Category: SPORTS

Tiana Mangakahia, who was identified for her exact passing and unbelievable playmaking skills whereas starring for Syracuse’s girls’s basketball staff, died on Thursday on the age of 30 after a prolonged battle with most cancers.

Her dying was introduced in a put up on her Instagram account and likewise confirmed by Syracuse athletics. The put up on her Instagram mentioned: “Tiana was a shining gentle who touched the lives of everybody she met along with her kindness, energy, and heat. She fought proper until the very finish, displaying braveness and charm past phrases.”

In a put up dated Sept. 3, Mangakahia introduced that her well being had “taken a destructive flip” and her most cancers had “progressed” inflicting her to expertise “vital bodily decline.”

Mangakahia’s public battle with most cancers started when she was a junior at Syracuse. A local of Queensland, Australia, she got here to the U.S. to play first at Hutchinson Neighborhood School in Kansas, after which transferred to upstate New York to affix the Orange, then coached by Quentin Hillsman. She shortly established herself as an electrical level guard with a excessive basketball IQ and very good courtroom imaginative and prescient. As a sophomore, she led the nation in assists with 9.8 per recreation. Since 2009, the one faculty participant to common extra assists in a single season was Courtney Vandersloot in 2011.

In her first two seasons at Syracuse, Mangakahia additionally led the NCAA in help price, posting marks of 60.4 and 51.7. Since 2009, there have solely been 4 seasons recorded by gamers (who’ve performed in at the least 20 video games and at the least 20 minutes per recreation) with help charges greater than 50 p.c. Mangakahia owns two of them, Caitlin Clark has one, and the fourth belongs to Dequesha McClanahan of Winthrop, in keeping with Her Hoop Stats.

Throughout each of these seasons, Mangakahia helped lead the Orange to the NCAA Event.

Then her first most cancers prognosis surfaced. In November 2019, she underwent a double mastectomy whereas battling stage 2 grade 3 invasive ductal carcinoma — a type of breast most cancers — which prompted her to overlook the 2019-20 season.

Mangakahia courageously returned to the courtroom the next season although, averaging 11.5 factors and seven.2 assists per recreation, once more guiding the Orange into March Insanity. And as soon as once more, she was second nationally in assists per recreation.

“If anybody has 600-plus days off, and comes again and leads the nation in assists, that’s an incredible accomplishment. I don’t even know what to say (about that),” Hillsman mentioned again in February 2021, shortly after Mangakahia introduced she wouldn’t use her additional yr of collegiate eligibility and would flip professional as an alternative. “Tiana has been what she’s all the time been: very regular, attempting to steer our staff by instance and taking part in the toughest she will be able to play.”

Mangakahia left Syracuse because the proprietor of a number of program and ACC information. She is the ACC’s all-time chief in profession assists per recreation (8.7), help proportion (52.8) and free throw proportion (87.3). She’s Syracuse’s all-time chief in complete assists with 736, which is fourth-best in ACC historical past. A two-time All-ACC First Workforce choice, a two-time WBCA All-American and a two-time Lieberman Award finalist, she additionally holds single-game Syracuse information in assists (17) and free throws made (20). Mangakahia can be the proprietor of the ACC Event single recreation assists report with 13 vs. Miami in 2019.

In the NCAA report books, Mangakahia’s profession help common is fifth-best all-time and the very best of any collegiate participant this century — simply .44 proportion factors higher than what Vandersloot posted at Gonzaga.

She went unselected within the 2021 WNBA Draft, however joined the Phoenix Mercury briefly for coaching camp earlier than being waived. Mangakahia then launched into a global professional profession with stops in Russia, France and her native Australia. In 2022, she was named to the All-Star 5 and MVP of the North in NBL1. Mangakahia additionally featured for the Australian nationwide staff within the 2021 FIBA Asia Cup, serving to the Opals win a bronze medal.

Mangakahia had introduced her retirement in 2023 after her breast most cancers had progressed to stage 4, however she returned to the courtroom earlier this yr in NBL1 and averaged 12.1 factors and three.6 assists per recreation. She had meant to play within the upcoming season too, signing with the New Zealand-based Tokomanawa Queens.

“Tiana outlined braveness, inspiration, and keenness,” Syracuse athletic director John Wildhack mentioned in a press release. “An All-American on the basketball courtroom, she was a good higher particular person off the courtroom. She was type, thoughtful, caring, and all the time uplifting even throughout probably the most difficult of instances.”

Present Syracuse coach Felisha Legette-Jack known as Mangakahia the “final fighter.”

