DETROIT — Three former Eastern Michigan men’s basketball players declined to cooperate with an NCAA investigation into potential sports-betting violations, the NCAA announced Friday.

The NCAA identified the three players as forwards Jalin Billingsley and Da’Sean Nelson and guard Jalen Terry. The NCAA said not cooperating with an investigation is a violation of NCAA rules, which could result in permanent ineligibility, but none of the three has any college eligibility remaining.

Eastern Michigan said its athletic department cooperated fully in the investigation.

“EMU remains committed to compliance with NCAA rules and preserving the integrity of competition,” athletic director Scott Wetherbee said in a statement to The Detroit News on Friday.

“Eastern Michigan fully cooperated with the NCAA staff and its investigators. The three student-athletes who chose not to participate in the investigation have exhausted their eligibility.

“With the matter behind us, we are looking forward to the upcoming season.”

The NCAA said in its report Friday that in January 2025, its enforcement staff received alerts from integrity-monitoring services about potentially suspicious first-half betting activity on Eastern Michigan’s Jan. 14 game at Central Michigan, won by CMU, 82-63.

On Jan. 29, the three players had their phones imaged by an NCAA enforcement vendor. The NCAA said its enforcement staff made requests to interview the players after their phones were imaged.

On March 17, 10 days after the team’s season ended, the players’ lawyers notified the NCAA that they would not participate in the investigation, and they requested the phone images be destroyed.

The NCAA said Friday that it was unable to determine if sports-betting violations occurred.

Not participating in an NCAA investigation is considered a Level I violation, if players have eligibility remaining. Instead, the NCAA’s only remaining recourse was to publicly name the players in question.

“When individuals choose not to cooperate — particularly when cases involve potential integrity issues — those choices can and will be met with serious consequences including prohibitions on athletically related activities, the loss of eligibility and/or being publicly named in an infractions decision,” the NCAA’s Division I Committee on Infractions said in a statement released Friday.

EMU finished the 2024-25 season with an overall record of 16-16, 9-9 in the Mid-American Conference.

Terry played in 31 games and led the team in scoring at 16.6 points per game, and also averaged 4.8 rebounds and 2.9 assists. Nelson played in 31 games and averaged 16.1 points and 5.7 rebounds. Billingsley played in all 32 games and averaged 10.5 points and 5.1 rebounds.

The publicly IDing of the former Eastern Michigan players comes one day after federal investigators arrested Miami Heat player Terry Rozier for allegedly rigging sports betting with his on-court actions.

The NCAA, the only major sports league in United States without commercial partnerships with sportsbooks, said this week that it has investigated about 30 current and former men’s basketball players for sports betting improprieties. NCAA athletes aren’t allowed to bet on any sports, but starting Nov. 1, they can bet on professional sports.

“We are grateful for federal law-enforcement’s efforts to stamp out illegal sports betting, and I am proud that the NCAA continues to have the most aggressive competition-integrity polices in place,” NCAA president Charlie Baker said in a statement this week. “The Association has and will continue to pursue sports-betting violations using a layered integrity-monitoring program for over 22,000 states.

“But we still need more states, regulators and gaming companies to help in this effort by eliminating risky prop bets to reduce opportunities for manipulation.”

HOUSTON — New Detroit Pistons forward Duncan Robinson doesn’t know all the details surrounding the federal investigations of Miami Heat guard Terry Rozier and Portland Trail Blazers coach Chauncey Billups. The arrest also included former NBA player Damon Jones.

But he does know that Rozier is a friend, and he was “sad” to see his former Heat teammate arrested on Thursday. Rozier and Billups, a former Pistons great, were among the more than 30 people charged with participating in criminal cases alleging sprawling separate schemes to rig sports bets and poker games involving Mafia families, according to federal authorities. Rozier and Robinson played together for two seasons in Miami.

“It’s hard to see, like, omnipresent, the betting stuff is for all of us,” Robinson told The Detroit News on Friday. “Obviously, recently we’ve seen the other side of that. Terry’s a friend, Terry’s a former teammate of mine. That’s tough to see, you know. I don’t know exactly all the details of what happened, but just from, like, a human standpoint, I feel for him, and I was sad to see that.”

The accusations have cast a massive cloud over the NBA and sparked widespread reaction. Pistons coach J.B. Bickerstaff said he has had multiple discussions with his players. While this is an NBA requirement, Bickerstaff has conducted several additional conversations beyond that.

“We just understand how difficult it is for these guys now, the amount of pressure that’s on them, but how careful you have to be,” Bickerstaff said. “Any information that can be spread that’s not available to everybody else, who should you share that information with. Having to have hard conversations with your family, because it could be an innocent thing.

“We have seen now what those things can turn into and how they can spread and just how valuable this information is. It is a difficult situation overall. But once you introduce gambling the way the sports world has now, there are going to be some dangerous situations for everybody. We all need to do a better job of protecting one another.”

The NBA has encountered multiple challenges related to gambling recently. In April 2024, Jontay Porter was issued a lifetime ban after the league’s investigation.

A year later, former Pistons guard Malik Beasley became the subject of a federal gambling investigation, which led Detroit to withdraw its three-year, $42 million offer in June. Although he has been cleared by the NBA, he remains a subject of interest to the FBI.

“It’s a tough situation that you don’t like to see,” Houston Rockets coach Ime Udoka said. “We have a meeting coming up to talk about it to reiterate that point. Don’t know a ton of information on the specifics of those instances, but something you obviously know about players, coaches, and everybody involved, and something you have to stay away from.”

The Detroit Lions on Tuesday became the fourth and final team in the NFC North to enter its bye week, getting some time off later in the calendar than the Green Bay Packers (Week 5), Chicago Bears (Week 5) and Minnesota Vikings (Week 6).

An idle date in Week 8 doesn’t split the season in half — Detroit (5-2) has 10 games to go, plus whatever is to come in a potential postseason run — but it serves as a well-deserved break for the Lions, who rank third in points scored per game (30.7) and 12th in points allowed (21.6) this season.

With four NFC North contests still to come, including one apiece against the Packers and Bears, we’ll break down the resume of each of Detroit’s divisional foes, as well as why Lions fans should (and shouldn’t) be hopeful for their upcoming matchups.

Green Bay Packers

Record: 4-1-1

Winning percentage of remaining opponents: .563 (seventh highest)

Remaining game vs. Lions: Week 13

The skinny: The Packers opened their season with a statement win over the Lions, stifling Detroit’s offense before doing the same to the Washington Commanders in Week 2. There were consecutive hiccups in the two following weeks — the Cleveland Browns pulled off an unlikely upset, and the Dallas Cowboys played Green Bay to a tie — but the Packers are winners of two straight, and, based on winning percentage, currently lead the NFC North.

Reason for optimism: Dan Campbell’s Lions haven’t been swept by an in-division opponent since the Bears did it in 2021. Week 1’s result against the Packers was worrisome, especially when a number of Detroit’s perceived flaws (fresh coordinators, new-look offensive line) were evident. But those issues have largely dissipated in the weeks since, and the Packers, particularly on defense, don’t look to be the juggernaut they appeared early on.

Reason to be worried: Defensive coordinator Jeff Hafley is proficient at limiting explosive plays. Green Bay’s pass defense allows 5.0 yards per play (third-lowest, behind the Denver Broncos and Atlanta Falcons), and its run defense holds opponents to -0.13 Expected Points Added (EPA) per play, the fifth-best mark in the NFL. Communication issues were a problem for the Lions’ offensive line in Week 1. That can’t happen again against a defensive front — Micah Parsons, Rashan Gary, Devonte Wyatt and Colby Wooden — as talented as the Packers’.

Chicago Bears

Record: 4-2

Winning percentage of remaining opponents: .534 (13th)

Remaining game vs. Lions: Week 18

The skinny: The Bears, in Ben Johnson’s first year as head coach, are undefeated since getting blown out by the Lions in Week 2. They’ve beat up on a couple inferior opponents (the Las Vegas Raiders in Week 4 and New Orleans Saints in Week 7), but have solid wins against the Cowboys in Week 3 and Commanders in Week 6. Impressive about Chicago’s victory over Dallas: The Bears held the Cowboys’ high-powered offense to 14 points, its fewest this season.

Reason for optimism: If there’s one thing the Lions are going to sell out to do defensively, it’s stop the run. That matches up well with the Bears, who are a run-first team — they’ve run the ball on 46.8% of their offensive snaps, the fifth-highest rate in the league. If the Lions can slow the Bears on the ground or jump out to an early lead and force Chicago to play catch-up, it’s a firm advantage for Detroit.

