We here at Starting Five HQ recognize that there’s a certain upcoming event this weekend that is getting most of the sports world’s attention. But there’s plenty of action on the collegiate hardwood worthy of notice leading up to those few hours on Sunday.

Our list of the top five games in men’s college basketball in fact actually begins on Friday evening. After that, there are marquee contests in each of the other four major conferences spread out through a busy Saturday, so there’s no need to be bored until the big party in the Big Easy kicks off on Sunday. Enjoy.

No. 6 Florida at No. 1 Auburn

Time/TV: Saturday, 4 p.m. ET, ESPN

We begin with this week’s game of the century in the SEC, where given the sheer numbers you’re pretty much guaranteed to see at least one top-10 showdown in the conference every week. The Tigers could absorb a loss or two in the coming month and still be comfortably placed at the head of an NCAA regional. But the fact that they haven’t taken any ‘L’s yet in the nation’s deepest conference means they’ll probably be a popular pick to cut down the nets even if that happens. Let’s not get ahead of ourselves, however, as there will be a lot of physically taxing games ahead starting with this one. The Gators, very much in the mix for a top seed, as well, could solidify that case by taking down No. 1 on the road. Florida hopes to regain the services of Walter Clayton Jr., who sat out the win against Vanderbilt earlier this week with a bad ankle. Regardless, handling Auburn’s constant ball pressure that generates 7.5 steals a game will be a major priority for the Gators. Tigers big man Johni Broome, meanwhile, is back to putting up double doubles after missing a couple of games. He’s hard to stop near the rim, but Florida’s Alex Condon will do his best.

No. 10 St. John’s at No. 18 Connecticut

Time/TV: Friday, 8 p.m. ET, Fox

We move to the Big East for the Friday headliner as the red-hot Red Storm put their nine-game winning streak on the line, and two-time defending NCAA champion UConn looks for a springboard to a strong finish. The Huskies are hopeful this will be the return game for standout freshman Liam McNeeley, though his effectiveness against a physically tough team like St. John’s after an eight-game absence remains to be seen. The Red Storm have surged to the conference lead with a combination of stout defense, holding opponents under 40% shooting, and dominance on the boards. They don’t shoot particularly well themselves, but they generate a slew of second-chance opportunities led by Zuby Ejiofor.

BRACKETOLOGY: Texas A&M, St. John’s surging up NCAA tournament projection

No. 2 Duke at No. 21 Clemson

Time/TV: Saturday, 6 p.m. ET, ESPN

The Blue Devils head to Littlejohn Coliseum for what might just be their last obstacle to a perfect run through the ACC. The Tigers could use a good result here on their home court to offset the damaging loss to Georgia Tech sustained earlier this week. While Cooper Flagg has rightly gotten most of the accolades for Duke, the contributions of his freshman classmates Kon Knueppel and Khaman Maluach shouldn’t be overlooked. Clemson has some experienced hands but is going to need a good shooting day from Chase Hunter to keep pace with the Blue Devils.

No. 12 Texas Tech at No. 20 Arizona

Time/TV: Saturday, 10 p.m. ET, ESPN

You’ll want to stay up for this one as the two hottest teams in the Big 12 convene at the McKale Center. The Red Raiders have won seven in a row, following their scrappy victory at Houston with a solid effort at home against Baylor. The Wildcats have rattled off five consecutive wins since dropping their first meeting with Texas Tech in Lubbock on Jan. 18. Arizona had few answers for JT Toppin in that encounter, but a hot streak from high-volume shooter Caleb Love can erase a Wildcats’ deficit quickly.

Oregon at No. 9 Michigan State

Time/TV: Saturday, noon ET, Fox

Life in the bigger Big Ten has been different in 2025. This isn’t exactly the ideal time for the Ducks, in the throes of a four-game skid, to make their first visit to the Breslin Center as league members. The Spartans are likely to be a little salty themselves in their first action since dropping a pair on their Los Angeles road swing. Oregon was at least within shouting distance in its last outing at Michigan, but the Ducks would undoubtedly like to get more close-in opportunities for Nate Bittle this time. Michigan State has a long bench and spreads out its minutes, but with the game on the line the ball usually finds its way to Jaden Akins.

It started out as a locker-room spitballing session, a couple of Ivy League football players trying to solve for hydration.

Sunday, more than a decade and many late nights and early mornings later, Garrett Waggoner and Andy Gay’s brainchild will be unveiled on the biggest commercial gridiron of them all.

