ALEX MAG

SAN FRANCISCO -- Devin McCourty agrees that his long-time coach should be enshrined into the Hall of Fame this summer, but said the real impact of Bill Belichick not getting voted in this year will be the attention stolen from those who are.

Belichick won a record six Super Bowl titles as head coach of the New England Patriots before parting ways with the team after the 2023 season. Eligible for the Hall of Fame for the first time this year, news broke last week that he will not be part of the 2026 Hall of Fame class that will be announced Thursday night.

Belichick was up for selection alongside Patriots owner Robert Kraft and three senior player candidates in Bengals quarterback Ken Anderson, 49ers running back Roger Craig and Steelers defensive end L.C. Greenwood. Kraft reportedly also did not make the final cut.

The widespread speculation is that voters did not support Belichick being a "first-ballot" Hall of Famer because of the 2007 Spygate scandal and the Deflategate drama that resulted in a suspension for quarterback Tom Brady. Other voters have said they prioritized what is viewed as a backlog of worthy candidates whose windows to be voted into the Hall of Fame are running out.

McCourty took issue with the various requirements, including that at least four -- but no more than nine -- candidates can be elected annually.

"Shouldn't the Hall of Fame just be, 'Is this guy a Hall of Famer, yes or no?' And then we move forward," McCourty said on Tuesday ahead of working Super Bowl LX as a commentator for NBC Sports.

McCourty was a first-round pick in 2010 by the Patriots and went on to win three Super Bowl titles while playing 13 seasons for Belichick. He believes his former coach will reach the hallowed halls of Canton one day, but is concerned that his omission this year will be a storyline that overrides the induction of others.

"I think the travesty of all of this is this summer, there's gonna be a Hall of Fame induction and there's gonna be guys who are deserving of being in the Hall of Fame. And we can probably all bet that the top topic is gonna be Bill Belichick not being there," McCourty said. "And I think that's unfortunate because there are going to be players, coaches, contributors that are Hall of Fame worthy, but because this feels like a huge mistake, the only talk is going to be about the guys that didn't get into the Hall of Fame."

--Field Level Media

Stephen Currywill be joiningOlympic teammatesLeBron James and Kevin Durant once again, this time at the All-Star Game.

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The NBA announced the rosters for this season's midseason showcase event on Tuesday night, splitting 25 names onto three squads. It's the debut of another new All-Star format — this oneU.S. vs. The World, on Feb. 15 at the Los Angeles Clippers' home in Inglewood, California.

It's a concept that Commissioner Adam Silver thinks will tap into national pride for the players and comes at a fitting time. The game will be aired on NBC, which is also broadcasting theMilan Cortina Olympicsthat start later this week and run through Feb. 22.

The U.S.-vs.-World concept was talked about for years beforebecoming a realitythis season. The NBA and the National Basketball Players Association unveiledthe long-awaited planin theirlatest attemptto spark renewed interest in the game following a largely panned tournament format last season.

The Clippers' Kawhi Leonard, likely the most deserving name left offthe original list of 24 All-Stars,was added to the pool of U.S. players Tuesday shortly before the rosters were unveiled. And that move likely was what sent New York's Karl-Anthony Towns to the World team.

Towns was born in New Jersey but has played international basketball for the Dominican Republic — his late mother's homeland.

The NBA had said in recent months that it would adjust roster sizes as needed to ensure all three teams had at least eight players, the minimum required under the new format. Giannis Antetokounmpo is not expected to play for the World team because of injury, which is why that squad has nine players.

The U.S. teams were split by age: The older players were assigned to USA Stripes, the younger ones to USA Stars.

The rosters:

USA Stripes

Jaylen Brown, Boston; Jalen Brunson, New York; Stephen Curry, Golden State; Kevin Durant, Houston; LeBron James, Los Angeles Lakers; Kawhi Leonard, Los Angeles Clippers; Donovan Mitchell, Cleveland; Norman Powell, Miami.

Coach: Mitch Johnson, San Antonio.

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Scottie Barnes, Toronto; Devin Booker, Phoenix; Cade Cunningham, Detroit; Jalen Duren, Detroit; Anthony Edwards, Minnesota; Chet Holmgren, Oklahoma City; Jalen Johnson, Atlanta; Tyrese Maxey, Philadelphia.

Coach: J.B. Bickerstaff, Detroit.