Reason to be worried: One would naturally think Chicago’s recent success is due to the offense, given Johnson’s history. But the Bears are rolling defensively, particularly on the back end. Tyrique Stevenson’s overall defensive grade from Pro Football Focus since Week 3 (91.7) ranks second among qualified cornerbacks, and Kevin Byard’s mark over that stretch (89.9) is second among safeties. The Bears have forced 15 turnovers over their last four games, including 10 interceptions. Four of those INTs have been courtesy of Byard.

Minnesota Vikings

Record: 3-4

Winning percentage of remaining opponents: .568 (5th)

Remaining games vs. Lions: Weeks 9, 17

The skinny: The Vikings fell to the Los Angeles Chargers on Thursday, picking up their third loss in their last four tries. Things looked promising early in the season as backup quarterback Carson Wentz led a 48-10 clobbering of the Cincinnati Bengals in Week 3, but Minnesota is 1-3 since, with losses to the Pittsburgh Steelers (Week 4), Philadelphia Eagles (Week 7) and Chargers (Week 8). The lone win came against the Cleveland Browns (Week 5).

Reason for optimism: If second-year quarterback J.J. McCarthy returns from injury in Week 9, Detroit’s defense could feast on an inexperienced QB who has struggled in seven of his eight quarters of professional football; outside of a 21-point final frame against the Bears in Week 1, the Vikings have scored just 12 points on 19 total possessions with McCarthy at QB. Even if the Vikings keep McCarthy on the bench in Week 9, Wentz (110-of-169 for 1,216 yards, six touchdowns and five interceptions this season) has hardly been a world-beater.

Reason to be worried: Minnesota’s pass defense is once again strong this season, ranking fourth in EPA per pass attempt (-0.17). Cornerback Isaiah Rodgers has proven to be a helpful offseason addition, and defensive end Jonathan Greenard (30 pressures) continues to show his value as a pass rusher. The Vikings’ excellence against the pass should come as no surprise, as coordinator Brian Flores has been doing this for years. In fairness to the Lions, though, we’ve seen them handle a Flores-led defense before; quarterback Jared Goff has a passer rating of 110.5 in his last four meetings with Flores.

HAZEL PARK — Following Friday night’s 41-20 defeat of East English Village Prep, Hazel Park head coach John Callahan joked that at over 10 yards per carry, maybe he’s not giving the ball enough to running back Montrell Parker.

The Vikings senior added to an already superb season stat line by dashing for 319 yards and three scores in the win, which essentially guaranteed the team’s name would be called when the Division 5 playoff field is officially announced on Sunday.

“It’s great,” Parker said of Hazel Park’s offense that’s put up at least 40 points eight times now in the past two seasons that he’s been the featured back. “Everybody can score, so it’s not like anybody can just look at one person. It’s great. Everyone’s an athlete around here.”

That includes senior teammate Lathan Chambers, who scored on both of his carries in the first quarter that ended with Hazel Park leading 14-0.

Not long after, Parker went just over half the length of the field to the house for his rushing TD of the night, and after Parker did most of the dirty work on the Vikings’ next offensive possession, Tavion Brinson scored from 2 yards out to make it 28-0 with 4:46 left in the half.

East English (2-7) did convert with a desperation pass on fourth-and-18 before junior Dominique Douglas scored from 8 yards out, and a pass by Douglas to Malachi Lowe for the 2-point conversion made it 28-8 with 45 ticks until intermission.

Anyone showed up after that would’ve thought the night belonged to the Bulldogs up until early in the fourth quarter. Their drive to start the second half lasted over eight minutes before they were forced to punt, which netted few yards, but a fumble on the first play by Hazel Park (6-3) gave it right back to East English at the Vikings 32-yard line. The Bulldogs continued to milk clock and ended up punching it in on third-and-goal from the 1-yard line on an outside run right by Kelah Thorns, though Hazel Park’s Will Eddy (six carries, 81 yards) and Malaki Randle helped stuffed the conversion attempt with 27 seconds remaining in the third quarter

At that point, the Vikings took back over. Parker broke off a 51-yard run for his second score of the night that made it 35-14 with 10:25 remaining. When the Bulldogs got it back, Terry Johnson brought down Douglas to back up East English into fourth-and-long, and Treston Battle put the first nail in the visitors’ coffin with a leaping interception near midfield. On the ensuing drive, Parker added another when he reached the end zone for a final time one play after he came a yard short on a 23-yard gain.

Douglas added a consolation TD for the Bulldogs on a 7-yard run with 1:08 left, but a Vikings’ defense somewhat overshadowed by their offense and Parker — who now has 1,776 rushing yards and 23 TDs on the year — did its job.

Hazel Park senior linebacker Gregory Crouch said it’s more privilege than pressure to match the opposite unit. “We’ve got a good defense, and a lot of our offensive guys play on defense,” he said. “We know if we get them the ball back, we can score a touchdown on one play. That’s it, simple as that.”

Photos of Hazel Park vs. Detroit East English Village Prep in football action

If not for that fumble that allowed the Bulldogs to control an entire quarter, Parker may have found himself high up in MHSAA's record books for single-game rushing yards, though it was still his second monster game in a row after carrying for 370 yards and four TDs in last week's 38-26 loss to St. Clair.

"We had good practices, the kids were fired up, and I think the first half showed that," Callahan said. "The second half, they did a good job, obviously controlling the ball, and that was their game plan. We've got to get better in phases, but we got out of it healthy.

"The kid's special," Callahan added of Parker. "I mean, you think you have him and you don't. He's a little dinged up, and I think in the past he would have broken a couple of those tonight where he got caught. And that's a credit to them. Hopefully we can get him healthy and maybe he can outrun guys on a couple of those next week."

Following a pair of 4-5 campaigns in his first years with the Vikings, Callahan guided them to a 7-4 record in his third season last fall, and now has them back in the postseason once again.

"Just practice how you play," Parker responded when asked what's made Hazel Park successful under Callahan. "We always go 100 in practice, and there's great coaches on our side."

Callahan pulled from his experience to elaborate on the process, saying, "I know when I was at Loyola, it wasn't until, I believe our fifth year when the kids caught up with it and understood it. But once we got it, I think we went like, 56-4, with four state finals appearances. I think these guys here are getting it."

Hazel Park rushed for over 400 yards and gave a big boost to its playoff hopes with a 41-20 home victory over Detroit East English Village Prep on Friday, Oct. 24, 2025.

Bloomfield Hills Brother Rice defeated Sterling Heights Stevenson 24-15 in the final game of the regular season for both teams Friday, Oct. 24, 2025 at Lawrence Tech University.

SOUTHFIELD – The Bloomfield Hills Brother Rice Warriors defeated the Sterling Heights Stevenson Titans 24-15 Friday night to secure a playoff spot for the first time since 2022.

“We just kept growing up,” Warriors head coach Aaron Marshall said. “I think what we saw these last three games is our younger kids grow up, our seniors start leading the right way. But again, that’s really how football works. You’ve got to keep stacking days, keep stacking days, and trust the process and fall in love with it. These boys believe. The senior group led, and I really truly believe they fell in love with the process, and it shows for the last four weeks, actually.”

Leading 21-15 with 10:07 to play, the Warriors took possession at their own 12-yard line. Brother Rice marched down the field with a combination of hard running from sophomore Deondre Hill and quick passing from junior quarterback Sam Eyde. Thirteen plays, 81 yards, and just over seven minutes later, Kadin Koza kicked a 24-yard field goal to make it a two-possession game with just 3:04 left on the clock.

“It was important,” Marshall said. “It’s always a group effort, always a team effort. But that definitely closed out the game when we needed that.”

Stevenson drove into Brother Rice territory on its next drive, but an interception by Caden Reid sealed the game for the Warriors and punched their ticket to the playoffs.

The game was a slugfest early on. A run-heavy offense out of the Titans had them moving the ball well, and a 78-yard burst by Landon Porter gave Stevenson the lead toward the beginning of the second quarter. But Brother Rice answered with a touchdown drive of its own, capped by a 1-yard scamper from Hill to tie the game. An interception on the Titans’ next drive led to another Brother Rice touchdown, this one on a 34-yard weaving sprint by Jacob Johnson, who looked like a video game character at times with some stop-and-start dodging that left a plethora of Titan defenders grabbing at air.

