The Sportsletter - The Super Bowl Hangover

BY JEFF YODER

FEB. 15, 2022  |  SUBSCRIBE  |  BROWSER VIEW

Good Morning,

It's the Super Bowl hangover edition. The Monday after the big game always brings a sports lull, but we bounced back with Olympics coverage, hoops highlights and an Underdog feature you won't want to miss (bottom of today's edition).

Letter Rip!

SUPER BOWL LVI CONTEST

Congratulations to the winner of our Super Bowl LVI contest, Wes Ashton!

Wes correctly picked 28 of 40 prop bets to earn 50 total points on Super Bowl Sunday. He’s taking home some great prizes. Wes — Be sure to check your email today for more details.

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Full Leaderboard

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A special shout out to RunYourPool for hosting our event. Thanks for playing!

OLYMPICS

Going for Back-to-Back Gold

Photo: Anthony Wallace / Getty Images

U.S. Women’s Hockey Team Advances to Gold Medal Game

The United States women’s hockey team took the gold medal back in 2018, and they had to beat Finland in the semifinals to get there. Monday’s semifinal featured a meeting with the Finns once again, and the same result. The Americans won (4-1) thanks to goals from Hilary Knight, Abby Roque, Cayla Barnes and Hayley Scamurra. The USA will face rival Canada in the gold medal game on Wednesday (11:10 pm ET). The Canadians beat the U.S. 4-2 in the preliminary round, but now the gold is on the line.

Watch: USA Women’s Hockey Beats Finland (4-1) to Reach Gold Medal Game

USA Medal Moments: On Day 9 and 10 of the Winter Olympics, three Americans stole the show with gold and silver medals. Erin Jackson became the first black woman to win gold in speedskating before Kaillie Humphries (gold) and Elana Meyers Taylor (silver) went 1-2 in the inaugural monobob competition.

Medal Count 🏅

Norway (21)

ROC (18)

United States (16)

Austria (16)

Germany (15)

Canada (15)

Full Medal Count

Additional Storylines

NBC Sports: John Shuster’s Eighth End Shot Gives U.S. Curling Big Win Over Switzerland

Olympics: Austria’s Anna Gasser Goes Back-to-Back with Women’s Snowboard Big Air Gold

NBA

DeRozan in Rare Air

Photo: G Flume / Getty Images

Bulls’ DeMar DeRozan Passes Michael Jordan for Most Consecutive 35-Point Games

Move over, MJ. There’s a new hoops star in the Windy City. DeMar DeRozan put up 40 points in the Bulls’ win over the Spurs on Monday (120-109). It was DeRozan’s sixth consecutive game with 35-or-more points, passing Michael Jordan (5) and Dominique Wilkins (5) for the most in NBA history at age 32 or older. DeRozan is averaging 35 ppg in the month of February, and his 27-5-5 nightly average has him heating up in the MVP talks. Meanwhile, Chicago (37-21) has won four straight to surge back up the standings to within 0.5 games of the Eastern Conference lead.

Watch: DeMar DeRozan Makes History With 40-Point Game

Other NBA Highlights

Mitchell Fuels Jazz: Donovan Mitchel dropped 30-7-6 in Utah’s blowout against the Rockets (135-101). It was the sixth straight win for the Jazz.

Giddey at the Garden: Oklahoma City’s Josh Giddey continued his impressive rookie campaign with a 28-point triple double in the Thunder’s overtime win against the Knicks (127-123, OT).

NCAA

Zags Rise to No. 1 Again

Photo: Chris Gardner / Getty Images

Gonzaga Reclaims No. 1 Spot for 3rd Time in 2021-22 Season

With losses by both Auburn and Purdue last week, the Gonzaga Bulldogs are back in the driver’s seat of the latest NCAA AP Poll. It’s the Zags’ third stint at No. 1 this season, suffering both previous losses to Duke and Alabama while at No. 1 back in November/December. The Bulldogs have won 14 straight and look poised to close the year untouched. Meanwhile, it’s another week at No. 1 for South Carolina in the women’s standings, but a few shakeups at the bottom of the Top-10 leave everyone chasing the top-3.

Men’s AP Top-10

1. Gonzaga (21-2) | ↑1

2. Auburn (23-2) | ↓1

3. Arizona (22-2) | ↑1

4. Kentucky (21-4) | ↑1

5. Purdue (22-4) | ↓2

6. Kansas (20-4) | ↑2

7. Baylor (21-4) | ↑3

8. Providence (21-2) | ↑3

9. Duke (21-4) | ↑2

10. Villanova (19-6) | ↑5

Men’s AP Top-25

Women’s AP Top-10

1. South Carolina (23-1) | —

2. Stanford (21-3) | —

3. Louisville (22-2) | —

4. NC State (23-3) | ↑1

5. Indiana (18-3) | ↑2

6. Iowa State (21-3) | ↑3

7. Baylor (19-5) | ↑3

8. Arizona (18-4) | ↓2

9. Michigan (20-4) | ↓5

10. UConn (17-5) | ↓2

Women’s AP Top-25

Additional Storylines

ESPN: Gonzaga Back at No. 1 for Third Stint in 2021 Season

NCAA: Iowa State Breaks Into Women’s Power 10 After Major Upsets

🎥THE HIGHLIGHTS

🏒  NHL: Boldy Goes Wild for 1st Hatty

The Minnesota Wild’s Matthew Boldy scored three goals in two periods to record his first career hat trick in Monday’s win over the Red Wings (7-4). He also added an assist while Kirill Kaprizov scored twice. The Wild are now second in the Central Division after winning eight of their last nine.