Giannis Antetokounmpo, Milwaukee; Deni Avdija, Portland; Luka Doncic, Los Angeles Lakers; Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Oklahoma City; Nikola Jokic, Denver; Jamal Murray, Denver; Pascal Siakam, Indiana; Karl-Anthony Towns, New York; Victor Wembanyama, San Antonio.

Coach: Darko Rajakovic, Toronto.

All games will be 12 minutes.

— Game 1: USA Stars vs. World.

— Game 2: USA Stripes vs. winning team of Game 1.

— Game 3: USA Stripes vs. losing team of Game 1.

— Game 4: Championship (top two teams from round-robin play). If all three teams finish 1-1 after the round-robin games, the first tiebreaker will be point differential across each team's games.

AP NBA:https://apnews.com/hub/NBA

Nate Tice, Matt Harmon & Charles McDonald are LIVE from San Francisco for Super Bowl LX as they break down which teams could pull a Seahawks or Patriots next season and make a deep playoff run after missing the postseason this year.

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The trio start with their reactions to the latest coaching hires, as the Arizona Cardinals and Las Vegas Raiders got their head coaches, while the New York Giants hired OC Matt Nagy.

Next, the three hosts dive into their teams that could take a big leap after missing the playoffs this season. Matt shouts out the New Orleans Saints, Charles dives in on the Cincinnati Bengals and Tennessee Titans and Nate shouts out the Baltimore Ravens and Dallas Cowboys.

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(3:40) - Coaching hires: Kubiak, LaFleur, Nagy

(21:40) - Teams that could take the leap: Saints, Bengals, Ravens

(41:40) - Teams that could take the leap: Titans & Cowboys

🖥️Watch thisfull episode on YouTube

Lindsey Vonn's extraordinary comeback after nearly six years away from ski racing will not be derailed bya fall suffered last week in Switzerland. Vonn announced Tuesday that she had ruptured her right ACL, but after some pre-Olympics practice runs, she will continue to ski at Cortina d'Ampezzo in the2026 Winter Olympics.

"This is not, obviously, what I had hoped for," Vonn said in a news conference Tuesday. "I've been working really hard to come into these Games in a much different position. I know what my chances were before the crash, and I know my chances aren't the same as it stands today, but I know there's still a chance, and as long as there's a chance, I will try."

The 41-year-old American also announced that she suffered bone bruising and meniscal damage in the fall that occurred one week before the Opening Ceremony of these Games.

"Considering how my knee feels," Vonn said, "I feel stable, I feel strong, my knee is not swollen, and with the help of a knee brace, I am confident that I can compete on Sunday."

Sunday would be the women's downhill, an event Vonn won at the 2010 Olympics.

Vonn got off-balance coming out of a jump in the upper section of the World Cup downhill race in Crans-Montana, Switzerland, on Jan. 30. She was unable to recover and fell at high speed, skidding across the snow before careening into the orange safety netting on the side of the course.

While Vonn was able to get to her feet, and slowly and gingerly make her down the rest of the course, she stopped several times to grasp at her left knee and appeared to avoid putting any weight on it. Vonn was airlifted from the race area as a precaution.

Later on Jan. 30, Vonn expressed optimism via Instagram that her "Olympic dream is not over." She wrote that she was "discussing the situation" with doctors and "will continue to undergo further exams."

"This is a very difficult outcome one week before the Olympics … but if there's one thing I know how to do, it's a comeback," Vonn added.

Now, she'll attempt to come back from yet another injury, this time just days before the Olympics are set to begin.

Vonn wasn't the only skier to crash amid adverse conditions and poor visibility in Crans-Montana. Austria's Nina Ortlieb and Norway's Marte Monsen, two of the five skiers who started before Vonn, also failed to complete their runs, prompting organizers to cancel the rest of the competition.

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"The main reason is the safety of the athletes," Women's World Cup race director Peter Gerdol explained. "The visibility was getting worse and worse, they couldn't see the race line properly and it caused mistakes. We saw six athletes starting and all six had some mistakes. This was a sign that it was a high-risk situation."

Vonn was poised to be one of the faces of the Milan Cortina Games thanks to a comeback story that defied all reasonable expectations. Now that story will only gain momentum if she makes it to the starting gate.

The four-time overall World Cup champion and 2010 Olympic downhill gold medalist retired in 2019 because the physical toll of her many injuries had become too much to bear. When she underwent right knee surgery in April 2024, her goal was nothing more than to be able to live a normal, pain-free life.

