Clark was asked before Indiana’s game at Washington on Friday night whether she thinks Carter owes her a public apology, and the rookie standout dismissed the idea.

“No. I mean, basketball’s competitive. I get it,” Clark said. “Sometimes your emotions get the best of you. Happened to me multiple times throughout the course of my career.”

Clark then took the court and made a career-high seven 3-pointers in the Fever’s 85-83 win over the Mystics. She equaled her career high with 30 points.

Carter, who plays for the Chicago Sky, knocked Clark to the floor before an inbounds pass in a game last weekend. The WNBA eventually upgraded the foul to a Flagrant 1, and the incident led to a larger debate over how Clark has been received in her first season in the league.

“People are competitive,” Clark said Friday. “It is what it is, and she’s having a tremendous season. She’s played great basketball, in my eyes probably in first place for Sixth Player of the Year. … There’s no grudges. There’s nothing like that. It’s a sport. It’s competitive. It’s not going to be nice all the time.”

Even after taking two of three against both the Los Angeles Angels and Boston Red Sox, the Cardinals were six games under .500 entering Monday. They’ve rebounded from a seven-game losing streak earlier this month, winning five of their last seven through Sunday, but they were seven games out of first place and their minus-49 run differential was by far the worst in the National League Central.

The Cardinals went 71-91 last year, snapping a streak of 15 straight winning seasons. If they finish with a losing record two years in a row, it would be the first time they’ve done that since the strike-shortened 1994 and 1995 seasons. You have to go all the way back to 1958-59 to find the last time the Cardinals were under .500 for two consecutive non-shortened seasons.

This is the franchise that let Albert Pujols leave and kept right on contending. The team that turned an 83-win season in 2006 into a World Series title. It’s hard to write off the Cardinals, but it’s also getting harder to see a particularly bright future.

The Milwaukee Brewers and Chicago Cubs currently are battling for the division lead. The Pittsburgh Pirates and Cincinnati Reds are under .500 with the Cardinals, but the Pirates have several years of Paul Skenes to look forward to. The same with the Reds and Elly De La Cruz.

The Cardinals have only one top-50 prospect in MLB Pipeline’s ranking — and that’s right-hander Tink Hence, who is ranked 49th and currently in Double A. Jordan Walker, Nolan Gorman and Dylan Carlson were top St. Louis prospects over the past few years. Carlson is batting .130, and Walker was sent back to the minors after a 9-for-58 start to 2024. Gorman is batting .200.

Masyn Winn, the team’s 22-year-old infielder, has been a little better, but only the Toronto Blue Jays and Chicago White Sox have fewer runs this season than the Cardinals. And that’s after the St. Louis offense finally showed some signs of life this past week, twice scoring 10 runs and twice scoring seven.

On their way back?

The Houston Astros dug themselves quite a hole early this season, but the worst may be over. After sweeping the Oakland Athletics and taking two of three from the Brewers, the Astros had won nine of their last 11 through Sunday. Although they were still 21-26 and in third place in the American League West, FanGraphs gave them a 56% chance to make the playoffs.

Line of the week

Skenes threw six no-hit innings for the Pirates against the Cubs on Friday, striking out 11 before being pulled after 100 pitches. It was only his second big-league start, and the 2023 No. 1 draft pick already has made history. His 11 strikeouts were a franchise record for a starter at Wrigley Field, where the Pirates have played more than 1,000 games.

Chicago Cubs carved up by Paul Skenes’ 11 strikeouts in six no-hit innings while Kyle Hendricks struggled again

Comeback of the week

Down by four in the bottom of the ninth, the Miami Marlins came back to tie it against New York Mets closer Edwin Díaz thanks to an RBI single by Jazz Chisholm and a three-run homer by Josh Bell. Otto Lopez then gave the Marlins a 10-9 win with a 10th-inning single.

The Mets had a 98.8% win probability in the ninth inning, according to Baseball Savant. It was that kind of week for the Mets, who dropped three of four to the first-place Philadelphia Phillies before losing two of three to the last-place Marlins.

In addition to eyeing potential 5-12 upsets and trying to figure out which sleeper to put in the Elite Eight, fans also have to consider more existential questions about college basketball’s future. How will realignment affect the makeup of Division I? How much will football-related decisions affect basketball? How long will the NCAA Tournament stay at 68 teams, and if it changes, what will that mean for the Cinderellas of March?

For now, this event looks pretty much the way it has for a generation. Don’t take it for granted as you fill out your brackets — and if you need some tips, here you go. A Final Four with UConn, Houston, Gonzaga and Michigan State? Let us explain.

