Month: July 2021

Two days after the American men suffered their first Olympics loss since 2004, the United States women looked to avoid the same fate and extend their Olympics winning streak to an outrageous 50, having not lost since 1992, on Tuesday morning against Nigeria.

However, despite being 30-point favorites and having beaten Nigeria by 31 in exhibition action, the American women got off to a slow start, as Nigeria pressed them into a number of early turnovers and jumped out to a 25-20 lead. At that point, Team USA’s veterans established control, led by Diana Taurasi who hit a pair of threes in the first half to lead the U.S. with 10 points at the break, leading a 23-0 run for the Americans that gave them a 12-point cushion at halftime.

The third quarter saw Team USA extend their lead to 20 entering the fourth quarter, as A’ja Wilson and Britney Griner continued to assert their dominance inside, combining for 32 points and 23 rebounds on the night, with Wilson leading all scorers with 19 points. The fourth quarter started with both teams trading baskets and it seemed as though the U.S. was going to cruise to a comfortable win, but D’Tigress were not going to let it be that easy.

A 12-0 run in the fourth quarter brought Nigeria back to within eight with just over three minutes to play — capped off by a 5-point play from Adaora Elonu who made a three-pointer, got fouled, and it was ruled an unsportsmanlike foul for a second free throw — but on cue, Sylvia Fowles and Chelsea Gray hit a pair of big shots to push the American lead back out to 12 and restore a bit of order. Nigeria continued applying pressure, led by Ezinne Kalu’s 16 points and seven rebounds, and kept the United States stressed til the final buzzer sounded and the Americans escaped with an 81-72 win.

The point of emphasis for Dawn Staley in the coming days will certainly be on turnovers, as the Americans coughed it up 25 times compared to just 11 turnovers from Nigeria. Other teams will take note of how Nigeria’s full court pressure bothered Team USA, and they will have to clean up how they handle physical ball pressure going forward if they are to make history with a run to a seventh straight gold medal. Still, it was a solid performance for Team USA, led by their bigs in Wilson, Griner, and Fowles (nine points off the bench), with their grizzled vets providing the steadying hand needed to get them across the finish line as Taurasi finished with those 10 points and Sue Bird dished out 13 dimes in the win.

Boxing at the Olympics is no longer one of the premier sports for the television schedule, but it remains a favorite of boxing fans who get to see some of the future stars of the sport as well as journeymen getting their chance at international glory. It’s also without the spectacle of professional boxing, with competitors showing each other tremendous respect before and after fights.

That is why when antics do occur on the Olympic stage, they are even more stunning, and on Monday there was some serious controversy late between Youness Baalla of Morocco and David Nyika of New Zealand in their heavyweight bout. Nyika was on his way to a dominant win when in the final round Baalla attempted to bite the Kiwi fighter, immediately bringing to mind the Mike Tyson-Evander Holyfield incident.

Luckily, Baalla wasn’t able to succeed in his attempt to take a bit out of Nyika, but it was a stunning incident that left Nyika in a bit of shock afterwards — particularly that Baalla didn’t receive any punishment in the ring from the referee.

“It didn’t think he would get away with it. He tried to bite my cheek bone but luckily it was a little bit slippery. He probably got a mouthful of sweat – he also had his mouthguard in so no broken skin,” Nyika told Sky Sport, via RNZ.

One would have to think that upon review Baalla will face some consequences for the chomp, because it is truly one of the most shocking acts in all of sport when someone tries to bite an opponent. Nyika will move on to the next round and hopefully that will be the last time he had to deal with someone trying to get a piece of his ear or cheek.

Giannis Antetokounmpo leading the Bucks to the 2021 NBA championship, culminating in a 50-point series clinching performance in Game 6, answered every possible question about his abilities to lead a team in the playoffs. After the early exit in the Bubble in 2020, Antetokounmpo faced the same critiques about how he wasn’t as efficient or impactful in the postseason when teams built a wall in front of him and Milwaukee’s shooters around him weren’t hitting shots.

