Tag: The Athletic

Report: OKC Thunder to face Denver Nuggets on road in 2024-25 season opener

Report: OKC Thunder to face Denver Nuggets on road in 2024-25 season opener.

The Oklahoma City Thunder will open their 2024-25 season on the road against the Denver Nuggets, per The Athletic’s Shams Charania. The contest tips off on Thursday, Oct. 24 on TNT.

It will be a matchup of two of the top teams in the Western Conference. Both were the top two seeds last season. Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and Nikola Jokic are expected to be loud participants in the MVP conversation next season.

After a first-seed finish last season, expect the Thunder to be a title contender for the foreseeable future. This means more exposure on the national stage with contests at TNT and ESPN.

OKC’s season opener being on national television is a strong sign they’ll be a frequent guest at that level.

The Thunder’s full 2024-25 regular season will be unveiled on Thursday, Aug. 15. Part of it has already been announced via the NBA Cup group schedule.

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What if Florida played in a 16-game showdown between SEC and Big Ten?

The Athletic has the Gators facing the Golden Gophers in a 16-team SEC vs Big Ten face-off.

The past several years have seen an unprecedented number of changes in the college football landscape, with the Football Bowl Subdivision’s top conferences expanding to levels that border on super-conferences.

The most recent shift coming into the 2024 season has created a pair of behemoths — the Southeastern Conference now with 16 teams and the Big Ten with 18  — that include a majority of the nation’s top programs.

With this in mind, The Athletic’s Scott Dochterman and Seth Emerson responded to a mailbag question that pondered the outcome of a basketball-like SEC-Big Ten challenge series.

In such a scenario, the two leagues would line up the matchups based on intraconference ranking, with 16 teams playing against their respectively-ranked opponent — which means the bottom two ranked teams in the Big Ten would be omitted. All apologies to the Indiana Hoosiers and Purdue Boilermakers.

Where Florida football fits in

The Florida Gators are ranked No. 12 among their SEC peers, which matches them up with the Minnesota Golden Gophers for this thought exercise. Based on the authors’ outline for the series, the two teams would face off in Ames, Iowa.

“The closest power-conference campus to Dinkytown is Iowa State, which is also the site of [autotag]Billy Napier[/autotag]’s biggest win as Louisiana’s coach.”

Dochterman’s take

“In three games against the Gophers while at Wisconsin, Florida quarterback [autotag]Graham Mertz[/autotag] never threw a touchdown and suffered a concussion in the only meeting the Badgers won. That unfortunate trend extends to this matchup for the Gators.

“Plus, the Gophers have the best little-known receiver in the country in Daniel Jackson.”

Dochterman predicts that Minnesota would prevail over Florida, 34-24.

Emerson’s take

“I spent some time around the Gophers this offseason and like the potential for immediate chemistry under new quarterback Max Brosmer. But the Gators will be improved this year; it’s just that their SEC schedule will make it hard to show that improvement in the standings.

“On a somewhat neutral site, their talent should win out.”

Emerson predicts that Florida would sneak by Minnesota, 23-21.

Overall results

According to Dochterman’s final tally, the SEC and Big Ten would finish the series knotted up at an even 8-8 record. However, Emerson favors the SEC with a 10-6 record which bodes much better for the Gators and their fellow conference brethren.

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The Athletic includes Duke linebacker Nick Morris Jr. on the Freaks List ahead of 2024

The Athletic dropped its annual Freaks List to celebrate the best athletes in college football this week, including Duke linebacker Nick Morris Jr.

The Athletic’s Bruce Feldman released his 2024 edition of the Freaks List earlier this week, one of the more fun traditions in college football.

Each year, Feldman goes through data to find the most athletic players in the college game, and he found a spot on the list for Duke linebacker Nick Morris Jr.

Morris played all 13 games for the Blue Devils last season, finishing with 61 total tackles and two tackles for loss.

After only managing 21 tackles through the first eight games of the year, he racked up at least seven in each of the last four regular-season games. He tallied 11 against Wake Forest and a season-high 12 against Pittsburgh in the regular-season finale.

The defensive star’s production is one thing, but it’s his work in the weight room that earned him his spot on the Freaks List.

“The 6-3, 237-pound Morris topped out at 21.73 mph on the GPS, vertical-jumped 38 inches and broad-jumped 10-0 1/2,” Feldman wrote. “He benched 405 pounds and power cleaned 360.”

