WASHINGTON (WTVD) — Michael O’Connell kept NC State’s NCAA tournament hopes alive by the slimmest of margins, banking in a wild 3-pointer at the buzzer to force overtime. Then, DJ Burns Jr. took over in the extra time as the Wolfpack stunned Virginia 73-65 in a raucous ACC Tournament semifinal Friday night.
The Wolfpack looked dead in the water Friday night with four seconds left before O-Connell’s prayer kissed the backboard and nestled softly into the net to send the game to extra time and the Wolfpack bench and fans into delirium.
“I had a direct view of it,” N.C. State coach Kevin Keatts said. “As it went up I was like, man, that shot is going in, it’s going in, and then luckily it did and obviously sent us to overtime.”
NC State’s Michael O’Connell shoots the miracle 3-pointer over Virginia guard Isaac McKneely to tie the game 58-58 and send it to overtime.
Nick Wass
The 10th-seeded Wolfpack (21-14) are one victory from pulling off an epic five-wins-in-five-days run for the ACC’s automatic bid, and if they do it, they’ll remember this escape for a while. With the score 58-55, Isaac Mckneely missed the front end of a 1-and-1 for Virginia. O’Connell rushed the ball up the left sideline and shot a high-archer in front of his team’s bench.that will long be remembered in Raleigh.
It was the second straight night a team made a shot at the buzzer against Virginia to force overtime, but on Thursday the Cavaliers were able to beat Boston College.
NC State’s DJ Burns Jr. shoots against Virginia forward Jordan Minor on Friday night in the ACC Tournament semifinals.
Nick Wass
“They got momentum because we missed the free throw and they were coming down, and once they got down we did not want to foul in the act of shooting,” Virginia coach Tony Bennett said. “We just were worried about that.”
In overtime, it was the Burns Jr. show. Time and again, N.C. State would give the ball to the 6-foot-9, 275-pound post player, who would slowly back his way down, he and his defender repeatedly bouncing off each other. Burns scored seven points in overtime and 19 in the game on 8-of-11 shooting.
The Wolfpack take on old rival and top-seeded North Carolina for the tournament championship on Saturday night. The Tar Heels swept the regular season meetings.
NC State’s DJ Horne drives past Virginia’s Reece Beekman on Friday night in the ACC Tournament semifinals.
Nick Wass
Perhaps feeling the fatigue of playing four games in four nights, N.C. State shot just 3 of 17 from 3-point range, but O’Connell made the one the Wolfpack needed, and the Cavaliers (23-10) were done in by their poor free-throw shooting.
With 1:10 remaining, Virginia had a five-point lead, and after a flagrant foul called on Burns, the Cavaliers got two shots and the ball. Reece Beekman missed both attempts though, and when he was fouled on the ensuing possession, Beekman made only one of two.
Then Ryan Dunn fouled a 3-point shooter, and Casey Morsell made all three free throws to cut the lead to three.
After a defensive stop, N.C. State had a chance to tie, but when Morsell missed a 3-pointer and Mckneely rebounded, Virginia needed one free throw to ice the game. It never came.
The teams split their regular season meetings, each winning at home but in an arena full of Cavaliers fans, the Wolfpack won the one that mattered most.
The Wolfpack and Cavaliers look to book their spot in Saturday night’s ACC championship game.
UNC 72, PITT 65
Top-seeded North Carolina survived a stern test Friday night against fourth-seeded Pitt 72-65 to advance to the ACC Tournament championship game.
The No. 4 Tar Heels (27-6), who also hope to get a No. 1 seed in the NCAA tournament, inched closer to that goal and will look for a first ACC title since 2016 on Saturday night.
Armando Bacot and RJ Davis provided the bulk of the offense for the Tar Heels. Davis led the team with 25 points and Bacot was strong in the paint with 19 points and 11 rebounds.
Armando Bacot hangs on the rim after scoring two of his 19 points against Pitt on Friday night at the ACC Tournament.
Nick Wass
“RJ, he’s been our closer all year and he hit some huge shots,” Bacot said.
Davis and Bacot scored UNC’s final 18 points of the game.
“Just super excited to get a chance to play in the championship,” said Bacot. “It was a tough game, and it got close down in the stretch and I think me and RJ just really wanted to make plays so we can win the game.”
The Panthers led by as many as nine in the first half and kept punching back until late, tying it at 62 with about four minutes left until Davis hit just his second 3-pointer to put the Tar Heels ahead.
