Good morning, I’m Dan Gartland. I’ve really enjoyed being back in people’s inboxes this week for the first time in a long time. I’m excited to get back to it after the long weekend.
In today’s SI:AM:
Your holiday weekend TV guide
Memorial Day Weekend is a great time to enjoy the sunshine at the beach, the pool or around the grill. But it’s also a great weekend for sports fans. If you’re looking to cool off indoors at any point this weekend, there will be plenty of sports on TV to keep you occupied. Here are a few of the biggest events.
Indianapolis 500
I have a newfound appreciation for the Indy 500 after being lucky enough to get a behind-the-scenes tour of Indianapolis Motor Speedway a few weeks ago for the latest installment of our “Stadium Wonders” video series.
This year is the 109th running of the Indy 500, one of America’s great Memorial Day Weekend traditions, and track officials are expecting an enormous crowd. All reserved seats are sold out for the first time since the 100th anniversary race in 2016, and attendance could eclipse 350,000. The race will be broadcast on Fox. Driver introductions begin at 11:45 a.m. ET, and the race begins at 12:45 p.m. ET.
Josef Newgarden is the two-time defending champion and could become the first driver ever to win three times in a row. However, this week, Newgarden was embroiled in controversy when he and Penske teammate Will Power were penalized for illegal aerodynamic modifications to their cars. Newgarden and Power will start the race from the back of the grid.
Making this situation even juicier is that Roger Penske not only owns the team Newgarden and Power race for, but he also owns the IndyCar series and Indianapolis Motor Speedway. This isn’t the first time Newgarden and Team Penske have been caught cheating, either. In April of last year, before he won the 500, Newgarden was stripped of a victory in a race that had taken place six weeks earlier due to a violation related to his car’s “Push to Pass” system. (Another Penske driver, Scott McLaughlin, was also penalized for the same violation in that race.)
The violations that led to Penske’s penalties for this year’s 500 also cast fresh doubts on Newgarden’s 2024 victory. Several reporters noted that Newgarden’s car from last year’s 500, displayed at the IMS Museum, showed the same modifications that led to this year’s penalty.
Coca-Cola 600
Even if you’ve gotten your fill of auto racing after the Indy 500, there’s one reason to keep an eye on Sunday evening’s NASCAR race in Charlotte. Kyle Larson will attempt to become the second driver to complete the Indy 500 and Coca-Cola 600 on the same day.
Larson tried to pull off the feat last year, but the rain-delayed start in Indianapolis prevented him from getting to Charlotte in time for the second race. The Coca-Cola 600 begins at 6 p.m. ET on Prime Video.
If all goes according to plan, Larson will finish the Indy 500 around 4 p.m., get in a helicopter to travel the six miles to the Indianapolis airport, fly 430 miles in a private jet from Indy to Concord-Padgett Regional Airport north of Charlotte (an hour-ish flight) and then take a helicopter the remaining three miles to the track.
Only one driver has previously managed to drive the 1,100 total miles of both races on the same day: Tony Stewart in 2001. Only nine other drivers have even managed to take part at all in both races on the same day. With any luck, Larson could join that list on Sunday.
NBA and NHL Game 3s
We’re getting down to the final stages of the NBA and NHL playoffs, with both leagues now deep into the conference final round. By the end of Friday night, all four series will have played two games. As tempting as it is to draw conclusions from those early games, everything can change as these series shift to a new city.
- Carolina Hurricanes at Florida Panthers (8 p.m. ET Saturday on TNT)
- Oklahoma City Thunder at Minnesota Timberwolves (8:30 p.m. ET Saturday on ABC)
- Dallas Stars at Edmonton Oilers (3 p.m. ET Sunday on ABC)
- New York Knicks at Indiana Pacers (8 p.m. ET Sunday on TNT)
Los Angeles Dodgers at New York Mets
Two of the favorites in the National League will meet for a three-game set in Queens this weekend. Neither team is having a dream season (the Dodgers have a plethora of injured pitchers, and Juan Soto’s first two months in orange and blue have been marked by good-but-not-great results at the plate and lots of discussion about a perceived lack of hustle), but this is still a marquee series. All three games will be broadcast nationally. Friday’s game is on Apple TV+, Saturday’s is on Fox, and Sunday’s is ESPN’s Sunday Night Baseball game of the week.