Morris finished 65th in the rankings, which included 101 players.

Report: NBA excludes OKC Thunder from 2024 Christmas slate

Report: NBA excludes OKC Thunder from 2024 Christmas slate.

After a first-seed finish, most assumed the Oklahoma City Thunder would surely spend the next handful of Christmases as part of the NBA’s slate of games.

Instead, it appears the league has declined to invite OKC for its winter holiday celebration. The Athletic’s Shams Charania reported the five-game Christmas schedule for the 2024-25 season and the Thunder were excluded.

Among the Western Conference, the San Antonio Spurs, Minnesota Timberwolves, Dallas Mavericks, Los Angeles Lakers, Golden State Warriors and Phoenix Suns were featured.

The surprising decision to leave the Thunder out is perplexing. The last time the Western Conference’s first seed failed to play on Christmas was in 2012 with the San Antonio Spurs.

Even with the Thunder working against the small market they play in, surely the MVP and Rookie of the Year runner-ups from last season would’ve been enough to overcome that bias.

But it looks like that’s clearly not enough as the league prioritizes market over talent in this year’s slate. All the Thunder can do now is force its hands for future seasons with another successful regular season and deep playoff run.

The Thunder last played on Christmas in 2018. A nine-year streak coincided with their dominance at the time led by Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook.

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The Athletic predicts the Browns will repeat as the NFL’s best defense

The Athletic Football Show predicted the Cleveland Browns defense will be the most successful unit in the 2024 NFL season.

The Athletic Football Show predicted that the Cleveland Browns will have the best defense in the NFL this season. The Browns had a historic defensive performance during the 2023 season. The defense ranked among some of the best defenses in NFL history last year.

Defensive success as viewed by statistics is highly volatile year to year and less predictive than offense is. This is largely due to how reactive defenses are and how important matchups can be. 

Hosts Robert Mays and Derrik Klassen believe the Browns will repeat their success under Jim Schwartz. The duo have faith in the defense’s continuity from last year. They think Schwartz will add enough coverage changeups to give elite quarterbacks problems during the deep winter months.

The hosts believe the Browns continued to strengthen the spine of their defense by signing linebacker Jordan Hicks, and defensive tackle Quinton Jefferson. They think the two will help the Browns improve their run defense.

Mays had a behind-the-scenes look at the defenses as he stopped by training camp earlier this week. Mays said the team was impressed by second-year player Siaki Ika.

The Browns defense will have two big tests to start the season. The team begins the season by hosting Dak Prescott and the Dallas Cowboys. They’ll then have an encore performance against Trevor Lawrence and the Jaguars in Jacksonville. The Browns have two opportunities to set the tone against elite NFL offenses.

Florida on the cusp of losing ‘destination program’ status

Is the University of Florida still a “destination program” in the college football world? The Athletic isn’t quite sure heading into 2024.

In a recent mailbag from The Athletic, staff writer Grace Raynor tackles the elephant in Gainesville — are the Gators still one of the nation’s elite programs?

It’s been four seasons since Florida’s football program last competed for a playoff spot, and the expansion to a 12-team system doesn’t seem like it will help the Gators for a few more years. Yes, there’s staying power in the Orange and Blue brand, but it’s teams like Alabama and Georgia that come to mind when hearing the phrase “SEC blue blood.”

“It’s always hard to reconcile things in our mind that seem so hard to be true,” Raynor wrote. “Florida is the flagship university of one of the most talent-rich states in the country and plays in the best conference. The Gators have three national championships, including two this century. Recruiting top talent to Gainesville shouldn’t be too difficult.”

Florida has history propping it up still, but Raynor reminds us that “numbers are numbers.” A four-year run of 12th-ranked signing classes or lower outweighs the two top-10 finishes for UF in 2019 and 2020.

So, is Florida a “destination program” in 2024?

Raynor says maybe. Bringing in [autotag]DJ Lagway[/autotag] is exciting, but the inevitable struggle the nation’s toughest schedule will bring might make it tough to add more pieces in the upcoming cycle. She also maintains that Florida can revive its reputation in an instant.

“Gainesville can still be an elite recruiting destination given Florida’s history and access to talent. But it hasn’t been for quite a while. And the Gators will be under a lot of scrutiny in the coming months.”

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Florida’s redshirt senior QB self-evaluates for 2025 NFL draft

Mertz offered some insight into what he has been working on this offseason as well as his progress from a physical standpoint. 

