⛳️ Y! Sports AM: Rory reigns again
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🚨 HEADLINES
🏆 Denver wins 11th title: Denver beat Wisconsin, 2-1, on Saturday in Las Vegas to win its 11th NCAA men's hockey national championship (most ever) and third in the past five years. The Badgers' loss, meanwhile, extended the Big Ten's title drought in the sport to 20 years.
🏀 Doc steps down: Doc Rivers is stepping down as head coach of the Bucks following their 32-50 campaign, ending his tenure in Milwaukee after 2.5 seasons and a pair of first-round playoff exits. Next up for Rivers: Induction into the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame's Class of 2026.
👊 Fight Night: Tyson Fury dominated Arslanbek Makhmudov in Saturday's bout at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium, while Carlos Ulberg stunned Jirí Procházka at UFC 327 in Miami, winning by first-round knockout despite blowing out his knee in the opening minute of the fight.
🏀 Wooden Award winners: Duke's Cameron Boozer and UConn's Sarah Strong won the men's and women's Wooden Awards, locking up the consensus National Player of the Year honors after winning the Naismith and AP awards, too.
⚽️ Glass ceiling, shattered: Bundesliga club Union Berlin appointed Marie-Louise Eta as their interim manager after firing Steffen Baumgart, making her the first woman ever to manage a club in one of Europe's "Big Five" soccer leagues.
See what else is trending on Yahoo Sports.
⛳️ RORY REPEATS AT AUGUSTA
(Hector Vivas/Getty Images)It took forever. Then it took no time at all.
Rory reigns again: After waiting 17 years to get his first green jacket, Rory McIlroy wasted no time getting his second, riding a hot start and a gutsy finish to a one-stroke victory at the 2026 Masters.
Running it back: McIlroy is the fourth back-to-back winner in Masters history, joining some elite company. How about this foursome?
- Jack Nicklaus: 1965-66
- Nick Faldo: 1989-90
- Tiger Woods: 2001-02
- Rory McIlroy: 2025-26
What he's saying: "I did want to come back here and prove last year wasn't a fluke," said McIlroy, who will take home a cool $4.5 million in prize money, pushing his career earnings to $114.69 million — just $6.3 million behind Woods ($120.99 million) for the most ever.
How it happened: McIlroy entered the weekend with a six-stroke lead over the field, the largest ever through 36 holes at the Masters. But while almost every other golfer near the top of the leaderboard went low on moving day, he shot one over par and entered Sunday tied for first with Cameron Young (-11), while six other golfers were within four strokes of the lead.
- Some of the familiar names chasing him were Justin Rose, the three-time runner-up whom he beat in last year's playoff, and Scottie Scheffler, who erupted for a seven-under 65 on Saturday.
- Rose briefly took the lead on Sunday as Rory continued to struggle off the tee (his 31 fairways were the fewest ever by a Masters champion), and Scheffler fired a 68 to take the clubhouse lead at 11-under, becoming the first golfer since 1942 to play the final 36 holes at the Masters bogey-free.
The final hole: McIlroy got to the 18th tee with a two-stroke lead and survived another errant drive to card a bogey and finish one stroke ahead of Scheffler, making this the first 1-2 finish in a major by the world's top two players since the 2002 U.S. Open (Woods, Mickelson).
(Yahoo Sports)Climbing up the ranks: Six majors ties McIlroy with Faldo, Mickelson and Lee Trevino for the 12th-most ever. The next one — and it would be hard to believe there won't be a next one at this point — will put him on par with Arnold Palmer, Sam Snead, Gene Sarazen and Bobby Jones.
The big picture: With two Masters victories in the last 12 months, McIlroy has cemented his spot as the greatest European player ever, and firmly planted himself among the 10 best golfers of all-time. For the next decade or so, only one question matters: How high can he climb?
McIlroy will never have the numbers or the time to get into the Woods-Nicklaus conversation. But with six majors, a newfound security under pressure and potentially another decade of great golf ahead, he has a pathway to be No. 3.
A year and a week ago, before he won his first green jacket, that didn't seem within the realm of possibility anymore. But somehow, McIlroy has changed the narrative. In the third chapter of his career, it suddenly seems like almost anything is possible.
Looking ahead: The next major, the PGA Championship, tees off a month from tomorrow at Aronimink Golf Club outside Philadelphia.
🏀 BRING ON THE NBA POSTSEASON
(Yahoo Sports)173 days later, from October's opening night tipoff to Sunday's regular-season finale, the NBA playoffs have arrived.