The teams continued to seesaw for much of the night. The Titans took the lead back on the opening possession of the second half, going 80 yards in nine plays – all runs – for a touchdown, then used a fake extra-point try, flipping the ball to kicker Pawel Surowiec, who made a beeline for the left pylon and lowered his shoulder to drive into the end zone for the two points and a 15-14 Titans’ lead.

But after that, Brother Rice’s defense made the plays it had to, keeping the one-dimensional Stevenson offense in check the rest of the way while the Warriors’ more balanced efforts yielded a pair of crucial scoring drives and 10 more points in the second half.

For the Titans, it was all about the running game, largely a combination of Landon Porter and Jaiden Hill-Alston. Stevenson amassed 205 yards on the ground, though the Titans managed just 28 yards passing against an active Brother Rice secondary. They were threatening every time they ran the ball, but eventually the Brother Rice defenders made enough plays to finish drives.

“We ran out of juice there at the end,” Titans head coach Justin Newcomb said. “But I’m proud of our kids. Landon Porter played his heart out on three days of prep to come out and spark us like he did as a senior, laying it on the line for his team. I’m so proud of him and the rest of the guys for how they came in and competed. The game plan was really to hold on to the ball, suffocate it as much as we could. And we had some drives we were able to do that.”

Photos of Bloomfield Hills Brother Rice vs. Sterling Heights Stevenson in football action at Lawrence Tech University

Brother Rice, on the other hand, had more yardage and more balance. Eyde completed 18 of 26 passes for 204 yards for the Warriors to balance a ground game led by Hill that amassed 142 yards. The intermediate passing game was very good to Eyde and the Warriors. Johnson (six catches) and Christian Marshall (five receptions) were Eyde’s favorite targets.

The win improves Brother Rice’s record to 5-4 overall and clinches them a Division 2 playoff spot, just two years removed from a team that went 0-9.

“It feels great. I just get memories from freshman year and our long run we had in the playoffs. I’m so excited to be out there with my team,” Warriors senior captain Brady Thomas said. “With a head coach and all our coaches that are preparing us, we really turned it around, and we’re prepared for every competition. We’re just believing and competing."

Stevenson (5-4) is also preliminary into the D1 postseason field, though both teams will await the official release of the brackets on Sunday to see where their next game will be and against whom they will play.

“We knew that our seeding wasn’t going to change based on a win or loss, but we wanted a good show. You’ve got to build some momentum going into the playoffs,” Newcomb said. “But we’re fairly confident that we’re going to be local next week.”

HOUSTON (AP) — Cade Cunningham scored 21 points and made two free throws with 5.5 seconds left to help the Detroit Pistons hold on to beat the Houston Rockets 115-111 on Friday night.

Detroit coach J.B. Bickerstaff got his 300th career win, making him and his father Bernie Bickerstaff (419) the first father-son duo to in NBA history to each reach 300 career wins.

Paul Reed’s layup made it 113-110 before Houston cut the lead to two when Alperen Sengun made 1 of 2 free throws with 1:32 remaining.

Both teams missed 3-point attempts before Detroit’s Ausar Thompson missed a 3 with 35 seconds left and Reed blocked Sengun’s shot in the lane 16.4 seconds to go.

Houston was forced to foul and Cunningham sunk both free throws to make it 115-111 and give the Pistons their first win of the season after they lost to Chicago in their opener.

Thompson had 19 points for Detroit to outdo identical twin brother Houston’s Amen Thompson, who finished with 10.

Kevin Durant had 37 points for the Rockets and was 16 of 18 from the free throw line. He was 3 of 3 from 3-point range after missing all four of his long-range shots Tuesday in his first game with the Rockets after this summer’s blockbuster trade from Phoenix.

The Pistons led by 5 after a 3-pointer by Cunningham with about 8½ minutes to go before Durant scored all of Houston’s points in an 8-3 run to tie it at 101-all midway through the quarter.

The Rockets trailed by 3 with about five minutes left when Durant tied it at 105 with a 3-pointer.

Detroit used a 6-0 run to take a 111-105 lead with three minutes left. Jabari Smith Jr. hit a 3-pointer for Houston after that and Durant made a pair of free throws to get Houston within 1 with less than two minutes to go.

Up Next

Pistons: Host Boston on Sunday.

Rockets: Host Brooklyn on Monday night.

— By KRISTIE RIEKEN, Associated Press

Below is a list of all the games for teams, organized by league, covered by outlets in the MediaNews Group Michigan cluster — the Mt. Pleasant Morning Sun, the Macomb Daily, the Oakland Press, the Royal Oak Tribune, the Voice, the Dearborn Press & Guide, and the Southgate News Herald — for Friday, Oct. 24, 2025.

Check back throughout the night, to see as scores come in, with links to coverage from all of the papers in our cluster.

 

 

BLUE WATER AREA CONFERENCE

Almont 53, Detroit Edison 46

Madison Heights Madison 38, Algonac 34

Richmond 21, L’Anse Creuse North 7

Frankenmuth 42, Armada 14

 

CATHOLIC HIGH SCHOOL LEAGUE

Bloomfield Hills Brother Rice 21, Sterling Heights Stevenson 15

Cincinnati (Ohio) Elder 35, Warren De La Salle 7

Dearborn Divine Child 56, Detroit Southeastern 6

Flat Rock 41, Macomb Lutheran North 14

Madison Heights Bishop Foley 17, Grosse Pointe Woods University Liggett 0

Orchard Lake St. Mary’s 20, River Rouge 3

Riverview Gabriel Richard 42, Arts & Technology Academy of Pontiac 15

Royal Oak Shrine 51, Detroit CMA 8

Saginaw Nouvel CC 34, Clarkston Everest Collegiate 17

Southfield Bradford 20, Marine City Cardinal Mooney 3

Waterford Our Lady of the Lakes 28, Auburn Hills Oakland Christian 6

Bloomfield Hills Cranbrook Kingswood at Livonia Clarenceville

 

CENTRAL STATE ACTIVITIES ASSOCIATION

Lakeview at Remus Chippewa Hills

 

CHARTER SCHOOL CONFERENCE

Almont 53, Detroit Edison 46

Ecorse 38, Hamtramck 11

Melvindale AB&T 40, Detroit Osborn 0

Riverview Gabriel Richard 42, Arts & Technology Academy of Pontiac 15

Rochester Hills Lutheran Northwest 44, Detroit Leadership Academy 28

Southfield Bradford 20, Marine City Cardinal Mooney 3

 

DOWNRIVER LEAGUE

Gibraltar Carlson 44, Allen Park 7

Taylor 32, Woodhaven 28

Trenton 49, Lincoln Park 26

Southgate Anderson 59, Melvindale 6

Wyandotte Roosevelt 42, Dearborn Edsel Ford 8

 

FLINT METRO LEAGUE

Holly 21, Walled Lake Northern 20

Ortonville Brandon 55, Pontiac 12

 

HIGHLAND CONFERENCE

Beal City 39, Ithaca 8 [PHOTO GALLERY]

 

HURON LEAGUE

Adrian 27, New Boston Huron 6

Detroit Country Day 17, Monroe St. Mary Catholic Central 3

Flat Rock 41, Macomb Lutheran North 14

Grosse Ile 27, Dundee 10

Toledo St. Francis De Sales 44, Riverview 6

 

INDEPENDENTS

Dansville 34, Vestaburg 14

Detroit Country Day 17, Monroe St. Mary Catholic Central 3

Orchard Lake St. Mary’s 20, River Rouge 3

Pontiac Notre Dame Prep 34, Hudsonville Unity Christian 25

Bloomfield Hills Cranbrook Kingswood at Livonia Clarenceville

 

JACK PINE CONFERENCE

Grayling 21, Shepherd 20

Harbor Springs 37, Farwell 8

Harrison 58, Evart 14

Petoskey 49, Clare 7

St. Louis 44, Hesperia 28

 

KENSINGTON LAKES ACTIVITIES ASSOCIATION

(Crossover games)

Dearborn Fordson 39, Brighton 35

Hartland 42, Dearborn 18

Westland John Glenn 48, Novi 25

 

LAKES VALLEY CONFERENCE

Holly 21, Walled Lake Northern 20

Lakeland 45, Milford 31

South Lyon 29, South Lyon East 6

Walled Lake Western 63, Walled Lake Central 21

 