The 2025 NFL draft is still far away with an entire college football season to be played before the annual event. However, plenty of players are already eyeing next April as they look to close out their collegiate careers on the highest note possible.

The Athletic senior writer Larry Holder spoke with a handful of quarterbacks at the Manning Passing Academy about their respective outlooks for the amateur draft next spring. Among those who offered their self-evaluation was Florida’s [autotag]Graham Mertz[/autotag], a redshirt senior whose eligibility expires this fall after two years in Gainesville.

Mertz offered some insight into what he has been working on this offseason as well as his progress from a physical standpoint.

What Mertz is working on this offseason

“I was there (at Florida) last year, so I got a year in my belt,” Mertz begins.

“I think one thing that we are blessed with is the system we have in Florida. I think as a new player, it forced you to really catch on quickly. And that was one thing that I really benefited from, just the structure of it.

“So for me right now, we’ve got a lot of new guys. We got guys coming back that were young last year. So how do we maximize our time? How do we get a little bit better every day? And how do we keep that focus and that urgency in what we do?

“For me, you know what you’re going to do, you know how to do it. How do you get everybody to buy into that? You truly move as one.

“So for me, it’s waking up every day — how do we truly move as one towards that goal, because obviously we weren’t satisfied with last year.”

What Mertz is working on physically

“I think a big thing for me, I’ve been in college for six years — you always bench, you squat, you clean, you try to get fast, you try to get a little bit faster, you work on mobility — but for me, it’s finding new ways to attack it and embracing new things and trying to open my mind to change in some areas,” Mertz notes.

“Trying to just get, like I said to the other guys, just get a little bit better every day. It’s trying new things to either add to my routine or subtract another thing from my routine.”

Florida’s 2024 season opener

The Florida and the Miami Hurricanes open their schedule on Aug. 31 in Gainesville, Florida. Kickoff time is slated for 3:30 p.m. ET and the game will be broadcast on ABC Sports.

Follow us @GatorsWire on X, formerly known as Twitter, and like our page on Facebook to follow ongoing coverage of Florida Gators news, notes and opinions.

Florida’s incumbent starting QB talks college transfer portal

How wild is it that transferring is more of the norm? Florida’s Graham Mertz talks about what he’s seen from the NCAA transfer portal.

The NCAA transfer portal has changed the collegiate landscape in ways that most could not have imagined, creating a de facto free agency system that has turned both major and minor sports upside down. This has created a completely different environment for programs to deal with in building their respective rosters.

The Athletic’s Larry Holder recently spoke with some of the top quarterbacks in college football, who were participating in the Manning Passing Academy, all of whom had transferred at least once since leaving high school. Florida’s incumbent starting QB [autotag]Graham Mertz[/autotag] was among the respondents who shared their thoughts with Holder on how things have changed over the last half-decade.

The difficulty of leaving the first program

“You never want to turn your back on a place that you committed to out of high school,” Mertz begins.

“And I’m in a little bit (of a) different area, because I came into college before NIL, before transfer portal. So I kind of saw it like in the old days. So for me going through and seeing the changes, it’s interesting because you see guys enter the portal and there’s plenty of different reasons. And I think just if that’s your decision, it needs to be a decision that’s best for your career.”

The redshirt senior continued by pointing out the complexity of such a decision.

“You never want to see somebody leave your team. But it always comes down to fit — how do they fit in the offense or the defense? So there’s a lot of layers to it that makes it really complicated.”

Mertz talks about leaving Wisconsin

“It wasn’t fun to leave. Me leaving Wisconsin, I never wanted to leave. But you have a coaching change. You’re at the end of your college career. You want to find out — like, for me — you want to find out who your OC (offensive coordinator) is going to be.

“You want to know, and that was kind of what led me to that decision. But it wasn’t easy. And the portal, now you’ve got 18 days to make a decision. So yeah, that’s becoming the norm.”

Florida’s 2024 season opener

The Florida and Miami open their schedule on Aug. 31 in Gainesville, Florida. Kickoff time is slated for 3:30 p.m. ET and the game will be broadcast on ABC Sports.

Follow us @GatorsWire on X, formerly known as Twitter, and like our page on Facebook to follow ongoing coverage of Florida Gators news, notes and opinions.

Ranking Gators hoops in SEC based on returning, departing players

Florida basketball appears to be in the middle of the pack among its SEC peers when it comes to hoops in 2024-25.