After seven lead changes throughout, they never trailed again, with Davis grabbing a crucial rebound and hitting a long 3 in the final minutes to help put it away. The unanimous ACC Player of the Year scored 19 of his points in the second half.
“The player of the year stepped up and made plays,” Pitt coach Jeff Capel said. “You have to tip your hat to him. He made a deep 3, a 28-footer, some pullups. He just made plays.”
Carlton Carrington led Pitt with 24 points, and Jaland Lowe had 17. The Panthers, who were up early thanks to some hot 3-point shooting, were hurt by three fouls in the first 14 minutes on Federiko Federiko, keeping the center on the bench for long periods.
UNC’s tenacious defense made life hard for Pitt star Blake Hinson, who made only 2 of 12 shots and missed all five of his 3-point attempts.
Nick Wass
The Tar Heels never let Pitt’s Blake Hinson get into a rhythm, harassing him into a 2-for-12 shooting night. Hinson missed all five of his 3-point attempts.
“All year, I’ve been taking pride in trying to be the best defensive big man in the country,” Bacot said. “And today, it’s always tough playing against them because they’ve got so many skilled guards, they’ve got bigs that can shoot, so today we had to switch, and after the first half, I was a little sloppy, in the second half I wanted to take the challenge and thought I did a good job.”
UNC, winners of eight consecutive games, will face old rival NC State in the final. The Tar Heels won both regular season matchups against the Wolfpack.
“We set goals in the beginning of the year, and for us to be one more game away means a lot,” Davis said. “But the job’s not finished.”
The Panthers (22-11) now wait to see whether they get invited to the NCAA tournament.
“We’ll see if we’re in,” Capel said. “We have become a really good basketball team. We could be a team that could be dangerous in the tournament.”
Guard Ishmael Leggett added, “I 100% believe that we’re an NCAA Tournament team, regardless of what anybody says.”
(FOX40.COM) — The race to be the next mayor of Sacramento is so close that a winner still cannot be projected days after the 2024 primary election.
As of 4 p.m. on Friday, mayoral candidate Richard Pan had a marginal lead over five other contenders. Pan had 12,495 ballots counted toward him which is 23.93% of the votes, according to election results.
Dr. Flojaune Cofer, who started off the mayoral race in fourth place, was elevated to second place with 23.26% of the votes. 12,146 ballots have been counted in her favor.
Right after Cofer is Steve Hansen who accounts for 22.89% of the total votes counted so far. That’s 11,790 ballots.
Kevin McCarty is not far behind with 22.58% of the votes which amounts to 11,790 ballots counted at the time of this publication.
The two candidates with the most votes after all ballots have been counted will head to a runoff election on Nov. 5.
Sam Skinner’s late try was controversially ruled out by the TMO as Scotland suffered a 20-16 defeat by France at Murrayfield in the second round of the Six Nations.
Louis Bielle-Biarrey’s sensational individual effort after 70 minutes gave France the lead for the first time with just under 10 minutes remaining but Scotland regained territory and fought back to get Skinner over the line.
The decision was deliberated for a long time before it was ruled that there was not enough evidence to award the try, giving the visitors a narrow victory.
More to follow…
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Ireland produced a magnificent display in Marseille as they registered a first Six Nations win in France since 2018
Ireland began life in the post-Johnny Sexton era in ideal fashion, as a terrific Six Nations performance saw them to a bonus-point 38-17 victory over France in Marseille.
Scrum-half Jamison Gibson-Park, lock Tadhg Beirne, wing Calvin Nash, hooker Dan Sheehan and replacement hooker Ronan Kelleher scored tries at the Stade Velodrome against a French side who saw lock Paul Willemse shown a red card during the first half for two yellows – both high tackles.
Ireland fly-half Jack Crowley, 24, started nervously but grew in confidence and into the contest, kicking one penalty and five exquisite conversions, while also producing a gorgeous try assist for Beirne in a record points total and winning margin for Ireland in France.
Damian Penaud and lock Paul Gabrillagues scored France’s tries, who continued to fight hard and never appeared truly out of it – Ireland captain Peter O’Mahony was sin-binned in the second half with the gap seven points – but they ultimately had to swallow a home defeat.
Jack Crowley, Johnny Sexton’s Ireland replacement in the No 10 jersey, pulled the strings to victory in the Stade Velodrome
For many in the sport, France vs Ireland was the Rugby World Cup final that never was back in October’s Paris showpiece, and although the hosts carved out the first threatening attack, Ireland were far the quicker to settle into their groove.