MACOMB AREA CONFERENCE

Bloomfield Hills Brother Rice 21, Sterling Heights Stevenson 15

Chippewa Valley 35, Southfield A&T 6

Clarkston 42, Utica Eisenhower 0

Clawson 10, Royal Oak 7

Clintondale 70, Sterling Heights 26

Detroit Central 22, Warren Lincoln 6

Grand Blanc 40, Romeo 36

Grosse Pointe South 44, Grosse Pointe North 7

Hazel Park 41, Detroit East English 20

Madison Heights Lamphere 24, Berkley 3

Madison Heights Madison 38, Algonac 34

Marysville 19, Marine City 8

Oxford 24, Macomb Dakota 20

Port Huron 14, L’Anse Creuse 0

Port Huron Northern 35, St. Clair 26

Richmond 21, L’Anse Creuse North 7

Rochester Adams 35, Anchor Bay 14

St. Clair Shores Lakeview 42, St. Clair Shores Lake Shore 7

Troy Athens 40, Fraser 7

Utica 42, Warren Cousino 34

Warren Fitzgerald 48, Romulus 6

Warren Mott 46, Warren Woods Tower 0

West Bloomfield 28, Roseville 7

Utica Ford at New Haven

 

MICHIGAN INDEPENDENT ATHLETIC CONFERENCE

Rochester Hills Lutheran Northwest 44, Detroit Leadership Academy 28

Sterling Heights Parkway Christian 31, Genesee 28

Waterford Our Lady of the Lakes 28, Auburn Hills Oakland Christian 6

 

OAKLAND ACTIVITES ASSOCIATION

Birmingham Groves 21, Birmingham Seaholm 14

Carleton Airport 24, Auburn Hills Avondale 15

Chippewa Valley 35, Southfield A&T 6

Clarkston 42, Utica Eisenhower 0

Clawson 10, Royal Oak 7

Farmington 40, Dearborn Heights Crestwood 0

Ferndale 49, Detroit Renaissance 20

Madison Heights Lamphere 24, Berkley 3

North Farmington 42, Troy 7

Oak Park 34, Bloomfield Hills 28

Ortonville Brandon 55, Pontiac 12

Oxford 24, Macomb Dakota 20

Rochester 42, Monroe 6

Rochester Adams 35, Anchor Bay 14

Saline 49, Lake Orion 14

Stoney Creek 35, Ann Arbor Huron 14

Troy Athens 40, Fraser 7

West Bloomfield 28, Roseville 7

 

SAGINAW VALLEY LEAGUE

Mt. Pleasant 34, Ypsilanti Community 12

 

TRI-VALLEY CONFERENCE

Beal City 39, Ithaca 8 [PHOTO GALLERY]

Big Rapids 48, Alma 7

 

WESTERN WAYNE ATHLETIC CONFERENCE

Dearborn Heights Annapolis 21, Lutheran Westland 6

Dearborn Heights Robichaud 48, Detroit Douglass 0

Farmington 40, Dearborn Heights Crestwood 0

Warren Fitzgerald 48, Romulus 6

Southgate Anderson 59, Melvindale 6

 

—————

 

8-PLAYER FOOTBALL

Merrill 36, Fulton 34

Portland St. Patrick 42, Montabella 16

New Haven Merritt Academy at Dryden

 

—————

 

Saturday’s games

Waterford Mott at Waterford Kettering, 1 p.m.

Center Line at Jackson Lumen Christi, 1:30 p.m. (Prep Bowl)

St. Clair Shores South Lake at Warren Michigan Collegiate, 2 p.m. Allen Park Cabrini at Ann Arbor Gabriel Richard, 4:30 p.m. (Prep Bowl)

Detroit Martin Luther King at Detroit Catholic Central, 7:30 p.m. (Prep Bowl)

Lake City at Mt. Pleasant Sacred Heart, 7 p.m.

The post Detroit Evening Report: Detroit Youth Assembly invites young people to take action appeared first on WDET 101.9 FM.

MIAMI (AP) — As a new NBA season opened this week, coach Rick Carlisle and the Indiana Pacers received their annual briefing on the do’s and don’ts of gambling.

Betting in casinos is generally allowed. Betting on other sports, provided it is legal, is also allowed.

Betting on NBA basketball is not.

For veterans of the sport, it’s the type of training that can seem routine — almost boring, perhaps. But the potential repercussions for breaking the rules are now abundantly clear after Portland coach Chauncey Billups and Miami guard Terry Rozier were among nearly three dozen people arrested Thursday for what federal law enforcement officials described as their involvement in various illicit gambling activities.

The developments pose an unexpected challenge for a league that hoped to begin its season on a strong note, fueled by an opening night game watched by millions as it went into a thrilling double overtime. There have been amazing performances already: Victor Wembanyama scoring 40 points in his season debut with San Antonio, reigning MVP Shai Gilgeous-Alexander scoring 55 for Oklahoma City, Golden State’s Stephen Curry and Denver’s Aaron Gordon putting on an I-can-top-this show.

Those should be the talk of the league right now. That’s not the case. All that has been overshadowed. The NBA now faces questions about the pervasiveness of gambling in basketball, and uncertainty about what might happen next.

“A shocking day,” said Carlisle, who said he unsuccessfully tried to connect with Billups to offer support. “This is a very serious situation.”

The accusations against Rozier and Billups

Rozier, who was arrested in Orlando, Florida, where the Heat opened the season against the Magic, stands accused of telling an associate that he was going to play sparingly in a game on March 23, 2023, when he was with the Charlotte Hornets. Rozier played just under 10 minutes and fell well short of many of the lines set for prop bets regarding his performance.

More than $200,000 worth of wagers were won, federal officials said, based on the information Rozier shared.

Billups — a Hall of Fame player — was arrested in Lake Oswego, Oregon, and charged with being involved in a poker scheme that federal officials said cheated victims out of at least $7 million. Billups was one of 31 people arrested on the poker-related charges, and some of those arrested were, according to officials, members of three Mafia families.

The indictments for the insider betting and poker cases were separate, but it appears Billups was mentioned — albeit not by name — in the betting one as well. Someone who matches Billups’ resume, an Oregon resident who played in the NBA from 1997 through 2014 and has been a coach since 2021, was alleged to have given insider information to someone who used it to craft wagers involving Trail Blazers’ games in 2023.

That person is described in that document only as Co-Conspirator 8.

Billups and Rozier appeared in court on Thursday and are out of the league indefinitely, being placed on leave by the NBA just hours after their arrests. An attorney for Billups called his client a “man of integrity” while a lawyer for Rozier said the player is “not a gambler” and “looks forward to winning this fight.”

In a statement, the NBA said it takes “these allegations with the utmost seriousness, and the integrity of our game remains our top priority.”

Betting is big in pro sports

Yet betting has become big business for the NBA, as it has with virtually all pro sports leagues in this era where sports wagering is legal in much of the country. The practice is allowed in some form in 38 states now. Missouri will join that list later this year, and it’s also permitted in the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico.

“It’s a world that’s a different world than it was a few years ago with the advent of legalized gambling,” Carlisle noted.

Some leaders in the league encouraged the growth of legalized gambling. In 2014, NBA Commissioner Adam Silver wrote an op-ed in The New York Times noting a “thriving underground business” of illegal sports gambling that “operates free from regulation or oversight.” He called for a “different approach.”

A 2018 Supreme Court decision ultimately cleared the way for the modern era of legalized sports gambling. Today, the NBA has two official gaming partners, FanDuel and DraftKings Sportsbook, and has relationships with at least 12 authorized gaming operators. There is even a portion of the NBA’s website devoted to gambling — NBABet.

As legalized gambling has taken off, Silver has expressed some worries about the implications.

“Obviously, I’m very concerned if there’s any illegal activity going on in our league,” he said in July. “But I’d say similar to the way a public financial market works, the fact that there might be insider trading doesn’t mean you’re necessarily going to shut down those public markets. Often the way they are catching insider traders is because they have a system, a complex system, that detects aberrational behavior.”

“But,” he added, “anybody in this league, any player who engages in that activity, there’s no question they are putting their livelihood at risk.”

Golden State coach Steve Kerr said an unfortunate reality for players and coaches in this betting era is that fans reach out — often angrily, sometimes while sitting courtside — to complain that this or that happened and they lost their bet or parlay.

Kerr has even gotten emails from people who want to complain about how they believe he has personally cost them money.

