After a dominant 6-1 win over the Toronto Maple Leafs in Game 7 of the second round, the Florida Panthers’ offense kept rolling into the Eastern Conference Finals.

Florida crushed the Carolina Hurricanes 5-2 in Game 1 on Tuesday, handing the Canes their first loss on home ice so far this postseason.

The Panthers took an early 2-0 lead thanks to goals from Carter Verhaeghe and Aaron Ekblad, but Sebastian Aho gave Carolina a first-period goal to keep things from getting too out of hand.

From there, it was all Florida.

A.J. Greer made it 3-1 early in the second period, and Sam Bennett and Eetu Luostarinen each added a goal in the third period, leaving the Hurricanes with a four-goal deficit and little time to mount a comeback.

Carolina added a power play goal in the final minutes, but it was too little, too late.

After the win, fans praised the Panthers for setting the tone with a dominant Game 1.

The Hurricanes are looking to avoid a repeat of the 2023 conference finals when they lost to the Panthers in just four games, but the first game of the series suggests Florida is going to have its way against Carolina.

The series is far from over, but the Canes need to make some major adjustments before Game 2.

ARLINGTON, Texas – The West Virginia University baseball team opens the 2025 Phillips 66 Big 12 Championship on Thursday against Cincinnati. First pitch from Globe Life Field is set for 1:30 p.m. ET.

Mountaineer fans can watch the games on ESPN+, listen on Mountaineer Sports Network, and can follow along with live stats at WVUsports.com.

 

As the Big 12 regular-season champions, the Mountaineers earned the top seed in this year’s field while the Bearcats are the No. 8 seed and are coming off an opening round 6-5 win over No. 9 Cincinnati on Wednesday.

 

The Mountaineers enter championship play with a 40-13 overall record and finished with a 19-9 Big 12 play. The Bearcats are 32-23 overall and were 16-14 in conference play.
 
Junior catcher Logan Sauve and redshirt senior Griffin Kirn were both named to the All-Big 12 First Team while senior outfielder Kyle West and graduate pitcher Jack Kartsonas earned spots on the second team. Gavin Kelly was named to the All-Freshman team while four others – senior Jace Rinehart, junior Sam White, sophomore Chase Meyer, and senior Reese Bassinger – earned honorable mention status.
 
West and White both lead the Mountaineers with a .352 batting average with West leading the way with nine home runs. Rinehart is tops on the team with 50 RBI and leads the Big 12 with 20 doubles.
 
West Virginia is looking for its first Big 12 Tournament championship and sixth overall tournament title.
 
For more information on the Mountaineers, follow @WVUBaseball on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.
 

North Carolina is making major changes to ensure that new coach Bill Belichick succeeds in his role with the football program — according to his predecessor, Mack Brown, at least. 

Brown said during a recent interview on SiriusXM Sports Radio that North Carolina has overhauled its approach to name, image and likeness (NIL) deals and its rigorous academic standards to aid Belichick in his transition. 

“As far as North Carolina and Bill Belichick, he’s arguably the best coach ever,” Brown said. “They’ve committed money to it, they’ve helped him with academics, they’ve lowered those standards some. So there’s absolutely no reason they shouldn’t be successful.”   

Brown claims that he did not have the same resources. His second stint with the Tar Heels began in 2019 on the cusp of the NCAA’s sweeping NIL and transfer portal reforms. He went 15-10, with consecutive bowl appearances, in 2019 and 2020. 

But in 2021, the first season after the NCAA allowed athletes to profit off of their NIL, Brown’s Tar Heels fell to 6-7. 

“We always built programs on fit, and in our last couple years there, we were having to get parents with money,” Brown said. “We were trying to get kids over a 3.0 (GPA) because that’s who we could get. We signed 26 players at North Carolina our next-to-last year — high school players — and didn’t pay them a penny. I felt guilty.” 