Many others around the globe of girls’s basketball supplied feedback too. Indiana Fever star Sophie Cunningham — who crossed paths with Mangakahia in Phoenix’s 2021 coaching camp — mentioned she was “all the time so candy with the brightest smile.” North Carolina coach Courtney Banghart wrote that Mangakahia was, “An incredible competitor, a real chief, and all the time a category act.”

Rhode Island coach Tammi Reiss, who was a Syracuse assistant throughout Mangakahia’s first two seasons, mentioned she may “play that (level guard) place like no different.”

David Stern dominated the NBA with an iron fist. Throughout his first decade as Stern’s successor, Adam Silver has ruled with a slap on the wrist.

Silver obtained a fastball down the center to start his tenure as NBA commissioner when he banned Donald Sterling for all times and compelled him to promote the Los Angeles Clippers after recordings of racist feedback had been surfaced by TMZ. Steve Ballmer purchased the franchise from Sterling’s spouse for a cool $2 billion, within the course of smashing the document for a franchise sale and accelerating the worth of groups across the league.

Ballmer is without doubt one of the 10 richest males on the earth, and by far the richest proprietor within the NBA. He might have finished something he needed together with his cash, and he selected to make Los Angeles’ different NBA workforce a world-class group that would appeal to superstars and compete with the Lakers for a future marketshare of town’s coronary heart.

Ballmer’s huge second arrived in 2019 when the Clippers signed Kawhi Leonard and traded for Paul George in a single fell swoop. Leonard had simply led the Toronto Raptors to an unbelievable championship, and his entry to the Clippers appeared to instantly make them the league’s title favorites. Ballmer would spare no expense to construct a unbelievable entrance workplace, rent the sport’s high coaches, and finally, construct a state-of-the-art area that his workforce didn’t have to share with the Lakers.

Ballmer was the dream proprietor for any kind of fan: he valued successful above anything, threw his wealth round with no hesitation, and spared no expense not simply in constructing the roster, but additionally creating an elite group from high to backside. In a league with out a wage cap, it’s simple to think about Ballmer angling for contracts much like the one Cristiano Ronaldo signed in Saudi Arabia.

After all, the Clippers haven’t been capable of waltz right into a championship like Ballmer hoped. Leonard has not often been out there since signing with the membership, the Paul George commerce that despatched Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and the decide that changed into Jalen Williams again to Oklahoma Metropolis is an all-time catastrophe, and the workforce has solely received three playoff collection in six seasons.

The Clippers’ latest failures actually aren’t for an absence of attempting. Now the entire league is questioning if Los Angeles tried to win so badly that it skirted the league’s most necessary guidelines.

Journalist Pablo Torre uncovered a bombshell final week with a report of alleged wage cap circumvention to re-sign Leonard again in 2021. My colleague James Dator already lined the small print of the report, however the brief model is that Ballmer invested $50 million in a carbon emissions offset firm referred to as Aspiration, Aspiration agreed to a $300 million sponsorship take care of the Clippers, after which Leonard conform to an endorsement contract with Aspiration that paid him $28 million over 4 years.

What’s so fishy a couple of workforce sponsor signing a star participant to an endorsement deal? On this case, it’s two issues particularly:

The Clippers have already issued two statements on the matter even earlier than Ballmer went on TV to do a sitdown interview with Ramona Shelburne. The NBA has responded by hiring the nation’s No. 1 regulation agency to research the Clippers simply because it units to host a board of governors assembly in New York this week.

Torre’s reporting didn’t uncover a smoking gun, ie: a chunk of paper that claims “Steve Ballmer gave cash to Aspiration to redirect to Kawhi as a result of he might solely pay him a lot on a max wage.” The Clippers have some believable deniability right here for those who squint arduous sufficient. On the similar time, there’s no motive Leonard ought to have been paid an additional $7 million per 12 months for a no-show endorsement gig the corporate couldn’t even hassle to publicize, even explicitly stating in his contract that he had veto energy over all the pieces.

The NBA wants to return down arduous on the Clippers — and no, that doesn’t imply booting Ballmer from the league. Because the league investigation into Torre’s allegations begins, there are already a couple of the explanation why the Clippers are already responsible to some extent.

The NBA doesn’t want a smoking gun to punish the Clippers

Zach Lowe did a few of the greatest evaluation on the Ballmer allegations on his podcast. Lowe discovered the passage within the CBA that claims the league can punish the Clippers with circumstantial proof.

