The Vegas Golden Knights, down 2-0 in their second-round series against the Edmonton Oilers, are looking at being down one player and possibly two for Game 3.

The NHL Player Safety department announced that Golden Knights forward Nicolas Roy will have a hearing on Friday night for cross-checking Edmonton’s Trent Frederic during Game 2.

Roy had brought up his stick and cross-checked Frederic in the face during overtime. The Oilers forward left the game and later returned with a cotton swab in his nostril.

The Golden Knights killed off the five-minute penalty before the Oilers eventually won on a Leon Draisaitl goal.

‘Very atypical of Nic, but they called it and it was the right call,’ coach Bruce Cassidy told reporters on Friday. ‘We’ll see what comes of it.’

Cassidy said he had no update on defenseman Brayden McNabb, who went hard into the boards on an unpenalized trip by Viktor Arvidsson not long before the Draisaitl goal.

‘We’ll see where he’s at (Saturday) in terms of game status,’ Cassidy said.

The Golden Knights will visit the Oilers at 9 p.m. ET. The game will be broadcast by TNT and truTV.

The Minnesota Timberwolves said they will continue to investigate an incident in which a fan was ejected for directing a racial slur at Golden State Warriors forward Draymond Green during the Timberwolves’ 117-93 victory in Game 2 of the Western Conference Semifinals, tying the best-of-seven series at a game apiece.

The team says that another fan was involved in the altercation, but left the arena before they could be identified, and that additional action may be taken as a result of the probe.

Green was riding on a stationary bike in a tunnel in the fourth quarter near the Warriors’ bench when he began arguing with a fan.

“During the fourth quarter of last night’s game against the Warriors, a fan was ejected by Target Center security for violating the NBA Fan Code of Conduct in an incident involving Draymond Green,” the Timberwolves said in a statement.

“A second individual, who was identified by surrounding patrons as making racially charged comments towards Green, left on his own before arena security could confirm his identity. The team is continuing to investigate, and additional action may be taken.”

Green, who had nine points, five assists, and four rebounds, addressed reporters in an emotional response in the locker room after the Game 2 loss.

‘I’m not an angry Black man, I’m a very successful, educated Black man with a great family,’ Green said. ‘And I’m great at basketball, I’m great at what I do. The agenda to try to keep making me look like an angry Black man is crazy. I’m sick of it, it’s ridiculous.’

Game 3 is Saturday night at the Chase Center in San Francisco.

An NBA comeback starts with stops.

If a team wants to overcome a significant deficit and win a game, it must stop the opponent from scoring and has to find offense.

The 2025 NBA playoffs are proving a truism and/or reinforcing a cliché: few leads are safe.

Down 29 in the second quarter and behind 77-51 to the Memphis Grizzlies at halftime in Game 3 of their first-round series, the Oklahoma City Thunder outscored the Grizzlies by 32 in the second half for a 114-108 victory, marking the first time a team has overcome a 26-point halftime deficit in a playoff game.

Trailing 75-55 with 5:47 left in the third quarter of Game 1 of their second-round series against the Boston Celtics and 73-53 with 3:12 left in the third quarter of Game 2, the New York Knicks erased both 20-point deficits and took Game 1 108-105 in overtime and Game 2 91-90. Both were road wins for the Knicks, stunning the defending champions.

The Denver Nuggets fell behind by 11 with 4:31 to go in the fourth quarter of Game 1 against the Thunder and won 121-119.

The day before New York’s Game 2 victory, the Indiana Pacers were behind 81-61 in the third quarter and 119-112 with 57.6 seconds remaining in the fourth quarter of Game 2 against the Cleveland Cavaliers and won 120-119 on Tyrese Haliburton’s 3-pointer.

“Hard to put all of this into words,’ Pacers coach Rick Carlisle said at the beginning of his news conference.

“Our group has a belief in one another, and we just (keep) executing, we just keep playing,” Carlisle said, trying to explain and later adding, “One thing that we continue to say is Pacers basketball is 48 minutes. Sometimes, it’s 53 and sometimes, it’s 58.”

The 2025 NBA playoffs have turned into the season of the comeback, creating wild, exciting, entertaining and unpredictable series.

“We all know in the NBA the playoffs, these games are so long, you just try to give yourself a chance,” Nuggets interim coach David Adelman said.

New York’s Game 2 victory marked the first time an NBA team had consecutive 20-point comeback victories in the playoffs, and it was also the first time the NBA had three consecutive days when a team overcame a 20-point deficit to win a playoff game.

Indiana became just the third team since 1997-98 to overcome a seven-point deficit in the final minute of a playoff game.