“Our guys get nasty social media posts from people who have bet on games,” Kerr said. “And that’s the thing that I don’t like about this the most. Our players should not have to deal with that, but they do. … It’s just kind of the modern life.”

Billups’ arrest hit home for the Denver Nuggets. Rodney Billups, Chauncey’s brother, is a member of Denver’s coaching staff.

Michael Porter Jr. was with the Nuggets in 2024 when his brother, Toronto Raptors player Jontay Porter, was banned for life after a league probe found he disclosed confidential information to sports bettors and wagered on games — sometimes even betting on the Raptors to lose.

There have been other probes since, none quite like what the NBA finds itself dealing with now.

“This is not how we want to start the season in the NBA,” Nuggets coach David Adelman said.

— By TIM REYNOLDS, Associated Press

By MARK SHERMAN, Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — A 2018 Supreme Court decision opened the floodgates to legalized sports-betting industry, now worth billions of dollars a year, even as it recognized that the decision was controversial.

That high-court ruling is back in the spotlight after the arrests on Thursday of more than 30 people, including an NBA player and coach, in two cases alleging sprawling criminal schemes to rake in millions by rigging sports bets and poker games involving Mafia families.

What did the Supreme Court decide?

The court’s ruling struck down a 1992 federal law, the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act, that had barred betting on football, basketball, baseball and other sports in most states.

Justice Samuel Alito wrote in his majority opinion that the way Congress went about the gambling ban, barring states from authorizing sports betting, violated the Constitution’s Tenth Amendment, which protects the power of states.

“The legalization of sports gambling requires an important policy choice, but the choice is not ours to make,” Alito wrote. The court’s “job is to interpret the law Congress has enacted and decide whether it is consistent with the Constitution. PASPA is not.”

The trouble with the law, Alito explained, was that Congress did not make betting on sports a federal crime. Instead, it prohibited states from authorizing legalized gambling, improperly infringing on their authority. Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Clarence Thomas, Anthony Kennedy, Neil Gorsuch and Elena Kagan joined Alito’s opinion.

Dissenting justices said the court should have acted more narrowly

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg wrote that even if the part of the law regulating the states’ behavior should be struck down, the rest of it should have survived. In particular, Ginsburg wrote that a separate provision that applied to private parties and betting schemes should have been left in place.

Writing for Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Stephen Breyer, Ginsburg said that when a portion of a law violates the Constitution, the court “ordinarily engages in a salvage rather than a demolition operation,” preserving what it can. She said that instead of using a “scalpel to trim the statute” her colleagues used “an axe.” Breyer agreed with the majority that part of the law must be struck down but said that should not have doomed the rest of the law.

But Alito, in his majority opinion, wrote that Congress did not contemplate treating the two provisions separately.

Opponents of gambling warned about corruption

Senator Bill Bradley of New Jersey, a former college and NBA star, was a sponsor of the law that he said was needed to protect against “the dangers of sports betting.”

All four major U.S. professional sports leagues and the NCAA had urged the court to uphold the federal law, saying a gambling expansion would hurt the integrity of their games. They also said that with legal sports betting in the United States, they’d have to spend a lot more money monitoring betting patterns and investigating suspicious activity.

The Trump administration also called for the law to be upheld.

Alito acknowledged in his majority opinion “the legalization of sports gambling is a controversial subject,” in part for its potential to “corrupt professional and college sports.”

He included references to the “Black Sox Scandal,” the fixing of the 1919 World Series by members of the Chicago White Sox, and the point-shaving scandal of the early 1950s that rocked college basketball.

But ultimately, he wrote, Congress couldn’t require states to keep sports gambling prohibitions in place.

LOS ANGELES – The Los Angeles Dodgers blew away the Milwaukee Brewers in the National League Championship Series. Try as all parties involved might to suggest that things could have gone differently with a few breaks here or there, the Brewers simply did not have the horsepower to keep up. They looked like a team built on a budget playing a team that spares no expense – which, of course, is exactly what they were.

Maybe that had nothing to do with the Dodgers’ sweep. Maybe, if they played this series again – say, in a stretch when the Dodgers’ starting pitching wasn’t historically dominant – the Brewers would win it. They did, after all, beat the Dodgers in all six games they played in the regular season. No one can say for sure.

But what is certain is that even the downright modest present-day value of Shohei Ohtani’s 10-year contract (roughly $460 million) could cover the Brewers’ entire payroll three times over with room to spare. In other words, the fight for this year’s NL pennant put baseball’s haves-and-have-nots economics on national display.

Twelve months and a few weeks from now, baseball’s collective bargaining agreement will expire, a moment for which the industry has been bracing for years. Payroll disparities across MLB – such as the one on display when the Dodgers and Brewers met – have widened so much that almost everyone agrees substantial economic change is necessary.

But the owners and players disagree so dramatically on what shape that change should take that both groups are bracing for a lengthy lockout, readying themselves for the possibility of an extended work stoppage so completely that players and executives alike are crafting contracts with security in the event of a missed season.

From some vantage points, then, this series had the makings of a referendum.

An easy Dodgers win would prove the point of MLB and its owners, who are in favor of a salary cap – but are careful not to say for certain whether they will push for one. Sure, their argument would go, a so-called small-market team such as the Brewers can be an annual contender in the regular season. But when it comes to the playoffs, all perceptions of parity evaporate. No small-market club has won the World Series since the Kansas City Royals in 2015, and only one other such team (the Florida Marlins in 2003) has won a title since the turn of the century.

Certainly, parity is not the only motivation that team owners would have in pushing for a salary cap, which would limit the money they could spend on payroll and, they believe, increase franchise valuations by establishing cost certainty more like that held by NFL, NBA and NHL teams.

The players union, by contrast, could look at this series as proof that parity is as strong as ever. The team in MLB’s smallest market (as measured by the CBA) had its best regular season record and home-field advantage into the NLCS. The Brewers had as good of a chance as anyone. If they had spent even a little more, they might have had the pitching they needed to keep up with the Dodgers.

Player salaries are not the problem, the union would argue; stingy owners are. Look what happened, for example, when the Seattle Mariners splurged at this year’s trade deadline after years of relative frugality: They are one win from the World Series.

“I think that we’re in a big market [and] we’re expected to win. Our fans expect us to win. I can’t speak to what revenue we’re bringing in, but our ownership puts it back into players, a big chunk of it, which I know that’s the way it should be with all ownership groups,” Dodgers Manager Dave Roberts said. “… I think that that’s what sports fans would want from everyone – to get the best of their team.”

The Dodgers batted away the Brewers with elite starting pitching – more than $1.3 billion worth by total contract value. The Brewers were not alone in finding their offense suddenly inert against this Dodgers rotation: The formerly slugging Philadelphia Phillies scored more than three runs just once in four games against them in the NL Division Series and are now reevaluating the makeup of their roster.

The Dodgers also can afford to stockpile arms and approach the regular season with only mild desperation, which is how they ended up with four top starters at full strength in October. They let Ohtani take his time working back from Tommy John surgery so that he would be fully built up by late in the season and not a moment before. They let Blake Snell take his time working back from shoulder trouble, so much so that he made just 11 starts before the postseason. They could give Tyler Glasnow a lucrative contract extension despite his injury history because they were not signing him to be their only ace but rather one of several.

“I think the one constant, at least from my time here in L.A., is we use a lot of people. We use our roster. Our front office does a really good job of providing depth from the beginning of the season and supplementing it as the season goes on,” Dodgers pitching coach Mark Prior said. “And it allows us to use guys to bring in, to get big outs, even if it’s for two or three games.”

Brewers Manager Pat Murphy repeatedly brought up his team’s underdog status this past week, pointing out at one point that Snell “makes more money than our entire pitching staff.”

“That’s for a reason – because he’s great. What he demonstrated [in Game 1] was the high end of his game, unbelievable. That’s great,” Murphy said. “We can’t do anything about it.”

But even Murphy, who is not one to filter, knew better than to inflame tensions with a comment on whether his team would face a fairer fight with a salary cap in place. He insisted he does not use the Brewers’ perceived financial disadvantages as a motivator.

“That’s a correlation between great success and great payroll, so you can bring it up if you want to, but I don’t bring it up with our guys,” Murphy said. “I just try to get them to play hard and believe they can.”

Even if this series was symbolic, it is hard to see it changing many minds. Certainly, neither side’s position would be altered by its outcome. MLB Players Association bulldog Bruce Meyer, for example, seems unlikely to rethink his union’s most fundamental position because those doggone Dodgers won again.