(Yahoo Sports)Looking ahead:Matchups, schedule
🏒 D.C. SAYS FAREWELL, JUST IN CASE
Ovechkin warms up before Sunday's game against the Penguins. (Jamie Sabau/Getty Images)Everybody at the Capitals' final regular-season home game on Sunday was treating the afternoon like a well-earned goodbye — everybody, that is, except the man they were celebrating.
Jake Mintz, Yahoo Sports:
The Pittsburgh Penguins wanted to say thank you, but Alexander Ovechkin just wanted to go home.
He laughed. They lingered. He insisted. They stayed. He waved them away, again and again. Eventually, Ovechkin's longtime sporting nemeses relented, and the pack of white and black and yellow made its way down the tunnel and out of sight.
Ovechkin might be hanging up his skates this summer. He also might not be. Nobody, including the 40-year-old star, knows with any certainty. But with his hair graying, his body decaying and his contract expiring, the end is rapidly creeping up on an all-time great.
And so, just in case this was it, Washington hockey fans eschewed the glories of a picture-perfect April day and sardined themselves into Capital One Arena to say goodbye on Sunday.
All throughout the final home game of the Capitals' regular season, the sea of red chanted "ONE MORE YEAR" and "OVI, OVI" and roared themselves hoarse each time he touched the puck.
Ovechkin waves to the crowd after being named First Star of the Game. The Capitals won, 3-0. (Jamie Sabau/Getty Images)Towels featuring two decades' worth of Ovechkin pictures and the phrase "Gr8ness" were draped on every seat. Multiple retrospective highlight reels were shown, including one covering Ovechkin's storied relationship with fellow future Hall of Famer Sidney Crosby.
Capitals center Dylan Strome purposefully got himself booted from the opening faceoff so Ovechkin and Crosby could square off. Everybody under the roof was treating the afternoon like a well-earned goodbye. Everybody, that is, except Ovechkin.
"I haven't decided yet," he said dryly about his impending decision, when asked why he declined Pittsburgh's handshake line. That's Ovechkin's right. He has earned as much and more. But that approach meant his potential final home game existed in a bizarre in-between.
Opponents, teammates, fans and coaches wanted to celebrate the accomplishments of a sporting legend. They showered him with love and praise. Ovechkin, though, wanted little part of the party. In his mind, he's still just another player, searching for two points, trying to keep Washington's slim playoff hopes alive.
🎾 THE "SINCARAZ" DUOPOLY
(Valery Hache/AFP via Getty Images)Jannik Sinner defeated Carlos Alcaraz on Sunday to win the Monte-Carlo Masters, adding another chapter to a rivalry whose margins remain razor thin.
Sinner's historic run: Sinner's 7-6, 6-3 victory helped him reclaim the No. 1 ranking from Alcaraz and marked his fourth consecutive Masters 1000 title, a feat last accomplished by Novak Djokovic in 2013.
- This will be Sinner's 67th week atop the rankings, breaking a tie with… Alcaraz for the 12th most all-time.
- That's just one of the many areas in which the phenoms are neck-and-neck as they simultaneously build two of the greatest careers in tennis history.
I mean, just look at this…
Some key stats entering Sunday's final. (Tennis Channel)Head-to-head: In addition to weeks at No. 1, Sinner and Alcaraz entered Sunday's final with the same number of ATP titles, the same number of points in their 16 previous head-to-head matches and even the same amount of time on the court in Monte Carlo.
- Sinner now holds the narrowest of leads in weeks at No. 1 (67-66), overall titles (27-26) and points in head-to-head matches (1,739-1730), while drawing even with eight Masters 1000 titles.
- Alcaraz still leads the all-time series, 10-7, and has a commanding 7-4 lead in the all-important tally of Grand Slam titles. Still just 22, he's also two years younger than his Italian rival.
A league of their own: There's Sinner (13,350 ATP rankings points) and Alcaraz (13,240) … and then there's everyone else (next-most ATP ranking points: 5,555). "The Big Two" have claimed the past nine Grand Slam titles, and now they've won 11 of the past 21 Masters 1000 tournaments.
Looking ahead: This was Sinner's first "big" title on clay, whereas Alcaraz has six. He'll have a chance to build on that with upcoming events in Madrid and Rome, which lead into next month's French Open — the only major standing between Sinner and the career Grand Slam.
