Thursday's Best Performances

A young Hayden Pike thought he had hockey figured out. Having just attained the strength to consistently lift the puck and aim for the top corners of the net, Pike was primed for roller-hockey glory in his Lakewood neighborhood. That was until 9-year-old Nicole Hensley, whom Pike recruited to play with him and other boys in games in the neighborhood cul-de-sac, put on her goalie gear and started snuffing out his top-level attempts with her left-handed glove. “I remember thinking I was supposed to be able to score now with those shots,” Pike recalled.

The pundits aren’t pulling any punches. The wise guys at FanDuel put the Rockies’ win total for 2025 at 59 1/2. In ESPN’s “Way-too-early 2025 rankings,” the Rockies are 29th out of 30 major league teams. “Colorado is coming off consecutive 100-loss seasons and, given the strength of the rest of the division, might be hard-pressed to avoid a third straight such season,” ESPN opines. Ouch.

Team Grading The Week has a New Year’s resolution this month we think everybody can get behind: more Russell Westbrook. The stats don’t lie. In the three games before Friday night’s Nuggets-Nets showdown, Beastbrook averaged 18.0 points, 8.7 rebounds and 6.3 assists and was generally a Swiss Army Knife of awesome.

To get an idea of the unique talent that is Pat Surtain II, all you have to do is look at the variety of pass-catchers the Broncos asked him to cover this season. The list includes speed merchants, wily vets, young guns and big, physical specimens. There were five Pro Bowlers, including tight ends young (Las Vegas’ Brock Bowers) and old (Kansas City’s Travis Kelce), precision route-runners like Cincinnati’s Ja’Marr Chase and Baltimore’s Zay Flowers, and even a former pro and college teammate in Cleveland’s Jerry Jeudy. The one thing they all had in common: Surtain consistently locked them up. “The film doesn’t lie,” Broncos safety P.

Goodbye, reality. Hello, reality show. Is there any coach that makes more sense in Las Vegas than Deion Sanders? It is better for our state if Sanders remains at Colorado, where he has made the Buffaloes relevant again. But almost every NFL hiring cycle features an outside-the-box selection. And this season, if it’s not Notre Dame’s Marcus Freeman going to the Chicago Bears, would it be that crazy to see Sanders landing in Las Vegas? He has yet to receive a contract extension from CU, even as he has created a compelling argument that he deserves more than $8 million per season. And Las Vegas could work, while admittedly requiring suspension of belief.

By STEPHEN HAWKINS ARLINGTON, Texas (AP) — Jack Sawyer had the kind of moment that will live on long past his playing days with Ohio State. Of course, one more victory would make it that much sweeter. Sawyer stripped Texas quarterback Quinn Ewers — his former roommate — and returned the fumble 83 yards for the clinching touchdown in a 28-14 victory over the Longhorns in the Cotton Bowl on Friday night, giving the Buckeyes a shot at their sixth AP national title. “We talked before the game about how do you leave a legacy is to become your old legend.