East region

First-round winners: UConn, Northwestern, San Diego State, Auburn, BYU, Illinois, Drake, Iowa State.

Yale brings 7-footer Danny Wolf and an experienced supporting cast, but drew a tough first-round matchup against fourth-seeded Auburn. The Tigers are ranked No. 4 in the country by Ken Pomeroy.

Second-round winners: UConn, Auburn, Illinois, Iowa State.

The Sweet 16 in this region could include the conference tournament champions of the Big East, SEC, Big Ten and Big 12.

Regional semifinal winners: UConn, Iowa State.

UConn is the betting favorite to win a second straight national title. The Huskies are also ranked No. 1 by Pomeroy, and although we’re used to surprises it’s hard to pick them to exit before the Elite Eight.

Regional champion: UConn. Iowa State had a case for a No. 1 seed, but there’s a gap between the Cyclones and the Huskies.

South region

First Four: Colorado over Boise State.

First-round winners: Houston, Nebraska, Wisconsin, Duke, Texas Tech, Kentucky, Florida, Marquette.

James Madison over Wisconsin figures to be a popular first-round upset pick — maybe a little too popular. Same with Vermont over Duke. The chalk holds in this region, for this round anyway.

Second-round winners: Houston, Duke, Kentucky, Florida.

Kentucky’s defense should be its undoing eventually, but the Wildcats beat Texas Tech in a clash of styles.

Regional semifinal winners: Houston, Kentucky.

The Sweet 16 and Elite Eight in the South are being held in Dallas, so expect the Cougars to have plenty of support.

Regional champion: Houston. The Cougars should be well prepared after joining the Big 12 and facing a power-conference schedule. It’s on to the Final Four for Kelvin Sampson’s team.

Midwest region

First Four: Montana State over Grambling State, Colorado State over Virginia.

First-round winners: Purdue, TCU, Gonzaga, Samford, Oregon, Creighton, Texas, Saint Peter’s.

“Dickinson” is the key word in this region. Kansas big man Hunter Dickinson didn’t play in the Big 12 Tournament, and his health has been a concern for the Jayhawks. Top-seeded Purdue, meanwhile, needs to avoid being haunted by last year’s loss to 16th-seeded Fairleigh Dickinson.

The Boilermakers advance. The fourth-seeded Jayhawks go down against Samford.

Second-round winners: Purdue, Gonzaga, Creighton, Saint Peter’s.

Three times in the past five tournaments, a No. 15 seed has made the Sweet 16, so don’t be afraid to pick one. And hey, Saint Peter’s has done it before from this same seed line.

Regional semifinal winners: Gonzaga, Creighton.

Purdue will be under plenty of pressure to avoid underachieving in the NCAA Tournament again. The Boilermakers get through the first weekend but fall short of an extended run.

Regional champion: Gonzaga. The Zags get a chance to fly under the radar this year, and with a shaky Kansas team near them in the bracket, there’s a favorable path to the Sweet 16. If Gonzaga can get past Purdue, the Final Four is very much in play.

West region

First Four: Howard over Wagner.

First-round winners: North Carolina, Michigan State, Saint Mary’s, Alabama, New Mexico, Baylor, Nevada, Arizona.

Arizona is another team trying to rebound from a first-round loss in 2023, and top-seeded North Carolina returns after missing the tournament entirely last year.

Second-round winners: Michigan State, Saint Mary’s, New Mexico, Arizona.

It’s almost a cliche to pick Tom Izzo’s team to overachieve in March, but Michigan State’s Pomeroy rank (18th) suggests the Spartans are dangerous as a No. 9 seed.

Regional semifinal winners: Michigan State, Arizona.

Here’s a question you don’t hear often: Can Michigan State hold its own against Saint Mary’s on the boards? The numbers suggest it would be tough, but the Spartans pull it out with defense.

Regional champion: Michigan State. The Big Ten and SEC aren’t making a lot of friends these days. The Spartans prevent them from getting shut out of the Final Four.

Final Four

Of the two underdogs in this Final Four, Gonzaga is more likely to advance because it can hurt Houston on the boards, but ultimately UConn and Houston survive to set up a matchup between two former American Athletic Conference teams.

The Huskies are probably the better all-around team, but it’s just too hard to repeat. Houston wins it all.

It was no surprise when the ball dropped in, and Iowa was ahead to stay.

“That was probably the loudest the crowd was at that point, all night,” Clark said of the sellout of 17,950 at the Xfinity Center. “That was a huge shot, and then I think Sydney (Affolter) gets that layup, get a couple stops on defense that we string together.”

