Good Morning, Stumpers!

Happy Friday! Another week, another set of Stumps in the books. Today we’ve got Western Conference Finals, CFP Playoff Seeding, the Duke Blue Devils, Snowboarding, Umbrellas, Scottie, some NHL, and Mark Twain. Yeah. We’ve got it all. If you’ve ever heard that list in that exact order before…I don’t know what I’d do. I’d probably just call you a liar! Let’s stop, drop, and roll!

Today’s Rundown

What’s in today’s edition?

• 🌩️ Thunder Continue to Roll…Up 2-0

• 🏈 CFP Changes Playoff Seeding Again! For The Better!

• 🔵 Duke Lands Another Recruit!

• 🏒 The Panthers Are on a Goal Frenzy!

On This Day

On This Day…

🏂️ Snowboarding Down Everest?

In the realm of crazy things that humans do to defy what is and isn’t possible, this has gotta be up there.

On this day in 2001, French mountaineer Marco Siffredi became the first person to ever to snowboard down Mount Everest. He used the Norton Couloir, a steep gully on the north face of the mountain, to descend the mountain. He was successful. One year later, he attempted to descend down a different path of the mountain, but never made it out alive, nor was he ever found. Insanity.

Today’s Trivia

🧠 Test your sports knowledge…

Yesterday’s Trivia Answer: D. Charlotte Hornets! This one is a little less known because SGA was traded on the day of the draft to the Clippers, who selected Miles Bridges the pick after Charlotte.

Before We Dive In…

👀 Yesterday’s Must See’s

• 🦅 Scottie Scheffler just makes me laugh, he’s too good

• 📣 It is LOUD in OKC

• 👎️ Carolina has a ROUGH Conference Finals history

• 🚨 Joel Dahmen with a HOLE IN ONE

🔍️ Stump Spotlight

Western Conference Finals

🍿 Thunder ROLL At Home! Up 2-0!

The Thunder have played 13 postseason games so far. Their record is 10-3 in those contests. The day after their star, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander was crowned as the league’s MVP, they backed it up with another win on their home floor!

The recipe for this Thunder team is simple. The let you hang around in the first half, it’s usually a 6-point game. Halftime rolls around and Mark Daigneault must be giving some of the greatest speeches of all time. I’m talking Herb Brooks Miracle On Ice speeches, because these guys come out FIRING in the third!

It happened against Memphis, it happened against, Denver, it happened all regular season, and now it continues to happen in the Western Conference Finals. OKC outscored Minnesota 35-21 in the third, and this lead was too much to come back from.

Minnesota will need a lot more consistency on both sides of the ball if they want to show some fight back at home. NAW played great off the bench (17), and McDaniels had 22 of his own, but 6 from Randle just isn’t enough, to beat this team once you need to be firing on all cylinders, forget about four times!

OKC seems to have a “Big 10”, big yesterday it was their Big 3 that showed out. SGA had 38 on 12/21 from the field (13/15 from the free throw line for those curious), Chet had 22, and J Dub had 26 points and 10 rebounds.

The Timberwolves brought it to 10 with 3 minutes to play, but that balloons to 15 in a literal blink of eye against these guys. When the Timberwolves look at the tape, they will no doubt talk about turnovers. You can’t lose the turnover battle 14-6 and expect to win, really against anybody.

I find it hard to believe that this team isn’t going to show any fight when this series goes back to Minnesota, but only time will tell. Until then we have another MASSIVE Game 2 tonight in the Garden!

Thunder def. Timberwolves, 118-103 (OKC leads 2-0)

The Hot Stove

🏆️ CFP Going to New Seeding Model

After one year of the 12-team playoff, the College Football Playoff Committee announced yesterday that the seeding model will be replaced.

Last season, the top four seeds were awarded to the Power 4 Conference winners, regardless of where they have shown up previously on CFP rankings. This, to put it lightly, ruffled some feathers. This allowed Boise State and Arizona State to receive byes into the second round, while Texas and Penn State had to play, despite being a higher seed all year long. All four teams that earned a first-round bye in the inaugural 12-team playoff lost their first game. Well, that’s done with. The playoff will move to a straight seeding model this fall, rewarding the selection committee’s top four teams. The top five conference champions will get automatic bids into the playoff, but they aren’t guaranteed any specific seedings. This is a win for the CFP.

👿 Top International Basketball Recruit Chooses Duke

An already impressive Duke 2025 recruiting class just got stronger.

Dame Sarr, an 18-year old Italian phenom, officially signed on to the Duke Blue Devils for the next season. Sarr spent the last few seasons playing with former Duke star Jabari Parker in the Euroleague for Barcelona. He first made his debut with the squad in 2023 at just 16-years old, before become a rotational player for them this past year. He made his debut with the Italian senior national team last November. Sarr looks to fill the role that was left by Cooper Flagg. He joins a trio of three McDonald’s All Americans in the Boozer brothers and forward Nikola Khamenia, along with a host of returning players. Duke once again looks poised to be a top team in all of college basketball, but the question remains, can this team be the one to win it all for Durham?

🏒 Defending Champs Go Up 2-0

It’s been a tough two games to be the man in the net for the Carolina Hurricanes.

The Florida Panthers are on an absolute mission to go back-to-back as Stanley Cup Champions. In two games in Carolina, Florida put up 10 goals, 5 a game, going up 2-0 in the Eastern Conference Finals. Sam Bennett already has 3 goals to his name, while multiple other guys have gotten in on the fun. Frederik Andersen has really struggled in goal for Carolina, so much so that he was replaced by the back up goaltender in the third period of last nights game. On the flip side of it, Florida Panthers goalie Sergei Bobrovsky has been quite good, but honestly, he hasn’t had a lot of work. Last night, Carolina only put 17 shots on goal, just about half as many as they did in the first game. With the series heading back to Florida, the Hurricanes really need to find some momentum hidden some where deep in their soul.

⬇️ Quick Links

• 👏 Ronald Acuna Jr. expected to return to lineup today

• 🙅 Pirates GM shuts down any Skenes trade talk

• ⛳️ John Pak has electric Knicks story to fuel his day one lead

• 🤝 Former Nuggets head coach sets Jokic record straight

What To Watch

🏀 NBA Playoffs

• Eastern Conference Finals: Pacers @ Knicks (8:00 PM)

⚾️ Major League Baseball

• What to Watch: Cubs @ Reds (6:40 PM), Giants @ Nationals (6:45 PM), Guardians @ Tigers (7:10 PM), Dodgers @ Mets (7:10 PM), Padres @ Braves (7:15 PM), Royals @ Twins (8:10 PM), Dbacks @ Cardinals (8:15 PM), Phillies @ A’s (10:05 PM), full schedule

🏒 NHL Playoffs

• West Final: Oilers @ Stars (8:00 PM)

🏀 WNBA

• Sun @ Lynx (7:30 PM), Mystics @ Aces (10:00 PM), Valkyries @ Sparks (10:00 PM), Mercury @ Storm (10:00 PM)

⚽️ Soccer, at home!

• NWSL: Utah Royals @ Orlando Pride (9:30 PM), Seattle Reign FC @ Washington Spirit (10:00 PM on PRIME)

⚽️ PGA Tour: Day TWO of the Charles Schwab Challenge gets underway today in Fort Worth, TX at Colonial Country Club. Here’s the leaderboard!

The Moment You’ve Been Waiting For

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