🏆 Y! Sports AM: Hollywood Ending

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🚨 HEADLINES

🏒 The drought is over: The Buffalo Sabres have clinched their first playoff spot since 2011, ending the longest active drought in the NHL and second-longest across the “Big Four” North American sports leagues. Only the NFL’s Jets have gone longer since appearing in the postseason (2010).

🏀 Players of the Year: Duke’s Cameron Boozer was named the Naismith POY, marking the second straight year a Blue Devils freshman took home the honor (Cooper Flagg). UConn sophomore Sarah Strong won the award on the women’s side.

⛳️ Golf roundup: J.J. Spaun (-17) survived a rainy week in San Antonio to win his second Texas Open; Lauren Coughlin (-7) rolled to a five-shot victory at the LPGA’s Aramco Championship; María José Marín (-14), a junior at Arkansas, won the Augusta National Women’s Amateur.

🏀 Class of 2026: Doc Rivers, Mike D’Antoni, Amar’e Stoudemire and Candace Parker headline the Basketball Hall of Fame Class of 2026, which includes three coaches, four players, one referee and the entire 1996 U.S. Women’s National Team.

⚽️ Grand opening: Inter Miami opened their new stadium on Saturday, debuting the $350 million venue to a sold-out crowd of 26,700. Lionel Messi and Luis Suárez both scored, but the defending champions could only salvage a draw against Austin.

See what else is trending on Yahoo Sports.

🏆 UCLA’S HOLLYWOOD ENDING

South Carolina looked poised to cement its dynasty status after ousting unbeaten UConn in the Final Four. Then UCLA flipped the script, dominating the Gamecocks on Sunday in Phoenix to win their first NCAA championship and cap a storybook 37-1 season.

UCLA 79, South Carolina 51: The rout was on from the jump, as the Bruins held the Gamecocks to 10 first-quarter points, went into halftime up 13 and put the game away with a 25-9 shellacking in the third. All in, it was the third-largest victory ever in the title game.

UCLA’s top-ranked offense was its calling card most of the season, but its newfound smothering defense paced the Bruins during the Final Four, holding South Carolina to a season-low 51 points after holding Texas to a season-low 44 in Friday’s semifinal.
Another key to the Bruins’ success? Lauren Betts, the 6-foot-7 All-American who was named Tournament MOP after becoming the first player (man or woman) to finish an NCAA tournament with at least 125 points, 50 rebounds and 15 blocks on 65% shooting or better.

The other side: Hats off to the Gamecocks, who’ve reached four of the last five national title games, winning twice. But now they must regroup after losing back-to-back finals by 20+ points. The post-UConn letdown is very real, by the way: Since 2007, teams that beat the Huskies in the NCAA tournament are 1-10 in their next tournament game that season.

Championship blueprint: The UCLA men are famously the winningest program of all time, but the women had never even reached the Final Four until last year, when they were blown out by UConn. 366 days later, they’re champions under the leadership of Cori Close, who spent the last four years building a team whose time was now… or never.

UCLA’s top six players are all seniors, with two homegrown stars and four transfers — led by Betts — brought in through the portal over the last few years. Those seniors scored every single one of the Bruins’ points in the Final Four.
“We knew, we had a feeling this was our time, this was our year,” said guard Kiki Rice, one of those homegrown stars. “We came out there this entire weekend, and we would not be denied.” They weren’t, and now they join UCLA’s long and storied list of champions.

One down, one to go? UCLA gives the Big Ten its first women’s basketball national champion since Purdue in 1999. And tonight, Michigan will try to snap a nearly identical drought: the last Big Ten men’s national champion was Michigan State in 2000.

Good read: UCLA honors its history while making more of it (Cassandra Negley, Yahoo Sports)

⚾️ ONE MAN, THREE ROBBERIES

Angels outfielder Jo Adell etched his name in the history books on Saturday night in Anaheim, robbing three home runs in a 1-0 win over the Mariners.

What are the chances? There have been over 70,000 MLB games played in the wild card era (since 1995), and this was the first to feature three total home run robberies, much less three by the same player. Here they are in all their glory:

Over and out: While the first two robberies were spectacular in their own right, the third is the one everybody’s talking about because this is where Adell ended up after making the grab…

Embrace debate: Adell’s ninth-inning leap into the right field corner took him all the way over the fence into the stands. The Mariners challenged to see if it might still count as a home run, but the call was confirmed because he made the catch before falling out of play. That’s in accordance with MLB’s rules (page 148), but should it be? If you fail to keep the ball from going over the fence, did you really rob the home run? What do you think?