Clark had 38 points and 12 assists, and No. 3 Iowa withstood a gritty effort by Maryland, outlasting the Terrapins 93-85 on Saturday night. The Terps rallied from an 18-point third-quarter deficit, but Clark and the Hawkeyes had enough answers down the stretch.

The Hawkeyes (21-2, 10-1 Big Ten) won at Maryland for the first time since December 1992, when the Terps were in the ACC.

“This is the first time I’ve ever been happy in this press room,” Iowa coach Lisa Bluder said afterward.

Clark now needs 66 points to pass Kelsey Plum atop the NCAA career scoring list for women’s basketball.

Molly Davis scored 17 points for Iowa, and Kate Martin had 15 points and 10 rebounds.

“Caitlin did natural Caitlin things, which are spectacular, but I thought Molly Davis really had a great game as well,” Bluder said.

A packed crowd in College Park had clearly come to watch Clark — but most of the fans were also cheering for the Terps. Maryland went on a 23-3 run to take a two-point lead in the third. Clark even shot an air ball from the left wing, to the delight of the crowd.

Caitlin Clark wows the sellout crowd in Iowa’s rout of Northwestern on a historic night in Evanston

“I didn’t expect them to shrink an 18-point lead in about four minutes, but we fouled too much,” Clark said.

The Terps were up 65-63 before Iowa outscored them 10-1 the rest of the quarter. Clark made a 3-pointer and a layup and also assisted on two layups during that run.

The Terps, struggling through an unusually tough season that has them on the NCAA Tournament bubble, kept it close in the fourth. It was tied at 76 before Clark freed herself with that smooth pump fake and connected from 3-point range. She then fed Affolter for a layup, and Maryland could never pull even again.

“This game felt like March,” Terps coach Brenda Frese said. “Just super proud of this group and how we competed with the No. 3 team in the country, with the best player in the country. There’s no doubt that we’re an NCAA Tournament team.”

Clark would have finished with an even 40 points if she hadn’t missed a wide-open layup on a breakaway in the final minute, but with Iowa comfortably ahead, she could afford to smile.

After Clark began the game with a 3-pointer, Maryland ran off the next 11 points to take an early lead, and the Iowa star was called for a couple traveling violations.

The Terps (12-10, 4-7) couldn’t keep Clark under control for long. A particularly deep 3-pointer from the left wing — beyond former Maryland men’s coach Gary Williams’ signature on the court — capped a 14-2 run by Iowa. She made four of her seven 3-pointers in the opening quarter.

Clark did her damage inside the arc in the second, including a spin move for a three-point play. Iowa led 52-38 at halftime.

Clark now has 3,462 points. Plum scored 3,527 at Washington from 2013-17. Former Kansas star Lynette Woodard holds the women’s major college basketball record with 3,649 points from 1978-81 — before the NCAA took over women’s sports from the Association for Intercollegiate Athletics for Women.

“I put some of that confetti in my pocket,” Howard said. “I’m just going to keep it in a nice safe place, because it’s hard winning championships, man. I’m going to always remember this moment.”

Franz Wagner scored 19 points, Hunter Dickinson added 14 and No. 2 Michigan clinched the Big Ten title with a 69-50 victory over rival Michigan State on Thursday. It was an emotional night for the Wolverines, even though there weren’t many fans at Crisler Center because of the pandemic. When the game ended, confetti fell from above and players danced on the court before cutting down the net at one end.

Howard reached the Final Four as a player twice with the Fab Five, but even those teams never won the Big Ten title. When Michigan shared the conference crown in 2012 under John Beilein, it was the program’s first regular-season championship since 1986. The Wolverines won it again in 2014.

Now Howard has a championship in just his second season as coach, having outlasted a loaded league that has four teams ranked in the top seven nationally.

“We were fortunate enough to win the Big Ten championship during the regular season. It’s hard doing that. It’s so hard,” Howard said. “And I remember as a player, it was very hard for us, and so to do it this year, it’s a beautiful moment.”

The Wolverines (19-2, 14-2) had a chance to clinch the championship based on winning percentage with a victory in any of their final three games. They were blown out by No. 4 Illinois on Tuesday night but rebounded with a gritty effort two nights later.

Michigan went on a 9-2 run to take a 39-28 lead into halftime. The Wolverines later went on a 25-4 tear that spanned much of the second half.

Aaron Henry scored 14 points for Michigan State (14-11, 8-11), which will finish with a losing conference record for the first time since 1993. It had never happened before under coach Tom Izzo, and the Spartans are struggling to extend Izzo’s streak of 22 straight NCAA Tournament appearances.

