Sports
UCLA’s Cronin apologizes to player for ejecting him from game
LOS ANGELES — UCLA coach Mick Cronin said Friday he apologized to Steven Jamerson II for sending the center to the locker room late in a blowout loss at No. 15 Michigan State after he committed a hard foul.
Even before the referees reviewed the play and assessed Jamerson with a flagrant foul 1, Cronin grabbed Jamerson’s jersey and pointed for him to leave the court in the waning minutes of Tuesday’s 23-point loss to the Spartans in East Lansing.
“I don’t think, to be honest, the entire world has ever seen that in a game,” Bruins guard Trent Perry said.
“I already apologized to Steve, OK?” Cronin told reporters before UCLA’s practice. “It’s the only reason I sent him to the locker room. I thought he literally made a dirty play and tried to wipe the guy out. Once I saw the film, I mean, he still got an F-1. To be honest with you, I don’t even know if he deserved that.”
Cronin said Spartans coach Tom Izzo “thought the same thing when I communicated with him.”
Cronin joked that Jamerson “asked me for $10,000 more in NIL because of that.”
He went on to speak glowingly of Jamerson, who played three seasons at the University of San Diego before transferring to UCLA last summer for his final year of eligibility. Jamerson has started once in 26 games, averaging 2.2 points and 2.4 rebounds in 11.3 minutes. He was unsuccessful in walking on at Michigan State earlier in his career.
“Steve is everything that’s good about college basketball,” Cronin said. “He’s everything that I believe in about college basketball. That being said, I’m trying to protect, like I take it really seriously. Our guys don’t get techs. We’re not taking guys out in the air.”
Cronin said he’s sometimes too candid in his comments. He has complained about travel and tipoff times since UCLA joined the Big Ten last season and been harshly critical of his players at times after games. After the Michigan State loss, he also had a testy reply to a reporter’s question about Spartan fans.
“I have to do a better job of this, that in this climate, you’ve got to be careful with what you say. I’m a good fit here because I know I’m not bigger than the brand and the brand matters here, the school matters. The last thing I want to do is bring negative publicity to our school,” Cronin said.
“I apologize to our people — school, students, everybody in our community — because it’s important. These jobs, you gotta raise money, you gotta be friends with donors, I mean I believe in all that stuff.”
Jamerson wasn’t made available to media on Friday when he practiced with the team. Asked how the redshirt senior took Cronin’s apology, the coach replied, “Oh, he’s the best, man. … It’s not like I kicked him off the team.”
Perry, who is Jamerson’s roommate, has provided a reassuring ear.
“He’s been very mature about it,” Perry said. “I’m just glad that he’s keeping his head and I’m also checking in with him every single day.”
Guard Skyy Clark said the team is supporting Jamerson.
“Coach gave a pretty sincere apology,” Clark said. “I mean, obviously he was a little in his head about it, but you know, we gave him some words of encouragement.”
Clark said a players’ only meeting was called after the blowout road losses and another one was likely later Friday.
“We just gotta stay together,” he said. “That’s been the main focus.”
Cronin pushed back against perceptions that by ejecting Jamerson he doesn’t have his players’ backs.
“I know what I’m about,” the eighth-year coach said, “so I don’t really worry about that.”
Clark, a Louisville transfer and the Bruins’ third-leading scorer, has found a balance between Cronin’s varying forms of criticism.
“I say just listen to the message and not how it’s being conveyed. If you do that, then you really hear what he’s trying to say instead of how he’s trying to say it,” he said. “That’s just how he coaches. He was mentored under some pretty similar coaches, and so that’s just his style of coaching.”
The Bruins (17-9, 9-6 Big Ten) host 10th-ranked Illinois (22-5, 13-3) on Saturday. They’re coming off back-to-back blowout losses at then-No. 2 Michigan (30 points) and Michigan State.
Their lone signature win of the season was a 69-67 win over then-No. 4 Purdue last month.
“We saw that we can do it and so why not do it again?” Clark said.
Sports
Jimmy Kimmel tells UCLA women’s basketball team to give Trump fake national championship trophy
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UCLA’s national champion women’s basketball team was given an eyebrow-raising political quest by late night talk show host Jimmy Kimmel.
During a group interview on “Jimmy Kimmel Live” on Tuesday, a discussion with Lauren Betts, Kiki Rice, Gabriela Jaquez, Angela Dugalić and coach Cori Close turned political.
After Kimmel pointed out that former President Barack Obama made a social media post congratulating the team on their championship win, the host asked if President Donald Trump had reached out yet.
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The UCLA Bruins women’s basketball team is honored at center court during a game between the Lakers and Oklahoma Thunder at Crypto.com Arena in Los Angeles on April 7, 2026. (Robert Gauthier/Los Angeles Times)
The players answered “no” in response to Kimmel’s Trump question.