Such an settlement with a sponsor or enterprise associate or third social gathering could also be inferred the place: (i) such compensation from the sponsor or enterprise associate or third social gathering is considerably in extra of the honest market worth of any companies to be rendered by the participant for such sponsor or enterprise associate or third social gathering; and (ii) the Compensation within the Participant Contract between the participant and the Staff is considerably under the honest market worth of such Contract.

Associated to part 2-Unauthorized Agreements which includes “(A) At no time shall there be any agreements or transactions of any sort… (iii) involving an funding or enterprise alternative to be furnished or made out there by, to, or for the good thing about the participant”

A violation of Part 2(a) or 2(b) above could also be confirmed by direct or circumstantial proof, together with*, however not restricted to, proof {that a} Participant Contract or any time period or provision thereof* can not rationally be defined within the absence of conduct violative of Part 2(a) or 2(b).

The Clippers’ preliminary assertion referred to as Torre’s claims “provably false” however they’ve but to share something that reveals it. There’s already greater than sufficient circumstantial proof to suit the factors for a punishment simply primarily based off what Torre discovered.

Leonard’s camp was investigated for improper advantages earlier than

The NBA investigated claims that Leonard’s camp, led by his uncle Dennis Robertson, requested franchises for improper advantages throughout his 2019 free company. Right here’s what The Athletic’s Sam Amick wrote in 2019: “Sources say the league was advised that Robertson requested workforce officers for half possession of the workforce, a non-public aircraft that might be out there always, a home and — final however actually not least — a assured quantity of off-court endorsement cash that they may anticipate if Leonard performed for his or her workforce.”

Right here’s a line of context from Amick:

Whereas sources with data of the investigation stated no proof was discovered indicating that the Clippers had granted any of the lavish requests, the underlying message coming from Commissioner Adam Silver stays: He sees wage cap circumvention as a cardinal sin within the NBA, and can at all times preserve a watchful eye on that entrance. If any related proof of improper advantages surfaces sooner or later, the league will re-open the investigation and pursue the fees but once more.

A report by the Toronto Star’s Bruce Arthur on Tuesday alleged that Leonard’s camp requested the Raptors for a slice of possession of the Toronto Maple Leafs, plus $10 million further per 12 months assured endorsement earnings throughout their free agent negotiations in 2019. John Karalis of Boston Sports activities Journal additionally uncovered that Leonard was promised a further $20 million in inventory that he by no means obtained — basically lining up completely with Ballmer’s funding. The place there’s smoke, there’s often hearth. There’s been plenty of smoke with Kawhi and Uncle Dennis, and it positive looks as if Torre uncovered the lacking piece of the NBA’s preliminary investigation.

This is the reason the brand new CBA has the second-apron

Not all billionaires are created equal. Within the newest CBA, the house owners realized they wanted the higher tiers of the luxurious tax wanted to return with extra punitive measures than simply extra cash. In the present day, the second-apron limits might set off actual obstacles for team-building, together with freezing draft picks and being unable to mixture salaries in trades. The NBA put this into place so house owners like Ballmer and Joe Lacob of the Warriors couldn’t simply spend their option to success. This positive seems to be like Ballmer discovered a option to go across the very measures put in place to discourage lavish spending.

A cynic might say that possibly some faction of the house owners pushed for the second-apron simply to get an excuse for conserving payroll down. House owners like Jerry Reinsdorf of the Chicago Bulls get an eight-figure handout each season only for not paying the luxurious tax. If the NBA is to function below a guise of equity, going round to cap to monetarily reward a star participant actually must be the ‘cardinal sin’ silver as soon as referenced.

The NBA wants to discourage future house owners from cap circumvention

The NBA has opened up extra avenues for franchise investments lately as valuations soared into the billions. The NBA has began to embrace non-public fairness, pension and endowment funds, and even sovereign wealth funds for minority shares. The Celtics had been purchased for $6.1 billion this summer season, whereas the Lakers had been bought for $10 billion by Mark Walter.

What’s to cease new possession teams from bending the principles even additional if Ballmer solely will get a slap on the wrist? The league has already determined to take tampering critically sufficient to dock second spherical picks and ensure free company offers don’t get introduced from the second the moratorium begins. It felt like these punishments had been extra about optics. There’s an optics issue to the Ballmer allegations, too, but it surely’s additionally way more of a aggressive benefit than anything franchises have tried through the years.

What’s a good punishment?

