UFC star Cory Sandhagen lost out on his #1 dream fight earlier this year.

The highest-ranking UFC Bantamweight to not have fought the champion Merab Dvalishvili returns this weekend in what will be his ninth five-round fight in a row.

In the main event of UFC Des Moines, Cory Sandhagen is set to collide with Deiveson Figueiredo, a former two-time flyweight champion.

Few fighters have a resume like Sandhagen’s, the top contender sharing the Octagon with the likes of former champions TJ Dillashaw, Aljamain Sterling, Petr Yan and Frankie Edgar—all by the age of 33.

However, there is one legend missing from the list, a fight that never took place against one of, if not the greatest bantamweight of all time.

Cory Sandhagen says the UFC was trying to match him up with Dominick Cruz

In the lead-up to UFC Des Moines this Saturday, Sandhagen was asked about a fight with Dominick Cruz, the former two-time UFC Bantamweight Champion who retired in February.

Cruz was scheduled to fight Sandhagen’s former foe Rob Font in the co-main event of UFC Seattle but an injury forced him off the card and ultimately into retirement.

“[UFC] always kinda [were] like, ‘Hey, We’re gonna try to do you and Cruz, we’re gonna try to do you and Cruz…’ And yeah, it never happened,” Sandhagen said at media day on Wednesday.

“It sucks that it never happened,” Sandhagen added, detailing how important it was to him.

“It’s always one that I really wanted to have. I mean, I would have loved to have that fight.

“I really looked up to Cruz growing up. Even when I watched my old fights, I’m like, damn, I look like Dominick Cruz…

“I’ve changed a lot since then, but yeah, always looked up to that guy,” Sandhagen said of the future hall of famer.

Dominick Cruz arguably has the greatest footwork in UFC history

Taking after Cruz, Sandhagen rose through the ranks of the UFC bantamweight division utilizing his footwork and striking skills to get past dangerous knockout artists such as Marlon Moraes and John Lineker in a ‘David vs. Goliath’ fight.

Cruz is world-renown for his footwork and ability to cut angles inside the Octagon, making him a tough opponent to get a read on with his unorthodox movement.

On top of that, Cruz had some of the best cardio in the UFC, defeating champions like Demetrious ‘Mighty Mouse’ Johnson, TJ Dillashaw and Urijah Faber (twice) over the championship distance.

Cruz won the WEC title in 2010 and was later promoted to the UFC’s inaugural bantamweight champion after the premier promotion purchased WEC.

The story of Dominick Cruz’s career was riddled with injuries, three ACL tears between his two title reigns which were two years apart. In 2016, Cruz pulled off one of the greatest comeback stories ever when he dethroned Dillashaw to recapture his title after a lengthy road to recovery.

Cruz retired from MMA at the age of 39 due to a shoulder injury sustained in his final training camp.

On a typical November fall day late in the semester, Benjamin Campbell-Reide was at his off-campus house alone in his room when he suddenly collapsed. One of his housemates and teammates, Alex Dawallu, heard a loud noise from the fall and ran into the neighboring bedroom to check on his teammate, only to find Campbell-Reide passed out and unresponsive. Over the next four weeks Campbell-Reide would have a number of similar episodes as doctors raced to find out the cause of Ben’s episodes. Twenty-six blood transfusions, 16 endoscopies and two laparoscopic surgeries later, he was released from the hospital and sent home to England just before the holidays with a new outlook on life. 

What Campbell-Reide endured and his resiliency in the face of the unknown is why he was named the 2025 Syracuse 8 Courage Award recipient at the annual ‘Cuse Awards on Tuesday night presented by former Football player, Greg Allen. 

His teammates, coaches and Syracuse rowing community rallied around him and his family during the scary and uncertain time. After several weeks at Crouse Hospital, Campbell-Reide was transferred to Brigham & Women’s Hospital in Boston where it took the gastrointestinal doctors another 10 days to discover the lesion that was causing Ben’s spells. The doctors ultimately found the lesion by putting him on a high-dose of blood thinners and watch him around the clock to force his lesion to start bleeding so they could locate it and preform an emergency surgery to heal the bleed. 

