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Ever since the people who run college football crushed the NCAA and replaced it with an unworkable new economy based entirely on fraud-coated banditry, the old mall cops in Indianapolis have not really known what to do with themselves. There's still plenty of money in big-time college sports, but a vacuum where their old authority used to be. The basketball tournament is that failed state's principal cash cow, and it still delivers, but the horse has otherwise departed the barn for life on a crowded interstate, which will ultimately be bad for the horse. And so, with nothing better to do while they watch the old structure slowly collapse under the weight of a shifting foundation and dry rot, the NCAA's powers-that-were mostly seem to be concerning themselves with putting a series of painted concrete hats on the cash cow that remains—you know, to make it "better." And so they are expanding the tournaments, both men's and women's, to 76 teams; the decision has not yet been voted on, but is reported to be a virtual lock. It's what nobody asked for, and the eight new at-large teams in the field will be worse than the teams that currently make it. It's tough to find much appealing in it, but also that doesn't matter. These days, the best way to get something you didn't know you didn't want is simply to wait awhile until it shows up in batteries-not-included type somewhere on your property tax bill. The logistics of the jumbo touranment are simple enough. Instead of having four play-in games, they'll have eight, half in Dayton and half in Something-Something Flats, Utah. The NCAA will tell you that those aren't actual tournament games, because they too believe in the basic sanctity of the 64-team bracket that has nourished them for 40 years. And because these aren't tournament games per se, they will be treated by the general public with the same essential disdain currently afforded the play-in games, which is mostly to say that they won't include them in their office pools. If there is a greater example of nothing of worth being performed nowhere in particular, it is the annual NFL schedule release, but that's still a couple of weeks away.

Jesper Wallstedt is earning the first half of his surname. The 23-year-old Swede stopped another 20 shots, more than half of those in the third period against an increasingly frantic and frustrated Dallas offense in Tuesday's 4-2 win over the Stars that put the Wild up 3-2 in the series. With both of the goals coming at five-on-four, Wallstedt still has not allowed an even-strength goal since the opening minutes of Game 3—a stretch that has featured several overtimes and many deceptively good chances. How on-point has Wallstedt been? Tuesday's performance lowered his save percentage in this series, to a still-sparkling .926. The Wild have a reputation. It's one of competence, which is a fine thing to have, but it's also one of underachievement. They've made eight of the last 10 postseasons, and been eliminated in the first round in all eight. This is a function of often having a team that's just OK, and also of the luck of the bracket sending them up against some first-round buzzsaws. That latter trend was not broken this year, the Wild drawing one of the other two real contenders in the West. But these Wild already feel a little different than their predecessors. Part of that was the midseason trade for Quinn Hughes, a bold and expensive move that only real Cup hopefuls tend to pull off. An even bigger part was the emergence of Wallstedt, looking like he might be cut out for being this generation's rookie Cam Ward. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xvAONFVKgi8

ROCKFORD, Ill. — Every April, more than 250 athletes representing over 50 schools descend on a third-tier city to play the National Collegiate Table Tennis Association (NCTTA) National Championships. This year, Nationals took place in Rockford's UW Health Sports Factory, a concrete hangar wedged between the Rock River and a lifeless train track. Inside, state-of-the-art cameras swiveled above professionally pipe-and-draped stadium courts. Wood floors gleamed beneath 40 tables, barriered into a crisp blue grid. Live draw monitors faced a table of 2025 championship photos and 3D-printed 2026 trophies. All of it was assembled by 75 gray-poloed officials, who deploy from a 500-square-foot command station to referee, umpire, and livestream. Over three days and a whopping seven events—men’s doubles, women’s doubles, coed teams, women’s teams, men’s singles, women’s singles, and a new hardbat format called PeakaPong—they would facilitate over 600 matches for one of North America’s biggest table tennis events. Big does not mean glamorous, or most important. This tournament is not the World Championships, and it’s definitely not the Olympics, but it occupies a special place in the world of high-level table tennis in the Americas. It’s a tournament where pros and national team players can face off against enthusiasts and relative beginners, where senior citizens work side by side with children, and where alumni return to coach, network, or just soak in the atmosphere. Nobody gets paid, and nobody plays for all that much, either. Players receive neither prize money, world ranking points, nor international tournament qualifications; most teams pay their own way. The tournament organizers are also volunteers. Everyone shows up for love of the game—and they play and administrate it ferociously.  As the first of three days began, hundreds of flat-soled shoes and tacky rubbers sent the sport’s characteristic pops, clicks, stomps, and squeaks into the rafters. They were soon joined by celebratory shouts from competitors and teammates, baritone PA implorement to clear trash from the expeditiously cluttered aisles, giddy laughs as uniformed packs strolled to submit their match sheets at the control desk or buy food at concessions. The atmosphere was intent but buoyant. Something special was being manufactured here.

