Jan. 7—The Northern Lights Volleyball 16-1 club team spent the holidays traveling through Europe and competing in two tournaments abroad Dec. 25-Jan. 5.

The team won the 18U Youth Alpen Tournament in Innsbruck, Austria and took third place in the 19U SV Dynamo International Youth Tournament in Apeldoorn, Netherlands.

The 16-1 team out of Burnsville, Minn., is made up of players from high schools around the state, including Rochester Century’s sophomore Laney Stellmaker. Other players on the roster attend Eagan, Prior Lake, St. Paul Academy, Lakeville North, East Ridge, Thomas Jefferson (Bloomington), Waconia and Chanhassen.

According to its website, the SV Dynamo tournament “guarantees three days of top-level volleyball with the best youth teams from the Netherlands and beyond. For many clubs, the youth tournament has been the ideal preparation for the Open Club (national championships for club teams). Foreign top youth teams see the tournament as a unique opportunity to measure their strength against European opponents.”

The NLV 16-2 team also traveled and competed in the tournaments, finishing third in Apeldoorn and sixth in Innsbruck.

Players from both teams documented their travels with journals and videos.

Stellmaker, an All-Big Nine selection, recorded 493 set assists, 200 kills, 313 digs, 61 ace serves and 20 blocks during her sophomore campaign with the Panthers. She also reached 1,000 career set assists during the 2025 season.

The Kansas City Chiefs were without star quarterback Patrick Mahomes for the final weeks of their 2025 regular-season campaign after he sustained a serious knee injury in December.

As the face of the Chiefs franchise, Mahomes is one of Kansas City’s highest-paid players.

How much money did Mahomes make during the 2025 NFL season?

Here’s a look at the star quarterback’s current contract:

Patrick Mahomes salary

According to Spotrac.com, Mahomes’ base salary in 2025 was just $1,255,000. However, Kansas City also paid Mahomes $4,114,888 in signing proration, $21,692,381 in restructure proration, and a $1,000,000 workout bonus.

Patrick Mahomes cap number

Overthecap.com reports that Mahomes’ total cap number for the 2025 season was $28,062,269. His salary accounted for 9.8 percent of the Chiefs’ total cap space.

Patrick Mahomes 2026 salary

Next season, Mahomes is set to receive a base salary of $45,350,000 in addition to a prorated signing bonus of $21,463,888, a roster bonus of $10,400,000, and a workout bonus of $1,000,000.

If Mahomes doesn’t renegotiate his contract in the offseason, his cap number is set to be $78,213,888 in 2026, which would account for 26.3 percent of the Chiefs’ cap space.

This article originally appeared on Chiefs Wire: Patrick Mahomes salary: How much money did Chiefs QB make in 2025?

The Golden State Warriors have had over 600 players don the more than 60 jersey numbers used by their players over the more than 75 years of existence the team has enjoyed in its rich and storied history.

Founded in 1946 during the Basketball Association of America (BAA — a precursor league of the NBA) era, the team has called home the cities of Philadelphia, San Francisco, Oakland, and even San Diego.

To commemorate the players who wore those numbers, Warriors Wire is covering the entire history of jersey numbers and the players who sported them since the founding of the team. For this article, we begin with the fifth of eight players who wore the No. 35 jersey for the Warriors.

That player would be Golden State big man alum Erick Dampier. After ending his college career at Mississippi State, Dampier was picked up with the 10th overall selection of the 1996 NBA Draft by the Indiana Pacers.

The Jackson, Mississippi native played the first season of his pro career with Indiana, coming to an end when he was dealt to the Dubs in 1997. His stay with the team lasted until he was dealt to the Dallas Mavericks in 2004.

During his time suiting up for the Warriors, Dampier wore only jersey Nos. 35 and 25 and put up 9.5 points, 7.8 rebounds, 1.0 assists, and 1.7 blocks per game.

All stats and data courtesy of Basketball Reference.

This article originally appeared on Warriors Wire: Warriors jersey history – No. 35 – Erick Dampier (1997-2004)

The 2022-23 UNC basketball season began with plenty of promise. North Carolina found itself months removed from a surprise appearance in the National Championship game, plus it returned the likes of Armando Bacot and RJ Davis.

