Sports
Ducks dominate after Gundy ‘pours gas on fire’
EUGENE, Ore. — A week that began with coaches Mike Gundy and Dan Lanning trading barbs about each program’s budget ended with Oregon handing Oklahoma State a 69-3 loss — the worst of the Gundy era and the worst the program has seen since 1907.
“It never requires extra motivation for an opportunity to go out and kick ass,” Lanning said postgame regarding the message he sent his team. “But it never hurts when somebody pours gasoline on the fire.”
On Monday while speaking on his radio show, Gundy said Oregon is “paying a lot of money for their team,” citing $40 million as the amount he believed the Ducks spent on their roster last year. Gundy made several other comments about Oregon’s resources, saying “it’ll cost a lot of money to keep” quarterback Dante Moore and that he believes Oregon’s budget should determine the programs it schedules outside of the Big Ten.
“If you want to be a top-10 team in college football, you better be invested in winning. We spend to win,” Lanning said Monday in response. “Some people save to have an excuse for why they don’t. … I can’t speak on their situation. I have no idea what they got in their pockets over there.”
After Saturday’s win, Moore said Gundy’s comments hit “close to home” for him and the rest of the team and that the Ducks used them as motivation heading into the matchup.
“For him to attack Phil [Knight], Coach Lanning and our team was personal,” said Moore, who threw for 266 yards and three touchdowns. “We were going to keep the foot on the neck and make sure we score these points and try to break the scoreboard.”
Break the scoreboard, they did. The Ducks had a 59-yard touchdown run on their second offensive play and a 65-yard touchdown pass on their third offensive play. Explosive plays were everywhere at Autzen Stadium as Oklahoma State’s defense provided little to no resistance. Oregon’s offense did not punt until the fourth quarter and totaled 631 yards to Oklahoma State’s 211 yards.
“It was a lot of fire going into this game,” Moore said.
The way Oregon came out of the gates, stepped on the gas pedal and didn’t relent until it was up 48-3 halfway through the third quarter, when it brought in the offensive backups, seemed very purposeful. The two pick-sixes that pushed the Ducks’ score into the 60s added insult to injury.
“It’s still about us,” Lanning said. “Our ability to ignore the noise is the thing that’s going to make us go.”
Lanning, as he did on Monday, said postgame that he has a lot of respect for Gundy and even noted that the result probably had the Oklahoma State coach saying “I told you so” regarding his comments about the disparity in resources between the schools.
“When I made that comment, I was complimenting Oregon for what they had done,” Gundy said. “Second thing, which I said later in the week is, we’ve made commitments also, but we have to be better and fundamentally sound and execute.”
Gundy is now 4-10 over his past 14 games, and two of those losses — Saturday’s at Oregon and last year’s 52-0 loss to Colorado — are the worst of his career.
“Sometimes you’re going to play people that have the ability to run away from you,” Gundy said. “We gotta look at that and see where we’re at. We didn’t play good enough, in the systems that we had, to put ourselves in that position.”
As the heat rises around the coach who has helmed the Oklahoma State program since 2005, Gundy’s son, Gavin, took to X to defend his father.
“Mike Gundy IS Oklahoma State football,” Gavin said as part of a long thread of posts. “Period. As QB, he set records in the Barry Sanders era. As coach, he stacked 160+ wins, 19 straight bowls, a Big 12 title, two Fiesta Bowls, multiple Top-10 finishes, & sent dudes to the NFL year after year. He’s the winningest coach in OSU history & the most important name this program has EVER had. Without him, you’d have nothing to brag about, nothing to watch, nothing to cry about.”
Soon after, Gavin’s thread was deleted from the site.
Sports
Tiger Woods involved in rollover crash in Florida less than 2 weeks before Masters: reports
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Tiger Woods was involved in a car crash in Florida on Friday, according to multiple reports.
The Martin County Sheriff’s Office told ESPN that the crash happened on Jupiter Island on Friday afternoon. Woods’ condition was not immediately known.
Woods competed in the TGL championship earlier this week with his girlfriend, Vanessa Trump, and her daughter, Kai, in the stands. It was his return to competitive golf after rupturing his Achilles last year, just ahead of the Masters.
Tiger Woods of Jupiter Links Golf Club looks on before the match against the Los Angeles Golf Club at SoFi Center on March 23, 2026, in Palm Beach Gardens, Florida. (Adam Glanzman/TGL/TGL Golf via Getty Images)
The 15-time major winner, five of which have come at Augusta, was noncommittal about playing at this year’s Masters. President Donald Trump said on “The Five” on Thursday that he would be at Augusta but not play.
Woods has had trouble behind the wheel in the past. In 2021, he got into a wreck that resulted in serious leg injuries that kept him off the golf course for months.
This is a breaking story. Check back for more updates.
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Sports
Illinois defense gets tough, ousts Houston to reach Elite Eight
HOUSTON — David Mirkovic had 14 points and 10 rebounds, and third-seeded Illinois flexed its defensive muscles to eliminate last year’s national runner-up from the NCAA tournament, beating Houston 65-55 in the South Region semifinals on Thursday night.
Next up is a meeting Saturday with ninth-seeded Iowa to see which Big Ten team will advance to the Final Four. It will be the 11th Elite Eight appearance for Illinois (27-8) and its second in three seasons under Brad Underwood.
In the Sweet 16 for a seventh consecutive time, the second-seeded Cougars (30-7) were thrilled to be playing just over two miles from their campus. But their poor shooting gave Houston fans little to cheer about and delighted the orange-clad Illini faithful who made the long trip to Texas.
“At the beginning of the game Houston fans were a little louder, but as game was going, [our fans] started being louder in their city,” Mirkovic said. “So it’s just really important for us, I would say just like a wind to our back. They pushed us, and thanks for them.”