🏀 DUSTY MAY’S FULL-CIRCLE MOMENT

More than a quarter century after Dusty May and three fellow Indiana student managers went to the Final Four to beg for jobs, the Michigan head coach is back in Indianapolis, on the precipice of a national championship.

Jeff Eisenberg, Yahoo Sports:

Dusty May’s first trip to a Final Four in Indianapolis was a bit less glamorous than his current one.

He and three other Indiana men’s basketball student managers spent multiple days posted up in the lobby of the downtown Indianapolis Marriott that was hosting the National Association of Basketball Coaches’ annual convention.

Their goal was to introduce themselves to as many big-time coaches as possible and to leave Final Four weekend with an offer to join one of their staffs as a graduate assistant.

“All of us managers who wanted to find a way into coaching in any capacity would pile in a car and just get out and hopefully bump into any coach and find a way to make an impression,” May said.

“So it’s just a full-circle moment to go from chasing around coaches trying to beg for a GA spot to being back here with this team.”

Keep reading.

💯 BIG NUMBERS

🏒 1,000 straight games

Avalanche defenseman Brent Burns played his 1,000th consecutive regular-season game on Saturday, becoming just the second NHL player (Phil Kessel) to reach the milestone. Considering how physical hockey is, it’s an almost unbelievable feat.

Late start: Burns, 41, began his streak when he was 28 years old, having already played 572 NHL games. “A lot of careers end before 600 games, and then you’re playing a thousand straight after that,” said Avalanche head coach Jared Bednar. “It’s mind-blowing, really, to me.”

🥎 30 homers (in 40 games!)

Oklahoma’s Kendall Wells hit her 30th home run of the season on Saturday, tying the Division I record for the most by a freshman… and she’s only played 40 games!

Chasing history: Wells leads the nation in homers and is now seven away from the all-time single-season record of 37, set by Arizona’s Lauren Espinoza in 1995. Espinoza reached that number in 72 games. At Wells’ current pace (0.75 HR per game), she’ll get there in 50.

🏀 96 points

Cooper Flagg scored 51 points against the Magic on Friday, then followed that up with a 45-point effort on Sunday to outmatch LeBron James and lead Dallas to a 134-128 victory over the Lakers.

Elite company: Flagg is the first rookie to post 40-point efforts in consecutive games since Allen Iverson in 1996-97. And his 96 combined points in two games are the most by a rookie since Wilt Chamberlain.

⚽️ 6 straight shutouts

LAFC demolished Orlando City, 6-0, over the weekend to improve to 5-1-0 and record their sixth consecutive clean sheet to begin the season. They’ve scored 14 goals so far and surrendered zero.

West is Best: The Western Conference has been far superior this season, sporting a combined record of 41-18-30 (141 points) and earning points (win or draw) from two-thirds of their matches. The Eastern Conference, by comparison, has a combined record of 32-14-43 (110 points) and is home to the league’s three worst teams: Philadelphia (0 points), Montréal (3 points) and Orlando City (3 points).

📺 WATCHLIST: MONDAY, APRIL 6

🏀 National Championship

It all ends tonight in Indianapolis (8:50pm ET, TBS), where No. 1 Michigan (-6.5) and No. 2 UConn have 40 minutes left to put their stamp on the college basketball season.

Who ya got? The Wolverines have been utterly dominant so far, scoring 90+ points in all five games and winning each by double digits. But a victory won’t come easy against the Huskies, who are 19-0 in the Sweet 16 or later dating back to 2009, and 6-0 all-time in national title games.

More to watch:

⚾️ MLB: Dodgers at Blue Jays (7:07pm, FS1) … World Series rematch in Toronto.
🏀 NBA: Knicks at Hawks (7pm, Peacock) … Fifth-place Atlanta (45-33) is a couple wins away from clinching its first non-play-in postseason spot since 2021.
🏒 NHL: Lightning at Sabres (7pm, NHL) … Buffalo (100 points) could still catch Tampa Bay (102) atop the Atlantic Division with five games left.

Got plans tonight? Gametime is the best place to score last-minute tickets to the events in your city. Get tickets now!

🏆 NCAA TRIVIA

UCLA is now just the third Division I school with national championships in football, men’s basketball and women’s basketball.

Question: Can you name the other two schools?

Hint: Big Ten and ACC.

Answer at the bottom.

📸 PHOTO FINISH

It doesn’t get much better than this: Mary Washington scored at the buzzer on Sunday to beat Emory, 75-73, and win the program’s first D-III men’s basketball national championship.

What a moment.

Trivia answer: Maryland and Stanford

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