Crowley edged Ireland into an early lead with a close-range penalty, and after Willemse collected his first yellow for a high hit to the head of Andrew Porter, the visitors notched the opening try.
Centre Bundee Aki did magnificently for it, charging forward and freeing his hands to offload for Gibson-Park to sprint in.
Ireland scrum-half Jamison Gibson-Park scored the first try after great work from Bundee Aki
A huge try chance was spurned by Ireland after Beirne charged down Antoine Dupont’s replacement Maxime Lucu to win a turnover just after a France maul – Crowley and Aki playing narrow when a wide ball would have resulted in a certain try down the left.
Within moments, Crowley missed poorly off the tee for the chance to go 13-0, with Thomas Ramos then striking at the other end after a scrum penalty.
Perhaps illustrating a measure of his mentality, Crowley brushed off a tough few minutes to play Beirne in for Ireland’s second try via an exquisitely disguised short-ball.
Tadhg Beirne scored Ireland’s second try after being brilliantly played in by Crowley
Crowley then converted for 17-3, with Willemse – only recently back on – then shown his second yellow, which was upgraded to a straight red following a bunker review, after connecting with the head of Caelan Doris in Ireland’s first carry following the restart.
France lock forward Paul Willemse was red carded for committing two yellow card offences – a very rare occurrence
Back-to-back penalties at the ruck against Ireland invited France forward, however, and though Beirne stole a lineout, a costly scrum penalty against the head eventually resulted in Penaud diving over as French persistence in kicking to the corner was rewarded seconds before the break.
Damian Penaud hit back for France with a try seconds before half-time
After Ramos uncharacteristically dragged a penalty wide, Ireland scored through Nash after they sprung the play wide and Robbie Henshaw had stepped, accelerated and offloaded brilliantly for Doris to find the championship debutant.
Calvin Nash scored Ireland’s third try on the occasion of his Six Nations debut
Crowley produced a sensational conversion off the touchline for 24-10, but France were back within a score seven minutes later, after a long TMO review saw Gabrillagues awarded a try and O’Mahony sin-binned for a cynical act in attempting to deny him.
Ireland composed themselves to get back up the other end, though, and after the brave decision to kick to the corner instead of for points, Sheehan flew over the try-line from a maul for their fourth.
Dan Sheehan’s try wrapped up the bonus-point and put Ireland on firm course for victory
There remained time for one last try, and it was almost identical to Sheehan’s as Kelleher controlled possession at the back of a maul which romped over.
Fittingly, the boot of Crowley was the final scoring act via the extras.
Farrell: A special Irish victory | O’Mahony: I’m proud – the young players a big part
Ireland head coach Andy Farrell to ITV Sport…
“Any victory here, on a Friday night to start the Six Nations off is always going to be a hard task but I think coming away with a bonus-point win is special.
“I was proud of the performance because we kept on playing for the full 80 minutes and we got what we deserved in the end.
“When you play against 14 men, the tendency is sometimes to shut up shop but we kept on playing.
“These are guys that have been in around the squad for the past couple of years so we had no doubt they are ready to play.
“Some of them, their form guarantees they are going to be in. But it is a 23-man game.”
Ireland captain O’Mahony to ITV Sport…
“It is hard to sum up. It was a serious Test match.
“I am very proud of the lads for the control of the game. We were cool, composed, might have been a bit frantic in the last 10 minutes down to 14, but we stayed to the plan the whole time.
“We didn’t get carried away with positive and negative moments and I thought it was a good start.
“I think a big chunk of the performance was the young fellas, Calvin Nash, Jack Crowley, big Joe [McCarthy]. Some big, big performances from guys getting an opportunity.”
What’s next?
Ireland are in action next Sunday, February 11 for the second round of the championship, hosting Italy at the Aviva Stadium in Dublin (3pm kick-off GMT).
Ireland’s Six Nations 2024 fixtures
Friday, February 2
France 17-38 Ireland
8pm
Sunday, February 11
Ireland vs Italy
3pm
Saturday, February 24
Ireland vs Wales
2.15pm
Saturday, March 9
England vs Ireland
4.45pm
Saturday, March 16
Ireland vs Scotland
4.45pm
France travel to face Scotland at Murrayfield in Edinburgh next Saturday, February 10 (2.15pm kick-off GMT), in Round 2 of the Six Nations.