Time for your weekly edition of the Defector Funbag. Got something on your mind? Email the Funbag. You can also read Drew over at SFGATE, and buy Drew’s books while you’re at it. Today, we're talking chopsticks, dated nicknames, robots, and more. Your letters: Joe:

With the institution of replay review and ABS, it can sometimes feel like baseball is a little too normal these days, that it lacks whimsy or esoterica, or that games can no longer be decided by vestigial rules that were codified during the Hayes administration. This impression, I am happy to report, is false. The sheer number of permutations of bat and ball and player requires a robust rulebook that nevertheless still must on occasion come down to human judgment. What happened Monday night in San Diego is proof that there is still some mystery in the world. Matt Shaw led off the Chicago Cubs' ninth against Mason Miller with a little squibber down the third-base line, and it appeared to be trickling foul as it ran out of momentum. Just as it came to a stop—just!—Ty France picked it up ever so daintily, perhaps trying a bit of a frame job to make it look even more foul than it appeared on first glance. But it did appear foul. https://twitter.com/TalkinBaseball_/status/2048986910572355681

On their very first offensive possession of Game 4 on Monday night, the Detroit Pistons did what every big man–turned-commentator suggests every team do on its first possession: They ran a play to get their center a post-up. In this case, Duncan Robinson backscreened Wendell Carter Jr., forcing Desmond Bane to switch onto Jalen Duren. Duren had borne the lion's share of blame for the Pistons' embarrassing performance through the first three games of the series, a stretch spent not only getting outschemed and outclassed by a team that had seemed incapable of doing either against anyone all season, but also getting out-banged and out-hustled. The entire value proposition of the Pistons is that with their collective physicality, particularly the explosive muscularity of Duren, nobody can bully them. Best to get him rolling early. But no. The Magic knew exactly what Detroit's plan was, and Bane snuffed it out for a steal. They then marched down the court, and Carter Jr. splashed a wide-open three. This sequence was the series in miniature: The Pistons straining to complete the simplest of actions while Orlando bludgeoned them into easy submission; Detroit playing neolithic offense while the Magic showed an understanding of the modern game, where centers space the floor instead of cosplaying paint-bound bigs of old. Orlando won Game 4, 94-88, to take a totally deserved 3-1 lead over the East's No. 1 seed. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5yUo-kK9j1o