Vonn felt so much better after her partial knee replacement surgery that she made a stunning announcement in November 2024 that she was un-retiring. She has been dominant in downhill races this World Cup season and finished on the podium in two of her first three super-G races, raising hopes that she can contend for medals in both disciplines in Cortina.

The women's downhill competition is scheduled for Feb. 8 and the women's super-G will take place four days later. Vonn said her plan is still to compete in both.

Vonn could have skipped the notoriously treacherous Crans-Montana downhill, but she chose to race in hopes of accumulating more World Cup points. She entered the raceleading the downhill standingsandsixth in the overall competition.

Rather than playing it safe in poor conditions with the Olympics just days away, Vonn went all-out. She roared out of the start house and registered the fastest time through the first checkpoint.

For better or worse, Vonn was always going to go for it.

"Unfortunately, in my career, I've had a lot of challenges," Vonn said. "I've always pushed the limits, and in downhill, it's a very dangerous sport, and anything can happen. Because I've pushed the limits, I crash, and I've been injured more times than I would like to ... As many times as I crash, I've always gotten back up, as many times as I've failed, I've always won."

That's how her remarkable comeback made it this far. The question now is, will the injured left allow her to compete at her best.

"I'm not letting this slip through my fingers," Vonn said. "I'm going to do it. End of story."

LIV Golf received a boost on theeve of starting its fifth seasonwhen the Official World Golf Ranking approved the Saudi-funded league to receive ranking points for the first time.

The unanimous decision Tuesday by the OWGR board came with some conditions, however, that did not sit well with LIV Golf CEO Scott O'Neil.

Points will be distributed only for top-10 finishes and ties, compared with other tours that have smaller fields and leave out only the bottom finishers.

"No other competitive tour or league in OWGR history has been subjected to such a restriction," LIV said in a statement.

For its 57-player league, LIV will get points based on a "Small Field Tournament" category that also applies to tournaments like the Tour Championship and the PGA Tour's signature events that do not have a cut.

"Under these rules, a player finishing 11th in a LIV Golf event is treated the same as a player finishing 57th," the LIV statement said. "Limiting points to only the top 10 finishers disproportionately harms players who consistently perform at a high level but finish just outside that threshold, as well as emerging talent working to establish themselves on the world stage — precisely the players a fair and meritocratic ranking system is designed to recognize."

Considering that LIV Golf has been without ranking points since the league launched in 2022, its strength of field will be lower. Tyrrell Hatton at No. 22 and two-time U.S. Open champion Bryson DeChambeau at No. 33 are the only LIV players in the top 50, with five others among the top 100. Jon Rahm, the last player before Scottie Scheffler to be No. 1 in the world, now is at No. 97.

The decision is effective immediately as LIV Golf begins Wednesday in Saudi Arabia.

"It's a big day, and a positive day in my mind," Trevor Immelman, a former Masters champion and OWGR chairman, said in a telephone interview. "It's been a long process, it's been exhausting in many ways, with a whole host of people from outside being involved and working around the clock to make this decision before LIV plays its first event."

LIV's season opener in Riyadh is likely to award about 23 points to the winner, compared with nearly 47 points toChris Gotterup when he won the Sony Open, the weakest field in the early part of the PGA Tour season. The Phoenix Open winner this week gets about 59 points.

LIV would get slightly more points than the Qatar Masters on the European tour this week.

Even so, it would be a boost for a LIV player if he gets on a roll, such as Joaquin Niemann winning five times last year and Rahm finishing in the top 10 in all but one of the 13 events.

The world ranking is important because the four majors use it to help determine fields. The U.S. Open and British Open created categories for LIV players when they weren't getting ranking points. The Masters and PGA Championship took care of worthy players through special invitations.

The board decision ends a debate that has been around almost as long as LIV. The OWGRrejected the first application in October 2023when former chairman Peter Dawson said the board could not fairly measure LIV against the other tours.

The question was not about the quality of players, but rather how they could be ranked equitably with thousands of other players across 24 tours because LIV was perceived as having a closed shop instead of pathways and turnover.

"We fully recognized the need to rank the top men's players in the world but at the same time had to find a way of doing so that was equitable to the thousands of other players competing on other tours that operate with established meritocratic pathways," Immelman said in the OWGR announcement. "We believe we have found a solution that achieves these twin aims."

Immelman, now the lead CBS Sports analyst, became OWGR chairman last year and had been in constant contact with O'Neil.

