbable undefeated run continuing. We’ll have more on the WBC quarterfinals in tomorrow’s edition, but today is an off day for baseball — clearing the deck for a lot of college basketball and more:
🗓️ TONIGHT’S DANCE
The Main Events
All listed times are Eastern.
NBA:
🏀 Sixers (11%) at Pistons (89%)* - 7 p.m. (Amazon Prime)
🏀 Nuggets (34%) at Spurs (66%) - 9 p.m.
🏀 Celtics (30%) at Thunder (70%) - 9:30 p.m. (Amazon Prime)
NHL:
🏒 Sharks (40%) at Bruins (60%) - 7 p.m. (ESPN+)
🏒 Capitals (33%) at Sabres (67%) - 7 p.m. (ESPN+)
🏒 Red Wings (34%) at Lightning (66%) - 7 p.m. (ESPN+)
🏒 Oilers (46%) at Stars (54%) - 8 p.m. (ESPN+)
🏒 Avalanche (65%) at Kraken (35%) - 10 p.m. (ESPN+)
College Hoops:
🏀 UMass (23%) vs. Miami (OH) (77%) - 11 a.m. (ESPN+), MAC tournament quarterfinal
🏀 Iowa State (69%) vs. Texas Tech (31%) - 12:30 p.m. (ESPN), Big 12 tournament quarterfinal
🏀 Men’s conference tournaments: ACC, Big 12, Big East, Mountain West, Big West, MAC, WAC, CUSA, SWAC, MEAC quarterfinals; Big Ten third round; SEC second round
🏀 Women’s conference tournaments: Southland championship; Northeast, Patriot League semifinals; American, Big West, CUSA, MEAC, SWAC quarterfinals; CAA second round; Missouri Valley first round
Soccer:
⚽ Europa League: Lille (30%) vs. Aston Villa (43%) - 1:45 p.m. (Paramount+)
Tennis:
🎾 BNP Paribas Open (Indian Wells) - Men’s: Carlos Alcaraz 62% to win; Women’s: Aryna Sabalenka 41% to win
Golf:
⛳ The Players Championship (Scottie Scheffler 16% to win)
Paralympics:
🏅 Event finals in Para alpine skiing (3x)
🏅 Competitions in Para ice hockey and wheelchair curling
🔍 FIND THE EDGE
He’s a player and he crushes a lot
Down in beautiful Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida, The Players Championship begins today — the PGA Tour’s annual showcase event held at the iconic Stadium Course at TPC Sawgrass. The Players is an interesting outlier in the pantheon of big-time golf tournaments: while not technically a major championship, it’s frequently referred to as the “fifth major” because it has all the trappings of one: a star-laden field (the top 50 players in the world rankings are guaranteed invites), a massive purse ($25 million, one of the highest on the Tour), and a rich history of winners (Jack Nicklaus is the all-time leader, and Tiger Woods is tied for second).
Against that backdrop, it makes perfect sense that golf’s man of the moment, Scottie Scheffler, would be the pretournament favorite in the prediction markets by a wide margin, as of Thursday morning:
Scheffler is far and away the best men’s golfer in the world, according to the Data Golf rankings, which use strokes gained to measure each player’s performance relative to the field per round, adjusted for strength of competition and weighted for recency. In fact, the gap between Scheffler and No. 2 Jon Rahm is the same as the gap from Rahm to No. 20 Shane Lowry. That helps explain why Scheffler went into the opening round this week with nearly 3x the win probability as second-ranked favorite Collin Morikawa. (Oh, and the fact that he won back-to-back Players titles in 2023 and 2024, before Rory McIlroy stopped his streak last season.)
But then again, Scheffler is the favorite in basically every tournament he enters. He’s the favorite to win the Masters — an actual major — in four weeks as well, but with even better odds (20%) than he has to win the Players now. As much as anything, that speaks to the difference between the two tournaments: the Masters has the prestige, history, and major-title imprimatur, but the Players is objectively harder to win, in part because of its deeper field of star competitors. Here’s a chart from my old colleague Josh Planos at FiveThirtyEight showing the odds to win each of the four majors — plus the Players — for an average PGA Tour golfer and/or a top 5 player by strokes gained:
Winning any golf tournament is hard — even Woods failed to win 77% of the tournaments he entered in his career. (Though a 23% win rate, including his later-career downturn, is admittedly WILD.) Winning this one is harder than most. But if Scheffler can do it, he would tie Nicklaus for the most victories ever at the Players, with three apiece.