The co-founders of Cirkul will enjoy a significant full circle moment, when a 30-second spot for their flavored water will air during the Super Bowl.

It’s a big game debut rich in symbolism: Cirkul distributed its first product in 2018, just a few years after Waggoner was parking cars in between his two seasons playing football for Winnipeg of the CFL and Gay was selling shoes, both hoping to gain a foothold with investors to provide a proof of concept.

By 2022, after multiple investment rounds, Cirkul exceeded a $1 billion valuation.

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And after the brand enjoyed a boost from TikTok virality and gained a foothold at Walmart and other massive distributors, the group felt it was time to strike on Super Sunday, symbolically completing a dizzying rise.

“Even a couple-few years ago,” says Waggoner, “Andy and I were in the warehouse, packing boxes.

“To be on the biggest stage, yeah, it’s pretty humbling.”

They’re scarcely going it alone.

Thanks in part to Cirkul chief marketing officer Steve Battista, the group reeled in director Peter Berg, well-known cinematically but also a veteran of multiple long-form Super Bowl commercials for the NFL.

And to connect with the audience, the crew brought aboard comedian and former ‘Pitch Perfect’ star Adam DeVine, cast opposite his wife, actress Chloe Bridges, aiming to execute a vision the founders concocted over the long haul.

“A lot of early mornings, a lot of 3 a.m., 4 a.m. brainstorming sessions,” says Gay. “We had a lot of ideas we wanted to fit in and (Battista) kept banging us on the head, saying, ‘Guys, it’s 30 seconds, 30 seconds.”

They were in good hands.

‘Poetry in motion’

Berg, the creative force behind both the ‘Friday Night Lights’ movie and celebrated TV series, cut his commercial teeth by helming a pair of two-minute Super Bowl spots for the NFL; he’ll have a third featured in this year’s game.

Yet Cirkul – not even a decade old – presented a significant challenge that the hoary NFL didn’t: Connecting a nascent product with a largely unknowing audience.

“They had all the accompanying anxiety that comes with trying to launch a new product and go all in on a Super Bowl spot,” Berg said of the Cirkul gang. “You knew they were making a pretty large commitment and I wanted to help them take that quite seriously.

“The biggest challenge was helping them get through the pressure of the moment. It’s a huge commitment financially and as far as reputation goes, you can’t walk it back. You’re proclaiming something is legit, on the biggest stage in the world.

“People are maybe a little tense. You can feel the pressure. That’s what I like about Super Bowl spots – everybody’s sitting up a little straighter and breathing a little shorter.”

They were certainly all ears.

Waggoner was a hard-hitting safety at Dartmouth, got a brief look in Detroit Lions camp and then played two seasons for the Winnipeg Blue Bombers. Gay was a reserve quarterback at Dartmouth and both, naturally, were big fans of Berg’s football work on the big and small screen.

They were relatively awestruck seeing his handiwork up close.

“It was our first time being on set with someone of his caliber,” says Gay. “He’d throw out suggestions or tweaks or ideas and you’d be like, ‘Oh, let’s see how it goes,’ and it would just be perfect, and bring the entire spot to life, and get so much more out of the limited time and scenes we have to play with in that 30-second mark.”

Says Waggoner: ‘It was like seeing what one of the best quarterbacks of all time was like on the field. Small nuances, different tweaks, talking off-set to different talent. It was poetry in motion.”

Time for a ‘big bet’

Berg says in working with emerging products like Cirkul, “you have to let the brand land.” That’s been a near decadelong process for a product that touts sustainability and health, along with the consumer’s freedom to dial up the flavor in their water.

Now, thanks in no small part to shrewd online marketing, Cirkul is in Walmart and Target, available on Amazon, credible with young consumers.

Waggoner says Cirkul’s aided brand awareness – or the measure of how many people can recognize a brand when prompted – is just 20%. Yet its widespread availability made now the time to strike.

“At this point in our life cycle, it makes sense to make a big bet,” he says. “We’re fully widely distributed now, in all the places where customers would think about shopping.”

The group is confident in Sunday’s final product, and will connect what they believe is a unique product with a similarly splashy spot.

“What we’ve got cooked up is something I don’t think people have ever seen before,” says Waggoner. “And we’re really excited to see how America reacts.”

The NCAA has lost its common sense, along with its spine.