Many wondered if Giannis would sign his supermax or give himself the chance to leave Milwaukee this summer by entering free agency, but Antetokounmpo put pen to paper and alleviated all the stress of Bucks fans and the organization for at least the moment. To then go on to win the championship in his first season after signing was something that felt like not just a win for the Bucks, but an important moment for smaller markets around the league to show that stars can stay home and win without having to go team up with another star.

Giannis himself talked about that after Game 6, talking about how he could’ve taken the “easy way” by joining a superteam but chose to do what he promised to do, which is do everything he could to bring Milwaukee a championship. On Monday night, Giannis was still reveling in his win and that he didn’t have to chase that elusive ring to another city with a not so subtle string of photos on his Instagram story of four legends who won their first championship with the team that drafted them with the caption “Mood.”

Antetokounmpo is going to rightfully talk his talk and posting Dwyane Wade, Dirk Nowitzki, Hakeem Olajuwon, and Kobe Bryant is quite the message about how he feels about getting things done in Milwaukee.

While many felt this was a signal to others that staying in a place rather than bolting for a superteam can pay off, the Bucks also had to show their commitment to Giannis by going all-in on a championship push this past summer with their trade for Jrue Holiday. The lesson can’t be that players should be blindly loyal, but that it is possible, with a financial commitment from a “small market” team (they’re all owned by billionaires), that you can build a championship team around an elite player no matter where you are.

The USA men’s basketball team stumbled out of the gate at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. Gregg Popovich’s squad completely fell flat in the opener against France and, in addition to suffering their first loss in the Olympics since 2004, the United States flailed down the stretch in concerning fashion.

On Wednesday morning in Tokyo, Team USA will be back on the floor, and the squad’s second contest projects to be a more favorable matchup. The Americans take on Iran in a game in which they are favored by approximately 40 points, depending on which sports wagering outlet one values. Iran is a team without a single active NBA player, though Hamed Haddadi is a former member of the Memphis Grizzlies and Phoenix Suns, and the United States will have an overwhelming talent advantage.

It remains uncertain as to how Team USA will respond to early adversity. At the same time, they have a clear path to the medal round if they can win the next two games, and a team led by Kevin Durant, Damian Lillard, Jayson Tatum and (many) others should be able to get things together against Iran.

Unfortunately, it could be a challenge for some to view the proceedings, as the game is set to tip off at 12:40 a.m. ET on Wednesday and without a broadcast option on the television side. The game will only be available to stream here (with a TV provider login) and Peacock is also distributing the contest with a premium subscription.

Tip Time: Wednesday, July 28 at 12:40 a.m. ET (Tuesday, July 27 at 9:40 p.m. PT)
TV Channel: None
Streaming Info: NBCOlympics.com (with TV provider login) and Peacock app (with premium subscription)

Matt Gaetz may be under federal investigation for ties to a sex trafficking ring, but it’s not as though he’s unloved. Far from it. He has his share of fans, some of whom even came out to see him do a Huey Lewis impersonation on a sidewalk. And he’s even engaged. So there really is someone for everyone. But one of his biggest detractors has close ties to him: Recently his future sister-in-law released three (3) videos denouncing him as “weird and creepy.”

Gaetz’ fiancée is one Ginger Luckey, and her sister is one Roxanne Luckey. As per The Daily Beast, Roxanne started her TikTok attack on the Florida lawmaker on Sunday, with a video of her lip-synching to Lana Del Ray’s “Jealous Girl.” In the background is a New York Times headline reading “Matt Gaetz Is Said to Face Justice Dept. Inquiry Over Sex With an Underage Girl.” She added her own text: “When a creepy old man tries to hit on you at the bar but your sisters engaged to a literal pedophile.”

Roxanne walked that back, slightly, on Monday night, apologizing for calling Gaetz a “pedophile.” She thought “ephebophile” — a person who attracted to mid-to-late adolescents — was more fitting

In one video, Roxanne, now 20, told a story about how Gaetz tried to hook her up last year, when she was 19, with a much older man. When she confronted him, she said, Gaetz blew up on her, “gaslighting” her and going “full lawyer.”