But even a year before those negotiations begin, the questions were being asked and the stories were being written. MLB and union officials made their cases to reporters on the field. And everyone from team officials to coaches in the dugout wagered their guesses about how long a work stoppage might last – and which side will blink first.

These are supposed to be the halcyon days before collective bargaining’s cruel reality check, but the storm clouds are already here.

ALLEN PARK — If you’re familiar with Alim McNeill’s temperament, his answer shouldn’t surprise you.

Athletes and coaches speak often about the value of remaining even-keel. Never getting too high, never getting too low. Refusing to ride the inevitable emotional roller coaster that comes during a five-to-six-month NFL season. It’s easier said than done.

But McNeill, in his fifth year with the Detroit Lions, lives that mantra.

“He’s always very steady, which I appreciate about him,” teammate Aidan Hutchinson said.

McNeill is set to make his season debut against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers on Monday night, about 10 months removed from the torn ACL he suffered last December. For some, a return like this draws emotion, maybe even some tears of gratitude during pregame warmups or the national anthem. McNeill, however, doesn’t see himself responding that way, and it’s not because he doesn’t appreciate the moment.

“I don’t take things for granted at all; it’s for sure going to be a huge moment. But just knowing me, it’s just going to be game day for me,” said McNeill, as nonchalant as he is talented. “I’m not going to sit here and try to make a big deal out of it and all this and that. Because people get hurt and come back all the time. So, it’s like, why would I make a big deal out of it? Let’s just go play football.”

McNeill’s return is massive for the Lions. He’s a disruptive run defender next to fellow defensive tackle DJ Reader, but perhaps more important is his ability to rush the passer from an interior alignment. The Lions have missed that this season, with not only McNeill being unavailable, but also Levi Onwuzurike, who had a season-ending knee procedure before training camp.

Before getting hurt against the Buffalo Bills in Week 15 last season, McNeill posted 45 pressures, tied for the eighth-most among all defensive tackles through Weeks 1-15. He also had seven tackles for loss and 3½ sacks. His presence on the defensive line should, at least in theory, open up even more opportunities for Hutchinson, who, entering Week 7, leads the NFL in pressures (36) and strip-sacks (three), and is fourth in sacks (six).

“It’ll be super fun,” McNeill said of playing alongside Hutchinson again. “We were already out there (at practice) trying to get that chemistry back going. It’s a couple things that we were doing out there, little head nods, little small stuff like that we were trying to get going. It’s going to be fun. That’s an electric player to be beside. He elevates everybody around him.”

Excitement around McNeill’s return isn’t limited to members of the defensive line. Linebackers coach Shaun Dion Hamilton is well aware what McNeill can do for his unit, eating up space, closing gaps and opening avenues for the team’s linebackers to come down and get run stops.

The Lions already had a handful of strong run defenders at defensive tackle, in Reader, rookie Tyleik Williams and veteran Roy Lopez. Adding a fourth stout piece to the rotation should only make everyone’s responsibilities more manageable.

“Very ecstatic, as a coach, to have that guy back,” Hamilton said. “Some of the things that he can do at 300-plus pounds, you’re not supposed to be able to do. He’s going to, for sure, help affect the quarterback, play the run. It’s so many things that guy can do. Just glad that he’s on our team and not another team.”

How many snaps McNeill plays against the Bucs remains to be seen, but he’s expecting to perform at the same level he was at before getting injured. He attacked his rehabilitation too hard to think anything different: “That’s the work that I’ve been putting in, to be the same exact way, if not better.”

Ten months of work and recovery will culminate for McNeill on Monday. Don’t expect to see watery eyes when the camera pans toward him. But rest assured, McNeill, one of Detroit’s defensive cornerstones, couldn’t be happier.

“It’s the only thing I’ve been looking forward to,” McNeill said of his upcoming return. “I don’t even know how to (properly) explain that to you. I’ve been waiting on this day for a long, long time.”

If in mid-September you had forecast that Florida State would spend part of mid-October in the wee hours at Stanford frantically trying to avoid going 3-4 overall and 0-4 in the ACC while lunging toward the goal line on a final play that the referee then carefully reviewed for half an eternity, well, sure, you could have made a bloody fortune, but that wouldn’t have made you any less loopy. The truth around college football, after all, has gone loopy lately, even for college football.

Another one of those berserk weekends met its end after four top-10 teams lost and the Seminoles, 17.5-point favorites, fell, 20-13, to a program in a rebuilding decade. The drawn-out ending of Florida State-Stanford played like some slow-warping alternate universe as the game kept seeming to conclude but then not doing so as Stanford students in the stands mocked Florida State with tomahawk chops. Florida State Coach Mike Norvell wound up looking glum and puzzled again, his sixth Seminoles team appearing as if lost among the redwoods with a dead flashlight, still roaming the country without any ACC win since September 2024, across nine yawning losses.

And a final score from Tallahassee on Aug. 30, 2025 – Florida State 31, Alabama 17 – continued to mutate into some inexplicable oddity in the rearview.

Maybe somebody should just go ahead and delete it.

The Seminoles, who danced at the end of that 31-17 win to Soulja Boy’s “Crank That” as quarterback Thomas Castellanos fretted maybe they should temper the braggadocio, the team from the empire resuscitated, have now lost to Virginia, Miami, Pittsburgh and Stanford. Its good coach’s job teeters. Meanwhile, the Alabama team and its second-year coach presumed doomed and soft for a loud September week just reached 6-1 with a fourth straight win over a ranked SEC opponent, this time Tennessee by 37-20. Alabama looks like Alabama. It has beaten even Vanderbilt. “They’ve got an edge to them still and haven’t lost it since the beginning there, since Week 1,” Kalen DeBoer said of his players to reporters in Tuscaloosa. “That’s hard to do. That’s really hard to do.”

All around the land, a sport historically long on oligarchy has taken to dabbling in anarchy. Miami looks ironclad – no, wait. It lost Friday night to Louisville on a diving interception that doubled as one of the best catches ever by a linebacker, making Louisville quarterback Miller Moss say, “Holy s—,” and making the interceptor, Miami native T.J. Capers, say, “You know, I’d say it was surreal.” James Franklin looks gone – no, wait. There he sat as an ex-Penn State coach on the set of ESPN’s “College GameDay,” saying, “We’re just going to go win the national championship somewhere else now.” Two-loss Texas looks healed – no, wait. It got outgained 395-179 on Saturday night at struggling Kentucky, got out-first-downed 26-8, got out-possessed 39:23-20:37 and tussled into a 13-13 overtime, where it needed a touchdown-saving tackle by Jaylon Guilbeau, a goal-line stand and a 45-yard field goal to smile going home. “You know,” Coach Steve Sarkisian told reporters in Lexington, “once a year, you have a culture win, where the game’s not pretty but the team, because the team is so close, finds a way to win the game.”

USC returns – no, wait. Michigan sinks – no, wait. The only frigates sailing calmly above the fray seem to be Ohio State and Indiana, but the latter case feels refreshingly upside-down. UAB fired its coach last Sunday, then upended 21½-point favorite Memphis on Saturday. BYU dipped into deep trouble Oct. 11 at Arizona, wriggled out of that in double overtime and then bested loathed rival Utah, 24-21, on Saturday to reach 7-0 with the help of a ricocheting 22-yard touchdown run by a quarterback wearing No. 47 and named Bear (Bachmeier), all while Jason Benetti of Fox Sports called from the booth, “There’s a Bear on the loose in Provo!”

It’s a season in which Vanderbilt sits a legit 6-1 as lionhearted quarterback Diego Pavia helps beat No. 10 LSU, 31-24, with a fourth-down play in the third quarter on which a defensive end appears squarely in his windshield and Pavia buys himself two seconds with some sort of unteachable 360 move out of the ether before throwing. He also throws a touchdown pass to a blocking tight end, Cole Spence, who later chirpily notes it’s his first news conference and says, eventually: “Yeah, we’re not hiding it. We’re trying to go win a national championship. This is a big win, another step on the road, but if we end this season with six wins, we’re going to be pissed.”

In how many seasons do Vanderbilt and Georgia Tech stream toward the top 10 while ranked Virginia sits 6-1 after that nutty rarity, a game-winning safety, all while Texas Tech gets upset?

In one, pretty much. Assumptions keep croaking, so when you assume, you make – you know. An epitome of croaked assumptions occurred in that fresh harbor of fervor, Tempe.