Michael is a bad movie. Let’s just get that out of the way now. It is a movie designed less to tell a story than to recreate moments, ones you are probably already familiar with. It is a movie designed to give you a karaoke experience in a theater setting with other like-minded Michael Jackson fans. It is a movie designed to make the estate of a dead pop star a great deal of money, in line with other milquetoast biopics about other stars, like Bohemian Rhapsody or Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere (more like deliver me from this theater). It is a movie not at all designed to tell a history, least of all the history of Michael Jackson. "Directed," in the scariest of scare quotes, by Antoine Fuqua, Michael tells a very abridged version of Jackson's ascendence, from child superstar (played by Juliano Valdi) to king of pop (played by Jackson's nephew, Jaafar Jackson). Much of the Motown and Jackson 5 era is told in montage, only stopping intermittently to highlight how sensitive of a person Michael is and how disconnected he is from other people due to his demanding father and being in a big pop group with his brothers. Later, as Jackson moves into adulthood, the movie aims to recreate the magic behind the making of the albums Off The Wall and Thriller, while stopping intermittently to highlight how sensitive of a person Michael is and how disconnected he is from other people: watching cartoons with his mom, wanting to play Twister with his big brothers, adopting a monkey named Bubbles, who shows up in this movie like he was one of the Avengers. There are many moral problems with this movie, which we will get into, but just from a filmmaking perspective, so much of this is unbelievably cynical. It's one thing to watch a superhero movie and know that its primary job is to sell toys and merchandise; it's quite another to watch a biopic with more or less the same objective. The movie treats Jackson as if he were some sort of Marvel character, with subtle references to his many cosmetic surgeries, his addiction to painkillers, and his fixation with Peter Pan sprinkled in like Easter eggs for his biggest fans to go seek out. Even if a movie produced in collaboration with Jackson's infamously protective estate was never going to seriously confront Jackson's child sexual abuse cases, there is presumably a lot that could be said about even a sanitized version of one of the greatest, most fascinating artists of all time. And yet, Jackson is barely a person in his own movie. He is at best an idea, one vaguely though carefully sketched to undermine the bad things you know about him.

Smart money says that sports gambling scandals will be more dog-licks-man than man-bites-dog real soon. But for now, this rates as big college football news: Texas Tech announced on Monday that quarterback Brendan Sorsby has left the program to get treated for a gambling addiction. The Lubbock Avalanche-Journal reported that Sorsby, who transferred to the Red Raiders in January after two years at Cincinnati, will enter a residential rehab facility. According to the school, the length of his stay at the treatment center is “indefinite.” “We love Brendan and support his decision to seek professional help,” Texas Tech head coach Joey McGuire said, in a statement released by the school. “Taking this step requires courage, and our primary focus is on him as a person.”

Steve Javie can’t recall much from the actual game itself, but he’ll always remember what happened later that night. It was Javie’s first NBA Finals game in 1995, always a huge deal for an up-and-coming referee. Several of his family members were in the crowd. Finals games back then started at 9:00 p.m. Eastern; Javie and his fellow refs didn’t leave the arena until the wee hours of the morning. When they returned to their hotel, crew chief Joey Crawford had a room set up with food and drinks for the crew and their families to enjoy. After a couple hours of celebrating his achievement, Javie couldn’t sleep. He was wired from the rush of his first time on the NBA’s biggest stage. A 7:00 a.m. flight the next morning loomed large. He mentioned it to Crawford, his longtime mentor.

The Boston Red Sox are owned by the same people who own Liverpool FC, and are therefore acutely aware of the crucial soccer rubric that managers should be fired every few months in order to keep the job tender and supple on the grill. And yet, despite that, they hadn't fired a Liverpool manager since Brendan Rodgers got the sack in 2015. Those owners have, however, given us the first firing of the 2026 baseball season, and potentially the most incendiary one in years, by cacking Red Sox manager Alex Cora and multiple members of his staff. The finer details of this can be found in the latest installment of "Comrade Xu Watches Shitty Baseball"; the broad strokes can be gleaned with a glance at the American League standings. But we're not concerned with the Red Sox and their seminal role in creating a three-way tie for 12th with the Kansas City Royals and Chicago White Sox. We're thinking more of the two teams currently worse than those three, and why they haven't done the performative kneejerkery of firing their own manager. Your friends and compatriots at the bottom of the coal chute are the Philadelphia Phillies and New York Mets, and their broader circumstances are both similar and similarly dire. The Mets' issues are obvious. Owner Steve Cohen has spent eleventy skillion dollars on a team that just powered through a 12-game losing streak, beat the Twins twice and then got swept over the weekend by THE COLORADO ROCKIES, FOR BAAL'S SAKE! They currently feature the league's highest payroll, its fourth-oldest roster, and the sport's worst figures for fewest runs scored and OPS. Carlos Mendoza still has his job because, as near as we can tell, Cohen is pissed that he didn't think of doing that before John Henry thought of firing Cora, let alone firing him so spectacularly.