Good Morning, Stumpers!

Happy Saturday, everybody! We’re feeling generous today! We’ve got All-Star Saturday today with the Skills Challenge, 3-Point Contest, and Dunk Contest. If you’re feeling lucky, just hit reply to this email with who you think wins all three (we’ve got the participants listed below). If anybody gets all three right, we’ll figure out some sort of Stump present to send you on Sunday! NO LIMIT FOR WINNERS!

Today’s Rundown

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

• 🏀 Some All-Star Saturday predictions from the Boys

• 🏒 USA-Canada is on its way

• 🏀 We’ve got a 1 vs 2 SHOWDOWN in College Hoops!

• 🍪 GLUE GUY you won’t see coming!

On This Day

On This Day…

🏀 Clark Sets the Record Straight

It feels like yesterday that Caitlin Clark was setting records left and right in her final season at the University of Iowa. It wasn’t yesterday, it was a year ago today!

On this day in 2024, Caitlin Clark became the NCAA Division 1 women’s career scoring leader in her game against Michigan, scoring a career-high 49 points!

🧠 Test your sports knowledge…

Yesterday’s Trivia Answer: (A) Wrap! Former Mets, Red Sox, and Rangers manager firmly believes that he invented the wrap! And sure enough, many credit him with the invention! There are some other stories of how and when it was first ate, but who knows. Bobby Valentine is a cooler story.

Before We Dive In…

👀 Here’s Yesterday’s MUST-See’s

• 🎤 Jalen Hurts is a QUOTE machine!

• 🏀 Watch out for Steph Castle and TEAM C on Sunday!

• ⛳️ Every pit of this 15-second clip is bonkers!

The Hot Stove

NBA All-Star

⭐️ Our Picks for All-Star Saturday Night

What to know: Tonight is All-Star Saturday Night in the NBA, and you know what that means… high-flying dunks, sharpshooters lacing them from three, and the best of the NBA competing at a semi-high level!

Kia Skill Challenge:

• Team Cavs: Donovan Mitchell & Evan Mobley

• Team Rooks: Zaccharie Risacher & Alex Sarr

• Team Spurs: Chris Paul & Victor Wembanyama

• Team Warriors: Draymond Green & Moses Moody

Drew: I can’t NOT take the Cavs. I mean, what have they lost this year? Not much. I’m taking Donny and Mobley. Donny is a sneaky, really good passer, and Mobley can shoot the rock better than people think. They’re both intense competitors, and I can see them wanting to win at all costs.

Z: I’ll tell you what. I’ve got a funny feeling, just a tiny funny feeling…that WEMBY is coming to this All-Star Weekend hungry! He said in a recent interview that he wants to bring some fire back to the All-Star game, and I think he gets it started right here at the Kia Skills Challenge! Give me Team Spurs!

Starry Three-Point Contest:

• Jalen Brunson, Knicks

• Cade Cunningham, Pistons

• Darius Garland, Cavs

• Tyler Herro, Heat

• Buddy Hield, Warriors

• Cameron Johnson, Nets

• Damian Lillard, Bucks

• Norman Powell, Clippers

Drew: I’m going with the guy who has the chance to get the absolute hottest and never look back: Tyler Herro. He is probably the biggest BOOM or BUST option in this lineup, but man can he shoot the lights out when he’s hot. I like underdogs, and Herro is that in this contest.

Z: Again…I’ll tell you what, when it comes to any sort of all-star game or three point contest, there’s one guy who ALWAYS turns it up a notch for these types of contests, and that’s DAME TIME Damian Lillard. Give me Dame to win this one, capitalizing off of those long-range Starry shots!

AT&T Slam Dunk:

• Mata Buzelis, Bulls

• Steph Castle, Spurs

• Andre Jackson Jr., Bucks

• Mac McClung, G League

Drew: If you know anything about me, you know I like a man who occasionally wears high socks and can jump out of the building. In this case, I’m referring to Andre Jackson Jr. The dude has BUNNIES! I can imagine he’s got something to prove in this contest too, truly making a name for himself. He’s got an AFRO and he can YAM! Gimme Andre!

Z: AJJ is a phenomenal pick for this one, but just to cover all of our Huskies roots…I gotta go with Steph Castle here. He just won the rising stars MVP last night and I say he calls up WEMBY to do something spooky for the dunk contest.

Men’s College Basketball

🏀 One Versus Two: HERE. WE. GO!

What to know: It’s not very often that you get bitter rivals sitting as the top two teams in the country. It’s even less often that you get to see them face off live on national television in conference play. In fact, this will be the first 1-2 matchup in SEC history and only the sixth time since the creation of the AP poll that a 1-2 game features teams from the same state.

Both teams are coming off of massive wins and are playing their best basketball of the season. The No. 1 seed in the SEC standing is on the line — so is the no. 1 ranking in the country. The teams will meet in Tuscaloosa, and the arena might actually experience some roof damage from the amount of sound coming out.

No, seriously, there may be roof damage. The state of Alabama is expected to get severe storms, including tornadoes and damaging winds with gusts up to 60 mph. So if you thought this game couldn’t get any crazier, you thought wrong.

Alabama boasts their veteran star Mark Sears, while Auburn will ride AP Player of the Year finalist Johni Broome into opponent territory.

As for who’ll win? Man, I have NO idea. I always like the home team is these kinds of situations, but Auburn is just so dang good. The basketball Iron Bowl will not disappoint.

Quick Hitters

• 🏀 NBA Hall of Fame finalists released

• 🤝 Shaq returning to TNT on $15M deal

• 🏈 Dolphins release Raheem Mostert

• 🏒 No bigger rivalry than USA-Canada!

What We’re Watching

🏀 NBA All-Star Saturday night!

• 1st Event: Kia Skills Challenge

• 2nd Event: Starry 3-Point Contest

• 3rd Event: AT&T Slam Dunk

⛳️ Day 3 of the Genesis Invitational! We’ve got all of the big names in Torrey Pines in California! Here’s a live look at the LEADERBOARD!

🏒 4 Nations Face-Off!

• Finland vs Sweden (1:00 PM on ABC)

• USA vs Canada (8:00 PM on ABC)

🏀 College Basketball ranked action:

• Men’s: Arkansas @ (8) Texas A&M (12:00 PM on ESPN), Vanderbilt vs (5) Tennessee (1:00 PM on SECN), (16) Wisconsin @ (7) Purdue (1:00 PM on CBS), (6) Houston @ (13) Arizona (2:00 PM on ESPN), (1) Auburn @ (2) Alabama (4:00 PM on ESPN), (22) Mississippi State @ (19) Ole Miss (6:00 PM on ESPN2), (11) Michigan State @ Illinois (8:00 PM on FOX), (15) Kentucky @ Texas (8:00 PM on ESPN)

• Women’s: Georgetown @ (24) Creighton (4:00 PM on FS1)

⚽️ International Futbol!

• English Premier League: Leicester City vs Arsenal (7:30 PM on USA Net.), Fulham vs Nottingham Forest (10:00 PM), Man City vs Newcastle (10:00 AM)

• LALIGA: Atletico Madrid vs Celta Vigo (12:30 PM)

• Bundesliga: Bayer Leverkusen vs Bayern Munich (12:30 PM)

• Serie A: Lazio vs Napoli (12:00 PM)

• Ligue 1: Toulouse vs Paris Saint-Germain (3:05 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 🌴