You might know the populous Arizona State student body as having a bit of a reputation for appreciating that the campus is not, you know, dry. But as the newfangled college football with its 12-team playoff and its player mobility seems to allow more college towns a chance at non-delusional hoping, those Sun Devil students helped create one hell of a field-storming scene after a 26-22 upset of No. 7 Texas Tech. At one point, it appeared their grand blob of humanity engulfed a 6-foot-5, 295-pound lineman with an 82-inch wingspan, Champ Westbrooks from Los Angeles, except you can’t engulf somebody like that, so Westbrooks appeared to just grin amid the love.

Amid all the fine senselessness, both Texas Tech and Arizona State had visited Salt Lake City this year, the former whacking Utah, 34-10, and the latter getting whacked, 42-10, just last week. “I still don’t want to think about it,” Arizona State Coach Kenny Dillingham said, “because I’m so embarrassed by it.” So, of course, assumptions crumbled again.

“You’ve got to find solutions to problems,” said Dillingham, the 35-year-old native Arizonan who has returned the electricity to his alma mater. “[Losing 42-10] beat me up. It beat me up a lot. But I sat down. … I called two coaches that I knew that I had a lot of respect for and I said: ‘Hey, this is the situation we’re in. We’ve got some guys dinged up. … We’re not as physical as we were. We’re a veteran team. I’ve never been in this situation. Help?’”

Well, the embarrassed rise again in 2025, maybe even after some pad-popping practices, and so the Sun Devils led 19-7, trailed 22-19 with two minutes left and won on a 75-yard drive led by quarterback Sam Leavitt, including a hairy fourth and two when he darted toward the line but then flipped a pass to Jordyn Tyson along the sideline, leading to 33 yards of relieved roaring. Besides, everyone wants a quarterback who sobs when the leaves fall and he’s hurt and he can’t play, as happened at Utah.

“I remember we were driving on the bus on the way to the [Utah] game,” Leavitt told reporters in Tempe, “and obviously, we’re [based] in Arizona, so it doesn’t really get fall weather around here. So we get [to Salt Lake City] and leaves are falling and it feels like real football. So we’re on our way to the stadium, I’ve got my headphones on, and I just started bawling.”

In 2025, you can bawl one week and enthrall the next – or, of course, the other way around.

DETROIT (AP) — Dylan Larkin and rookie Emmitt Finne each scored twice to help the surging Detroit Red Wings beat the Edmonton Oilers 4-2 on Sunday.

Detroit has won five straight since opening with a 5-1 loss to Montreal.

Edmonton has a losing record after dropping a third straight game as superstar Connor McDavid extended his career-long, season-opening, goal drought to six games.

Detroit’s John Gibson stopped 16 shots, including one that denied McDavid midway through the third period. On the same shift, Larkin poked the puck away from the three-time MVP to take away another potential scoring opportunity.

Edmonton’s Stuart Skinner had 21 saves.

Leon Draisaitl was all alone with a chance to pull the Oilers into a tie late in the game, but lost control of the puck.

Shortly thereafter, Finne scored an empty-net goal to seal it.

Finne, a 2023 seventh-round pick, had the first goal of midway through the second period to put Detroit ahead 2-0 after Larkin broke a scoreless tie a few minutes earlier in the period.

Larkin, who has a point in all six games this season, resored the Red Wings’ two-goal lead late in the third period after Edmonton’s Noah Philp scored.

Detroit’s captain is the third Red Wing to have multiple season-opening point streaks of six or more games, joining Hall of Famers Gordie Howe and Steve Yzerman.

The Red Wings are off to a desperately needed strong start after extending their franchise-record postseason drought to nine years last spring.

The Oilers, coming off back-to-back losses in the Stanley Cup Final, didn’t earn a point for the first time against Detroit in eight games to end their longest active streak against an opponent.

Up next

Oilers: At Ottawa on Tuesday night.

Devils: At Buffalo on Wednesday night.

BLOOMINGTON, Ind. — Michigan State’s best defense Saturday came when its defense wasn’t even on the field.

In a 38-13 blowout loss to No. 3 Indiana, Michigan State’s defense gave up touchdowns on its first five drives and got pushed into its red zone on the next two. But a whopping 19:12 of first half possession time kept Indiana’s offense off the field and made Saturday’s game competitive for at least a little while.

“Going into the game, especially in the first half, we wanted to put longer drives together,” MSU coach Jonathan Smith said. “Possess the ball, and there was a lot that we were able to execute besides just being able to flat-out match touchdown scores.”

Indiana quarterback Fernando Mendoza threw for four touchdowns and 332 yards while leading his offense to a 464-367 lead in total yardage. Michigan State’s defense managed just three tackles for loss and no turnovers.

Such a stat line was to be expected against Indiana, who had the nation’s fourth-ranked offense and defense heading into the game. With explosive players all over the field, Indiana exploited talent mismatches against an increasingly banged-up MSU defense (it lost another, safety Malik Spencer, to end the game).

The Spartans’ defense didn’t have an answer for Elijah Sarratt, who scored two touchdowns on four catches, including one on a beautiful ball thrown by Mendoza right behind freshman cornerback Aydan West. In the run game, Indiana had whatever it wanted between the tackles, including Kaelon Black’s 29-yard touchdown through a significant chunk of the MSU defense.

Yet the Michigan State offense at least stayed on the field long enough to keep the game at a reasonable score — not the blowout most expected as the Spartans limped in off three straight losses. Four of eight drives lasted longer than four minutes, with the only touchdown drive going for 8:18 to take a second lead in the second quarter.

But Indiana just proved too much down the stretch for this defense.

“We knew what we were getting into,” VanSumeren said. “This is the Big Ten. This is what we came here to do, is to play these type of games, play these type of teams. It’s not like we were physically outmatched or anything like that. It’s just some things we gotta clean up at different positions, and we’ll get it right.”

Running woes strain Chiles’ limits

Aidan Chiles looked like he could do it all Saturday, throwing for 243 yards and a touchdown. He completed 27 of his 33 throws, including 20 straight at one point. He ran for 91 yards, including a 64-yard keeper in the second half. He even punted, the first MSU quarterback to do so since Rocky Lombardi in 2018.

But Chiles couldn’t do it all, held off the score sheet in the second half. And much of that had to do with the lack of a running game beside him.

Michigan State finished short of 100 yards rushing as a team for the third straight game, managing just 74 yards on 24 carries. It could’ve been even bleaker — Chiles’ 48 yards led the unit, and his total would’ve been a lot lower without that 64-yard call.

Transfer Elijah Tau-Tolliver ran for 13 yards on five carries to lead the running backs, starter Makhi Frazier bottled for a single yard on seven carries. Brandon Tullis, who showed improved pass protection compared to his early season form, finished with 3 yards on two carries.

Smith highlighted Indiana’s defensive front, led by defensive lineman Mikail Kamara (two tackles) and aided by the adept reads of linebacker Aiden Fisher (nine tackles) and Rolijah Hardy (eight tackles).

“We gotta get that solved, because we do — we want to be more effective with that,” Smith said.

Progress is fine, Spartans want results

There are no moral victories in football, even if the early fight Michigan State showed made the result a little easier to stomach.

Smith made it clear that though Michigan State showed progress in the loss, they’re still in the business of winning football games.

“We’re always looking to win the game, 100%,” Smith said, “and so that hasn’t lost our sight in any way. I mean, this is a good football team and all of that, but we want to be able to play winning football and haven’t done it the last few weeks.”

The lack of wins is weighing on Smith’s program. His four-game losing streak is the longest of his 19-game tenure at Michigan State, one that is in question given the way this season has gone. Performances like Saturday’s may have been expected, but those losses still sting.

And though it’s nice to show some progress on film, there’s a lot more work to be done. Improvements in the pass rush, pass coverage, the run game and pass protection need to be made, especially in a highly-charged rivalry setting this week against Michigan.

ANN ARBOR — With leading rusher Justice Haynes sidelined, Michigan running back Jordan Marshall stepped in and the Wolverines did not miss a beat in the running game.

Marshall had 133 yards on 25 carries (5.3 per carry) and had a touchdown in the Wolverines’ 24-7 victory over Washington on Saturday at Michigan Stadium. Michigan finished with 187 yards against a run defense that had allowed an average 82.8 yards.

