Wright, Villanova face Moore challenges in Final Four | Sports Daily Newsletter

Jay Wright knows how important Justin Moore is to Villanova and the role he has played in the team’s run to the Final Four. But with Moore sidelined with a torn Achilles tendon, his team must move on without him and prepare to play Kansas in the Final Four.

Wright was keen to make sure reporters knew Moore’s role when he hopped on Zoom on Monday to speak to the national media. He said Moore, who underwent surgery at 6:30 a.m. Monday, was unique to the program. He called him the most important player on the team and one of the most complete in the country.

But Wright also knows his team has to continue its run through the NCAA Tournament. And he had to communicate that while also handling his star player with care.

“Other guys can step up, and we can be a good team without him,” Wright said. “I didn’t want to say that first because I don’t want to undervalue what this guy is.”

Tell us where you expect the Sixers to finish in the Eastern Conference standings: sports.daily@inquirer.com

Howie Roseman addressed the media Monday at the NFL owners’ meetings and said that the Eagles are working to build the team rather than being in a “go-for-it situation” when they do everything it takes to win now.

This strategy makes sense. Russell Wilson and Deshaun Watson didn’t return whatever interest the Eagles might have shown them, so the team can keep developing Jalen Hurts and see if he can grow into that top-tier quarterback. The Eagles also have 10 draft picks in April and can make upgrades with young players. Right now, there are more steps to take if they want to eventually reach their goal of becoming legitimate Super Bowl contenders.

Next: Nick Sirianni and Jeffrey Lurie are scheduled to meet with the media today.

Bobby Dickerson is in his fifth decade in baseball, the last four mostly as an infield coach. He has the respect around baseball as one of the best in the game. All of that experience will be put to the test this season after he rejoined the Phillies. His task: Improve baseball’s worst infield defense. Oh, and do it with potentially the same cast of players as last year. Manager Joe Girardi is counting on Dickerson to “make a pretty substantial difference.”

Barring a trade, Didi Gregorius appears to be the shortstop. That would leave Alec Bohm and Bryson Stott to compete for the third-base job.

Next: Opening-day starter Aaron Nola will get another tune-up at 1:05 p.m. Tuesday against the Yankees in Tampa. The game can be streamed live on MLB.com.

Kate Scott and Lisa Byington made history in the fall when the Sixers and Milwaukee Bucks, respectively, announced their historic hirings. They broke barriers as the first women brought on as full-time television play-by-play voices for a professional men’s sports team. “There’s only one person on this Earth who understands everything I’m going through, and that’s Kate Scott,” Byington said.

On Tuesday, they will complete another first when they call Sixers-Bucks and anybody watching the game on the teams’ local stations or on NBA League Pass will hear a woman calling the action. As The Inquirer’s Gina Mizell notes, Scott and Byington have made history and supported each other along the way.

Next: The Sixers play against the Bucks at 7 p.m. Thursday at the Wells Fargo Center with Scott and Byington on the call (NBCSP).

Playing in the NHL is every young boy who plays hockey’s dream. But imagine making your NHL debut in your hometown.

The Flyers’ Noah Cates will do just that on Tuesday, as the team’s new signee will lace them up against the Minnesota Wild in what he called a “picture-perfect” scenario. Cates says “he can’t even put a number on” how many family members and friends will be there to see him play.

Speaking of traveling fans, the Flyers were well represented on the previous stop of their road trip, as more than 400 fans made the trek to Nashville for Sunday’s game against the Predators. Olivia Reiner has the story on a trip that was two years in the making.

Next: The Flyers play the Wild on Tuesday at 8 p.m. (NBCSP+)

Christian Pulisic is no longer the U.S. men’s national team’s boy wonder, known as much for his vast potential as he is for the image of him collapsed on the field in Trinidad and Tobago five years ago, helpless to prevent the World Cup absence of the USMNT. Now a veteran leader who has established himself with one of England’s top club teams, Chelsea, Pulisic has the help of numerous young players (some of whom may be as talented or even more so than him) in advancing the cause of the USMNT’s return to the World Cup.

Still, few, or perhaps none other than himself could feel more keenly the ghosts of the memories of the qualification failure or the weight of all those expectations for redemption. Yet Pulisic shouldered that willingly, stepping up to score three goals for the U.S. in the crucial Panama match, the last one a cheeky, confident combination of first touch collection, second touch to beat two defenders, and third touch a perfectly placed shot past the goalkeeper. As Jonathan Tannenwald writes, it was perhaps a soccer shimmy to shake off any proverbial residue of that one disastrous evening.

Gio Reyna’s current club (and the European club that launched Pulisic), Borussia Dortmund, boosts its campaign against anti-Semitism, with an aim toward the soccer world.

The glory days of Philadelphia’s soccer club, the Ukrainian Nationals, may have passed, but the organization is rising to a new, vital challenge as war-torn Ukraine suffers.

Since Villanova began playing basketball in 1920, how many coaches have led the program?

A) 8

B) 10

C) 12

D) 15

We compiled today’s newsletter using reporting from Mike Jensen, Jeff McLane, Mike Newell, Gina Mizell, Keith Pompey, Scott Lauber, Olivia Reiner, Gustav Elvin, Sam Cohn, and Jonathan Tannenwald.