New York Liberty at Indiana Fever
Early-season WNBA games don’t get any bigger than this. Caitlin Clark and the Fever will face the defending champion Liberty at home on Saturday in a game that will be broadcast on CBS at 1 p.m. ET. New York smoked Indiana in their first three meetings last season, winning those matchups by an average of 27.7 points, but the Fever handed the Liberty one of their eight regular-season losses in the final meeting. The Fever have high hopes this season after snapping a seven-year playoff drought last season. Facing the reigning champs is a good early test for their ambitions.
NCAA lacrosse men’s and women’s Final Four
The college lacrosse championships are an overlooked Memorial Day tradition, and this year’s Final Fours have plenty of narrative intrigue.
The women’s side features undefeated UNC, a Boston College team playing in its own backyard at Gillette Stadium in Foxborough, a dynastic Northwestern program that has made six consecutive Final Fours, and a Florida team seeking to reach its first national championship game after losing in the semis last year.
The four men’s teams include two national powerhouses (Syracuse and Maryland), the most successful program in Ivy League history (Cornell), and one team on the rise (Penn State, which has made just three Final Four appearances, all in the last seven years).
Syracuse’s inclusion here is perhaps the most interesting. The Orange are the most successful program in men’s lacrosse history, having won a record 10 national championships. But they haven’t won a title since 2009, and this is their first Final Four appearance since ’13.
Women’s matchups:
No. 4 Florida vs. No. 1 North Carolina (3 p.m. ET Friday on ESPNU)
No. 3 Northwestern vs. No. 2 Boston College (5:30 p.m. ET Friday on ESPNU)
Championship game (noon ET Sunday on ESPN)
Men’s matchups:
No. 5 Penn State vs. No. 1 Cornell (noon ET Saturday on ESPN2)
No. 6 Syracuse vs. No. 2 Maryland (2:30 p.m. ET Saturday on ESPN2)
Championship game (1 p.m. ET Monday on ESPN)
NCAA softball super regionals
The first weekend of the NCAA softball tournament saw one massive upset, as No. 1 seed Texas A&M lost twice against Liberty and was eliminated from the tournament. That leaves Oklahoma as the best team left standing. The No. 2 seed Sooners have won four straight national championships but have a fascinating matchup in the super regional against Alabama. The Crimson Tide won two out of three against Oklahoma in Tuscaloosa in the regular season.
The best of Sports Illustrated
• Ahead of Sunday's first round of the French Open, Jon Wertheim broke down both the men’s and women’s brackets. The focus on the men’s side is clay court maestro Carlos Alcaraz and world No. 1 Jannik Sinner, while on the women’s side, Wertheim shines a light on the potential redemption of Iga Świątek.
• One of Caitlin Clark’s new teammates in Indiana is a veteran who’s completed a full circle career arc after being drafted by the Fever. Emma Baccellieri has more on 33-year-old Natasha Howard’s return to Indianapolis after stints with four other teams.
• The College Football Playoff will not take conference championships into account when seeding the field going forward. Bryan Fischer has all the details on the decision and its possible ripple effects on the CFP's future.
• Liam McKeone provides one lesson each NBA team eliminated in the second round learned during the playoffs.
• Nuggets interim coach David Adelman has been hired on a permanent basis.
• Former Nuggets coach Michael Malone clarified his comments from earlier this week about whether Shai Gilgeous-Alexander or Nikola Jokić deserved the MVP this season.
• Former MLB player Darin Ruf is suing the Reds over the career-ending injury he suffered while playing for the Brewers in Cincinnati.
The top five…
… things I saw last night:
5. Britta Curl-Salemme’s game-tying goal for the Minnesota Frost with 16 seconds left in Game 2 of the PWHL Finals. Curl-Salemme scored the winning goal more than 16 minutes into the overtime period to beat the Ottawa Charge and tie the best-of-five series at a game apiece.
4. Caitlin Clark telling Rhyne Howard “I’m not scared of you” after a chippy play.
3. Jose Altuve’s two home runs against the Mariners after he had gone 20 games without a homer (since April 28).
2. Nationals catcher Keibert Ruiz’s two hits in his first big league game with his parents in attendance. Ruiz, who’s from Venezuela and is playing in his sixth MLB season, had a double off the wall in his first at-bat and an RBI single his next time up.
1. Chet Holmgren’s big dunk all over Donte DiVincenzo as the Thunder stretched their lead over the Timberwolves. Holmgren got a technical foul for taunting, and he earned every bit of it.
This article was originally published on www.si.com as SI:AM | Memorial Day Weekend’s Biggest Games.