LIV has gone from 54 holes to 72 holes for 2026, though that wasn't a big obstacle in getting world ranking points because other smaller tours around the world also have 54-hole events. Rather it was the turnover in LIV, and the self-selection of adding players with contracts.

It also expanded its field size by three to 57 players, still short of the average field size of 75 the OWGR preferred. It expanded its "relegation zone" to 11 players who get dropped and have to earn their way back through a qualifying event or the Asian Tour's International Series points list.

The board worked around those issues to make LIV Golf the 25th circuit in the OWGR.

"It's extremely important for us to be able to rank the best players in the world as accurately as possible," Immelman said. "That has been at the top of my mind throughout this process that I've been involved in. I'm thankful to Scott for his time and effort in this.

"I dream of a world in the men's professional game where everybody is working together and fans enjoy the great golf being played all over the world. That's been my North Star since I took this role."

The PGA Tour and European tour — commercially known as the DP World Tour — recused themselves from the OWGR decision in October when LIV's application was rejected. The full board was involved in the decision Tuesday.

LIV said it saw the decision as a "first step toward a structure that fully and fairly serves the players, the fans, and the future of the sport."

"We entered this process in good faith and will continue to advocate for a ranking system that reflects performance over affiliation," LIV said. "The game deserves transparency. The fans deserve credibility. And the players deserve a system that treats them equally."

The PGA Tour said in a statement, "We respect today's decision by the Official World Golf Ranking (OWGR) governing board and the considerable time the board and Chairman Immelman committed to this process."

The OWGR said it would continue to review any changes LIV makes to its league for 2027, which would result in awarding more — or fewer — points, and whether it remains in the system.

AP golf:https://apnews.com/hub/golf

SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — Nick Schmaltz had his second hat trick of the season and added two assists for a five-point game in the Utah Mammoth's 6-2 victory over the Vancouver Canucks on Monday night.

Schmaltz had his third career NHL hat trick to push his season goals total to 22, one shy of his career high set with Arizona in 2021-22.

JJ Peterka scored his 20th of the season, John Marino had a goal and two assists and Mikhail Sergachev also scored to help Utah end a two-game losing streak. Karel Vejmelka made 21 saves.

Schmaltz scored twice in the first as Utah took a 2-1 lead. In the second, Sergachev connected on a power play and Marino and Peterka pushed the advantage to 5-1. Schmaltz completed the hat trick with 7:38 left in the third, scoring off a feed from Clayton Keller on a break.

Liam Ohgren and Teddy Blueger scored for Vancouver. Kevin Lankinen stopped 14 shots.

Vancouver has only two victories in its last 18 games — both on an eight-game homestand that ended Saturday night with a 3-2 shootout loss to Toronto.

Canucks: At Vegas on Wednesday night in their final game before the Olympic break.

Mammoth: Host Detroit on Wednesday night in their final game before the Olympic break.

AP NHL:https://apnews.com/hub/nhl

INGLEWOOD, Calif. (AP) — Tyrese Maxey scored 29 points, including seven 3-pointers, Dominick Barlow added 26 points and 16 rebounds, and the Philadelphia 76ers beat the Los Angeles Clippers 128-113 on Monday night for their fourth consecutive victory.

The game featured two big names who weren't selected as All-Star reserves: Joel Embiid of the Sixers and Kawhi Leonard of the Clippers.

Embiid had 24 points as he continues to gain full strength after a right ankle injury. The Sixers improved to 11-10 withoutPaul George, who is serving a 25-game suspensionfor violating the NBA's anti-drug program.

Leonard led the Clippers with 29 points and Jordan Miller had 21 points off the bench.

Los Angeles was without James Harden, who missed his second straight game due to personal reasons. Coach Tyronn Lue said before the game that Harden was at home in Phoenix.

Leonard had two dunks and a 3-pointer in the fourth, but the Clippers couldn't put together a sustained run and he finished the game on the bench.

Maxey, Barlow and Embiid combined to score 22 points in the third when the Sixers were outscored 34-28, but still led 100-87.

The Sixers led the entire game, going up by 23 points before settling for a 72-53 halftime advantage.

The Clippers are 8-3 over their last 11 games as they try to stay within range of at least making the play-in tournament.

76ers: Visit the Golden State Warriors on Tuesday night to finish a back-to-back.

Clippers: Host the Cleveland Cavaliers on Wednesday night. ___

AP NBA:https://apnews.com/hub/NBA