The expansion of the Southeastern Conference has dominated the news for football but the additions of the Texas Longhorns and Oklahoma Sooners also have implications for other sports, like basketball. The league proved a powerhouse on the parquet last season and appears poised for another strong run this winter.

The Athletic’s Kyle Tucker took a look at the 16-member conference now that the dust has ostensibly settled from the big change, ranking each program based on several factors, including biggest player losses and additions, returning rotation players, top-100 freshmen added and top-100 transfers added.

In Tucker’s assessment, the Florida Gators ranked seventh — behind the sixth-ranked Kentucky Wildcats and ahead of the eighth-ranked Arkansas Razorbacks.

Assessing Florida’s roster ahead of 2024-25

“Six of the top nine players, including All-SEC guard (Walter) Clayton, are back from a 24-win team that reached the SEC championship game and made the NCAA Tournament in [autotag]Todd Golden[/autotag]’s second season,” Tucker begins.

“They have a ton of returning size and production in the paint — and added more in Chattanooga transfer [autotag]Sam Alexis[/autotag] (9.1 rebounds per game) and 7-foot-9, 290-pound freshman [autotag]Olivier Rioux[/autotag], the world’s tallest teenager,” he continues. “Martin, an All-CUSA and All-AAC guard who was a key piece of FAU’s Final Four run in 2023, has made 242 career 3-pointers and should replenish a lot of what the Gators lost from their backcourt.”

Tucker is feeling bullish on Golden’s personal stock coming into the season as well.

“We think the 38-year-old Golden is a rising star in coaching — he won 24 games in year two at San Francisco and 24 games in year two at Florida — but he’s yet to win an NCAA Tournament game. That’s the next big hurdle, and this is a roster good enough to do it.”

Gators 2024-25 season opener

Florida will face the South Florida Bulls on Nov. 4 at the VyStar Veterans Memorial Arena in Jacksonville. The only officially announced game on Florida’s schedule is the Dec. 4 matchup with Virginia, which is part of the SEC-ACC Challenge.

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Evaluating Florida football in reimagined Southeastern Conference

The Athletic gives its take on Florida’s status now that the SEC has officially expanded to 16 schools.

July 1 marked the date that the Southeastern Conference officially expanded to 16 teams, adding the Oklahoma Sooners and Texas Longhorns — two storied institutions in multiple sports — to an already packed roster of member schools.

The expansion of the SEC represents another step toward a new world order of sorts for college football, and the Florida Gators are definitely experiencing those winds of change. One of five conference programs to have won a national title in the last 20 years, during which time the SEC took home 13 of the 20 championship trophies, things are off to a tough start for the Orange and Blue.

“Is this the toughest schedule in the modern era of college football? A case could be made,” The Athletic’s Kennington Smith III begins. “Am I betting on Florida to surpass its 4.5 over/under win total (BetMGM)? Yes, I am.”

Silver linings for Florida

“It has been a tough start with the Gators for [autotag]Billy Napier[/autotag], but talent acquisition hasn’t been the issue: Florida’s 63% blue-chip rate according to Bud Elliott is 11th nationally and higher than every team on the Gators’ schedule except for Georgia, Texas and LSU,” Smith offers.

Gators are in good hands with Graham Mertz

“There are good pieces: Quarterback [autotag]Graham Mertz[/autotag] completed 72.3 percent of his passes with just three turnovers a season ago, running back [autotag]Montrell Johnson[/autotag] is the second-leading returning rusher in the SEC, and the Gators signed the No. 5 transfer portal class.”

It all starts with Game 1

“Early swing games could determine Florida’s season. Miami (Week 1) is a talented but underachieving program. The Gators open SEC play with Texas A&M (Week 3) and Mississippi State (Week 4) under first-year coaches. Central Florida (Week 5) should be improved, but that’s certainly a winnable game.

“Tennessee is Week 6, but that’s a series Florida has dominated recently. Napier’s seat is pretty warm for July, but some early wins could cool it off.”

Florida’s 2024 season opener

The Florida and Miami open their schedule on Aug. 31 in Gainesville, Florida. Kickoff time is slated for 3:30 p.m. ET and the game will be broadcast on ABC Sports.

Follow us @GatorsWire on X, formerly known as Twitter, and like our page on Facebook to follow ongoing coverage of Florida Gators news, notes and opinions.