The Knicks’ Game 2 victory was the 26th 20-point comeback playoff victory in the NBA’s play-by-play era (since 1996-97), and the Pacers and Knicks are the only teams to complete two 20-point comebacks in the same postseason since 1998, according to the Elias Sports Bureau.

“When you’re in those moments, you don’t realize you’re in those moments,” Knicks center Karl-Anthony Towns told USA TODAY Sports on April 19 after New York’s Game 1 victory over the Detroit Pistons in the first round. “To be told after the game that it was a 21-0 run, I couldn’t tell you that it was. You just get so locked in on the game, so locked in the moment. You just play the game out and execute at the highest level you possibly can and deal with the results later.

“It’s one of those moments where you just get lost in the game. I’m glad that we got lost in the game for the right reasons.”

Said Thunder coach Mark Daigneault: “There was great communication on the bench, even when we were down 20. We didn’t try to break the game open in one shot. We just stayed present, stacked possessions, and trusted the process. And that shows the power of it.”

Carlisle used the words ‘lucky’ and ‘fortunate’ repeatedly. That’s part of it, but it doesn’t tell the complete story. It’s not easy mentally or physically to overcome a 20-point deficit and win. The energy and focus required are taxing.

But it is one possession at a time. If one team can take a 20-point lead, the other team can eliminate it, as long as there’s enough time. During timeouts, coaches tell players to win small segments of the game and try to be more aggressive, putting pressure on the opponent.

While it requires determined play from one team, the other team has to shoot and play poorly and make mistakes both on the court by players and on the sideline by coaches.

It is a combination of good events for one team and bad events for the other.

In the final 19 minutes of Game 2 between Indiana and Cleveland, the Pacers outscored the Cavaliers 59-38. They shot 54.8% from the field, including 6-for-12 on 3-pointers, and outscored the Cavs 11-0 in points off turnovers. The Cavs were 11-for-32 from the field and 2-for-14 on 3s.

The Celtics have been a disaster in the fourth quarter against New York. They are a combined 9-for-45 from the field and 4-for-26 on 3-pointers and have scored 33 total points in the frame through two games. Meanwhile, the Knicks shot 45.5% from the field and 45% on 3-pointers. The 3-point shot works both ways – a team can shoot itself out of the game and/or shoot itself into it.

No team has embraced the frenetic comeback ethos more than the Knicks, who have overcome fourth-quarter deficits of at least seven points in five of their six postseason victories this year.

In simplest terms, the Knicks play their best in fourth quarters, particularly in the clutch. Across their six victories in the playoffs, the Knicks have outscored opponents in fourth quarters by a margin of 170-137, for a net gain of 33 points.

But in the final five minutes, that is only intensified further; New York’s margin in that stretch — across its six postseason wins — is 87-66, or plus-21. In Game 1 of its first-round series against the Pistons, the Knicks also ripped off a 21-0 run to pull ahead.

The Knicks have relied on a similar formula for each comeback: they’ve tightened their interior defense, forcing teams to take perimeter shots contested by their lengthy wing defenders. They’ve boxed out and have crashed the glass to secure rebounds. And they’ve raced out in transition to try to get easy, high-percentage buckets — or kickouts to open shooters.

But the spurts always start on defense.

“Our biggest thing, especially when we go on those runs, it’s like: ‘All right let’s get a stop,’ ” Knicks forward Josh Hart said Wednesday after Game 2. “ ‘We get a stop, let’s get another stop. Let’s get another stop.’ We’ve got guys that can score the ball. When we’re down by that much, the only thing we’re thinking about is: ‘Let’s get this to a one-possession game.’ Our defensive intensity picked up in the fourth quarter.”

Therein lies the issue with comebacks: for a team to erase a big lead, it usually means it played poorly enough earlier in the game to fall into a hole.

“Now,” Hart added, “we have to learn from it and put together a full game.”

The Florida Panthers and Vegas Golden Knights defeated their current opponents during the second round of the 2023 playoffs on their way to the Stanley Cup Final.

But now the 2023 champion Golden Knights and the 2024 champion Panthers are down 2-0 in their 2025 playoff series.

The Edmonton Oilers picked up their second victory in Las Vegas on Thursday night with a 5-4 overtime win against the Golden Knights. The Toronto Maple Leafs had won both of their home games.

The Panthers will be at home against the Maple Leafs Friday night as they try to get back into their series. The Golden Knights will try to do the same when they visit the Oilers on Saturday night.

Are the Florida Panthers and Vegas Golden Knights in trouble? USA TODAY takes a look at their situations:

Are the Florida Panthers in trouble?