France’s Six Nations 2024 fixtures
Friday, February 2
France 17-38 Ireland
8pm
Saturday, February 10
Scotland vs France
2.15pm
Sunday, February 25
France vs Italy
3pm
Sunday, March 10
Wales vs France
3pm
Saturday, March 16
France vs England
8pm
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West Ham’s Mohammed Kudus scored with a sublime strike for Ghana to give the Black Stars the lead against Egypt at the Africa Cup of Nations in Ivory Coast.
Donald Trump’s victory in the Iowa caucus was as dominant as expected, underscoring the exceedingly narrow path available to any of the Republican forces hoping to prevent his third consecutive nomination. And yet, for all Trump’s strength within the party, the results also hinted at some of the risks the GOP will face if it nominates him again.
Based on Trump’s overwhelming lead in the poll conducted of voters on their way into the voting, the cable networks called the contest for Trump before the actual caucus was even completed. It was a fittingly anticlimactic conclusion to a caucus contest whose result all year has never seemed in doubt. In part, that may have been because none of Trump’s rivals offered Iowa voters a fully articulated case against him until Florida Governor Ron DeSantis unleashed more pointed arguments against the front-runner in the final days.
Trump steamrolled over the opposition of the state’s Republican and evangelical Christian leadership to amass by far the largest margin of victory ever in a contested Iowa GOP caucus. He drew strong support across virtually every demographic group—though, in a preview of a continuing general election challenge if he wins the nomination, his vote notably lagged among caucus-goers with at least a four-year college degree.
The results as of late Monday evening showed DeSantis solidifying a small lead over former South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley for a distant second place behind Trump. Even though DeSantis held off Haley, his weak finish after investing so much time and money in the state—and attracting endorsements from local political leaders including Governor Kim Reynolds—likely extinguishes his chances of winning the nomination. That’s true whether he remains in the race, as he pledged on Monday, or drops out in the next few weeks.
Though Haley could not overtake DeSantis here, she has a second chance to establish momentum next week in New Hampshire, where she is running close to Trump in some surveys. But the magnitude of Trump’s Iowa victory shows how far Haley remains from creating a genuine threat to the front-runner. Her support largely remained confined to an archipelago of better-educated, more moderate voters in the state’s largest population centers.
After the Iowa results, “she’ll be the alternative to Donald Trump,” said Douglas Gross, a longtime GOP Iowa activist who supported Haley. Her credible showing “is not because of organization or message, because she didn’t have either. It’s because she’s perceived as the alternative to Trump and the other candidates tried to be Trump.”
Haley, though, clearly signaled her intent to escalate her challenge to Trump as the race moves on to New Hampshire. In an energetic post-caucus speech, she debuted a new line of argument against Trump, linking him to President Joe Biden as an aging symbol of a caustic and divisive past that American voters must transcend. “Our campaign is the last best hope of stopping the Trump-Biden nightmare,” she insisted, in a line of argument likely to dominate her message in the week until New Hampshire votes on January 23.
For Haley, the first challenge may be reversing the gathering sense in the party that Trump is on the verge of wrapping up the contest even as it just begins. The behavior of GOP elected officials in the final days before the caucus may have revealed as much about the state of the race as the result of the first voting itself. Trump in recent days has received a parade of endorsements, including from Utah Senator Mike Lee, who criticized him sharply in 2016, and Florida Senator Marco Rubio, whom Trump mercilessly belittled and mocked when he ran in the 2016 presidential race.
As telling: Reynolds, the most prominent supporter of DeSantis, and New Hampshire Governor Chris Sununu, Haley’s most prominent backer, each declared in separate television interviews just hours before the vote that they would support Trump if he’s the nominee. Haley did the same in an interview on Fox: “I would take Donald Trump over Joe Biden any day of the week,” she told the Fox News Channel host Neil Cavuto on Monday, hours before she unveiled her much tougher message toward the former president Monday night.
Trump himself revealed his confidence in a restrained victory speech Monday night that included rare praise of DeSantis, Haley, and Vivek Ramaswamy, who finished fourth and then dropped out of the race. Trump’s uncharacteristically sedate and conciliatory remarks suggested that he sees the opportunity to force out the others, and consolidate the party, before very long.
Trump’s commanding lead in the vote testified to the depth of his victory. Results from the “entrance poll” of caucus-goers on their way to cast their votes underscored the breadth of his win.
