SI:AM | One Night, Two Scary Injuries

Plus, a big night in men’s hoops.

Good morning, I’m Dan Gartland. Remember when I said last night’s Sharks-Oilers game would be worth watching? San Jose won, and I don’t know how much worse things can get for Edmonton.

In today’s SI:AM:

😴 A sloppy TNF game

🏆 NFL execs’ award picks

🏀 Men’s basketball games to watch

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Best wishes to both of them

Last night was an unfortunate reminder of how dangerous sports can be. Two athletes, playing two different sports 1,000 miles apart, were hospitalized after serious injuries.

The good news is that there have been positive updates about the status of Virginia running back Perris Jones and Avalanche winger Artturi Lehkonen, but it was still upsetting to see both of them taken to the hospital after seemingly routine plays.

Jones was injured in the third quarter of the Cavaliers’ game against Louisville after catching a swing pass and lowering his head in anticipation of a collision with a defender. The result was a helmet-to-helmet hit that left Jones unconscious. He laid motionless on the ground for several minutes before being loaded onto a stretcher and taken to a hospital. Pat Forde was covering the game in Louisville and wrote that the stadium “grew nearly silent while Jones’s teammates clustered on the field and the situation unfolded.”

Virginia announced after the game that Jones had “regained movement in all of his extremities” but would remain hospitalized overnight as a precaution.

“It’s a very, very difficult reality of the sport that we play,” Cavaliers coach Tony Elliott said in his postgame press conference. “Every play can end that way. You don’t wish that for anybody, and I know one thing, PJ’s a tough young man. He lays it on the line every time he goes out there for this football team. Believing and praying he’s going to have a full recovery. I’m putting that in the Lord’s hands, and I’m asking for that in advance and believing that’s going to be the case.”

A few hours later, another scary situation unfolded in Denver. In the second period of the Avalanche’s game against the Kraken, Lehkonen went face-first into the end boards after a collision with Seattle’s Jamie Oleksiak. Lehkonen was not knocked out, but the timing of the hit left him unable to protect himself as his helmet crunched into the boards. He was bleeding from his face but was able to skate off the ice to the dressing room with assistance.

The Avalanche said during the game that Lehkonen had been taken to a hospital but was alert, responsive and had full movement.

“He’s obviously one of the toughest guys on the team,” Colorado defenseman Cale Makar said after the game. “He’s hard as nails. Especially when he doesn’t get up, you get a little worried because it could be something a little more serious. … Hopefully everything goes well because obviously he’s a huge part for us.”

The situation was especially frightening because Oleksiak’s hit on Lehkonen wasn’t a dirty one. Oleksiak is simply much bigger than Lehkonen (6'7", 257 pounds vs. 5'11", 179), and Lehkonen was moving too fast at the point of contact to maintain his balance after the shove by Oleksiak. It was a normal hockey play with very abnormal results.

Incidents like those—and the death of former NHL player Adam Johnson last month when his neck was cut by a skate blade—are a reminder of what athletes risk every time they play. Jones and Lehkonen are fortunate to have apparently avoided catastrophic injuries, at least in the near term, but the potential long-term impacts of head injuries cannot be understated—not to mention the mental impacts of enduring such a scary experience. These injuries make us grateful for what athletes do for our entertainment.

The best of Sports Illustrated

No. 1 pick Bryce Young hasn’t matched the play of No. 2 pick C.J. Stroud thus far.  :: Charles Rex Arbogast/AP

• Last night’s Bears-Panthers game was a total slog. Meanwhile, C.J. Stroud has been brilliant for the Texans. Gilberto Manzano believes that Stroud’s success should lead to pressure on Chicago and Carolina after they passed on drafting the former Ohio State quarterback.
• Albert Breer polled NFL executives for their midseason awards picks.
• After an underwhelming start to the season, there are finally some high-profile men’s college basketball games tonight. Kevin Sweeney highlighted the five best.
• Ratings for ESPN’s ManningCast have fallen, and Jimmy Traina thinks he might know why.
• Rohan Nadkarni took a closer look at the duel between Nikola Jokić and Stephen Curry, which is becoming a must-see matchup every time.
• The University of Arizona is considering cutting some sports programs in the face of a budget shortfall.
• Days after its upset win over No. 4 Michigan State, the James Madison men’s basketball team won a double-overtime thriller after scoring five points in 3.8 seconds.
• Caitlin Clark had 44 points in Iowa’s win over No. 8 Virginia Tech.

The top five...

… things I saw last night:

5. J.J. Watt’s star-studded dinner with five other pro athletes.

4. Twins Kris and Keegan Murray’s jersey swap after their first NBA matchup.

3. The Virginia mascot’s reaction to a blocked punt.

2. Malik Beasley’s inexplicably terrible defense.

1. Ihmir Smith-Marsette’s 79-yard punt return touchdown.

SIQ

On this day in 1990, the Suns set an NBA record for points scored in a half. How many did they score in the first half of their win over the Nuggets?

• 81
• 90
• 107
• 114

Yesterday’s SIQ: True or false: Adam Dunn holds the MLB single-season record for strikeouts.

Answer: False. In 2012, while playing for the White Sox, Dunn struck out 222 times. But three years earlier, Diamondbacks third baseman Mark Reynolds struck out 223 times. Dunn came perilously close to matching Reynolds’s mark, striking out nine times in his final four games of the season, but came up just short.

Dunn had such a fascinating career. He always struck out a ton (leading the majors in Ks four times), which might make you think he was undisciplined at the plate. But he also led the majors in walks twice, including in that near-historic 2012 season. And he was one of the most consistent power hitters of his era, hitting at least 40 homers in five consecutive seasons early in his career. He won’t wind up in the Hall of Fame, but his 462 career homers rank 38th all time.