Their situation isn’t ideal, but they are at home and they overcame a 2-0 series deficit in the first round in 2023.

Adjustments will need to be made, including limiting Toronto’s chances off the rush.

‘I think we need to play a little bit inside of them,’ forward Anton Lundell told reporters. ‘We know they want to stretch out, play quick. We need to be aware of that and know where they are at all times.’

The Maple Leafs also have had quick responses to Panthers goals. In Game 1, Morgan Rielly scored 19 seconds after Seth Jones cut Florida’s deficit to 2-1. In Game 2, Mitch Marner restored Toronto’s lead 17 seconds after Lundell had tied the game.

Panthers goalie Sergei Bobrovsky uncharacteristically has given up nine goals on 50 shots in the series.

‘Our confidence (in Bobrovsky) is never wavering,’ forward Sam Reinhart said. ‘We feel we’ve got the best goalie in the world back there. Our job is to make it as easy as possible for him. I think we can do a better job of that.’

Are the Vegas Golden Knights in trouble?

Their situation is more difficult because they’re playing in Edmonton, where the Oilers are 3-0 this postseason.

Edmonton is also confident. The Oilers have six consecutive comeback wins, setting an NHL record.

The Golden Knights did overcome a 2-0 deficit in the 2021 playoffs.

Their situation looked ideal in Game 2 because they had Alex Pietrangelo back in the lineup after an illness and were controlling play early. Goalie Calvin Pickard, though, limited Vegas to one goal before the Oilers struck for three goals in less than six minutes.

The Golden Knights eventually tied the game 4-4 and killed off a five-minute major penalty in overtime after Nicolas Roy cross-checked Trent Frederic in the face.

But the Oilers won in overtime when Connor McDavid fed Leon Draisaitl for a goal at 15:20. It was their first points of the game. The Oilers’ depth players contributed the rest, another issue because the Golden Knights were supposed to be the deeper team.

Also troubling: Golden Knights defenseman Brayden McNabb went hard into the boards and left the game after he was tripped in overtime.

Coach Bruce Cassidy, who was upset about the lack of call on the ‘dangerous play,’ had no postgame update on McNabb’s status.

But the Golden Knights likely will be without Roy, who will have a hearing with NHL Player Safety.

The 2025 Preakness Stakes, the middle jewel of the Triple Crown, is a little more than a week away, and with the ever-changing field, the race is shaping up to be an unpredictable event, open for any horse to claim victory.

According DRF.com, Rodriguez, trained by Bob Baffert, reported he will not enter the Preakness due to a foot issue. Baffert described it as a sensitive foot bruise, the same reason Rodriguez was scratched from the Kentucky Derby. Instead, Baffert will depend on Goal Oriented to win the race.

Earlier this week, trainer Bill Mott announced that Kentucky Derby winner Sovereignty would not be participating in the Preakness, a development that has dashed the hopes of a Triple Crown winner for the seventh consecutive year. He is expected to make a comeback for the Belmont Stakes on June 7th at Saratoga Race Course in upstate New York.

Currently, only one horse from the Kentucky Derby, American Promise, remains in the Preakness field. American Promise is trained by Hall of Famer D. Wayne Lukas and finished 16th out of 19 in the Kentucky Derby.

What time is the 2025 Preakness Stakes?

The 150th running of the Preakness Stakes will be held Saturday, May 17. Post time is 6:50 p.m. ET

When is the 2025 Preakness Stakes?

Date: Saturday, May 17
Time: 6:50 p.m. ET
Stream: Peacock | Fubo (free trial)
Location: Pimlico Race Course (Baltimore)

The 150th Preakness Stakes at Pimlico Race Course is set for Saturday, May 17. Fans can watch the race, which will be streamed on Peacock, NBCSports.com and the NBC Sports.

Watch the 2025 Preakness States on Fubo

The women’s World Cup will expand to 48 teams in 2031, FIFA announced on May 9.

FIFA says the expansion of the tournament will “significantly broaden representation, offering more nations and players access to elite competition and accelerating investment in women’s football worldwide.”

The 2027 women’s World Cup will be played from June 24-July 25 in Brazil, and has 32 teams.

A host has not yet been announced for the 2031 women’s World Cup, but the United States is the lone bidder for the tournament. The U.S. will co-host the next men’s World Cup in 2026 with Canada and Mexico.

“This is not just about having 16 more teams playing in the FIFA Women’s World Cup, but taking the next steps in relation to the women’s game in general by ensuring that more FIFA Member Associations have the chance to benefit from the tournament to develop their women’s football structures from a holistic point of view,” FIFA President Gianni Infantino said in a press release.

