2026-01-07 04:32:07
Ever since Lane Kiffin decided he couldn't win a championship at Ole Miss and departed for supposedly greener pastures at LSU, his former team has done its best to prove him wrong. In the face of the coaching chaos heading into the playoff, the Rebels have run over Tulane, bested Georgia, and now sit pretty in the semis with a winnable game against Miami. The unexpected nature of the run, and the convoluted college football calendar, means LSU's coaching staff, some of whom are still working for the Rebs, is short some major figureheads as it hits the recruiting trail ahead of Kiffin's first season. Though Kiffin was able to add a couple more assistants this week, offensive coordinator Charlie Weis Jr. and RBs coach Kevin Smith have headed back to Oxford to prepare for the Fiesta Bowl.
Kiffin would probably like people to believe that he is allowing all of this out of the kindness in his heart, but the reality is that the assistants have all the leverage here, freeing them to call their shots by coaching Ole Miss to a potential championship before parachuting away to their new jobs at LSU. New Ole Miss coach Pete Golding is trying not to focus on the uncertainty of who will or won't be coaching alongside him going forward. "I don't know. Do you know if you're going to show up at work tomorrow?" Golding told reporters. "I mean, we don't know. It's grown people making decisions, so I have no idea. We're going to go out there and spot the ball. We got plenty enough people in this building who showed up this morning. We'll be just fine."
2026-01-07 03:27:56
The Trae Young era in Atlanta appears to be over, and not in a way that will leave anyone happy.
The Hawks and their diminutive point guard—who can be a free agent this summer or exercise a $49 million one-year option—didn't agree to a contract extension in the offseason, leaving both sides with a great deal of uncertainty. The uncomfortable situation attained a kind of clarity when Young sprained his MCL in October and missed 22 games: This instantly made the Hawks better and more dynamic, because they no longer had to cover for Young's considerable defensive shortcomings. If Atlanta's front office still needed more evidence, they got it quickly thereafter, as the team lost and surrendered at least 126 points in the five games Young has played in since his return. Mercifully, ESPN's Shams Charania reported on Monday evening that Young's representatives are yanking the ripcord: In scoopster patois, the two sides "have begun positive and collaborative talks over the past week on finding a resolution."
2026-01-07 01:54:44
Kim Mulkey's weekend started out OK: The Baton Rouge crowd greeted her with applause on Thursday night as she held hands with Lane Kiffin and paraded the school’s new football coach around the court. (To assess the passage of time, consider that Ed Orgeron was the football coach greeting her as she stepped off the plane for her introductory press conference at LSU four years ago.) But the crowd died down. To begin conference play, her LSU Tigers are 0-2 after falling to Kentucky, 80-78, at home, then losing Sunday afternoon’s sloppy turnover fest at Vanderbilt, 65-61.
They also lost while looking very unlike a Mulkey team. In the past, the teams she’s coached have created huge margins for themselves by playing the possession game, forcing turnovers and winning battles on the glass. Both strategies, Mulkey said, were absent in the first two games of SEC play. After being killed on the glass by Kentucky—the Tigers were out-rebounded 45-29—LSU won the rebounding battle against Vanderbilt, but the Commodores showed that sometimes rebounding is simple matter of when and not how many. Five of Vanderbilt’s 14 offensive rebounds came in the last six minutes. “It’s an old term, but listen, guys, we're not tough enough,” Mulkey told reporters after the Vanderbilt loss. “You’re not tough enough to make a play when we need it, not tough enough to get that rebound when we need it.”
2026-01-07 01:35:37
Time for your weekly edition of the Defector Funbag. Got something on your mind? Email the Funbag. You can also read Drew over at SFGATE, and buy Drew’s books while you’re at it. Today, we're talking about football, auto wipers, road trips, and more.
Whoa hey, I’m back! Let’s see what happened while I was away. Well, my family and I went to Germany for the holidays, only for me to immediately come down with a case of the barfing flu. Then we got stranded in Frankfurt for two days after New Year’s thanks to a missed flight connection, then I had to split my family into separate traveling parties just to get us back stateside before 2029, and then we bombed Venezuela. What an exciting time to be alive. And barfing.
2026-01-07 00:49:14
This week's Nothing But Respect with comedian, writer, and actor Devon Walker was a fun, loose one. Topics discussed: Aaron Gordon's Dwyane Wade diss track "9 OUT OF 10"; the regrettable Kendrick Lamar GQ shoot; which SNL people can ball; the necessity of distinguishing a player's on-court swag from their off-court swag; which numbers are cool (55) and which are bad (anything above 40 "unless you have a good reason"); Veeze making fun of Tony Snell; and whether or not Tidjane Salaün's mini-surge is any of our problems.
2026-01-07 00:27:53
Fans of Michigan State basketball and Tom Izzo's coaching style love to talk about how valuable his confrontational style is to the program. Any instance of Izzo stepping over the line, even getting physical with a player, is metabolized as a necessary ingredient to success. Izzo just loves to mix it up with his guys, we're told, and loves when they mix it up with him.
It's fair to wonder how spending several developmental years around a guy who loves nothing more than screaming in a huddle might affect some of Izzo's players once they graduate. For example, the four years Paul Davis spent playing for the Spartans may have something to do with the fact that he is now the type of guy to yell nasty shit at a referee, earning himself an ejection from the arena and a public reprimand from Izzo.
