HOCKEY
Connor McDavid is day to day with a lower-body injury, and the Edmonton captain could miss the Oilers’ next game against defending Stanley Cup champion Vegas.
McDavid did not practice Tuesday, and Coach Kris Knoblauch said he’ll speak with him Wednesday before the team decided whether the reigning and three-time NHL MVP would play that night against the Golden Knights.
McDavid leads the league with 99 assists and ranks third in points with 130, trailing only Tampa Bay’s Nikita Kucherov and Colorado’s Nathan MacKinnon. The Oilers recalled forward Dylan Holloway from the minors on an emergency basis.
• New Jersey Devils All-Star forward Jack Hughes is going to miss the rest of the season because of a shoulder injury that will require surgery this week.
The Devils announced the decision less than two hours before they were to face the Toronto Maple Leafs in their penultimate home game this season.
Hughes, who has 27 goals and 47 assists, will have the surgery on Wednesday. It will be performed by Dr. Peter Millett in Vail, Colorado.
The Devils have not said when Hughes specifically hurt his shoulder.
After setting a franchise record for points last season, the Devils are on the verge of being eliminated from the playoff race this season.
Hughes is expected to make a full recovery to be available for training camp next season.
BASKETBALL
NBA: Ja Morant acted in self-defense when a teenager accused the two-time NBA All-Star of punching him during a pickup game at the home of the Memphis Grizzlies guard’s parents in 2022, a judge has ruled.
Shelby County Court Circuit Judge Carol Chumney cited Tennessee law on when the issue of self-defense can be raised, and she wrote in a ruling issued Monday that Morant “enjoys a presumption of civil immunity.”
The lawsuit filed by Joshua Holloway accuses Morant of assaulting him during a pickup game on July 26, 2022. Then 17, Holloway had been invited to play at the private court of the Morant family. Holloway, now 18, plays basketball for Samford University.
Morant claimed he was defending himself after Holloway aggressively threw the basketball at him with a one-handed, baseball-style pass and hit him in the face during a check-ball situation. A “check” is a common practice in pickup games in which two opposing players pass the ball to each other and check to see if their teammates are ready, often before starting a game or after a foul.
The judge wrote that “a provocateur generally cannot invoke self-defense; if you start a fight, then you should be ready to finish it.” The judge also noted that Holloway was the only “provocateur,” with everyone else just wanting to play basketball.
COLLEGES
AWARDS: Iowa’s Caitlin Clark won the John R. Wooden Award for the second straight year as the nation’s top women’s college basketball player.
The other finalists were Cameron Brink of Stanford, Paige Bueckers of UConn and freshmen Hannah Hidalgo of Notre Dame and JuJu Watkins of Southern California. All five women have been invited to Los Angeles for the award presentation on Friday.
TV RATINGS: South Carolina’s 87-75 victory over Caitlin Clark and Iowa in the women’s NCAA championship game has achieved a pair of milestones.
It is the first time the women’s title game outdrew the men. It also was the second most-watched non-Olympic women’s sporting event on U.S. television.
The Sunday afternoon game averaged 18.9 million viewers on ABC and ESPN and UConn’s 75-60 victory over Purdue in Monday night’s men’s final on TBS and TNT averaged 14.82 million.
The audience for Sunday’s game — where the Gamecocks capped an undefeated season by winning their fourth national title and denied Clark’s Hawkeyes their first — peaked at 24.1 million during the final 15 minutes. The 2015 FIFA Women’s World Cup final between the U.S. and Japan averaged 25.4 million on Fox. That also was on a Sunday and took place in prime time on the East Coast.
The audience for the national title game was up 90% over last year when Clark and Iowa fell to LSU. That also was the first time since 1995 that the championship was on network television.
The audience was 289% bigger than the viewership for the Gamecocks’ title two years ago when they beat UConn on ESPN.
TENNIS
MONTE CARLO MASTERS: Two-time Grand Slam champion Carlos Alcaraz withdrew from the clay-court tournament in Monaco Tuesday because of a muscle injury to his right forearm.
The Wimbledon champion had been doing low-key training with strapping to his arm and announced that he is unable to play.
SOCCER
SHEBELIEVES CUP: Alyssa Naeher made three saves in a penalty shootout and converted her own attempt to lead the United States past Canada in the final at Columbus, Ohio, the Americans’ fifth straight title in the event.
The U.S. won the shootout 5-4 after the teams played to a 2-2 draw in regulation. Emily Fox scored the decisive goal in the seventh round of the shootout after Naeher stopped Evelyne Viens.
Sophia Smith scored both U.S. goals.
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