“The FIFA Women’s World Cup 2023 – the first in which teams from all confederations won at least one game and teams from five confederations reached the knockout stage, among many other records – set a new standard for global competitiveness. This decision ensures we are maintaining the momentum in terms of growing women’s football globally.”

FIFA says the 48-team women’s World Cup will have a 12-group format, increasing the total number of matches from 64 to 104. It will also extend the tournament by one week.

The decision was made during a recent FIFA virtual meeting after consultation with soccer confederations and other stakeholders, and given the remarkable recent strides made by women’s football across the world, according to the release.

FIFA and Netflix previously announced the streaming service will broadcast the 2027 and 2031 women’s World Cups in the United States.

Spain won the 2023 World Cup in Australia and New Zealand, while the United States won the previous two tournaments and four World Cups overall (1991, 1999, 2015, 2019).

The Boston Red Sox slugger revealed to reporters that general manager Craig Breslow approached him about switching to first base in the wake of a season-ending injury to Triston Casas, coming on the heels of his much-ballyhooed switch to designated hitter in March.

That move came about due to the signing of Alex Bregman to a three-year, $120 million contract, adding Bregman’s defensively superior glove and a Fenway Park-perfect bat to the lineup. The alignment has been perfect: Bregman is producing like an MVP and Devers, after a historically bad start, has posted a .933 OPS and driven in 24 runs in his past 34 games.

But Devers swallowed his pride once and, at the relatively tender age of 28, accepted the shift to DH. He was far less receptive to grabbing a first baseman’s mitt to bail out the team’s lack of depth.

‘I’m a ballplayer, but at the same time, they can’t expect me to play every single position out there,” Devers told reporters via a team interpreter. “In spring training, they talked to me and basically told me to put away my glove, that I wasn’t going to play any other position but DH, so right now, I just feel like it’s not an appropriate decision by them to ask me to play another position.”

This tiff differs a bit from the spring training contretemps in which Breslow and manager Alex Cora presented a united front – and faced Devers’ backlash – while aiming to move him off third. Cora even noted that Devers’ $313.5 million contract extension was signed under a different front office regime.

But Devers seemed to air his grievances strictly at Breslow, who won a World Series championship as a member of Boston’s 2013 bullpen and is in his second year running baseball operations.

‘It was the GM that I spoke with. I’m not sure what he has with me,’ says Breslow. ‘He played ball and I would like to think he knows that changing positions like that isn’t easy.

‘Here in the clubhouse thankfully the relationship that I have with my teammates is great. I don’t understand some of the decisions that the GM makes. Next thing you know someone in the outfield gets hurt and they want me to play in the outfield. I think I know the kind of player I am. And yeah, that’s just where I stand.’

While Devers’ stance might appear to fall a bit shy of selfless, it’s instructive to consider the Red Sox spoke of him in the past tense as a position player just a few weeks ago, Cora inferring to listeners in a radio appearance that the DH move was permanent.

“Every DH used to be a position player until they were DHs,” Cora said on WEEI. “J.D. (Martinez) went through the same transition in 2018. He was an outfielder, he became a DH and you saw what happened. So we expect the same thing. The kid is ready to go. He’s going to hit second against lefties and righties.

‘And he’s going to DH. I think having Alex behind him (in the lineup) is going to benefit him. Honestly, I expect a great season from Raffy offensively.”

Devers isn’t the first employee to regard a quandary his bosses present him with and think, ‘Not my problem.’ His move to first would help open up DH for the rehabilitating Masataka Yoshida.

At the same time, Devers wasn’t the one responsible for roster construction. A year ago, the Red Sox summoned Dominic Smith to play first while Casas mended a rib injury for several months. Smith is now on a minor-league deal with the Yankees.

To which Devers says, scour the waiver wire, fellas.

‘And now, I think they should do their jobs essentially, and hit the market and look for another player,’ he says. ‘I’m not sure why they want me to be in-between the way they have been.”

The USA TODAY app gets you to the heart of the news — fast. Download for award-winning coverage, crosswords, audio storytelling, the eNewspaper and more.

University of North Carolina again had to address coach Bill Belichick’s relationship with his 24-year-old girlfriend, Jordon Hudson, on Friday after a new report stated Hudson had been banned from the Tar Heels’ football facility.

‘While Jordon Hudson is not an employee at the University or Carolina Athletics, she is welcome to the Carolina Football facilities,’ the school said in a statement issued to reporters. ‘Jordon will continue to manage all activities related to Coach Belichick’s personal brand outside of his responsibilities for Carolina Football and the University.”