The cap circumvention penalties in right now’s CBA aren’t practically as punitive as what the Timberwolves confronted following the Joe Smith fiasco, once they had been docked 5 first-round picks (two had been returned on attraction) and Smith’s contract was voided. Proper now, it seems fines as much as $10 million, the lack of a first-round decide, and voiding Leonard’s deal is the most punishment, doubtlessly with a suspension for Ballmer or Clippers higher-ups thrown in.

That appears proper to me. The positive doesn’t imply something to Ballmer — it basically quantities to alter discovered within the cushion for him. The lack of a first-round decide is an actual deterrent and can complicate the Clippers’ team-building plans going ahead. The Clippers not-so-secretly will attempt to make one other huge free agent splash as this period of the workforce with Leonard and James Harden phases out. The Clippers will likely be swinging for his or her subsequent franchise star within the coming years the identical manner they did with Kawhi. In the event that they solely get a slap on the wrist, what’s to cease them or one other huge market bully from attempting to drag off an analogous scheme?

Silver hasn’t precisely precisely earned a fame as a swift enforcer. A home abuser like Miles Bridges basically earned solely a ten sport suspension after the league stated the primary 20 video games of his suspension counted whereas he was unsigned the earlier 12 months. He hasn’t finished sufficient to discourage tanking regardless of some powerful discuss, and the one time he actually dropped the hammer appeared like an overstep — when Ja Morant stored posting movies of himself waving weapons on social media in a hid carry state and obtained a 25-game suspension.

Silver works for the opposite 29 house owners. How these house owners really feel concerning the Ballmer allegations will go a great distance towards figuring out the punishment. Silver’s job is each to generate income for the league and uphold its integrity. It’s the second half that’s threatened by Torre’s report. Ballmer has unquestionably been a terrific proprietor for the NBA. You may make a simple argument that it’s not within the league’s greatest curiosity to present him an enormous punishment. That is actually a query of integrity, and what the NBA can do to guard it. Taking away two future first-round picks and making an instance out of the Clippers could be a very good first step to attempting to stop this from occurring once more.

It’s tough to recollect the final nice second that Virginia Tech soccer had, the place the Hokies entered the nationwide dialog in a optimistic method, the place they introduced Lane Stadium to a roar, the place we had been reminded of what this system was beneath Frank Beamer.

Was it a win over Tulane within the 2023 Navy Bowl? That was an excellent day, however not an exceptionally nice one. It in all probability was, nonetheless, the final time the parents in Blacksburg felt all heat and fuzzy for head coach Brent Pry, as he capped off his second season on the helm of the Hokies with a beat down of rival Virginia and a bowl win over a ranked workforce.

Maybe it was when Virginia Tech, unranked, upset No. 10 North Carolina to open the 2021 season. That recreation although was extra about how overrated the Tar Heels had been, not about how good the Hokies is likely to be. It turned out to be Justin Fuente’s remaining season as he limped to a 5-5 document earlier than resigning.

Perhaps it was in 2017, when the Hokies opened the season with a win over rival West Virginia in a ranked-on-ranked matchup at FedEx Area with Josh Jackson and the Edmunds brothers main the way in which.

We’d need to go all the way in which again to the final superior season of the Beamer period, in 2011, the place Logan Thomas powered the Hokies to a victory over a ranked Georgia Tech workforce in Atlanta. That Virginia Tech squad would go on to play within the ACC title recreation and Sugar Bowl — albeit dropping each — to complete the season 11-3. It marked the sixth (and remaining) time that the Hokies reached the 11-win mark.

That is all to say that the final decade of Virginia Tech soccer has been largely forgettable and stuffed with mediocrity. Whereas pinpointing greatness within the post-Beamer period of Hokies’ soccer generally is a burdensome problem, it’s fairly simple to recall all of the blunders and disappointments. Saturday’s end result was the newest in a protracted line of letdowns for Virginia Tech followers, as they watched Pry’s workforce squander a 10-point halftime lead and get outscored 34-0 within the second half — at residence on a Saturday evening in Lane Stadium — to Vanderbilt. It was a must-win recreation and the Hokies flopped.

The week earlier than that, Virginia Tech followers needed to watch the Hokies trudge by way of a 24-11 loss in Atlanta to South Carolina, a workforce coached by Beamer’s son Shane. Virginia Tech is now 0-2 to begin a season for the primary time since 2010.

Need some extra discouraging stats? There’s loads of them.

Within the post-Beamer period, Virginia Tech is 7-18 in opposition to ranked opponents and simply 1-6 in opposition to ranked groups beneath Pry’s watch.