A day after President Donald Trump issued an executive order banning transgender women from playing sports, the NCAA threw the handful of them to the wolves. In doing so, however, NCAA president Charlie Baker and Co. inadvertently revealed what a farce this actually is.

While banning transgender women from competition, the NCAA’s edict late Thursday said they could still practice with women’s teams. Male practice players are still allowed, too. Which is funny, because the physical safety of cisgender women is one of the “reasons” the transphobes have used to justify their efforts to ban transgender women.

So, which is it? If transgender women pose a physical threat during games, wouldn’t they also during practice? And for sure wouldn’t male practice players? If transgender women are really just crafty men looking to groom and assault women, wouldn’t they still be able to do that? Couldn’t the male practice players do that, as well?

It’s circular logic. But malevolent circular logic that is only going to further demonize the “less than 10” transgender athletes there are in the NCAA.

Great job, Charlie. Don’t break your arm patting yourself on the back for what you described as “clarity,” when it’s really cowardice, sacrificing already-vulnerable kids so the president and his minions won’t put you on their enemies list.

There was a time when the NCAA was fearless in standing up to bigotry. It refused to put championship events in South Carolina for almost 15 years because the state continued to embrace racism, flying a Confederate flag over the Statehouse. It yanked events out of North Carolina over a bill that forced transgender people to use bathrooms of the sex they were assigned at birth.

And when Indiana enacted a “religious freedom” bill that was just a cover to allow discrimination against gays and lesbians, NCAA then-president Mark Emmert’s forceful denunciation led to a walkback within days.

“The NCAA national office and our members are deeply committed to providing an inclusive environment for all our events,’ Emmert said at the time. “We are especially concerned about how this legislation could affect our student-athletes and employees.’

My, how times have changed. Now the NCAA’s only concern is covering its ass.

The transphobes want you to believe that there is an army of transgender women banging on the doors of every gym and playing field, at every level of sports. They want you to believe these athletes are superhuman, so much so that they’ll eventually crowd cisgender women out of sports. They want you to believe transgender women are a threat to your daughters’ bodies and virtue.

Rather than buying into the hysteria, take a step back. You parents of girls in youth sports, how many transgender kids do you know on your daughter’s team or in her league? Actually know, not just assume because someone has short hair or you’ve heard gossip. You college athletes, how many transgender athletes have you come across in your career?

The International Olympic Committee and NCAA had protocols allowing transgender participation for more than a decade. And, last time I checked, cisgender women are still competing. Still standing on podiums with medals around their necks. The hysteria is exactly that – hysteria.

And don’t get me started on the science. Or lack thereof. Asserting that transgender women have an advantage because cisgender men do is both inaccurate and lazy. To know how transgender women compare with cisgender women, you actually have to compare them, and there are very few studies that have. One that did showed it’s the transgender women who might be disadvantaged.

This fear, this meanness, this witch hunt has always been a solution in search of a problem. Transgender women are not a threat. They’re not ogres. They’re not overrunning sports now or ever.

These are girls and young women who want to compete and play with their friends, same as cisgender girls and young women, and the NCAA is telling them to go away. That they’re not welcome. That it believes all the awful things the transphobes have said about them.

“Schools (are) directed to foster welcoming environments on all campuses,” the NCAA’s headline said.

Oh, I’m sure that will make the “less than 10” — again, Baker’s own words — transgender athletes feel so much better now! The NCAA is offering transgender athletes the equivalent of thoughts and prayers after throwing them under the bus and encouraging the transphobes to double-down on their efforts to eradicate them completely from society.

Because that’s what this really is. The Trump administration is trying to ensure there is no safe space for transgender people outside their homes. Not in the military, not at work, not at their doctor’s offices and now, not on the playing fields.

Part of the power of sports is that they teach us life lessons. Sadly, the NCAA has made it so intolerance and ignorance are now among them.

Follow USA TODAY Sports columnist Nancy Armour on social media @nrarmour.

LeBron James has been compared to Michael Jordan practically since the moment James entered the NBA as the first pick in the 2003 draft.

Over 20 years later, James joined M.J. in an exclusive club Thursday night, becoming just the second player in NBA history after Jordan to score over 40 points in a game at 40 years old.

James, who turned 40 on Dec. 30, put up an impressive line of 42 points, 17 rebounds, eight assists with a steal and a block in the Los Angeles Lakers’ 120-112 win over the Golden State Warriors. He’s now the oldest player to ever record a 40-point game.