🌎 THE WORLD IN PHOTOS
(Jack Compton/Getty Images)🇺🇸 Seattle, Washington — The Mariners unveiled a statue of Ichiro Suzuki outside T-Mobile Park on Friday, though his bronze bat was damaged as the tarp came off. Ichiro took the malfunction in stride: "I didn't think Mariano [Rivera] would come out here and break the bat," he joked.
Broken bat, broken record: Ichiro's bat wasn't the only thing broken on Friday. Later in the evening, Shohei Ohtani extended his on-base streak to 44 straight games, breaking Ichiro's record for the longest such streak by a Japanese-born player.
Mikel Arteta reacts during Arsenal's loss. (Justin Setterfield/Getty Images)🏴 London, England — Arsenal fell to surging Bournemouth, 2-1, on Saturday for their third loss in their last four matches (across all competitions), opening the door to a thrilling Premier League title race down the stretch.
Where it stands: With Manchester City beating Chelsea on Sunday, they now trail Arsenal by just six points with a game in hand. If they beat the Gunners this weekend, and win that game in hand the following week, the two clubs will be tied on points with five matches remaining.
(Rhode Van Elsen/Getty Images)🇫🇷 Roubaix, France — Belgium's Wout van Aert beat Tadej Pogačar with a sprint to the finish in Sunday's Paris-Roubaix, denying the Slovenian's quest for a clean sweep of this year's Monuments.
An emotional victory: Van Aert's win came eight years after his teammate, Michael Goolaerts, died after suffering cardiac arrest during this brutal race, known as The Hell of the North. "This means everything to me," he said. "Since [losing Goolaerts] in 2018, it's been my goal to come back and point my finger to the sky."
(Cameron Spencer/Getty Images)🇦🇺 Sydney, Australia — Gout Gout, an 18-year-old from Queensland, ran the 200m in a blistering 19.67 seconds at the Australian Athletics Championships, breaking the U20 world record and putting up the fastest time by anyone in the world this year.
Get to know the name: Gout has long been seen as a future star, but it seems his timeline could be fast-tracked to the 2028 Olympics. Consider that 19.67 would have won him bronze two years ago in Paris, gold in 2000 in Sydney, and was faster than Usain Bolt ever ran at his age.
📺 WATCHLIST: MONDAY, APRIL 13
(Amy Monks/Yahoo Sports)🏀 WNBA Draft
The WNBA Draft is tonight in Manhattan (7pm ET, ESPN), where the Dallas Wings are picking first (for the second straight year) in the three-round, 45-player draft less than a month before the season begins on May 8.
Who will go No. 1? For the first time in a long time, there's no consensus No. 1 overall pick. TCU's Olivia Miles, UConn's Azzi Fudd, UCLA's Lauren Betts and Spain's Awa Fam are all in play for the top spot.
Pre-draft reading:Why more rookies than ever will stick with their teams under the new CBA(Cassandra Negley, Yahoo Sports)
More to watch:
- 🏒 NHL: Kings at Kraken (9:30pm, ESPN) … The Kings are trying to hold onto the final Western Conference playoff spot with four days left in the regular season.
- ⚾️ MLB: Cubs at Phillies (6:40pm, FS1) … Phillies ace Cristopher Sánchez (1-1, 1.65 ERA) has struck out 12.7 batters per nine innings through his first three starts.
Got plans tonight? Gametime is the best place to score last-minute tickets to the events in your city. Get tickets now!
🏀 COLLEGE HOOPS TRIVIA
(John Byrum/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)Cameron Boozer is the eighth Duke player to win the men's Wooden Award, the most of any program.
Question: Can you name the other seven Blue Devils who won the award?
Hint: 1992, 1999, 2001, 2002, 2006, 2019, 2025.
Answer at the bottom.
🍿 TOP PLAYS OF THE WEEKEND
- ⚽️ Goal of the century
- ⚾️ Over the wall!
- ⛳️ Lowry ace
- ⛳️ Rory chips it in
- ⚾️ Rockies robbery
- 🏀 Ausar Thompson!
- 🏒 Epic hockey save
- 🥍 Epic lacrosse save
- ⚾️ A+ reaction time
- ⚽️ Beautiful strike
- ⚾️ Game-ending grab
- ⚾️ McGonigle web gem
- 🏀 Jaime's so smooth
Trivia answer: Christian Laettner, Elton Brand, Shane Battier, Jason Williams, JJ Redick, Zion Williamson, Cooper Flagg
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