LAS VEGAS — Purdue has never won the NCAA Tournament, losing the national title game to UConn in 2024 and UCLA in 1969.

The betting public is banking on the Boilermakers to win it all this season.

Purdue is the consensus 8-1 favorite and money leader at BetMGM, Caesars Sportsbook and the Westgate SuperBook.

“The bettors are putting all ...Read more

NEW YORK — Former Cleveland Cavaliers player and coach Damon Jones, who the feds say texted prolifically about his role in a sweeping gambling conspiracy, is pursuing a possible plea deal, the ex-hoops star said in his first appearance in Brooklyn Federal Court Thursday.

Jones pleaded not guilty in a pair of indictments, one accusing him of ...Read more

DENVER — An under-the-weather Steph Curry will remain home in the Bay Area for the second consecutive road game as he battles an illness.

The Warriors will finish a two-game road trip with a matchup at Denver on Friday, and will have to do so without their franchise player.

Curry was noticeably coughing and sniffling during the last home ...Read more

If you squinted hard enough at the box score from the Warriors game in Sacramento on Wednesday, you could sell yourself that it was a positive performance.

No Steph Curry. No Jimmy Butler. No Draymond Green. The Warriors, trotting out a line-up that had a distinct G League feel to it, somehow took the (also short-handed) Kings down to the final...Read more

CHICAGO — The Chicago Bulls want to be real.

Their 6-1 record, best in the Eastern Conference, should be convincing enough on its own. Only the reigning NBA champion Oklahoma City Thunder (8-1) have won more games. Yet the Bulls can’t escape the specter of uncertainty cast by the last three years of mediocre, myopic and ultimately ...Read more

MIAMI — A two-alarm fire broke out early Thursday morning at the home of Miami Heat coach Erik Spoelstra, with firefighters battling the blaze for eight hours before extinguishing it at the five-bedroom home with a pool and tennis court in one of Miami-Dade’s priciest neighborhoods.

Videos show Spoelstra, holding his head, walking near the ...Read more

Fans who bought tickets to Wednesday’s game expecting to see an All-Star cast featuring the likes of Steph Curry, Jimmy Butler, Draymond Green, Zach LaVine and Domantas Sabonis didn’t get exactly what they paid for.

What they got to witness instead was a vintage performance from Russell Westbrook.

Westbrook, the NBA’s all-time leader ...Read more

DENVER — Any debate about the most important player on the Miami Heat roster wound up being decided early in the eighth game of the season.

With Bam Adebayo sidelined with a foot injury in the first quarter, the Heat weren’t able to measure up Wednesday night in what turned into a 122-112 loss to the Denver Nuggets at Ball Arena.

Already ...Read more

And there it is. The Nets are no longer winless.

Brooklyn finally broke through Wednesday night inside Gainbridge Fieldhouse in Indianapolis. It wasn’t always pretty, things got tight late and they lost their leading scorer along the way, but Jordi Fernández’s group outlasted the Indiana Pacers for a 112-103 victory, their first of the ...Read more

BOSTON — For the first quarter of Monday night’s game at TD Garden, the Celtics’ offense consisted of Jaylen Brown, and not much else.

Brown poured in 16 first-quarter points, but Boston trailed cellar-dwelling Washington by 14 — an uninspiring start for a team that had just lost at home to the likely lottery-bound Utah Jazz two nights ...Read more

NEW YORK — The first quarter belonged to Julius Randle.

The second quarter belonged to Donte DiVincenzo.

But Wednesday night belonged to the New York Knicks, who rode a second-half explosion to a 137-114 win over the Minnesota Timberwolves in Randle and DiVincenzo’s latest return to Madison Square Garden.

The Knicks (5-3) scored 83 of ...Read more

DETROIT — The Detroit Pistons bounced back from a disappointing start to extend their winning streak to four games with a 114-103 victory over the Utah Jazz on Monday night at Little Caesars Arena. Cade Cunningham led the way with a game-high 31 points on 13-of-28 shooting.

Most of Cunningham's scoring occurred during the fourth quarter, in ...Read more

NEW YORK — The Knicks are staying out of politics.

The White House removed a social-media post that used an altered Knicks logo to mock Zohran Mamdani after the team reached out, according to Front Office Sports.

The logo had been edited to read “Trump Is Your President.”

“The Knicks remain neutral on political matters,” the Knicks ...Read more

RALEIGH, N.C. — In this era of college basketball more than any other, with rosters upended from top to bottom at all three Triangle schools and not just Duke for a change — the Blue Devils actually have more returning contributors (2) than either N.C. State (1) or North Carolina (1) — it’s hard to tell exactly what things are going to ...Read more

SAN FRANCISCO – The greatest player in Golden State Warriors franchise history sniffled, and then he coughed. Then he coughed again, and again, and again during a laborious five-minute postgame press conference on Tuesday night.

Obviously feeling the effects of a cold that has beset him for several days, Steph Curry did his best to convince ...Read more

LOS ANGELES — Guard Austin Reaves will miss a second consecutive game because of right groin soreness, the Lakers announced Wednesday, since he will be sidelined for the game against the San Antonio Spurs.

Reaves started to feel discomfort in the first quarter of the team’s win over Miami on Sunday, coach JJ Redick said Monday, and sat out ...Read more

SAN FRANCISCO – The Warriors got back in the winners’ column, but will probably rue a squandered opportunity to rest their veterans in the fourth quarter of a surprisingly competitive matchup with Phoenix at Chase Center on Tuesday.

The Warriors led by 19 at halftime and seemed well on their way to an easy victory and light second-half ...Read more

ATLANTA — The Magic believed they had turned a corner with two wins in a row by leaning more into their defensive identity ahead of Tuesday’s return to NBC at Atlanta.

But Orlando, which fell, 127-112, to the Hawks at State Farm Arena, reverted back to looking more like the team that started the season 1-4.

Jamahl Mosley‘s squad couldn�...Read more

CHARLOTTE, N.C. — They came to Charlotte on Tuesday to help honor Dick Vitale, long one of the leading and certainly loudest voices of college basketball — the man called “Dickie V.”

Duke, ranked No. 6 in preseason, accepted the opportunity to open a new basketball season in the Dick Vitale Invitational at the Spectrum Center. So, too, ...Read more