Jordan scored 43 points in a Washington Wizards win over the New Jersey Nets on Feb. 21, 2003, four days after his 40th birthday. M.J. retired for good after the season.

James was asked about the accomplishment after the game.

All things Lakers: Latest Los Angeles Lakers news, schedule, roster, stats, injury updates and more.

‘What do I think? That I’m old,’ James said with a laugh, adding he ‘needs a glass of wine and some sleep.’

James said moments like this are ‘always humbling.’

‘I love the game so much, so, it’s pretty cool,’ James said.

The win was the Lakers’ fourth in a row, and they may soon get Luka Doncic into the lineup for the first time. Warriors star Steph Curry scored 37 points in the loss.

Josh Allen won the playoff battle against Lamar Jackson. Now, the Buffalo Bills quarterback has bested his counterpart on the Baltimore Ravens on another front.

On Thursday at NFL Honors in New Orleans, Allen was named the NFL’s Most Valuable Player for the 2024 season. He received 27 first-place votes, while Jackson captured the remaining 23.

Allen won the award for the first time in his career after finishing second to Aaron Rodgers in 2020 as well as third in 2022 and fifth in 2023. He becomes the Bills’ third winner following O.J. Simpson in 1973 and Thurman Thomas in 1991.

Allen is also the first player since Denver Broncos quarterback John Elway in 1987 to be chosen as outright MVP despite not being named a first-team All-Pro. Jackson beat him out for that honor, with Allen taking the second-team slot. Tennessee Titans quarterback Steve McNair was also a second-team All-Pro selection in 2003, when he split MVP honors with Peyton Manning.

Afterward, Allen said he was taken aback by the result.

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“Yeah, I was pretty surprised,’ Allen said, ‘given what we know about, typically, how the voting goes. Lamar was very deserving of this award as well. I have nothing but love and respect for him and his game.”

In his seventh season, Allen threw for 3,731 yards and 28 touchdowns while recording a career-low six interceptions. He also added 531 rushing yards and 12 scores on the ground.

Despite an offseason of transition that saw Buffalo part with top targets Stefon Diggs and Gabe Davis among other key pieces, Allen managed to lead the Bills to a 13-4 mark and the No. 2 seed in the AFC. The Bills handled the Denver Broncos in the wild-card round and edged the Ravens in the divisional round before falling to the Kansas City Chiefs in the AFC championship game.

This story has been updated with additional information.

Ippei Mizuhara, Shohei Ohtani’s former longtime interpreter and confidant, was sentenced to 57 months in federal prison on Thursday after stealing nearly $17 million from baseball’s two-way global superstar to pay off sports gambling debts.

Mizuhara, 40, utilized his proximity to Ohtani’s personal information and his role tending to many of the superstar’s off-field affairs to siphon funds from accounts and, as prosecutors allege, impersonate Ohtani in bank communications.

The court also ordered Mizuhara to pay Ohtani $17 million in restitution, the applicable amount listed when Mizuhara struck a May 2024 plea deal with prosecutors, and a fine of more than $1 million to the Internal Revenue Service.

Ohtani’s attorney, Michael Freedman, sought a sentence of just 18 months while the prosecution recommended the 57-month sentence. In siding with the prosecution, Judge John W. Holcomb said Mizuhara’s letter to the Santa Ana, California court ‘undermined’ his credibility due to omissions and misrepresentations.

Revelations of Mizuhara stealing from Ohtani emerged in March 2024 during a federal investigation into a California bookmaker. It shattered a decadelong alliance between Ohtani and Mizuhara, who smoothed Ohtani’s transition to Major League Baseball when he joined the Los Angeles Angels in 2018.

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Mizuhara’s theft came before Ohtani’s 10-year, $700 million contract with the Los Angeles Dodgers took effect last year. Yet Ohtani earned around $65 million in salary during his six years with the Angels, and tens of millions more in endorsements.

In court Thursday, Holcomb termed the magnitude of the theft ‘shockingly high,’ according to The Associated Press, and acknowledged that it ‘remains to be seen’ whether Mizuhara can repay Ohtani.

Mizuhara, investigators say, began accessing Ohtani’s accounts in 2021 and gained the ability to approve wire transfers, which Mizuhara utilized to feed what he termed a gambling addiction and a “terrible mistake” in his plea for leniency.

Federal prosecutors pushed back on that characterization, saying Mizuhara did not have an addiction and casting doubt on his remorse. They said there was little evidence Mizuhara frequently gambled before accessing Ohtani’s accounts and said his pleas for leniency were “self-serving and uncorroborated statements to the psychologist he hired for the purposes of sentencing.’