Star freshman point guard Kingston Flemings, who is expected to be an NBA lottery pick, had 11 points on 4-of-10 shooting. Milos Uzan made just 2 of 11 shots.
But they were far from the only Cougars who struggled offensively. The team shot just 34% in its lowest-scoring game of the season.
Underwood was asked about his team’s defensive performance.
“I think it’s a mental focus,” he said. “We’ve been very good at times defensively. It’s just sustaining it. We’ve got very capable defenders, we’ve got size and length, and we just got to make shots difficult.”
Illinois finished well under the 84.7 points a game it averaged entering Thursday. But its offense was still plenty powerful enough to send Houston back to its nearby campus. Keaton Wagler had 13 points and a team-high 12 rebounds for the Illini; he and Mirkovic became the first pair of freshman teammates to each have a double-double in the same NCAA tournament game since freshmen became fully eligible in 1972-73, according to ESPN Research.
“Coaches were telling us before the game: ‘It’s going to be a guard game to get rebounds. We need 10-plus out of the guards,'” he said. “So I took that challenge on. I went in there, tried to play as tough as I could, not let them get any second-chance rebounds. I went in there and tried to get every rebound I could.”
Andrej Stojakovic — with his dad, three-time NBA All-Star Peja Stojakovic, in the stands — also scored 13.
By the time the final seconds ticked off the clock, many Houston fans had cleared out and the Illinois supporters stood and cheered as their team celebrated.
“I was proud of our kids’ effort,” Houston coach Kelvin Sampson said. “We just didn’t play good enough.”
The Illini were up by one early in the second half when they broke it open with a 17-0 run for a 44-26 lead with about 12 minutes left. Jake Davis scored five points during the burst, including a 3-pointer, and Mirkovic and Ben Humrichous capped it with consecutive 3s.
The Cougars missed seven consecutive shots as Illinois built its lead. When Uzan finally ended Houston’s drought with a 3-pointer with 11:20 left, it had been almost seven minutes since the team had scored.
“We were getting stops and we were limiting them to one shot, and to tough shots as well,” Wagler said. “Making them shoot tough middies or contested at the rim, 3-pointers, all of that, and then we were going in and grabbing the rebound and offensively we were getting the shots that we wanted, we were knocking them down.”
Consecutive 3-pointers by Chase McCarty got Houston within nine with about six minutes left. But Wagler and Tomislav Ivisic made 3-pointers to fuel an 8-0 run that extended the lead to 58-41.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Sports
Trey Kaufman-Renn’s controversial tip-in gives Boilermakers spot in Elite Eight, ends Texas’ Cinderella story
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The No. 11 Texas Longhorns’ Cinderella story in the NCAA Tournament came to a heartbreaking end on Thursday night, as Trey Kaufman-Renn’s tip with 0.7 seconds left on the clock gave No. 2 Purdue a 79-77 lead to advance to the Elite Eight.
It was a thriller to the end in this Sweet 16 matchup between a team that needed to play in the First Four to kick off the tournament, and one of the higher seeds in March Madness.
The Longhorns’ Dailyn Swain made a clutch and-one layup with 11 seconds left that allowed him the opportunity to tie the game at 77 apiece if he made his free throw. He nailed it with the pressure on, but the Boilermakers had 11 seconds to get up court and potentially win the game.
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Trey Kaufman-Renn of the Purdue Boilermakers dribbles the ball against the Texas Longhorns during the first half in the Sweet Sixteen of the 2026 NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament at SAP Center on March 26, 2026, in San Jose, California. (Ezra Shaw/Getty Images)
It was Braden Smith finding his way to the lane and putting up his own layup. However, the ball didn’t have the correct English off the glass, as it started to roll off the rim.
But Kaufman-Renn, who positioned himself underneath the basket, tipped home the game-winning bucket, giving himself 20 total points to help Purdue move on and keep their tournament dreams alive.
8TH-GRADER STANDS ALONE WITH LAST PERFECT WOMEN’S NCAA BASKETBALL BRACKET
There was some discourse on social media, though, as an overhead shot of Kaufman-Renn’s tip showed a potential foul, as he was hooking the arm of the Longhorns player jostling for the rebound.
Either way, no whistle blew, and the Boilermakers were celebrating, while the Longhorns couldn’t believe their season came to a close in that fashion.

Trey Kaufman-Renn of the Purdue Boilermakers shoots the game-winning shot against the Texas Longhorns during the second half during the second half in the Sweet Sixteen of the 2026 NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament at SAP Center on March 26, 2026, in San Jose, California. (Ezra Shaw/Getty Images)
This was a back-and-forth game throughout the 40 minutes on the court, as both teams traded the lead, especially in the second half. The largest lead any team had was Purdue at only seven points, while Texas’ lead never got higher than four.
But it’s because both teams were shooting well, with Texas making 52% of its shots (29-of-56), while Purdue poured in 48% (30-of-62).
Looking more into the box score, every Boilermakers starter had at least 10 points, while Fletcher Loyer (18), and Braden Smith (16) doing crucial work in the backcourt to help the winning cause.
Meanwhile, Texas’ Tramon Mark left it all out on the court, shooting 11-of-15 for 29 points, including 5-of-7 made from beyond the arc. Swain also just missed a double-double with nine rebounds, while tallying five assists.

Trey Kaufman-Renn of the Purdue Boilermakers celebrates with teammates after making the game-winning shot against the Texas Longhorns during the second half in the Sweet Sixteen of the 2026 NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament at SAP Center on March 26, 2026, in San Jose, California. (Ezra Shaw/Getty Images)
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Purdue now awaits the winner of Arkansas and Arizona to see who they must play to earn a spot in this year’s Final Four, which will be played at Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis.
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