USA Today - 05.11.2019

USA TODAY z TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 5, 2019z SECTION C

College Football Playoff hype

Selection committee to unveil Top 25 ranking 3C

Off and on NBA court

LeBron’s I Promise expands plus Rankin column 5C

Presidents Cup decision time nears

DiMeglio: Predicting Tiger’s four captain picks 6C

IN SPORTS

TIGER WOODS BY MATT ROBERTS/USA TODAY SPORTS

FIRST WORD

America fell in love with Nats
baseball. It’s all they wanted
to talk about. That and impeach-
ment. I like Nats baseball a lot
more.”

President Donald Trump while hosting
the World Series champion Nationals
Monday at the White House. Most of
the team attended, with only relief
pitcher Sean Doolittle publicly declin-
ing the invitation. A few others, in-
cluding new free agent Anthony Ren-
don, did not attend but their reasons
were not clear. Also Monday, an ad-
ministration official confirmed to USA
TODAY’s David Jackson that Trump
plans to attend the LSU-Alabama
football game Saturday in Tuscaloosa
matching the No. 1 and No. 2 teams. It
will be his third sporting event in three
weekends, following World Series
Game 5 and a UFC show in New York.

NOTABLE NUMBER

$50 million

In career winnings for Rory McIlroy,
who won Sunday at the 2019 World
Golf Championships-HSBC Champions
in Shanghai. The check for $1,745,
put him at $51,030,260. Joining him in
the $50 million club this weekend was
Sergio Garcia at$50,002,880.

GUILTY PLEA

Former NFL star Kellen Winslow II
struck a plea agreement Monday that
could send him to prison for 12 to 18
years but called off his pending retrial
on rape and sodomy charges in Vista,
California. Winslow pleaded guilty to
raping an unconscious woman in 2003
and sexual battery against a 54-year-
old hitchhiker in March 2018. He will
be sentenced in February and remain
jailed without bail. By making the deal,
he avoided the possibility of life in
prison and ended a trial that just seat-
ed a jury to hear testimony. Winslow,
36, who came to court clutching a
green paperback Bible, was accused
of kidnapping and raping a hitchhiker
in March 2018, sodomizing a homeless
woman in May 2018 and raping an
unconscious woman at a party in

2003. In June, a different jury of eight
      men and four women convicted Wins-
      low of raping the same homeless
      woman, exposing himself to a neigh-
      bor last year and engaging in lewd
      conduct against a woman at a local
      gym in February. All the women were
      57 or older.

KURT SUZUKI BY GEOFF BURKE/USA TODAY

SPORTSLINE

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The five months of the college bas-

ketball season tips off Tuesday and

will conclude at the Final Four April 6.

Before there’s a national champion

cutting down the nets in Atlanta,

there’s much to be sorted out as teams

fight for tops seeds and a place in the

NCAA tournament.

A look at the top 10 questions for the

2019-20 college basketball season.

Can Izzo land a second title?

Tom Izzo is nearly 20 seasons re-

moved since his last national champi-

onship in 2000. While he has kept Mich-

igan State as a national contender and

made six Final Fours since, cutting

down the net after the final game has

evaded him in his grayer coaching days.

Considering national player of the year

front-runner Cassius Winston is back,

along with most of last season’s Final

Four squad, Izzo appears to have as good

a chance as he’s ever had to win another

title.. The X factor will be Joshua Lang-

ford, who played in only 13 games last

season due to injury and is sidelined at

least January.

What is next for Virginia?

Coach Tony Bennett finds himself in

a predicament that’s almost the polar

opposite of a year ago. Instead of pre-

College hoops set for tip-off

Scott Gleeson

USA TODAY

See COLLEGE, Page 2C

BALTIMORE – History, shmistory.

After the Lamar Jackson Show up-

staged Bill Belichick’s Great Defensive

Adventure on Sunday night, there’s no

further need for comparisons to the ’

Bears, Steel Curtain or Ray-Ray and

Pals.

All of the talk about the New Eng-

land Patriots fielding one of the great-

est defenses in history was way pre-

mature, not that it was coming from

Belichick & Co. But the notion grew so

much even though it needed to come

with an asterisk.

“We’re just playing,” Patriots line-

backer Kyle Van Noy told USA TODAY

Sports. “The media are going to say ...”

... It’s a long season?

“Yeah. We can say that when the

season’s over, versus when you’re in

it,” Van Noy added. “We’re just focus-

ing on ourselves, trying to get better.”

The Patriots must have felt like they

were, well, seeing some ghosts as the

Ravens rushed for 210 yards and Jack-

son hit on crisp passesas Baltimore

started with a bang and ended with a

flurry in delivering a 37-20 reality

check.

This wasn’t the same defense that

allowed just 7.6 points per game and

collected 25 takeaways through the

first half of the season. Same players,

but nowhere near the same results.

That happens. There are off nights,

when it may seem those uniforms are

manned by ghosts.

Then again, let’s not forget that un-

til Sunday night, the best offense the

Patriots (8-1) had faced was the Buffalo

Bills ... in a game when Josh Allen was

knocked out with a concussion.

No disrespect to the Bills O. But they

aren’t exactly Joe Montana’s 49ers.

The Patriots’ defense bullied of-

fenses of the Jets (twice), Giants, Dol-

phins, Washington and Steelers-in-

Jarrett Bell

Columnist

USA TODAY

Reality

check for

Patriots

See BELL, Page 2C

BALTIMORE – Earl Thomas slipped

the word in casually at first, describing

the play of Baltimore Ravens quarter-

back Lamar Jackson as “MVP-type.”

Then he said the defense wanted to

force turnovers Sunday night so it

could get the ball back to the offense,

and “let the MVP do his thing.”

Eventually, Thomas just put it

plainly.

“This man,” Thomas said of Jack-

son, “is the MVP.”

There’s still half a season to play

(and roughly three months to go) until

the MVP award is distributed, and

there’s no telling if the 22-year-old

Jackson will ultimately be its recipi-

ent. But he has, at the very least, be-

come a unique and devastating force

in just his second NFL season. His per-

formance in Baltimore’s 37-20 win

over the previously undefeated New

England Patriots was just the most re-

cent example.

In a matchup against the league’s

Ravens quarterback Lamar Jackson (8) runs past Patriots linebacker Kyle Van

Noy (53) during the fourth quarter Sunday. TOMMY GILLIGAN/USA TODAY SPORTS

‘THIS MAN

IS THE MVP’

See JACKSON, Page 2C

Ravens QB Jackson bamboozles Pats

Tom Schad

USA TODAY