Right here’s one other: Since that win over West Virginia in 2017 in Landover, Maryland, the Hokies are 0-15 in non-conference matchups in opposition to Energy 4 opponents and Notre Dame. The Hokies haven’t gained a non-conference residence recreation in opposition to Notre Dame or a Energy 4 opponent since 2009.

Virginia Tech hasn’t had a double-digit win season since Fuente’s first marketing campaign in 2016, a feat that was achieved with a workforce made up of gamers principally recruited by Beamer.

Yet one more: Virginia Tech hasn’t performed in a New Yr’s Six bowl recreation — a lot much less contended for a spot within the Faculty Soccer Playoff — since 2011. Between 1994 and 2011, the Hokies performed in 13 NY6 video games, together with the 1999 nationwide championship.

That recreation the place Michael Vick practically guided the Hokies to immortality, looks like a century in the past. A lot of faculty sports activities has modified within the final 5 years with NIL, the switch portal, income sharing and convention realignment. Now take into consideration how a lot it’s modified in 26 years.

What’s apparent for Virginia Tech after that wildly unhealthy second half efficiency in opposition to Vandy — which featured an extremely cowardly give up punt on fourth-and-inches with a 3-point lead — is that Pry’s time as head coach wants to come back to an finish. For a lot of Virginia Tech followers, it reminded them of the 45-10 residence loss to Duke in 2019, a end result that sealed the courtroom of public opinion on Fuente, regardless that he lasted for 2 extra forgetful seasons.

Whereas Pry inherited a program that wanted to restore its recruiting relationships throughout the area after Fuente fumbled these away, his tenure has largely been stricken by dropping massive video games on massive levels and failing to fulfill expectations. He hasn’t crushed Miami or Clemson. He’s misplaced video games to Rutgers, Marshall, Outdated Dominion and West Virginia.

Pry appeared like a greater match for the job than Fuente. He was a former grad assistant beneath Beamer and Bud Foster within the Nineteen Nineties, after which established himself as a pointy defensive thoughts and dogged recruiter beneath James Franklin at Vandy after which Penn State. However the outcomes are the outcomes. Pry has gained simply 41 % of his video games, whereas Fuente gained 58 %.

Much less clear is what Virginia Tech does after it strikes on from Pry.

The Hokies, whether or not they wish to settle for it or not, are firmly within the center class of faculty soccer. That a lot was made apparent by athletic director Whit Babcock final month in a presentation he gave to the college’s Board of Guests. Babcock mentioned that to compete on the high of the ACC, Virginia Tech wants an annual athletic division finances of $200 million — a determine that the Hokies are about $58 million in need of.

“Our assets don’t match our expectations,” Babcock mentioned in August. “If we don’t radically leap ahead now, we’re doubtless sealing our personal destiny for years and generations to come back… I really feel like I’ve been crying wolf and the wolf is admittedly coming.”

This was Babcock not simply signaling, however firing off flares and fireworks in regards to the kind of existential disaster that Virginia Tech is in relating to cash for sports activities.

That is the brand new period of faculty soccer. Funding is probably the most important think about constructing a championship program. Gone are the times the place a workforce might Beamer Ball its method 25 consecutive profitable seasons. Gone are the times the place you possibly can construct a fence round one potent recruiting space — like Virginia’s Tidewater, aka the 757 — and pipeline all of its greatest gamers to your college, abilities that included maybe the best defensive finish of all time in Bruce Smith, a game-changing quarterback in Vick, and an All-Professional and Tremendous Bowl-winning security in Kam Chancellor (that is the place it’s value declaring that Virginia Tech has produced simply 4 first-round NFL Draft picks within the post-Beamer period, with zero of them coming from offensive ability positions).

Merely put, Virginia Tech hasn’t had the cash to get nice gamers on this new period and doesn’t have a coach who is supplied to do-more-with-less.

Regardless of all of the heartbreak, unmet expectations and losses, Virginia Tech followers hold displaying as much as Lane Stadium. They hold screaming “Enter Sandman.” They usually hold upholding top-of-the-line atmospheres in all of faculty soccer.

However because the fanbase grows extra disenchanted with Pry, how lengthy does that final?

Furthermore, can Virginia Tech afford to swing-and-miss on one other soccer rent? If the Hokies miss within the upcoming coach carousel season, will we start to solely keep in mind them for what they was? Will they journey down the trail of former nationwide champions and contenders turned in has-beens and what-ifs?

When Virginia Tech entered the ACC in 2004, it was seen as one of many convention’s signature soccer manufacturers. Now, 20 years later, it’s getting ready to changing into simply one other middle-of-the-pack workforce.