In spite of North Carolina’s financial woes, the Tar Heels rebounded with a nine-win season and an appearance in the ACC Championship Game — the high watermark of Brown’s second tenure — and produced a respectable eight wins in 2023. 

Through it all, the Tar Heels still struggled to pay their top stars. Brown said that running back Omarion Hampton, a two-time CBS Sports All-American and a first-round pick in the 2025 NFL Draft, turned down offers over $1 million to transfer and stayed with UNC through 2024 for $300,000. 

“I told him he should leave because it was just crazy as you were looking at those things.” Brown said.    

North Carolina gradually lost ground in the ACC, and in 2024 fell back to 6-6 with a paltry 3-5 showing in conference play. As a result, North Carolina decided to move on from Brown. 

“It was time for me — North Carolina didn’t have NIL money,” Brown said. “I said we’re kind of a slow bleed. We weren’t able to recruit the top kids like we were when we first got there. So it was time for them and it was time for me, so it was kind of like a divorce. Everybody was ready.” 

North Carolina’s administration replaced the 73-year-old Brown with 73-year-old Belichick, who comes to Chapel Hill with eight Super Bowl rings as an assistant and head coach at the NFL level. Though this is Belichick’s first go around as an on-field collegiate coach, it hasn’t taken him long to adjust to recruiting. 

He quickly went about overhauling North Carolina’s roster in his image with a robust 40-transfer signing class during the 2025 cycle. The Tar Heels also inked 29 high school prospects that will be freshmen this season. 

“You’ve got a chance to succeed at the highest level and I expect them to do that and I’m proud for them.” Brown said. 

Clemson basketball coach Brad Brownell’s name generated considerable buzz during the recent IU basketball job search.

As it turns out, there was at least a conversation involving the Indiana native and IU.

But Brownell does not appear to be interested in remaining in coaching long term, and sought an arrangement that he might have only been able to find at Clemson.

Clemson Insider is reporting Brownell negotiated a special provision in his new six-year contract signed last month with Clemson that provides him a new role at the school should he decide to step down from his current head coaching position.

“Should Brownell terminate employment as head coach prior to the end of the agreement he has the option to step down as head coach and become “Special Assistant/Advisor to the Athletic Director” for the remainder of the term of this agreement for a period not to exceed four years at an annual salary of $250,000,” Clemson Insider reports of the contract language.

Brownell told Clemson Insider he informed the AD Graham Neff he wasn’t sure if he’d be into coaching another seven to ten years, citing the “crazy new world” of college basketball in the NIL and transfer portal era.

The report doesn’t suggest whether Indiana’s conversation with Brownell was anything more than a preliminary discussion like others the school probably had with multiple prospects is it sought to replace Mike Woodson.  But Indiana was the only school Brownell mentioned in the report — possibly because it is the only job he would have considered beyond Clemson.

The 56-year-old Evansville, Ind. product grew up an IU fan.  He was a high school teammate of IU legend Calbert Cheaney and spent a few years coaching at various Indiana schools.

Although he is just six years older than the man IU ultimately hired — Darian DeVries — Brownell has been a head coach for 16 more years and appears to be at a different stage in his career.

Brownell says he realized Indiana was looking for a longer-term solution at head coach and someone who fully embraced the new era of the sport, rather than a soft landing in the relatively near future.

“When I had a discussion with Indiana, I knew that was something that would be different,” Brownell told Clemson Insider.  “I knew Indiana would not offer me anything like that, it would just be coaching.”

For complete coverage of IU basketball, GO HERE.    

The Daily Hoosier –“Where Indiana fans assemble when they’re not at Assembly”

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Mack Brown didn’t leave North Carolina in the best shape when the program dismissed him as its head coach in November, going 6-6 in his final regular season with the team. However, he has high expectations for his successor, Bill Belichick. 