“I saw the character and type of person he is, and when everything came out about him, I honestly, unfortunately, was not surprised,” Roxanne said. “As someone who has personally experienced a ton of creepy old politician men hitting on me when I was underage, and experiencing sexual assault at that age by people of power, it’s very disheartening and I have zero tolerance of people like [Gaetz].”

Roxanne stressed that her opinion on Gaetz isn’t simply based on her own experiences. During her tenure interning in D.C., she said she heard “through the grapevine” that he “had a reputation of prowling after college girls when he’s a grown man, and to me that’s just kind of weird.”

When The Daily Beast reached out for comment, Roxanne’s sister, Ginger — who became engaged to Gaetz on New Year’s Eve of last year at Mar-a-Lago — claimed the two sisters were estranged. (In one video, Roxanne claimed otherwise, and that she had last seen Gaetz in November.)

“Matt and I are enjoying our engagement and are deeply in love. My estranged sister is mentally unwell,” Ginger Luckey told the publication. “She has been in therapy for years and our family hopes that after receiving in-patient mental health treatment, she will overcome the tendency she has repeatedly shown to engage in destructive behavior.”

In the meantime, Joel Greenberg, the former Florida tax official and Gaetz associate linked to the sex trafficking ring, is cooperating with federal investigators.

(Via The Daily Beast)

Entering Tuesday in Tokyo (Monday night stateside), all eyes were on the battle for the women’s 100-meter breaststroke between Lilly King from the USA and Tatjana Schoenmaker of South Africa. King’s finger-wag celebration in Rio made her an American swimming star and she came to Tokyo with high expectations, but after Schoenmaker edged out King in the semifinals there was plenty of drama between the two top qualifiers for the finals in the center two lanes.

However, it was the American in lane 3 that stole the show in the second 50, as 17-year-old Lydia Jacoby from Alaska, who got a quick mention at the top during introductions on the broadcast as an up-and-comer but someone expected to not be a top competitor yet, pulled away in the final stretch to stun both Schoenmaker and King to win the gold.

The reaction from the crowd at the watch party at the railroad terminal in her hometown of Seward, Alaska was tremendous — as was her mom filming it all on a gigantic iPad from the parents watch party in Orlando.

On the broadcast Rowdy Gaines said the entire state has one Olympic-sized pool (50 meters) and that she swims in a 25-yard pool, but she pulled off the race of her life for Olympic gold on the biggest stage of them all. Her post-race interview was everything you’d expect from a 17-year-old who just won a gold medal at the Olympics.

It is an incredibly cool moment for Jacoby, who will surely see those lofty expectations shifted onto her young shoulders for the next three years leading up to the Paris Games, but for now she can revel in one of the greatest moments any athlete can have.

Donald Trump on the promise that he would overhaul, if not destroy, the Republican Party. That meant being mean to the Bush Dynasty. He spent a good chunk of the primary debates gleefully mocking opponent Jeb Bush, and pretty much everyone in the family. That didn’t stop one of the family members — Jeb’s son George P. Bush — from spending months sucking up to the former president, hoping he’d endorse his run for Texas Attorney General. And on Monday, we learned he evidently didn’t suck up hard enough.

According to The Hill, Trump surprised the Bush scion by instead endorsing incumbent Ken Paxton? What did Paxton do to impress him, apart from not being related to Jeb Bush? Well, filing a fruitless lawsuit a few months back against the Supreme Court over 2020 election results probably didn’t hurt.

It wasn’t for lack of trying. George P. has spent months, even years openly kissing the Trump ring, despite how he treated his own father. He was the only Bush to publicly endorse him in 2016. He even made koozies embossing Trump’s line that he was “the only Bush that likes me.” As recent as last month he was bragging about meeting with the one-term president, touting how they were working “together to Keep America Great.”

But Trump is a fickle one, with admirers seeking his love, despite him being a failed blogger who lives in resorts with strangers. And now George P. will have an even more awkward time at family reunions than usual.

When the news broke, were people quick to rub it in? Boy, were they.

But it’s fine. He’s still in the race, which means there’s a chance sans Trump, however slim. And if that fails, he’ll still have a gig: commissioner of the Texas General Land Office.