“I just pride myself in running hard,” Marshall said. “That’s how I practice. That’s how I’m going to play. I’m gonna push files, I’m gonna hit people, I’m just going to play hard. That’s what my team asked from me every single play, and I’m going to give them my best. And I think I did that for not only Justice, who’s on the sideline today, but for Coach (Tony) Alford and for our whole room is just to run hard.”

Haynes suffered an unspecified injury to his torso late in the first half at USC the previous week and did not return to the game. He practiced this week and was listed as questionable but did not play. He leads the team with 705 yards and eight rushing touchdowns and entered the game as the nation’s fourth-leading rusher averaging 117.5 yards a game.

While Haynes has distinguished himself with home-run runs — he has two 75-yard touchdowns — Marshall is more of a grind-it-out, tough-yardage runner who will drag defenders much like former Michigan back Blake Corum.

“You hand off the ball, you see him get wrapped up a little bit and like, yeah, couple more yards coming after that,” quarterback Bryce Underwood said. “So just an expectation now for him.”

Marshall, sitting to Underwood’s left at the postgame interview, said that absolutely is the expectation every time he touches the ball.

“I’m a downhill, hit-you-in-the-mouth-type of runner, and I pride myself on that and carrying piles,” Marshall said. “I’ve been doing this since high school (at Cincinnati Moeller), carrying piles, and I don’t plan on stopping.”

Marshall said Haynes didn’t offer much advice before the game, because he didn’t have to. The running backs, he said, trust each other.

“He knows what I can do. I know what he can do,” Marshall said. “He just gave me that look, and he doesn’t need to say anything for me to know what I’m going to go out there and do. And I told the guys before the game, in the running back room, we talk about being the most connected team and most connected program.

“When one of your brothers are down or not playing, you got to play for them. Justice was doing everything he could this week to get out there and play with his team and couldn’t go before the game, and I know I was going to have to carry the load today and help this team win. And again, just putting us in the position to win is all I ever asked for. And playing relentless and with 100% effort every single play is what I’m going to give every single time I step out there.”

Injury updates

Starting left tackle Evan Link suffered an injury to his left leg early in the game, and after being surrounded by his teammates, he was taken off the field on a cart.

“It doesn’t look too good,” Moore said of Link’s injury. “I know it was a lower-body thing, but we’ll see how he does.”

Blake Frazier filled in for Link.

There were several absences from the game on Saturday. Haynes went through some pregame drills but was ruled out. He was listed as “questionable” on the availability list issued two hours before kickoff by the Big Ten.

Safeties Rod Moore and Brandyn Hillman did not appear on the Big Ten list but were considered by Michigan to be “game-time” decisions. They did not play. Also out was tight end Hogan Hansen. A Michigan spokesman said the Big Ten was informed before the game he would not be playing.

“They practiced through the week,” Michigan head coach Sherrone Moore said. “We always err on the side (of caution) even sometimes when they want to go, making sure they’re full strength before we do anything. “They were just game-time decisions. (Moore) practiced these past couple days, but again, you’re always going to do what’s in the best interest of the kid, even if they want to go. He probably could have gone, but we just felt like it wasn’t that time.”

Moore said he watched pregame warm-ups to make sure players were capable of playing.

“Guys that practice leading up to the game, you feel like they’re ready,” Moore said. “You get to the game, they go through warm-ups and you say, OK, that doesn’t look exactly right. Those are the things we make decisions off of.”

Linebacker Ernest Hausmann, the team’s leading tackler who had seven against the Huskies, went down late in game with what looked like a lower left leg injury. He walked off the field unassisted.

“He’ll be fine,” Moore said.

Hanging on to the trophy

Tight end Zack Marshall entered the game against Washington having caught three passes for 29 yards during his career. With tight ends Marlin Klein and Hogan Hansen out, Marshall became an important target for Underwood.

Marshall was targeted seven times and made five catches for a team-best 72 receiving yards including a 10-yard touchdown pass from Underwood. Marshall was asked what he saw on the touchdown reception.

“A lot of grass,” Marshall said. “It was pretty fun. They attached to the back, I got open. I mean, it’s how you draw it up.”

Marshall brought the football he caught for his first touchdown to the postgame interview and was asked what he’s going to do with it.

“I’m gonna put it straight into my backpack, put it right on the wall,” Marshall said. “I’m never touching those gloves again. I mean, I’m excited.”

ALLEN PARK — Jared Goff and Baker Mayfield are living the lives that are expected from former No. 1 picks: Both are playing for a contender and near the forefront of the MVP conversation.

But neither quarterback in Monday night’s game between the Detroit Lions and Tampa Bay Buccaneers took an easy road to get here, even after they were the top picks in their respective drafts, Goff with the Los Angeles Rams in 2016 and Mayfield with the Cleveland Browns in 2018. Goff is on his second team while Mayfield is on his fourth.

Between the 53.3 yards that’ll separate the two sidelines on Monday night, you’ll find there’s a lot of mutual respect.

“He’s a good friend,” Goff said of Mayfield, who has the Buccaneers off to a 5-1 start despite several key injuries at the skill positions. “(I have) a ton of respect for him. I think we both kind of — I don’t want to speak for him but — (we) can recognize that there’s some dark days in that transition and coming out the other side of it for both of us.

“A lot of respect from my end for sure and I hope he’d say the same. … I’m a big fan of his and he’s done a great job.”

Goff began his resurgence a few seasons before Mayfield latched on with the Buccaneers, but their stories are similar. They’re both former top picks who were cast off by the teams that drafted them and had their reputations dragged through the mud on their way out of town.

It took Mayfield a few more stops — he spent seven games with the Carolina Panthers before taking over the Rams’ starting job down the stretch of the 2022 season — but they arrived at the same destination: with a team that wanted them.

In Mayfield’s first two seasons with the Buccaneers, the team won the NFC South both years and reached the playoffs. The Lions beat the Buccaneers in the 2023 NFC divisional round to advance to the NFC Championship. Goff has also led the Lions to consecutive division titles.

“I think they’re both tough,” Lions coach Dan Campbell said. “Like to me they’re both really tough, dependable, resilient guys. I think both of them have overcome a lot. I think when you watch those guys and just the nature of the way they play — like, our quarterback will sit in there, he’ll make throws (when) he’s getting crunched in the pocket and has to deliver the ball. He’s not afraid of that.”

Mayfield, who’s about to face the Lions for the fourth time since joining the Buccaneers in 2023, returned the admiration in his weekly press conference.

“I love Jared. Great guy. Like I’ve told you guys before, from somebody that can relate to needing a fresh start somewhere else, it’s good to see that story,” Mayfield said. “Everybody loves a good underdog story, whatever it is, go through adversity, come through on the other side stronger. That’s life, and that’s what football can teach you.”

Now, the two are set to duel it out in what’s sure to be one of the most riveting “Monday Night Football” games of the season.

Goff enters Monday Week 7 with the league lead in completion percentage (75.9%) and passing touchdowns (14) and second in passer rating (120.6). Mayfield, meanwhile is tied for fourth in passing touchdowns (12), fourth in passing yards (1,539), and sixth in passer rating (108.5), all while being without two of his top receivers, Mike Evans and Chris Godwin, for most of the season.

Mayfield is third in MVP odds (+325, BetMGM) and Goff is fourth (+1500), while both are under new offensive coordinators. For Mayfield, he’s with his third offensive coordinator (Josh Grizzard) in three seasons.

The Lions and Buccaneers have met three times since Mayfield arrived in Tampa. Over those three games, Mayfield is 57-for-97 passing (58.8%) for an average of 246.7 yards with four total touchdowns and four interceptions. He added 70 rushing yards in those three games.

Lions defensive coordinator Kelvin Sheppard said Mayfield is the type of player who’d fit well in Detroit.

“He’s everything that we’re about here,” Sheppard said. “He’s a tough guy to deal with because when it seems like there’s nothing there, he finds a way to pull his team through. So, he makes that thing go. The coordinators are smart because they don’t try to change much, they understand what works for him and they carried over.

“There’s some nuances that changed motion-wise, schematically, but for the most part it’s Baker’s show.”

Whatever happens Monday night, this could only be a preview for an even bigger matchup down the road. The Lions and Buccaneers have been two of the NFL’s strongest organizations over the last handful of years, and there’s plenty of reasons to believe that they’ll be at their best when January rolls around.

Chief among them, however, is the rock-solid quarterback play.

“They both deliver in critical moments,” Campbell said. “They don’t get frazzled.”