Those Tar Heels also welcomed in a 4-man recruiting class, which included Seth Trimble and sharpshooter Tyler Nickel. The latter never panned out during his lone season at UNC, with Nickel transferring to Virginia Tech for Year Two.

Now in his senior campaign at Vanderbilt, Nickel is thriving with a career-best 14.9 points per game. In a recent appearance on Andy Elliott’s “Same Time Next Week” podcast, Nickel talked about his initial decision behind committing to North Carolina.

“So going into the (official) visit, I really didn’t know,” Nickel said. “A lot of people ran with the narrative that UNC was my dream school – and I wanted to go there so bad. That was never the case. It was cool, I’d always liked UNC because being on the East Coast, loving the ACC. I always watched and liked them, but I never really had a dream school. So everybody kind of ran with that. But then, I went on my visit and I liked the guys, when we played and I played well and the visit and everything, the energy from the coaches was cool. That’s what made me decide to go there after the visit. There’s a lot of stuff that people ran with that wasn’t true.”

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Nickel and the Tar Heels are both in great situations. Nickel has Vandy a perfect 14-0 heading into Wednesday night’s clash with Alabama, while UNC is 13-2 heading into Saturday’s clash with Wake Forest.

Would North Carolina be unstoppable if Nickel stayed?

Follow us@TarHeelsWire on X (formerly Twitter) and like our page onFacebook to follow ongoing coverage of North CarolinaTar Heels news, notes and opinions.

This article originally appeared on Tar Heels Wire: Tyler Nickel says UNC Basketball was ‘never his dream school’

January 7th, 2026

Who: Colorado Buffaloes vs. Utah Utes

Where: CU Events Center – Boulder, CO

When: 7:01 p.m. MT

TV: ESPN+

Radio: AM 850 KOA

Utah Blog: BlockU

Line: Colorado -9.5

Welcome to the Ralphie Report as the Colorado Buffaloes get ready to take on the Utah Utes at the CU Events Center for the fifteenth game of the 2025-26 season.

No need to go anywhere else today, The Ralphie Report has everything you need and we welcome you to weigh in with your live game analysis, critiques, observations and predictions.

Check out the old game thread from the Hawaii game to see how it works. Throw all your comments about the game below and let’s get this thing rolling. If you don’t have an account, sign up here for free and enjoy all that our site has to offer.

Make sure to follow us on X and Facebook. Go Buffs!

The full card for the PFL’s return to Dubai is now set with lightweight champion Usman Nurmagomedov defending his title in the main event against 2025 tournament champion Alfie Davis.

The card takes place at the Coca-Cola Arena in Dubai on Feb. 7 with the event airing on the ESPN Unlimited app with the event starting at 9 a.m. ET for the prelims and 12 p.m. ET for the main card.

In addition to the lightweight title fight, a new PFL welterweight champion is set to be crowned at the same event with Ramazan Kuramagomedov taking on Shamil Musaev in the co-main event. Both fighters enter the contest with undefeated records so somebody is going to walk out with a title and the other leaves with the first loss on their record.

Former PFL featherweight tournament champion Jesus Pinedo is also back in action on the card as he takes on undefeated prospect Salamat Isbulaev.

Welterweights Magomed Umalatov and Abdoul “Lazy King” Abdouraguimov are also set to meet on the main card with the opening bout taking place in the heavyweight division with undefeated Pouya Rahmani facing Karl Williams.

Here’s the full card for PFL Dubai including the main card and prelims on Feb. 7

MAIN CARD (ESPN Unlimited, 12 p.m. ET/9 a.m. PT)

MAIN EVENT: Usman Nurmagomedov vs. Alfie Davis

Ramazan Kuramagomedov vs. Shamil Musaev

Jesus Pinedo vs. Salamat Isbulaev

Magomed Umalatov vs. Abdoul Abdouraguimov

Pouya Rahmani vs. Karl Williams

PRELIMS (ESPN Unlimited, 9 a.m. ET, 6 a.m. PT)

Amru Magomedov vs. Kolton Englund

Taylor Lapilus vs. Kasum Kasumov

Renat Khavalov vs. Edgars Skrivers

Amin Ayoub vs. Makkasharip Zaynukov

Denise Kieholtz vs. Antonia Silvaneide

Luke Trainer vs. Rob Wilkinson

Khabib Nabiev vs. Ahmed Sami

Haider Khan vs. Jhony Gregory

Okay, so look. Marquette isn’t going to shoot 61% on three-pointers every single game for the rest of the year.

