Sports

Women’s Final Four in Tampa: Betting favorite UConn joins 3 top seeds in South Carolina, UCLA and Texas.

Published

3 days ago

April 2, 2025

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (AP) — The women’s Final Four is full of star players, top seeds and historic programs.

There will be no Cinderellas in Tampa, Florida, this week with No. 1 seeds South Carolina, UCLA and Texas in the national semifinals. They are joined by the betting favorite to win it all, second-seeded UConn, which has been playing the best of any team over the past month and knocked off a top-seeded Southern California team that was missing its best player.

Coach Dawn Staley and the defending champion Gamecocks are making their fifth straight trip to the Final Four and are two victories away from becoming the first to repeat since UConn won four straight from 2013-16.

South Carolina will face Southeastern Conference foe Texas for the fourth time this season in one semifinal Friday night. UConn will play UCLA in the other.

The Huskies are back in the Final Four for the second straight year and and a record 24th time overall, and star Paige Bueckers is looking to bring coach Geno Auriemma his 12th title and first since that four-peat.

Top overall seed UCLA is playing in the Final Four of the women’s NCAA Tournament for the first time. The Bruins won a national title in 1978 in the pre-NCAA era of women’s basketball, led by Ann Meyers Drysdale, and returned to the Final Four the next year.

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Sports

Will The Trade Wars Impact John Fisher’s Las Vegas Stadium Plan?

Published

2 hours ago

April 5, 2025

Austin Reed

The planned Las Vegas Athletics’ stadium.

There is no groundbreaking ceremony planned.

Are there some nervous people in Las Vegas where a nearly two-year dance is taking place? The dance where Major League Baseball’s Athletics franchise owner John Fisher continues to look for a partner to help finance his planned baseball stadium in town. The trade war has suddenly made building a stadium much more costly and Fisher’s two companies’ stocks, The Gap and Levi’s, have been hit hard. Because of that wealth, Fisher has claimed that he and his family have the wherewithal to fund the stadium that is projected to cost about $1.75 billion. Nevada politicians have put aside $380 million to help Fisher fund the project.

The saga of the Las Vegas stadium has been going on since April 2023 when Fisher decided to leave Oakland and a stadium proposal on the Oakland waterfront behind. Nevada is giving Fisher $380 million in seed money for the construction. That is in the bank but none of that cash becomes available until Fisher spends $100 million on the planned ballpark. The ballpark’s estimated cost has gone up and figures to rise. It is now $1.75 billion. The park will seat about 33,000 people and the original plan was for Las Vegas tourists to stop by and see a game and not count on local fans as much as other franchise owners do in their home markets. Fisher could not or would not make a deal with city of Oakland officials to build a ballpark village at Howard Terminal overlooking the San Francisco Bay and just ended talks with the city and decided there was gold to be found in Las Vegas. Fisher’s team is temporarily in Sacramento and this is supposed to be a three-year run with Las Vegas getting the team when the new stadium opens in 2028. Fisher still has to put up money.

Evan Weiner’s books are available at iTunes – https://books.apple.com/us/author/evan-weiner/id595575191

Evan can be reached at evan_weiner@hotmail.com

Athletics’ owner John Fisher

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Sports

AI vs. pro gambler’s $1 million March Madness bet coming down to Duke and Houston

Published

3 hours ago

April 5, 2025

Austin Reed

SAN ANTONIO (AP) — The $1 million March Madness wager between a pro gambler and an artificial-intelligence site will be decided by the winner of the Duke-Houston game in the Final Four.

The Vegas bookies project the gambler, who picked 5 1/2-point favorite Duke, should win.

The AI platform 4C Predictions, which picked Houston, says that’s why its smarter than them.

The bottom line: both pro gambler Sean Perry and the 4C’s AI program have done very well over the first 60 games of the tournament. Perry has missed only 13 picks. AI has missed only 10. They both picked all the Final Four teams correctly.

Alan Levy, who runs the 4C site, says ChatGPT — who else? — says getting 50 of 60 correct places AI in the 95th percentile of all humans “which has gone beyond even what we expected at the start.”

The leaders in some of the multimillion-person bracket pools on ESPN, Yahoo and CBS are getting 55 or 56 picks right.

Both pickers chose Auburn to win in Saturday’s other semifinal. Though AI has gotten more right, it could still lose because the picks become worth more points as the tournament progresses.

The tournament has largely been a bust for people who love upsets — good news for both these brackets, which largely stayed away from picking them. Both had Memphis and St. John’s winning multiple games. Memphis fell to Colorado State in the first round and St. John’s was gone after the second.

Levy said he is still analyzing Perry’s offer to increase the bet to $10 million.

“My prediction?” Levy wrote in an email. “You’ll be joining me and the 4C team in all the celebrations” after Saturday’s game.

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AP March Madness bracket: https://apnews.com/hub/ncaa-mens-bracket and coverage: https://apnews.com/hub/march-madness. Get poll alerts and updates on the AP Top 25 throughout the season. Sign up here.

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Sports

Florida and Auburn face each other in a Final Four SEC showdown. Winner heads to the Championship game

Published

3 hours ago

April 5, 2025

Austin Reed

Florida Gators (34-4, 17-4 SEC) vs. Auburn Tigers (32-5, 16-4 SEC)

San Antonio; Saturday, 6:09 p.m. EDT on CBS

BETMGM SPORTSBOOK LINE: Gators -2.5; over/under is 159.5

BOTTOM LINE: No. 4 Auburn and No. 3 Florida play in the NCAA Tournament Final Four.

The Tigers are 16-4 against SEC opponents and 16-1 in non-conference play. Auburn is fifth in the SEC in rebounding averaging 34.5 rebounds. Johni Broome leads the Tigers with 10.9 boards.

The Gators are 17-4 in SEC play. Florida ranks sixth in the SEC shooting 35.7% from 3-point range.

Auburn averages 83.2 points, 13.5 more per game than the 69.7 Florida gives up. Florida scores 16.2 more points per game (85.4) than Auburn allows (69.2).

The teams meet for the second time this season. Florida won 90-81 in the last matchup on Feb. 8. Walter Clayton Jr. led Florida with 19 points, and Miles Kelly led Auburn with 22 points.

TOP PERFORMERS: Broome is averaging 18.7 points, 10.9 rebounds and 2.1 blocks for the Tigers. Tahaad Pettiford is averaging 13.7 points over the last 10 games.

Clayton is averaging 18.1 points and 4.1 assists for the Gators. Alijah Martin is averaging 13.9 points over the last 10 games.

LAST 10 GAMES: Tigers: 7-3, averaging 80.3 points, 31.7 rebounds, 15.3 assists, 5.7 steals and 4.5 blocks per game while shooting 46.8% from the field. Their opponents have averaged 71.9 points per game.

Gators: 10-0, averaging 90.6 points, 38.5 rebounds, 16.1 assists, 5.7 steals and 4.0 blocks per game while shooting 48.9% from the field. Their opponents have averaged 76.9 points.

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The Associated Press created this story using technology provided by Data Skrive and data from Sportradar.

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