Good Morning, Stumpers!

The day has come; it is SUPER BOWL SUNDAY! A lot of Super Bowl savants amongst the Stumpers who have been nailing our trivia questions all week! Looking forward to seeing what the results are for this one today! It’s the threepeat vs the last line of defense. Check out our prediction below! If that’s not enough, yesterday the top two teams in college basketball BOTH LOST! Crazy! Hope you all have a fun and safe Super Bowl Sunday!

Today’s Rundown

Everything you’ll get from today’s edition, and more:

• 🏈 A HOT PREDICITION FOR SUPER BOWL SUNDAY!

• 🏀 Down go the top 2 teams in the country

• 🤕 The full AD experience in Dallas

• 💿️ Welcome to real music for today’s SOTD

On This Day

On This Day…

🏇 Horse Way Back Machine

We’re going into the WAY BACK MACHINE for this one folks, because on this day in 1540, the first recorded racehorse meeting in the history of western civilization took place.

At Roodee Fields in Chester, England, the now oldest operational race track, people gathered to race their trusty steeds. The event was brought over by the Romans during their occupation of the Anglo-Saxon-led England. History, sports, Anglo-Saxon, an EPIC on this day.

Trivia Time

🧠 Test your sports knowledge…

Yesterday’s Trivia Answer: (A) 3! This feat has been done 4 separate times, three of which have happened since 2009. The most recent being Grady Jarrett in 2017. Kony Ealy did it in 2016, Darnell Dockett in 2009, and the great Reggie White since 1997!

Before We Dive In…

👀 Here’s Yesterday’s MUST-See’s

• 🏀 AD’s first points with the Mavericks

• 🏀 Jimmy Butler’s first bucket in Golden State

• 🏌️ Min Woo Lee: All vibes

• 🏀 Just getting started here in New OH MY GOD JAYSON TATUM

The Hot Stove

NFL

🏈 SUPER BOWL PREVIEW! CHIEFS & EAGLES!

What to know: Sometimes you blink, and an NFL Season can go by right before your eyes! Today, we buckle up for Super Bowl LIX (59), a rematch from just two seasons ago between the Kansas City Chiefs and the Philadelphia Eagles!

Doesn’t it seem like just yesterday when we had the Isaiah Likely BIG TOE incident to kick off the season? It’s hard to believe the NFL Season is coming to an end, but here we are, at a very familiar sight! When the playoffs started, everybody was talking about the 10 matchups that the fans would want to see. Things like Lions-Ravens, Lions-Bills, Commanders-Ravens, etc. The list genuinely goes on and on. The more things change, the more things stay the same; here we are again. Chiefs-Eagles.

We could go on forever and ever about the storylines here. There’s Kansas City going for the threepeat, Saquon in his first year with Philly, the bad blood from two years ago, the Andy Reid Bowl of him coaching against his former team…..the refs. There’s a whole lot of things going on, but all it means is that there are some spectacular players on the field.

Saquon Barkley, at 2,447 yards on the year, is just 29 rush yards shy of Terrell Davis’ all-time record for combined yards in a regular season and postseason. His numbers have been insane this year, and he has put the team on his back this postseason. This seems like a classic unstoppable force vs an immovable object. Saquon Barkley vs Steve Spagnuola’s defense. The Chiefs have been stout on the defensive side of the ball, and Mahomes, as he always does, has turned it up to another level in the postseason.

Despite the FIREPOWER in this game, I won’t lie to you, because we don’t do that here at the STUMP. It’s hard to get fired up for this game. There’s some serious Chiefs fatigue, and the only reason I enjoy watching the Eagles is Saquon Barkley. I don’t know what the ratings will be on this one, but regardless, there will be history made one way or another.

Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. Fool me ten times, and we’re watching possibly the greatest run in NFL history.

100% of me wants the Eagles to win, but I gotta go with the guys who keep doing it.

Actually.

You know what.

F*CK THAT! GIVE ME SAQUON BARKLEY TO RUN ALL OVER THOSE BOYS IN RED! I WANT THE EAGLES!

FLY EAGLES FLY!

EAGLES 33 - CHIEFS 24 !

Mahomes interception to end the game! Fool me 100 times, I don’t care. Not picking them to win! Not today. Not tomorrow. Not ever.

NBA

🏀 Down Goes AD While Himmy Soars

What to know: The dust is finally starting to settle around the NBA world as all those guys who were traded are actually making their debuts. Yesterday, two all-pros put on their new team’s threads and took the court for the first time: Jimmy Butler and Anthony Davis. And I’d argue it went just about how everyone expected.

Jimmy Butler: His first two points as a Warrior were pretty special, as Butler slammed home a designed alley-oop on the second possession of the game in Chicago, his hometown for many years in the NBA. Butler was extremely efficient, going 7-12 from the field and dropping in 25 points. Jimmy looked fresh, healthy, and motivated in his first game with his new team, something we haven’t seen from Butler all year long.