In fact, the former UNC head coach seems to think that Belichick might have an easier job at succeeding in Chapel Hill than he did over the last couple of years. In an interview with SiriusXM College Sports Radio’s “Dusty and Danny In the Morning,” Brown shared that the school has loosened up the academic requirements and has made more investments into the football program ever since Belichick’s hiring in December.

“As far as North Carolina and Bill Belichick now, he’s arguably the best coach ever,” Brown said. “They’ve committed money to it. They’ve helped him with academics. They’ve lowered those standards some. So, there’s absolutely no reason they shouldn’t be successful … and they’ve changed the roster. I think they’ve signed maybe 60-something new transfers. 

“So, you’ve got a chance to succeed at the highest level, and I expect him to do that and I’m proud for him.”

There were rumors and reports at the time of Belichick’s hiring that UNC had promised to raise the name, image and likeness (NIL) budget for its football program in order to secure the six-time Super Bowl-winning head coach. There was an expectation that the NIL for UNC would be upwards of $20 million, CBS Sports reported in December.

While NIL collectives aren’t publicly available, Belichick signed a five-year, $50 million contract to become UNC’s head coach. That’s twice as much as what Brown made by the time his tenure at UNC ended, as he had three years and $15 million remaining on his contract following the 2024 season, according to ESPN. 

So, UNC is making a richer investment with Belichick than it did with Brown, at least in terms of salary. But Brown continued to insist that UNC was behind other programs in terms of NIL money by the time his tenure ended, adding that the high academic standards made it difficult to recruit and retain players.

“North Carolina didn’t have NIL money and I said we were kind of a slow bleed,” Brown said Tuesday afternoon on the program. “We weren’t able to recruit the top kids like we were when we first got there. It was time for them and it was time for me, kind of like a divorce. Everybody was ready. It’s just who and how and how you split at the end. It was best for me to get out.”

“We always built programs on fit, and our last couple years there we were having to get parents with money, we were trying to get kids over a 3.0 because that’s who we could get. We signed 26 players at North Carolina our next-to-last year — high school players — and didn’t pay them a penny. So those kids, we even had Omarion Hampton, he got offered $1 million-plus to leave and he stayed for $300,000. I told him he should leave, because it was just crazy as you were looking at those things.”

UNC denies banning Bill Belichick’s girlfriend from facility, Is Belichick rebranding?

Brown’s claim that UNC has loosened its academic standards for the football program also isn’t easily verifiable. However, Belichick had a lot more success landing talent in the transfer portal this offseason than Brown ever did. Belichick’s transfer portal class for the 2025 offseason ranked ninth on 247 Sports. Brown, meanwhile, never had a transfer class ranked higher than 30th, including a 58th-place ranking in 2024.

In terms of high school recruiting, Belichick helped UNC land the 36th-best recruiting class in 2025 while its 2026 recruiting class currently ranks 17th on 247 Sports. After landing three straight top-15 recruiting classes from 2020-22, Brown’s recruiting classes at UNC took a bit of a dip in the years of his tenure. It brought in the No. 31 recruiting class in 2023 and the No. 26 recruiting class in 2024, via 247 Sports.

Brown’s claim that UNC has loosened academic restrictions and made more investments in the football program for Belichick came as his successor has been dealing with some off-field drama. Belichick’s relationship with his girlfriend, Jordon Hudson, has become a national storyline in recent weeks, with some questioning her involvement in his life and UNC’s football program. After a report emerged earlier in May that Hudson was banned from UNC’s football facilities, the school denied that was the case. 

Belichick’s arrival to Chapel Hill has certainly brought more buzz to the football program than it has received in recent years. UNC athletic director Bubba Cunningham recently told Axios that the team sold out its season tickets for the 2025 season despite a 25% increase, something it failed to accomplish last year.

The expectations for UNC don’t seem to be as high for the 2025 season, though. Its projected win total is 7.5 at DraftKings Sportsbook as of Wednesday. That’s just a slight increase from the number of games it won in 2024 and is lower than the number of games UNC won under Brown three times between 2020-23. 

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