BUT

Sunday against Villanova was the second time this season that Marquette has connected on over 60% of their three-point attempts, and the second time in Big East competition, too. The Golden Eagles have hit at least 33% of their long range shots in all but two games this year — big surprise, the two are Minnesota and UConn — and they’ve hit at least 38% in eight of their 15 games.

At this point, it’s surprising when the shots aren’t going down for the Golden Eagles.

But Marquette has to be able to do more than hit shots if they want to win ball games. 6-for-17 (35%) shooting wasn’t enough to beat St. John’s, same against Gonzaga in Florida earlier this season. To be quite honest about it: Marquette’s defense isn’t quite as tough as it was last season. The Golden Eagles finished the year at #30 in BartTorvik’s defensive efficiency rankings a year ago, and now midway through Cara Consuegra’s second season in charge, Marquette is hanging out in the mid-50s. Teams are shooting it just a little too well against MU, especially inside the arc.

If Marquette can find a way to recapture some of that defensive magic and pair it with this great shooting — four players attempting at least two three-pointers per game AND shooting over 37%! — then maybe they can really get something cooking over the next 14 games heading into the postseason.

Hey, side note: What do you think the odds are that Halle Vice puts up a fourth straight double-double? It would be her fifth in the last six games, too. I don’t think Marquette needs her to do that to win, but I think it would be very helpful, right?

Big East Game #7: vs Creighton Bluejays (7-8, 3-3 Big East)

Date: Thursday, January 8, 2026
Time: 7pm Central
Location: Al McGuire Center, Milwaukee, Wisconsin
Television: truTV, with Cindy Brunson, Christy Winters-Scott, and Chelsea Sherrod calling the action
Streaming:truTV.com/WatchtruTV or HBO Max
Live Stats:Stat Broadcast
Bluesky Updates: @AnonymousEagle

Marquette is 14-19 all time against Creighton. The Bluejays have won four of the last five meetings between the two teams, including last year in Omaha.

There’s at least a little evidence to suggest that Creighton has stabilized the direction of their season since Kiani Lockett suffered what is now officially a season ending knee injury back in November. Things didn’t start well for the Jays, losing by 16 to South Dakota State in the opener, by 34 to Nebraska, and then by one at home to Northern Iowa in the game where Lockett suffered her injury. After that, they lost on the road by nine to UNLV as well.

But since then, things have gotten a little bit better. Not in terms of record necessarily, as the Bluejays have gone just 6-4 in the interim, but in terms of computer numbers. Their Game Scores as calculated by BartTorvik.com are trending much better, with none of the games scoring as poorly as the losses to SDSU or Nebraska. Their rankings on Torvik bottomed out at #108 after the UNLV game, but they’re up to #88 as I type this on Wednesday morning. After the UNLV game, Creighton dipped as low as #110 over at Her Hoop Stats, but they’re up to #69 now. The NET debuted on November 30th, not long after the UNLV game, and the Jays were #186 at the time. Now? #95. Not great, obviously, but again: Much improved over the past five weeks.

This season was always going to be a slightly weird one for Creighton given how many incredibly important seniors they lost from last year, and throwing in the extra wrench of losing Lockett early on could have really sent things into a tailspin. That hasn’t happened to them, so full credit and marks for moving the needle in a positive direction as the season goes along. They’ve even had a bit of an extra level of difficulty thrown in lately, as freshman Ava Zediker, who is leading the team in scoring and is tops in assists with Lockett out, has missed the last two games. One was a 10 point loss at Villanova — could have happened with her — and an 8 point home win against Butler back on Sunday. That was a big battle back game for Creighton, as they were down 10 in the second quarter, but flipped the led by halftime and went up nine very quickly in the third quarter.

If Zediker remains out, then Neleigh Gessert becomes Creighton’s leading scorer, although there’s a little bit of a question about that. For example: She put up 25 points against Villanova but just five against Butler even though her minutes in her first two starts of the season were essentially the same. The catch? Gessert went 7-for-10 behind the arc against the Wildcats but 0-for-3 against the Bulldogs. She’s a 40% shooter on the year averaging nearly eight attempts per game even though she had been coming off the bench, so clearly Gessert needs to be defended carefully, but she’s been on far ends of the spectrum the last two times out.