The denial comes on the heels of the latest episode of ‘Pablo Torre Finds Out,’ a national podcast from Meadowlark Media featuring former ESPN host Pablo Torre. The show focused on Belichick and Hudson and Torre cited two North Carolina athletic department sources when he reported Hudson was no longer allowed in the football building or on the team’s practice field.

Torre also reported, citing one Belichick family source, there is ‘deep worry about how detrimental Hudson can be’ for Belichick’s reputation.

The six-time Super Bowl-winning coach already had to issue a statement earlier this month in the aftermath of a ‘CBS Sunday Morning’ interview that went awry due to Hudson’s involvement.

The eight-minute CBS segment that originally aired on April 27 included a tense moment in which Hudson shut down a question asked to Belichick by reporter Tony Dokoupil about how he and Hudson had met. Hudson also stopped Dokoupil’s line of questioning several other times, according to CBS. She later posted a screenshot of emails sent by Belichick following the interview (accompanied by Taylor Swift’s ‘Look what you made me do’) in which he criticized how CBS edited the segment and the direction being taken in the promotion of his new book.

Belichick emphasized Hudson only became involved once Dokoupil ignored Belichick’s repeated requests to keep the conversation centered on the new book.

‘After this occurred several times, Jordon, with whom I share both a personal and professional relationship, stepped in to reiterate that point to help refocus the discussion,’ Belichick said in his statement. ‘She was not deflecting any specific question or topic but simply doing her job to ensure the interview stayed on track. Some of the clips make it appear as though we were avoiding the question of how we met …

‘The final eight-minute segment does not reflect the productive 35-minute conversation we had, which covered a wide range of topics related to my career,’ Belichick continued. ‘Instead, it presents selectively edited clips and stills from just a few minutes of his interview to suggest a false narrative – that Jordon was attempting to control the conversation – which is simply not true.’

CBS pushed back in its own statement about Belichick’s claim that he agreed to the interview under the auspices that questions would be focused only on his book. ‘When we agreed to speak with Mr. Belichick, it was for a wide-ranging interview,’ a CBS News spokesperson said. ‘There were no preconditions or limitations to this conversation.’

Belichick is the oldest active coach in FBS college football at 73 years old entering his first season at North Carolina. The Tar Heels open their 2025 schedule on Monday, Sept. 1 at 7:30 p.m. ET at Kenan Stadium against the Big 12’s TCU.

Northwestern University has settled the 34 remaining lawsuits filed against it by former football players over allegations of hazing within the Wildcats’ program, according to court records obtained by USA TODAY Sports.

A judge in Cook County, Illinois formally closed the cases on May 6 and approved the creation of a settlement fund to distribute funds to the plaintiffs, but the details of the arrangement − including financial terms − are confidential. Many of the lawsuits had sought financial judgments of $100,000 or more apiece.

Spokespeople for the university and the plaintiffs’ attorneys involved in the lawsuits either declined to comment on the settlement or did not respond to messages.

Northwestern had signaled in a court filing last month that it was working to finalize a settlement with the former football players, ostensibly because such a resolution would pave the way for those players to serve as witnesses in the university’s other legal fight: A $130-million wrongful termination lawsuit filed by former football coach Pat Fitzgerald. That case is due to go to trial November 3.

‘The student plaintiffs and other former players who have information about hazing are crucial to Northwestern’s defense of Fitzgerald’s claims,’ the university’s lawyers wrote in a court filing last month. ‘And Northwestern is working hard to gather relevant evidence from them.’

Fitzgerald, who was fired for cause in 2023, has denied having any knowledge of hazing within the Wildcats’ football program.

The ex-players’ settlement comes nearly two years after the first plaintiff, identified only as ‘John Doe 1,’ sued Northwestern in July 2023 over allegations of hazing within the football program. At least 39 other football players subsequently filed their own lawsuits against the school and, in many cases, some of its current and former officials − including Fitzgerald.

Though the specifics differed from one lawsuit to the next, the general allegations were the same. The former football players alleged that incidents of hazing − including forced nudity and sexualized acts − took place during their time on the team and that members of the coaching staff, including Fitzgerald, knew about them.

‘It’s like a brainwashing culture, that was just so normalized,’ former Northwestern quarterback and wide receiver Lloyd Yates said in a 2023 news conference after filing his lawsuit. ‘And it’s just wild to think back, and look at the complaint, to look at what we put up with and what we had to go through, and just how it was so normal.’

A baseball player and volleyball player also later filed lawsuits against Northwestern alleging wrongdoing within those sports. The baseball player’s lawsuit was dismissed in December, while the volleyball player settled May 8.

Contact Tom Schad at tschad@usatoday.com or on social media @tomschad.bsky.social.