Good Morning! Here’s what happened in the world of sports on Wednesday, March 19.

MLB

Get ready to see this sentence a lot this summer– Shohei Ohtani hit a home run and the Dodgers won. LA beat the Cubs 6-3 in the second and final game of the 2025 Tokyo Series. Making his big-league debut, Dodgers starter Roki Sasaki was electric but a bit inefficient in three innings of work. Tommy Edman and Kiké Hernandez also homered for the winning side.

And how about this fun fact– Dodger third baseman Max Muncy became the fifth player in MLB history to record a hit in five different countries.

FIRST FOUR

One last day of play-in games before the Round of 64 begins in earnest…

• Congratulations to Mount St. Mary’s on defeating American University! Enjoy this win, because you get to play Duke on Friday.

• Zach Freemantle and Xavier won a tough game 86-80 over Texas. A disappointing season for the wildly talented Longhorns, who finish the year with a 19-16 record. The Musketeers, on the other hand, are now 8-1 in their last nine games and have some real momentum heading into Friday’s showdown against Illinois.

NBA

Three NBA highlights for ya today:

• Luka Doncic scored 21 of his 31 points in the first quarter and the Lakers cruised to a 120-108 victory over the Nuggets, who played without Nikola Jokic and Jamaal Murray.

• The Cavaliers lost their third consecutive game, falling to the Kings 123-119.

• Sandro Mamukelashvili is the Remix star of the night. The Spurs forward set an NBA record for most points in a game when playing less than 20 minutes. Mamukelashvili dropped 34 off the bench, and was 7-7 from three. “Luckily, I've played for a while and sort of know the art of getting guys shots," said Chris Paul, "Mamu is an amazing teammate. He comes in and works hard every day, cheers guys on, always in a good mood, good attitude. When he's shooting the ball like that, you just try to find the guy."

NHL

Just two hockey games last night– the Wild shutout the Kraken 4-0, and the Maple Leafs beat the Avalanche 2-1 thanks to this weird shorthanded goal assisted by the referee in the third.

64 WORDS ON 64 TEAMS

A complete guide to the 2025 bracket in exactly 64 words (not counting the names of the teams). Ready? Here we go:

Alabama State, Bryant, Lipscomb, Norfolk State, UNC Wilmington, Omaha, Mount St. Mary’s, Robert Morris, Montana, SIUE, Grand Canyon, Liberty, Wofford, and Troy are happy to be here. Yale, UC San Diego, McNeese State, and Colorado State are popular upset picks– Akron and High Point deserve more attention. Drake is dangerous, UNC is bad, VCU was underseeded and Xavier may go on a run. New Mexico, Vanderbilt, and Utah State are 10 seeds, Arkansas is a 10 seed with Calipari. Georgia, Mississippi State, Missouri, Oklahoma, and Ole Miss represent the SEC. Louisville, Creighton, UConn, Baylor, BYU, Saint Mary’s, and UCLA may be just as good. Be wary of Kansas, Iowa State, Illinois, Purdue, Texas Tech, Texas A&M, Memphis, and Arizona. Don’t underestimate Michigan, Marquette, Maryland, Oregon, and Clemson. Tennessee, Kentucky, Auburn, and Alabama represent the SEC better. My dark horses are Wisconsin and Gonzaga. Houston, St. John’s and Michigan State might win, but Florida is my pick. Oh whatever, it’ll probably be Duke.

NOTEWORTHY NEWS

McNeese State head coach Will Wade has a game tomorrow against Clemson. However, reports/sources/rumors are that Wade came to an agreement this week to become the next coach at NC State as soon as his tournament run is over.

Scottie Scheffler’s menu for this year’s championship dinner at The Masters looks pretty good. Check it out–

TODAY’S BIG GAMES (all times Eastern)

Thank you to whoever made this very handy graphic!

“My man is on fireeeeee!” –Sandro Mamukelashvili’s friend and famous rapper Flavor Flav