📊 CHART OF THE DAY
Hockey hardware
The NHL’s regular season has about a month left to go, and that means players must make their closing statements for the league’s various awards races. In the prediction markets, some of the trophies already seem locked up — for instance, Polymarket has Islanders defenseman Matthew Schaefer as all but a lock (95%) to win Rookie of the Year, making him the biggest award favorite of the season right now. (Nathan MacKinnon isn’t too far off from that either, in terms of his grip on the Maurice “Rocket” Richard and Hart Memorial trophies for most goals and MVP, respectively.) But other races are a lot closer — check out the dead heat in the battle to be named the best goalie (Vezina Trophy), where leading candidates Ilya Sorokin and Andrei Vasilevskiy are tied at exactly 44% apiece:
❄️ STAY FROSTY
What else we’re reading
Smart, short reads we liked while building today’s odds.
🏀 “I’ve been avoiding my favorite NBA team” by Molly Morrison
🏈 “Kenneth Walker III is Exactly What the Chiefs Needed” by Nick Kehoe
🏁 “If it weren’t for bad luck… Diving into some of NASCAR’s miserable-misfortune moments ahead of Las Vegas” by NASCARCASM
🏀 “The Women’s Basketball Field Keeps Getting Better. So Does UConn.” by me
⚾ “What Kind of Encore Can Cal Raleigh Deliver After His Historic 60-Homer Season?” by Matt Musico
👀 EYES UP
Next on deck…
Friday (3/13)
⚾ WBC Quarterfinal: South Korea vs. Pool D winner
⚾ WBC Quarterfinal: Pool A runner-up vs. Pool B winner
🏀 NBA: Cavs at Mavs
🏀 NBA: T-Wolves at Warriors
🏒 NHL: Kings at Islanders
🏒 NHL: Oilers at Blues
🏀 MBB: ACC, Big 12, Big East, Mountain West, American, Atlantic 10, MAC, WAC, CUSA, SWAC, MEAC semifinals; Big Ten, SEC, Big West quarterfinals
🏀 WBB: America East championship; American, Big West, MAC, CUSA, MEAC, SWAC, WAC semifinals; CAA, Missouri Valley, Ivy League quarterfinals
⚽ NWSL: Washington Spirit vs. Portland Thorns FC
⛳ Golf: The Players Championship
🎾 Tennis: BNP Paribas Open (Indian Wells) - Women’s semifinals
Saturday (3/14)
⚾ WBC Quarterfinal: Pool B runner-up vs. Pool A winner
⚾ WBC Quarterfinal: Pool D runner-up vs. Japan
🏀 NBA: Hornets at Spurs
🏀 NBA: Wizards at Celtics
🏀 NBA: Nuggets at Lakers
🏀 NBA: Kings at Clippers
🏒 NHL: Bruins at Capitals
🏒 NHL: Maple Leafs at Sabres
🏀 MBB: ACC, Big 12, Big East, Mountain West, MAC, WAC, CUSA, MEAC championships; American, Atlantic 10, SEC, Big Ten, SWAC semifinals; Big West quarterfinals
🏀 WBB: American, Big West, MAC, CUSA, MEAC, SWAC, WAC, Ivy League championships; CAA, Missouri Valley semifinals
⚽ EPL: Arsenal vs. Everton
⚽ EPL: Chelsea vs. Newcastle United
⚽ EPL: West Ham United vs. Manchester City
⛳ Golf: The Players Championship
🥊 UFC Fight Night: Emmett vs. Vallejos
🎾 Tennis: BNP Paribas Open (Indian Wells) - Men’s semifinals
Sunday (3/15)
⚾ WBC Semifinals
🏀 NBA: T-Wolves at Thunder
🏀 NBA: Mavs at Cavs
🏀 NBA: Warriors at Knicks
🏒 NHL: Blues at Jets
🏒 NHL: Maple Leafs at Wild
🏀 CBB: ✨ Selection Sunday ✨
🏀 MBB: American, Atlantic 10, Big Ten, SEC, Ivy League championships
🏀 WBB: CAA, Missouri Valley, Northeast, Patriot League championships
⚽ EPL: Manchester United vs. Aston Villa
⛳ Golf: The Players Championship
🎾 Tennis: BNP Paribas Open (Indian Wells) - Men’s and women’s finals
🏁 F1: Heineken Chinese GP (Shanghai International Circuit)
🏁 NASCAR: Pennzoil 400 (Las Vegas Motor Speedway)
🏁 IndyCar: Java House Grand Prix of Arlington (Streets of Arlington)
🧠 Looking ahead
Stay tuned for more updates and in-depth analysis of these events and more as they unfold. We’ll be bringing you all the scores, highlights, and expert commentary.
Got a favorite team or sport you want us to cover more? Let us know!
All data current as of time of send.
— by Neil Paine
*Event contracts are offered through Robinhood Derivatives, LLC — probabilities referenced or sourced from KalshiEx LLC or ForecastEx LLC.