In court Thursday, Mizuhara did not dispute that he misreprented himself as Ohtani in bank communications. He apologized to Ohtani before sentencing.

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Kim Caldwell beat the legend. She humbled the UConn brand. She planted her flag. She made the Lady Vols a player again.
First-year coach Kim Caldwell delivers Tennessee’s first win against UConn since 2007, just 17 days after giving birth to baby boy.
‘We maybe outworked them,’ Kim Caldwell says after Lady Vols beat UConn for signature win.

Incredible, truly, what Kim Caldwell achieved 17 days after giving birth to a baby boy, partway through her first season coaching a job with uncompromising expectations.

She beat the legend. She humbled UConn. She planted her flag.

And when it was finished, this 80-76 Tennessee triumph over No. 5 UConn, the crowd cheered so vigorously and “Rocky Top” blared so loudly you could hardly hear a word Caldwell said during her postgame interview with ESPN’s Holly Rowe.

“We maybe outworked them,” Caldwell said.

Outsmarted them and outplayed them, too.

The rest of what she said, I couldn’t decipher.

Her words hardly mattered. The look on her face and the elation in the stands told the story.

The Lady Vols are a player again. Finally.

Fitting, really, that Tennessee delivered that message by toppling Geno Auriemma’s proud program.

This rivalry once defined women’s sports. What better way for No. 17 Tennessee to prove it’s real, to prove its 36-year-old sideline general who coached at Marshall just 10 months ago and at Division II Glenville State just 23 months ago, is for real, than to beat the program that supplanted Pat Summitt’s Lady Vols as women’s basketball’s superpower?

Used to be, when these teams met with their unmatchable collection of All-America talent and incomparable blend of coaching legends, the result hinted at a national champion to come.

Let’s not confuse this matchup with that which came before. This felt more like a clash worthy of the Sweet 16, but don’t let that diminish this whirlwind revitalization Caldwell engineered for women’s basketball’s bluest of blue bloods, which spent too long punching below its weight and last reached an Elite Eight nine years ago.

Tennessee nearly broke through a month ago, when it missed a shot at the buzzer against LSU – a top-five opponent on the shortlist of national champion contenders – that would have sent the game to overtime.

Heartbreaking losses, though, happened often enough before Caldwell. The Lady Vols needed to finish. This time, they did.

To put the game away, Talaysia Cooper drove past her defender before dishing to Zee Spearman for a contested bucket at the rim.

An apt finish. UConn struggled to defend the Lady Vols off the bounce all night and couldn’t handle them in the paint.

The result would have been more lopsided, too, if Tennessee hadn’t missed so many good looks from 3-point range. UConn handled Tennessee’s full-court pressure well enough. The Huskies didn’t fumble this away so much as Tennessee took it from them.

And although the Lady Vols didn’t shoot to their average from distance, they made clutch buckets and controlled the paint, while UConn piled up the clanks. Star point guard Paige Bueckers kept UConn in range with an array of sweet passes, but she lost her shooting touch, and that left the Huskies with too few reliable scoring weapons.

Truth be told, I think Auriemma worried this result might be coming. When we spoke a few days ago, he questioned whether his team possessed the requisite pieces of a national championship squad, and, to be sure, the Huskies beared little resemblance to the South Carolina squad that squashed Tennessee 10 days ago. He fretted about UConn’s youthful presence on the interior.

“I think our big guys are too young,” Auriemma told me Monday, “and I think if they grow up all of a sudden, then we have a better chance.”

Those Huskies didn’t grow up on this night, and Tennessee’s budding coach seized the limelight with her collection of transfers, coupled with holdovers she retained from her underachieving predecessor.

And when the final buzzer sounded, one of those transfers, Samara Spencer, just wanted to hug somebody. She ran into Caldwell’s embrace, and surely that wouldn’t be the last hug Tennessee’s coach enjoyed after the Lady Vols’ first win against UConn since 2007.

“I want to go home and see my baby boy,” Caldwell said afterward.

Tell him about the night you bested Auriemma, the night your Lady Vols savored a win sweeter than they’d tasted in ages.

Blake Toppmeyer is a columnist for the USA TODAY Network. Email him at BToppmeyer@gannett.com and follow him on X @btoppmeyer. Subscribe to read all of his columns.