The other catch to defending Neleigh Gessert? Her twin sister Norah. She’s only a 30% three-point shooter this season on less than three attempts per game in about 18 minutes a night, and she got her first two starts in the last two games as well. This is Marquette’s first time seeing Creighton this season, and thus the first time trying to figure out how to defend the two freshman look-alike six-footers with deeply varying shooting stats.

Big Picture: This Creighton team is a step back from what we’ve seen from Jim Flanery’s squads the past several years. They don’t have the high efficiency offense, and they don’t have the “good enough for that offense” defense on the other end, either. The issue on offense isn’t the three-point shooting, they’re still hitting those and they’re still taking a ton of them. The Bluejays don’t have two-point scoring this time around, so if MU can force them into bad looks from deep and limit them to just once chance — CU doesn’t get on the offensive glass much anyway — then things should work out okay.

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• What: Michigan State vs. Northwestern

• When: 6:30 p.m. Thursday

• Where: Breslin Center

• TV/Radio: Big Ten Network/Spartan Sports Network radio, including WJIM 1240-AM and WMMQ 94.9-FM; SiriusXM Ch. 195 (MSU broadcast), 372 (Northwestern broadcast)

• Records/Rankings: MSU is 13-2 overall and 3-1 in the Big Ten, and enters the week ranked No. 12 in the Associated Press poll and No. 13 USA TODAY Coaches poll, No. 12 in the NET rankings used by the NCAA tournament selection committee, and No. 12 per the college basketball analytics site Kenpom.com. Northwestern is 8-6 overall and 0-3 in the Big Ten, and unranked in both major polls. The Wildcats are No. 82 in the NET rankings and No. 61 per Kenpom.

• Betting line: MSU -11.5

• Coaches:Michigan State — Tom Izzo is 750-304 in his 31st season as a head coach, all with the Spartans. Northwestern — Chris Collins is 202-196 in his 13th season as a head coach, all with the Wildcats.

• Series: MSU leads 96-42 all-time and won the only meeting last season, in Evanston.

Projected lineups

MSU

C (15) Carson Cooper (6-11) 9.7

PF (0) Jaxon Kohler (6-9) 14.2

SF (55) Coen Carr (6-5) 11.9

SG (99) Divine Ugochukwu (6-3) 5.5

PG (1) Jeremy Fears Jr. (6-2) 11.9

Northwestern

C (22) Arrinten Page (6-11) 15.0

F (2) Nick Martinelli (6-7) 23.0

F (44) Angelo Ciaravino (6-6) 6.9

G (11) Jordan Clayton (6-2) 2.9

G (4) Jayden Reid (5-10) 11.6

• MSU update: The Spartans play their third Big Ten game in seven days and their second in front of the Alumni Izzone. After an 80-51 win over USC on Monday night, MSU is the No. 2 team in the country in defensive efficiency, per Kenpom. The Spartans are also the second-best defensive rebounding team in the country and are No. 12 in offensive rebounding. They’re also No. 2 nationally in assist-to-made-basket percentage at 69.7%. Jeremy Fears Jr. remains No. 2 in the country in assists at 9.0 per game. Jaxon Kohler is No. 2 in the Big Ten in 3-point shooting percentage at 53.7%.

The Spartans should be as close to fully healthy as they’ve been since Thanksgiving. Sophomore guard Divine Ugochukwu returned Monday after missing a game with an illness. And freshman forward Cam Ward said Tuesday that his injured wrist, which he revealed was a bit more than a sprain, finally has full range of motion again and he’s regaining increasing confidence in his game.

• Northwestern update: The Wildcats are coming off an 84-78 home loss to Minnesota, the sort of defeat they have to avoid if they have any hope of making an NCAA tournament push. Winning at MSU on Thursday night would go a long way toward making up for some of their slip-ups during an 8-6 start. Northwestern’s best wins are at DePaul (108 in Kenpom) and a neutral site game against South Carolina (68). The Wildcats’ losses are to Oklahoma State (58), at Wisconsin (42), Ohio State (37) at home, Butler (56) in Indianapolis and then to the Gophers (91). This is largely a new team from a year ago, outside of one giant piece: forward Nick Martinelli, who, at 23.0 points per game, is one-tenth of a point behind the national scoring lead.