(Via The Hill)

Billie Eilish has had an incredible rise over the last few years. Releasing her debut album When We All Fall Asleep Where Do We Go? in 2019, the young singer-songwriter followed that up very quickly with a second album, Happier Than Ever, that’s due to drop later this week. With plenty of singles from the record already out in the universe, older hits like “Therefore I Am” and “My Future” have given way to new fan favorites like “Your Power” and my personal choice, “Lost Cause.”

In the meantime, Billie has been on something of a press tear, covering Vogue and breaking Instagram records while she’s at it, and sitting down for an in-depth video interview with Vevo. Speaking on the sound and feel of the record, she let her fans know that one of the major inspirations for the album was Frank Sinatra, which might be why her ideal vision of how listeners encounter the music for the first time is a little bit old school, too.

“You can listen however you want,” she began. “But I would love — if your car has nice speakers, or your friend’s car has nice speakers — it’s raining, you’re in a nice car with a good sound system. Turn it up, and just recline and close your eyes, and listen. That’s what I hope people will do. But listen however you want, it’s up to you.”

The news also hit today that Happier Than Ever has become the most pre-added album in Apple Music history with over a million pre-adds. So it looks like this album is shaping up to be just as successful as her last one. Now, who is going to let me borrow their nice car with great speakers for my first listen?

A few years after 2018’s Vide Noir, Lord Huron returned with their fourth album, Long Lost, in May. It’s an album full of captivating tunes, including “Love Me Like You Used To,” for which the group just shared a new video. The clip follows a mysterious visitor to the Whispering Pines Museum, whose purpose eventually becomes clear.

In a May interview, Ben Schneider said of the inspiration behind the album, “We’ve been working in our studio, Whispering Pines, for about seven years now, made the past three records there, and become more of a center piece of the band. […] It’s been there since the ’70s. There’s some info about it, but it’s a little sketchy, so we kinda… It’s a very haunted feel, it’s very stuck in a time warp. The decor is all the original stuff from the ’70s, and we had to replace a lot of the electronics and equipment, but it has this very haunted, trapped-in-time feel. So, we’ve invented characters that we imagine haunting it, or people who have passed through in the past, and writing from their perspective became the concept of the album.”

Watch the “Love Me Like You Used To” video above.

Long Lost is out now via Whispering Pine Studios Inc./Republic Records. Get it here.

California Governor Gavin Newsom is in trouble. There’s a recall election coming for him in mid-September, with Republicans furious about how he handled the pandemic. (Maybe he’ll be replaced by…Randy Quaid?) Newsom’s response has come under scrutiny by many, but the majority of his critics on the right aren’t so mad much about the cases. They’re mad that he closed down much of the state in the first place, in an attempt to save lives. But the backlash hasn’t quelled Newsom’s passion in fighting the virus, as evidenced by his next-level Twitter fight with vaxx skeptic Marjorie Taylor Greene.

On Monday, Greene — who appears to spend most of her time yelling at people online or in real life, but now on the tax payers’ dime — came for Newsom, reminding him about why conservatives hate him. “you know what is exhausting to the people of California? Your communist dictatorship,” she wrote on Twitter. Greene has a history of making ill-fitting comparisons between America and things that happened during World War II, so he equated a dictatorship with what happened most places around the country: “Shutting down businesses, closing churches, schools, and beaches is disgraceful.”

But Newsom wasn’t having it. “Disgraceful? Here’s a word – murderous,” he wrote back, stepping it up a few rungs. “Your anti-vaccine lies are literally killing Americans. Your own supporters are following you off a cliff and into the ICU. Come clean about vaccines — they save lives.”

A portion of the Republican world has done a 180 on the vaccines. Once they either shrugged them as unimportant or treated them with outright hostility. Now even Fox News is begging their viewers — who now make up the vast majority of COVID-related deaths — to get one. Greene, like Tucker Carlson, has stuck to her guns. And while a governor calling out someone on Twitter doesn’t pack the visceral punch of, say, a Montana man quietly telling Carlson what he thinks about him to his face, it’s not nothing.