Anthony Davis: The Dallas Mavericks and their fans got the FULL Anthony Davis experience yesterday in his debut with the team. Davis, who now finds himself as the number one option again, went to work early. He has 26 points, 16 rebounds, 7 assists, and 3 blocks in 31 minutes. It was vintage AD, he was dominant, explosive, and confident. But here comes the kicker: he left the game in the third quarter with an injury. Classic AD. I feel for the guy, I do. But man, this one just writes itself. AD is one of the more injury-prone guys in the league, and it has been by far the biggest knock of his career. Now, after just 2.5 quarters on a basketball player with his new team, he’s already going to miss a few games. I wish I could make these things up, but I just can’t.

This all being said, he was absolutely ELECTRIC in the first half. If you watch the highlights, you can almost feel the emotion of that crowd coming through the screen, it’s near goosebumps! Despite the injury, AD showed just what’s possible in Dallas, The guy’s just gotta stay healthy!!! Dallas-LA playoff series, calling it now, NEED IT!

College Ball

🏀 Gators Chomp, Tigers Roar

What to know: You know it’s a CRAZY day in college ball when not one, but the TWO top-ranked teams in the country lose.

DOWN GO THE TIGERS: Beating the No. 1-ranked team on the road just doesn’t happen! But yesterday it was the FLORIDA GATORS who snapped Auburn’s 14-game winning streak and game the Tigers their second loss of the season! Coming into this game, Florida Head Coach Todd Golden said “This is probably the toughest place to play in the country right now.” He’s not wrong, the basketball culture that Bruce Pearl has steadily ramped up to get to this season is something special. The guy is an absolute firecracker on the bench, but it was the Gators who brought the fire last night.

The Tigers looked good early, but the Gators closed the first half with a 14-2 run in the final 5:58, and they took a 10-point lead into halftime. They ended with 5 players scoring in double digits. It was a balanced attack that got to the Tigers. When the final buzzer rang, it was Florida 90, Auburn 81. This is Florida’s second win against the No. 1 team in the country this year, after they beat Tennessee just a few weeks ago. The Gators are a team that has a lot of fight in them, and they will be a very hard out in March!

CLEMSON SHOCKS DUKE: The Duke Blue Devils went into Clemson, South Carolina looking to become the number one team in the nation following Auburns loss to Florida. Except there was only one problem, they had to play the Clemson Tigers. Cooper Flagg, Duke’s freshman sensation, was bottled up for most of the game, which allowed Clemson to just do enough to scratch and claw their way to victory.

This Clemson team should no doubt be ranked, and the pollsters with have no choice to crown them following this one. They played hard, fought, battled with Flagg, and force others to beat them. Those other guys just couldn’t. Clemson was led by everyone’s favorite Russian, Viktor Lakhin, who scored 22 points in 27 minutes.

Nothing like a good underdog story on a Sunday mornin’.

Quick Hitters

• 🏀 Lakers-Hornets trade gets BOUNCED! Williams not healthy!

• 🏀 Knicks get ROUTED by Celtics! Sheeesh!

• 🏈 Saints set to hire Eagles Kellen Moore to be next HC!

• 🥊 Du Plesses retains belt versus Strickland

What We’re Watching

🏈 Super Bowl 59: The GRANDADDY OF THEM ALL

• Chiefs vs Eagles (6:30 PM on FOX)

🏀 The most important game of the day, obviously…

• 76ers @ Bucks (2:00 PM on ESPN)

• More: Hornets @ Pistons (1:00 PM), Raptors @ Rockets (2:00 PM)

⛳️ Day 4 of the Waste Management Phoenix Open! One of the rowdiest tournaments on TOUR! Going to be a fun few days! Here is a live look at the LEADERBOARD!

🏒 NHL Matinee!

• Lightning @ Canadiens (1:00 PM on NHL Network)

• More: Utah @ Capitals (12:30 PM)

🏀 College Basketball ranked action:

• Men’s: Rutgers @ (18) Maryland (12:00 PM), Temple @ Memphis (2:00 PM on ESPN2)

• Women’s: (5) UConn @ Providence (12:00 PM on CBSSN), (2) South Carolina @ (4) Texas (2:00 PM on ESPN), (21) California @ (3) Notre Dame (2:00 PM), (14) NC State @ (22) Florida State (2:00 PM), (19) Tennessee @ (6) LSU (4:00 PM on ESPN)

⚽️ Fútbol!

• English FA Cup: Plymouth Argyle @ Liverpool (10:00 PM), Aston Villa @ Tottenham Hotspur (12:35 PM)

The Moment You’ve Been Waiting For

Can’t thank you enough for sticking to the end of this thing we call The Daily Stump. If you know anybody who might want this bit of daily juice in their life, send them this link, it would go a long way. Appreciate the hell out of you all!

Trees may get chopped. Stumps hold strong 🌴