• Matchup analysis: The Wildcats have some good talent and should have a higher floor than they’ve shown this season. Martinelli is a chore to defend, a good player downhill, relentless and crafty and a capable shooter all the way out beyond the 3-point arc, where he shoots 50%. He spends most of his minutes at power forward for Northwestern. I think we’ll see a mix of Jaxon Kohler, Coen Carr and Cam Ward defending him. Overall, Northwestern has really struggled to shoot from the perimeter, hitting less than 32% of 3-point tries. It’s the Wildcats’ most debilitating weakness. They hit 6 of 23 in the loss to the Gophers and were also badly out-rebounded. That’s going to be a problem for them in this game. They’re nationally in the bottom quarter of teams in terms of defensive rebounding, meaning the Spartans are likely to feast on the offensive glass.

Northwestern does make teams work offensively. Opponents average 19 seconds per possession against the Wildcats, which is the most in the nation. South Florida transfer Jayden Reid can be a good point guard. He’s quick, is a decent finisher at the rim and is a more capable outside shooter than the 28% he’s been making this season. Freshman forward Tre Singleton, who’s been starting, was a terrific get for Chris Collins. He’s a powerful young player who’s flashed with some promising performances this season.

• Prediction: Northwestern has been a tricky team for MSU in recent years and Martinelli is worthy of respect. But other than the Wildcats’ potential ability to slow the Spartans’ break, I like this matchup for MSU. Plus, after Monday, MSU is now not only 10-1 against the point spread in its last 11 games in front of the Alumni Izzone, but the Spartans have averaged to win those games by 11 points more than the spread (That stat courtesy of Steve Beckman.). MSU might want to kick the students out and invite the alums back for the Jan. 30 game against Michigan.

• Make it: MSU 81, Northwestern 67

MORE:Couch: By transforming MSU Athletics, J Batt hopes to build a sustainable enterprise — and winning football

Contact Graham Couch at gcouch@lsj.com. Follow him on X @Graham_Coch and BlueSky @GrahamCouch.

This article originally appeared on Lansing State Journal: MSU basketball vs. Northwestern prediction, preview, TV, betting line

As “NXT” stars such as Je’Von Evans, Oba Femi, and Trick Williams move on from the Performance Center to the main roster, WWE is now forced to scout for the company’s next big faces. WWE tryouts are fast-approaching, it seems that the professional wrestling conglomerate is sourcing their next hottest stars from a variety of backgrounds.

According to PWInsider Elite, WWE is set to host sometime during the week of January 12. While the list of attendees is undoubtedly short, some confirmed names include Akron, Ohio’s Joshua Hillen. Hillen, a former United States Marine, recently won the title of America’s Strongest Veteran in Las Vegas in October. According to InkFreeNews, Hillen took first place in the Trump Weights Axle Clean and Press, the Keg Carry Over Bar, and the Sandbag Throw events — three of the competition’s five listed events. Hillen, 5’7″, began competing in strongman competitions eight years ago.

James Karnik, a 27-year old basketball player from Canada, will also join Hillen at WWE tryouts this coming week. Karnik proudly displays his experience on both Canadian and Czech basketball teams in his Instagram bio, and was most recently seen averaging 12 points and 7 rebounds per game in Eurocup. Karnik, 6’9″, played for the Vancouver Bandits for the 2022, 2024, and 2025 season.

Hillen and Karnik do not have any professional wrestling experience, but it is not uncommon to see strongmen, powerlifters, and professional athletes make the jump to WWE, as was the case with recent “NXT” Superstars Jordynne Grace, a known powerlifter, Lash Legend, a former WNBA player, and, perhaps most famously, Bron Breakker, a former NFL fullback. WWE have their eyes on several blossoming collegiate athletes through their WWE NIL (Next in Line) program.

PWInsider Elite is currently in the process of confirming more names as WWE tryouts quickly approach.

Read more: 30 Best Wrestlers Under 30 In 2025, Ranked By Wrestling Inc.

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Read the original article on Wrestling Inc.