But then Kimmel steered the conversation deeper into an anti-Trump routine.
“I’m sure you know he’s busy. Um he’s in two weeks you’ll hear from him,” Kimmel said. “In the event that you do get invited to the White House and you decide to go to the White House, I have something for you.”
Kimmel then pulled out a silver trophy that hardly resembled the NCAA championship trophy that sat on his desk.
“What I want you to do is bring this fake trophy we’ve made to the White House. He’s not going to know. But when you bring a trophy, he sometimes takes it and keeps it for himself. So, this is for you guys to take to the White House. And then you can say, ‘President Trump, we want you to have this.’ And he’ll be so happy. You’ll probably get an endowment and you’ll be able to keep the real one,” Kimmel said.
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Head coach Cori Close of the UCLA Bruins watches during the first quarter against the South Carolina Gamecocks in the NCAA women’s basketball national championship at Mortgage Matchup Center in Phoenix, Ariz., on April 5, 2026. (Christian Petersen/Getty Images)
Close laughed at Kimmel’s joke, while the players lightly clapped their hands, exchanging light laughs.
Meanwhile, social media users criticized Kimmel for turning the sports interview into a Trump-focused rant.
“Even celebrating their championship he has to make it about himself and his hatred for Trump. What an a—hole,” one X user wrote.
One X user mocked Kimmel, writing, “What will he do when Trump is out of office? Is the show cooked?”
Another X user wrote, “This is funny, but I dislike that he used them to smite the frump.”
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UCLA center Lauren Betts (51) reacts while holding up the UCLA bracket sticker after UCLA defeats Oklahoma State in the second round of the NCAA college basketball tournament, Monday, March 23, 2026, in Los Angeles. (Jessie Alcheh/AP)
UCLA won its first women’s basketball national championship in program history this past weekend, defeating the South Carolina Gamecocks, the team led by Dawn Staley that had reached the national title game three consecutive seasons and won it in 2024, in dominant fashion, 79-51.
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SOUTH BEND, Ind. — Notre Dame cornerback Leonard Moore said the Irish are on a “revenge tour” after being excluded from the College Football Playoff last fall, and players aren’t shying away from talking about the importance of their Nov. 7 home game against Miami as part of it.
Moore said last year’s 27-24 season-opening loss to Miami used to keep him awake at night, but so did the Week 3 loss to Texas A&M — an 0-2 start that ultimately kept the Irish out of the CFP.
“We’re on a revenge tour now,” Moore said. “We got to get back. We got to make it right from last year.”
Quarterback CJ Carr, who is entering his second season as the full-time starter, conceded it’s “impossible” not to think about facing the Canes at home this year.
“Watching that tape, it was probably the worst first half of football our offense played all year, and to be in that game in the end and the second half we put together was special,” he said. “It’s hard to watch. … There was some resilience shown in that game that’s going to help us this year. We’re excited for them to come into town and see what this team’s got.”
When told of his players’ candor during an interview in his office on Tuesday morning, coach Marcus Freeman smirked.
“We spend too much time daydreaming about Miami, we’re going to lose to Wisconsin,” he said of Notre Dame’s Sept. 6 season opener. “You’ve got to focus on the task right at hand. That’s no different than saying, can we go back to the national championship? If we want to focus on the national championship, we’re going to lose the opportunity we have right here. It’s my job to make sure I’m directing the focus where it needs to be. That’s an everyday message, an everyday reminder to struggle. Struggle has to be hard mentally and physically and to sacrifice and put Notre Dame in front of yourself.”
Moore said the defensive backs shouldered a lot of the blame for the loss to Canes, as Miami quarterback Carson Beck completing all but 10 passes (20 of 30) for 205 yards, two touchdowns and no interceptions.
“That’s what used to keep me up at night,” Moore said, “just thinking about maybe one or two plays in that game that I could’ve made that would’ve changed the course of the season. That and the Texas A&M game, just as a DB room, we put that all on us.”
Following the loss to Miami, Moore said Freeman was blunt in his assessment of the secondary.
“He told us we was weak, we was soft,” Moore said, “all that type of stuff. It’s serious to him, too. That’s something he’s not used to seeing from us.”
This year, Notre Dame’s secondary should be one of its biggest assets on a defense that returns nine of its top 10 tacklers, including safety Adon Shuler (53) and Moore (31).
Senior linebacker Drayk Bowen, who was wearing pads on Tuesday morning’s practice for the first time this spring since his offseason hip surgery, said Freeman showed the team video of their reaction on Selection Day. The loss to Miami, though, wasn’t the only mistake over the past few years.
“… There’s always one little thing we didn’t do, maybe at the beginning of the season or the middle of the season,” he said. “There’s always something where we could have been better. Going through four years of it now … we understand everything from now until the time we either get voted in or don’t get voted in, everything’s important.”