Across every demographic divide in the party, Trump improved over his performance in 2016, when he narrowly lost the state to Texas Senator Ted Cruz. This time, Trump won both men and women comfortably, according to the entrance poll conducted by Edison Research for a consortium of media organizations. He won nearly half of voters in both urban and suburban areas, as well as a majority in rural areas, the poll found.
DeSantis won endorsements from much of the state’s evangelical-Christian leadership, but Trump crushed him among those voters by almost two to one, according to the entrance poll. In 2016, Iowa evangelicals had preferred Cruz to Trump by double digits. Trump on Monday also carried nearly half of voters who were not evangelicals, beating Haley among them by about 20 percentage points. In 2016, Trump managed only a three-percentage-point edge over Rubio among Iowa caucus-goers who were not evangelicals. (In both the 2012 and 2016 Republican presidential primaries, the candidate who won Iowa voters who are not evangelicals ultimately won the nomination.)
Before Trump, the most important dividing line in GOP presidential primaries had been between voters who were and were not evangelical Christians. But on Monday night, as in 2016, Trump reoriented that axis: Education was a far better predictor of support for him than whether a voter identified as an evangelical.
Trump carried two-thirds of the caucus-goers who do not have a four-year college degree, the entrance poll found on Monday night. That was more than twice as much as Trump won among those voters in 2016, when Cruz narrowly beat him among them.
Other findings in the entrance poll also testified to Trump’s success at reshaping the party in his image. The share of caucus-goers who identified as “very conservative” was much higher than in 2016. About two-thirds of those attending the caucuses said they do not believe that President Joe Biden legitimately won the 2020 election. Rural areas that Trump split with Cruz in 2016 broke decisively for him this time.
Yet amid all these signs of strength, the entrance poll offered some clear warning signs for Trump in a potential general election—as did some of the county-level results.
Despite some predictions to the contrary, Trump still faced substantial resistance from college-educated voters, just as he did in 2016. In the entrance poll Monday night, he drew only a little more than one-third of them. That was enough to push Trump safely past Haley, who split the remainder of those voters primarily with DeSantis (each of them won just under three in 10 of them). But compared with the 2016 Iowa result, Trump improved much less among college-educated voters than he did among those without degrees.
Trump’s relative weakness among college-educated voters in the 2016 GOP primary presaged the alienation from him in white-collar suburbs that grew during his presidency. Though Biden’s approval among those voters has declined since 2021, Trump’s modest showing even among the college-educated voters willing to turn out for a GOP caucus likely shows that resistance to him also remains substantial. When the results are tallied, Trump might win all 99 counties in Iowa, an incredible achievement if he manages it. But Trump drew well under his statewide percentage in Polk County, the state’s most populous; in fast-growing Dallas County; and in Story and Johnson, the counties centered on Iowa State University and the University of Iowa. (Johnson is the one county where Trump trails as of now.) Those are all the sorts of places that have moved away from the GOP in the Trump years.
Also noteworthy was voters’ response to an entrance-poll question about whether they would still consider Trump fit for the presidency if he was convicted of a crime. Nearly two-thirds said yes, which speaks to his strength within the Republican Party. But about three in 10 said no, which speaks to possible problems in a general election. That result was consistent with the findings in a wide array of polls that somewhere between one-fifth and one-third of GOP partisans believe that Trump’s actions after the 2020 election were a threat to democracy or illegal. How many of those Republican-leaning voters would ultimately support him will be crucial to his viability if he wins the nomination. On that front, it may be worth filing away that more than four in 10 college graduates who participated in the caucus said they would not view Trump as fit for the presidency if he’s convicted of a crime, the entrance poll found.
Those are problems Trump will need to confront on another day, if he wins the nomination. For now, he has delivered an imposing show of strength within a party that he has reshaped in his belligerent, conspiratorial image. The winter gloom in Iowa may not be any bleaker than the spirits tonight of the dwindling band of those in the GOP hoping to loosen Trump’s iron grip on the party.
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Graeme Swann reflects on his early England days on the revamped Sky Sports Cricket podcast and describes Nasser Hussain as ‘being something from a comic’ when he was England captain!
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Anton Toloui delivers his verdict on Man Utd’s 2-0 win against Wigan in the FA Cup. Erik ten Hag was positive in his post-match press conference and played down any worries that his players are not scoring enough goals.
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Sky Sports’ Gary Cotterill and Ben Grounds analyse Arsenal’s worrying form under Mikel Arteta as they crashed out of the FA Cup in the third round to Liverpool after a 2-0 defeat.