At the annual ‘Cuse Awards, Campbell-Reide was given the opportunity to thank those who were by his side during his medical emergencies including his medical team, coaches, teammates and roommates, Jennifer Street — the mother of his teammate Anders Erlandsen, and his mom to traveled from England to be with him. He ended his acceptance speech with these words of encouragement; “Adversity can stop you or it can reveal you. You get to choose. Believe in yourself, take control and keep pushing. Because you cannot win if you do not believe you can.”

Today, Campbell-Reide is back on the water competing with the Syracuse men’s rowing team. He’s helped the Second Varsity Eight to wins over Boston U, Georgetown, Navy and Cornell this spring and his parents were able to make a trip to the U.S. this season to see him race at the Lake Morey Invite. 

Duke basketball’s Isaiah Evans is one of 106 players on a list of early entry candidates for the 2025 NBA Draft.

The NBA released the full list April 29. Evans, who is set to return for his sophomore season with the Blue Devils, appears to be going through the draft process to get feedback before returning to Duke. He’s projected to be a first-round pick in next year’s draft.

On April 22, Evans confirmed his return to the Blue Devils with a social media post when the program’s official X account asked him if he would be back for a second season in Durham. “Yea” was Evans’ reply.

A 6-foot-6 wing, Evans shot 41.6% from beyond the arc and made multiple 3-pointers in 17 games as a freshman, including five in a row during his best stretch of the season. He averaged 6.8 points, 1.1 rebounds and 13.7 minutes across 36 games. As a sophomore, Evans projects to be included in Duke’s starting lineup.

The NBA Draft Combine in Chicago is set for May 11-18. Players who want to maintain their college eligibility must withdraw their names by May 28. The 2025 NBA Draft is scheduled for June 25-26 in Brooklyn. 

Cooper Flagg, Kon Knueppel, Khaman Maluach and Tyrese Proctor are the other Blue Devils on the NBA’s list of early entrants. Duke’s freshman starters from last season are projected to be top-10 picks. 

Washington State transfer Cedric Coward, who committed to Duke on April 28, is also among the players set to go through the draft process. Coward, like Evans, could be in Duke’s starting lineup to start the 2025-26 season, which is Jon Scheyer’s fourth as head coach. 

Rodd Baxley covers Duke, North Carolina and N.C. State for The Fayetteville Observer as part of the USA TODAY Network. Follow his ACC coverage on X/Twitter or Bluesky: @RoddBaxley. Got questions regarding those teams? Send them torbaxley@fayobserver.com. 

Rename the school Shaqramento State. Or perhaps Shaq State will do.

Sacramento State announced Tuesday that it hired outsized personality and hoops icon Shaquille O’Neal as general manager of its forlorn men’s basketball program. OK, so maybe hired isn’t an accurate term because O’Neal — whose net worth is estimated at $500 million — will do the job on a voluntary basis.

But Shaq nevertheless assumes a role that has become increasingly popular in the NCAA in the age of name, image and likeness, and the Lakers great will attempt to help turn around a program that finished 7-25 and last in the Big Sky Conference last season. Sac State has had all of two winning seasons in program history and has never made the NCAA tournament.

Shaq isn’t the only addition. Earlier this month, the Hornets hired former Sacramento Kings star Mike Bibby as coach. One of Bibby’s first moves was to add O’Neal’s son, senior forward Shaqir O’Neal, a transfer from Florida A&M, where he averaged 6.7 points and 3.2 rebounds a game last season.

Shaqir began his high school career at Crossroads in Santa Monica before transferring to a school in Georgia. He spent two seasons as a reserve at Texas Southern before transferring to Florida A&M a year ago.

Bibby has no college coaching experience but recently led his high school alma mater Phoenix Shadow Mountain to five state championships. He plans to go for the glamour in Sacramento. He made that clear at his news conference upon being hired April 1.

“I’m going to turn this around,” he said. “I have a lot of NBA players who want to send their sons to me to play. We can get kids. We’re going to try to have that Deion [Sanders] impact. We’ll have superstars in the building, active NBA players stop by.”

Sacramento State will open a new basketball facility on campus in the fall, leaving behind the Nest, the decrepit current arena that seats only 1,012 people and is one of the oldest NCAA Division I venues.