“We’ll bounce back,” Izzo said. “We’ve been here — a lot this year.”

Michigan State did have two recent wins over top-five opponents, beating Illinois and Ohio State. The Spartans will get another crack at Michigan on Sunday. This home-and-home series to finish the regular season came about because of the Michigan athletic department’s coronavirus-related pause that started in January.

“We’ve got some work to do, and I’m looking forward to Sunday,” Izzo said.

Wagner and Mike Smith both had 3-pointers early in Michigan’s second-half run. Dickinson also had a couple big dunks, and the 7-foot-1 center made another big play when he dove on the floor for a loose ball.

La pelea del sábado por la noche, que marcaría el regreso de Claressa Shields a su ciudad natal debió cancelarse debido a un altercado previo al pesaje del viernes. El entrenador de su rival fue hospitalizado por los golpes que recibió.

Shields consideró “inexcusable” el episodio, y la noche sabatina de boxeo siguió adelante, pero sin la atracción principal en su cartelera.

Se suponía que Shields pelearía en la localidad de Flint ante la croata Ivana Habazin. El sitio Mlive.com informó que James Ali Bashir, entrenador de Habazin, sufrió lesiones faciales tras recibir un puñetazo y caer sobre el piso de concreto antes de la ceremonia.

Mark Taffet, manager de Shields, dijo que Bashir fue sometido a una cirugía para reparar algunos daños en sus dientes. Después del alta, tendrá que ir al quirófano por segunda ocasión para corregir un problema en el maxilar.

“No sé lo que pasó, y al igual que ustedes me tengo que basar en lo que he oído. Pese a los videos que han surgido, los actos que ocurrieron contra el entrenador Ali no son correctos”, publicó Shields en Facebook. “¡¡No defiendo esto y en ningún modo justifico lo que pasó, sin importar lo que él haya dicho!! Estoy con el entrenador Ali y con Ivana Habazin, y entiendo también su postura sobre nuestra pelea”.

Taffet explicó que visitó el hospital después de lo ocurrido, para cerciorarse de que Bashir estuviera recibiendo la atención adecuada. No se ha revelado la identidad de la persona que agredió al entrenador.

“Claressa estaba de pie en la báscula, antes de que se revisara su peso”, relató Taffet. “Hubo mucha confusión sobre si se estaba realizando ya el pesaje. Bashir trató de acercarse a la báscula para verificar el peso real de Claressa, y hubo un intercambio de palabras. Fue algo horriblemente desafortunado y, sin importar los desacuerdos que haya, no debe haber lugar para la violencia”.

La pelea entre Shields y Habazin iba a realizarse originalmente en agosto, pero se pospuso por una lesión de la estadounidense. Taffet consideró que es muy pronto para saber si habrá un combate entre ambas sobre el cuadrilátero.

“Tanto Claressa como Ivana se merecen la oportunidad de que se haga la pelea, pero hay que dejar que todo el polvo se disipe, hablar con ambas partes y asegurarnos de que ellas quieran hacer esto”, comentó.

Taffet dijo que se ofrecerá un reembolso a quienes pagaron boleto, aunque se realicen otras peleas en la función.

Sólo dos peleas se realizaron. En la división de los pesados, Jermaine Franklin (20-0) se impuso por puntos al checo Pavel Sour (11-2). En los welter, Jaron Ennis (20-0) noqueó en el tercer asalto al argentino Demian Fernández (12-2).

Shields, bicampeona olímpica, ha ganado títulos en la división de las supermedianas, y unificó los cinturones de la categoría en abril, con una victoria clara sobre Christina Hammer, quien marchaba invicta. Aceptó esta pelea en la división de las 154 libras (superwelter) en busca de ser monarca en tres divisiones.

-AP

Anderson went 1-for-4, lowering his American League-leading average to .335, but the one hit was a no-doubter of a home run to left.

Ivan Nova (11-12) allowed two runs and eight hits in five innings and three Sox relievers finished. Alex Colome gave up a run in the ninth but held on for his 29th save in 31 chances.

Anderson opened the scoring with his 18th home run, a solo shot off Tyler Alexander (1-4). The inning only got worse for the left-hander: After singles by Jose Abreu and Eloy Jimenez, Yoan Moncada hit a two-run triple.

The Tigers answered with two runs in the fifth. Victor Reyes hit an RBI groundout, and Brandon Dixon followed with an unusual sacrifice fly to first baseman Jose Abreu. Willi Castro tagged up from third and scored when Abreu caught a popup in foul ground and tumbled into the stands.

Abreu hit a two-run single in the eighth to push the Chicago lead back to three. He leads the AL with 121 RBIs.