Gardy Time!

LAFAYETTE — Evan Eschmeyer first spotted Kristina Divjak as she walked off the basketball court at Northwestern University. He was a 6-foot-11 junior center, she was a freshman shooting guard. He thought she was hot. “Oh, please! I was wearing a sweatshirt!” she recalled with a hearty laugh. So began the Eschmeyers’ hoops fairytale. Evan and Kristina starred at Northwestern, fell in love, got married, had three kids, and extended a lineage of basketball royalty with deep roots in America’s heartland. The Eschmeyer family — mom, dad, the twins, Alexandra and Elijah, and youngest daughter Mila — recently gathered in the Peak to Peak Charter School gym to talk about basketball, their excitement over the Pumas’ upcoming season and Nikola Jokic. “We love the ‘Joker,’ ” said 9-year-old Mila. “We sure do, but it would be annoying for people to watch Nuggets games with us,” Kristina said.

Jerry Jeudy was better in space than NASA. But he never posted stats out of this world. Jerry Jeudy ran elite routes, but the destination rarely finished in the end zone. Jerry Jeudy needed consistency, and could not overcome the carousel of chaos with head coaches (four) and starting quarterbacks (seven). As the Broncos’ first-round draft pick in 2020, Jeudy was not bad.

The day after the Nuggets won the championship, Nicodemus Christopher received a text that he knows shouldn’t have surprised him. But it was the day after the Nuggets won the championship, so yeah, it kind of did anyway. “Mike is blowing me up,” Christopher recalled, “about getting in the weight room: ‘Bro, offseason started.

Every pass-rusher in the NFL knows a simple, imperfect reality. Sacks trump all. Sacks get you noticed. Sacks get you accolades. Sacks get you paid. It’s ironic, then, that amid a breakout season, perhaps no play signifies Nik Bonitto’s growth better than one in which he did something antithetical to sacking the quarterback. He ran the other way. In the first quarter last Sunday against Las Vegas, the Raiders were backed up deep and faced third-and-11 from their own 7-yard line. That’s hunting territory for a young pass-rusher.

Around the AFC Dolphins freeze over. Miami was hot entering Thanksgiving but froze Thursday night at Green Bay. The Dolphins had won three straight but now are 5-7 and two games behind the Broncos for the No. 7 seed in the West. The Dolphins could run the table from here, but they’ve still got a trip to Houston and a home game vs.

A look at 30 Colorado high school girls basketball players to keep an eye on during the 2024-25 CHSAA season. Kinley Asp, jr., PG, Air Academy: The speedy, athletic 5-foot-10 guard transferred from Colorado Springs Christian, where she averaged 14.3 points, 6.3 rebounds, 5.8 assists and 4.2 steals while winning two state titles.