Transforming the Hornets into winners will be a daunting task for O’Neal, who already has a busy schedule. He is a longtime NBA analyst for TNT and oversees a business empire that according to a Times article in 2023 has included 155 Five Guys restaurants, 40 24-Hour Fitness gyms, 20 Big Chicken outlets, 17 Auntie Anne’s pretzel stands, nine Papa John’s pizzerias and at least one Krispy Kreme doughnut shop.

Shaq has appeared in commercials for Icy Hot, the General insurance, Buick, Frosted Flakes, the Carnival Cruise Line, Epson, Novex Biotech, Reebok, Google, Pepsi, Ring, Gold Bond, JCPenney, Tonka and WynnBet sports betting. Partnering with the sports betting business forced O’Neal to sell his minority stake in Sacramento’s NBA team, the Kings, three years ago.

How extensive are O’Neal’s business holdings? He’s hosted a Shaq Summit for several years to corral representatives from all of his brands and partnerships into one room for strategic planning.

How much time can O’Neal devote to Sacramento State? Serving as GM of a Division I athletics program involves more than glad-handing and bringing in talent via grins and a magnetic personality. The position gained prominence soon after NIL legislation was passed in 2021 that overturned the long-held NCAA stance preventing athletes from getting paid.

Sure, some GMs are prominent sports figures — witness Andrew Luck at Stanford and Stephen Curry at Davidson — but logging long days on campus would seem a key part of the job description.

Sacramento State, long considered a bottom-rung athletics program amid the far-flung California State University system, has ambitions. The football program hopes to build a new stadium and upgrade from the FCS to the FBS.

A basketball program can flip from perennial losers to winners more easily than football because it can take only a few standout players to change fortunes. Shaq knows that firsthand, along with Kobe Bryant spearheading the transformation of a middling Lakers period in the late 1990s into three consecutive NBA championships beginning in the 1999-2000 season.

Can he trigger something similar at Sacramento State? If so, calling the school Shaqramento State might indeed be appropriate.

The Freedom From Religion Foundation is calling out the Jefferson Davis Parish Schools system in Jennings, La. for using a Christian cross on official district athletics attire.

A concerned community member informed FFRF that the Lacassine High School boys’ basketball team warm-up gear features a Christian cross on the back, additionally noting that these shirts are worn during games. 

FFRF contacted the district after learning of this constitutional violation. 

“Religious imagery on official school attire sends the message that the district is promoting religion,” FFRF Patrick O’Reiley Legal Fellow Hirsh M. Joshi has written to Jefferson Davis Parish Schools Superintendent John Hall. 

It is well settled that public schools may not show favoritism towards or coerce belief or

participation in religion. A public school may not use religious imagery to demonstrate favoritism toward Christianity — as the district does here. Further, having minor children wear religious imagery on their assigned uniform may infringe their free speech rights, especially if they would be retaliated against for refusing to wear a Latin cross.

FFRF also points out that student athletes are especially susceptible to coercion. When their school’s athletic program assigns uniforms featuring religious imagery, the students undoubtedly feel that wearing those images is essential to pleasing their team’s coach. That places athletes in a difficult position: They must either express that religious message — against their conscience — or openly dissent at risk of their standing. That ultimatum is exactly what the First Amendment’s Establishment Clause guards against. 

Religious coercion occurring within the district is particularly troubling for those parents and students who are not Christian or who are nonreligious. Nearly half of Generation Z (those born after 1996) is nonreligious, which may be quite a few of the district’s athletes.

FFRF asserts that in order to respect the First Amendment rights of students, the district must instruct the athletics department to refrain from using religious imagery on official athletic gear.

“The school district has a constitutional obligation to remain neutral regarding religion,” FFRF Co-President Annie Laurie Gaylor says. “The district must not include religious iconography on student athletics attire in order to create an environment welcoming to all students — whether they are religious or nonreligious.”

The Freedom From Religion Foundation is a national nonprofit organization with over 42,000 members, including more than 100 members in Louisiana. FFRF’s purposes are to protect the constitutional principle of separation between church and state, and to educate the public on matters relating to nontheism.