There are times when Andrew Bogut acts like the tallest point guard in the US, and other times when he's merely the most dominating inside presence in the NCAA tournament.
National Basketball Association executives salivate when his name is mentioned, though you'd be hard-pressed to find many basketball fans east of the Rocky Mountains who knew much about him only a few weeks ago.
Without Bogut, the University of Utah wouldn't even be playing this time of year, much less have an outside chance of making the NCAA tournament Final Four. He's a superstar who just happens to need four other players on the court with him.
PHOTO: AP
"I think all his teammates understand they're probably very fortunate to be playing with him," Utah coach Ray Giacoletti said during a telephone interview Monday.
They should, because if Bogut isn't everybody's player of the year, something is wrong with the balloting. If he's not the first pick in the NBA draft in June, some general manager is sleeping.
This is a 2.14m Australian so gifted that even his coach isn't telling him to come back for his junior and senior years.
"He's going to make a lot of money for a lot of years," Giacoletti said.
Bogut will make that money because he's one of those players who can dominate in different ways without having much in the way of a supporting cast.
It showed on Saturday in Tucson, Arizona, when Bogut tied his season low with 10 points yet still managed to lead the Utes to a win over Oklahoma and a berth in the regional semifinals Friday against Kentucky.
The Sooners wanted to push Bogut around and beat him up in the low post, so Bogut switched to the high post and acted like a point guard, dishing off passes to appreciative teammates for easy baskets. He was credited with seven assists, and he also managed to grab 11 rebounds.
"Bogut made a lot of good passes," Oklahoma's Johnnie Gilbert said after the game. "I thought a lot of times we would pick it off, but somehow it got through."
ANFIELD BLUES: Kylian Mbappe arrived at Anfield on a run of 21 goals in 17 games, but he managed just three attempts in the match, none of them hitting the target Kylian Mbappe has been nearly unstoppable this season, but he hit a roadblock in their UEFA Champions League match at Anfield on Tuesday. For the second year running, the Real Madrid forward had a night to forget at Merseyside as Liverpool won 1-0. Mbappe looked a shadow of the player who has been tearing defenses apart all season. “We were lacking that threat in the final third,” said Madrid coach Xabi Alonso, without naming Mbappe individually. The FIFA World Cup winner for France rarely looked capable of finding a breakthrough against a Liverpool team who have been so defensively fragile for much of the
LOCAL SUCCESS: In the doubles, Taiwan’s Hsieh Su-wei and Jelena Ostapenko of Latvia defeated Italians Sara Errani and Jasmine Paolini in straight sets Elena Rybakina on Monday punched her ticket to the WTA Finals last four with an impressive 3-6, 6-1, 6-0 victory over second seed Iga Swiatek in round-robin play in Riyadh. After cruising past Amanda Anisimova in her opener on Saturday, Rybakina claimed her second win of the week to guarantee herself top spot in the Serena Williams Group. Anisimova on Monday rallied back from a set and a break down to triumph 4-6, 6-3, 6-2 in her all-American battle with seventh seed Madison Keys, who has been eliminated from the competition. “Madi was playing so well, it was quite a battle out there,”
Erling Haaland on Sunday scored twice to propel Manchester City up to second in the English Premier League with a 3-1 win over AFC Bournemouth. The Cherries started the day in second thanks to the longest unbeaten run in the English top flight, but Andoni Iraola’s side were undone by the scintillating form of the Norwegian striker, who took his tally to 13 Premier League goals in 10 games. Haaland’s relentless streak is maintaining City’s title challenge as they reduced the gap to leaders Arsenal back to six points and edged one point ahead of Liverpool, who they face at the weekend. “Important
For almost 30 minutes, Vitomir Maricic did not take a breath. Face down in a pool, surrounded by anxious onlookers, the Croatian freediver fought spasming pain to redefine what doctors thought was possible. When he finally surfaced, he had smashed the previous Guinness World Record for the longest breath-hold underwater by nearly five minutes. However, even with the help of pure oxygen before the attempt, it had pushed him to the limit. “Everything was difficult, just overwhelming,” Maricic, 40, told reporters, reflecting on the record-breaking day on June 14. “When I dive, I completely disconnect from everything, as if I’m not even there.
RSS