In each of the past four seasons under Freeman, the Irish haven’t been able to finish September undefeated, losing at least one or two games each year. He said the team has to start faster, and that’s “not just a last year deal.”
“We’re going to play good teams early because of conferences, we have to get the teams that are willing to plays that in conferences early,” he said, “but it’s no excuse to not be as close to your best as possible. We’ve got to do a better job of making sure our teams is prepared in playing and executing in a better sense than what we’ve been in the past.”
Carr said the team continues to use last year as motivation but also has to move forward.
“You can sulk and you can blame and you can point the finger or you can say, ‘alright, we got punched in the face, we’ve got to get back up,'” Carr said. “We’ve got to go back to work. We’ve got a new team coming in. We’re going to be really good. We have draft picks all over the field. We have a chance to be really special.”
Sports
Emmitt Smith gives advice to NFL hopeful son who once admitted to feeling pressure of living up to family name
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Living up to a legend’s name is no easy task, and no matter where EJ Smith goes on a football field, he’s looked at a bit differently than most.
That’s because the Texas A&M running back, who hopes to be drafted later this month, is the son of Emmitt Smith, the NFL’s all-time leading rusher.
Smith worked primarily as a backup in college, but at the very least, he did get a workout with his dad’s former Dallas Cowboys earlier this month.
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Texas A&M Aggies running back EJ Smith runs with the ball during the game against the Miami Hurricanes at Kyle Field in College Station, Texas, on Dec. 20, 2025. (Jerome Miron/Imagn Images)
But there was a time in high school, the Hall of Famer said, that his son began to feel the pressure of living up to the likes of his father.
“He came to me one day, he asked the question, ‘How do I deal with all the pressure?’ And I was wondering the type of pressure he was under. He said, ‘Just the pressure of living up to what everybody expects and everything else,'” Smith recalled in a recent interview with Fox News Digital.
“And I broke it down pretty simply. I just asked the one fundamental question. I said, ‘What is everyone saying?’ ‘Everyone expected me to be this and everyone expected me to be that and do this and do that.’ I said, ‘What are your expectations? Are your expectations any different than what they want for you?’ And he said, ‘No.’ I said, ‘Where’s the pressure?’
“Here’s the thing – you gotta run your race, and you gotta disregard what other people are saying. Because you have whatever ability you have, you have to be yourself. And you have to work at being yourself and work at what you need to do to hone your craft. Just go play the game. Put your blinders on. Run your race. You like the horses at the Kentucky Derby. And then when the blinders come off, you may look up one day and find yourself in the damn Super Bowl. You never know.
Texas A&M quarterback Marcel Reed hands the ball to running back EJ Smith during the first half against Florida at Ben Hill Griffin Stadium in Gainesville, Florida, on Sept. 14, 2024. (Matt Pendleton/Imagn Images)
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“But stay the course, disregard all the noise out there ’cause it is noise. And they’re not playing. They’re trying to put their stuff on you and their expectations on you. But if their expectations are different than yours, it don’t matter. Just go meet every expectation that you’re trying to meet. Everything else doesn’t matter.”
Smith said he and EJ talk about “everything under the sun,” making it clear that his top role in life is being a father. That, along with other personal experiences, is why he joined Narcan’s “Ready to Rescue” initiative to stop overdoses during the current opioid epidemic.
Smith’s sister-in-law had a “couple of overdose episodes” while on pain medication for chemo for colon cancer treatment. Smith also noted that his former teammates have had issues with opioids, and friends have even lost children. Although the circumstances are unfortunate, the recent partnership is a natural fit for Smith.
“I think that’s what makes it such a natural way to talk about it. There’s dealing with someone that you lost, or even growing up and seeing cousins, getting hooked on hardcore drugs, and then seeing them wean themselves off of it, going through that whole entire process of not understanding that there’s mechanisms out there that people can go to get help,” Smith said, adding his concern for the “rampant” run of fentanyl.
“Anybody is subject to get caught up in something at any point in time anywhere, and not even realize it. And so when that happens, you want to make sure that the people that are closest to you or around you have access to something like the Narcan nasal spray.
Jan 30, 1994; Atlanta, GA; FILE PHOTO; Dallas Cowboys running back Emmitt Smith (22) prior to facing the Buffalo Bills in Super Bowl XVIII at the Georgia Dome. (James D. Smith/USA TODAY Sports)
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The Smith family, of course, is hoping they get good news during the draft. But Smith has one more piece of advice for his son on how to deal with the pressure of waiting for a call.
“I told him on draft day, go play golf, go hang out, don’t even look at the damn TV,” he said. “Let your agent call you and say, ‘Hey man, we got something.’ Don’t even worry about draft day.”
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