🏀  NCAAW: Nebraska Upsets #5 Indiana

A massive upset in women’s college hoops stunned the Big Ten on Monday when unranked Nebraska took down 5th-ranked Indiana (72-55). The Cornhuskers had five players in double figures. It was IU’s first loss of the year to an opponent outside the top-10.

SUPER BOWL LVI STORYLINES 🏆

56 Things We Learned From Super Bowl 56

The Rams scored a crowning achievement to capture the Lombardi Trophy. Here are 56 things we learned from Super Bowl LVI as the 2021-22 NFL season comes to a close. (USA Today)

Re-Watch All the Super Bowl Commercials

LeBron James, Peyton Manning and a host of Hollywood stars made appearances in Sunday’s Super Bowl commercials. Re-watch all of the best ads in one place. (CBS Sports)

The Stories: Rams Super Bowl Run

The Rams got away, found one another, then found a way. The story of how the Super Bowl champions came together is beyond belief—even for those who lived it. (Sports Illustrated)

📰 THE HEADLINES

NFL Ref Explains No-Call on Tee Higgins’ Touchdown Catch in Super Bowl LVI

(CBS Sports)

Rams WR Odell Beckham Jr. Knee Injury Feared to be Torn ACL

(Bleacher Report)

Russia’s Kamila Valieva Wins Appeal, Will Continue to Compete in Olympics

(Yahoo! Sports)

MLB Seeking Cuts to Minors in Latest Offer to Players’ Union

(ESPN)

Becky Hammon Headlines 2022 Women’s Basketball Hall of Fame Class

(Bleacher Report)

NBA Reinstates Tyreke Evans After 2-Year Absence

(Sports Illustrated)

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Receiving A Vision

Photo: Kevin C. Cox / Getty Images

How Cooper Kupp’s Vision & Perseverance Produced the Greatest Receiving Season in NFL History

Jerry Rice and Cooper Kupp. That’s a short list, but it’s one that holds significance following Super Bowl LVI. When the once-forgotten wide receiver caught his second touchdown pass of the big game on Sunday — the eventual game-winner — he secured his team’s Super Bowl destiny, the MVP and one of the most unbelievable achievements by any player at the position.

Kupp finished the 2021 season with the AP Offensive Player of the Year award, the receiving triple crown in receptions (145), yards (1947) and touchdowns (16), and capped it off by winning Super Bowl MVP. Jerry Rice is the only other receiver to achieve those feats in NFL history, and it took him his entire career. Kupp did it in one season.

But the ultimate pass-catching season was completed by a player who few expected to reach this level. Kupp — relatively average at 6-foot-2 and 200 lbs. — was a little-known high school prospect who received just one scholarship offer from a Division I program. It came from Eastern Washington, just a few hours east of his hometown in Yakima. Expectations weren’t high, but Kupp blew them away.

In four collegiate seasons, he amassed 428 receptions for 6,464 yards and 73 touchdowns en route to shattering every Big Sky Conference receiving mark. The first two (receptions and yards) are the most in FCS history. And with national awards piling up in the dozens, Kupp was still overlooked entering the NFL.

He ran an unimpressive 4.62-second 40-yard-dash at the NFL combine before sliding to the third round of the draft. The Rams selected him with the 69th pick, and his ascent to stardom began.

But it didn’t happen overnight for Kupp. Rams head coach Sean McVay had him fourth on the depth chart in his rookie campaign. He moved to a starter in 2018 but had his season cut short due to injury. In 2019 and 2020, Kupp blossomed. He caught 90-plus passes for roughly 1,000 yards in each season with Jared Goff throwing the ball. Goff was about to be gone, though, and his replacement would develop a report with Kupp that would ignite him to another level.

When Matthew Stafford arrived in Los Angeles, the Rams had three star targets at the receiver position — Kupp, Robert Woods and Van Jefferson. Woods went down for the year in November. The team added Odell Beckham Jr. as an upgrade, but Stafford’s already had his favorite target.

The Stafford-to-Kupp connection was mind-blowing for a first-year quarterback-receiver pairing. The duo connected 145 times for nearly 2,000 yards and 16 trips to the end zone — the kind of single-season numbers only rivaled by QB-WR duos like Dante Culpepper and Randy Moss, Drew Brees and Michael Thomas, Peyton Manning and Marvin Harrison, or Jerry Rice and Joe Montana/Steve Young. Many of those names are Hall of Famers.

Kupp was part of the Rams team that lost Super Bowl LIII three years prior. After that loss, he said he had a vision that he would someday return to the big game to become a Super Bowl champ and the MVP.

“I shared that with my wife because I couldn’t tell anyone else obviously what that was, but from the moment this postseason started, there was just a belief, every game, that it was written already.” — Cooper Kupp

Kupp has always been the soft-spoken, often overlooked receiver who is anything but flashy like his positional counterparts. His approach to business combined with a gifted new quarterback and friend in Stafford paved the way for the greatest receiving season the NFL has ever seen. And it ended with Kupp on the receiving end of the game-winning touchdown.

Stafford to Kupp… A year of records sealed with the Lombardi Trophy.

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