NFL:
Delanie Walker grabbed two touchdown passes in helping the AFC beat the NFC 24-23 in the Pro Bowl at Orlando. David Carr completed 11 of 15 passes for 115 yards, including a go-ahead, 18-yard scoring pass to Walker with 1:31 remaining. Denver linebacker Von Miller sealed the victory when he caused and recovered a fumble by Rams quarterback Jared Goff.
Patriots fans are getting a chance to cheer on the team before they head to Minnesota to play the Philadelphia Eagles in the Super Bowl. The send-off rally Monday on the NRG Plaza outside The Hall at Patriot Place will include remarks from Patriots owner Robert Kraft and head coach Bill Belichick. Others expected to speak include Tom Brady, Devin McCourty and Matthew Slater.
NHL:
Rickard Rakell scored twice as the Pacific Division knocked off the Atlantic 5-2 in the NHL All-Star final. Pacific goalies Marc-Andre Fleury and Mike Smith teamed to allow just four goals in the two games their team captured to claim the $1 million shared by the winners of the four-team divisional tournament. Canucks rookie Brock Boesser scored in each game for the Pacific to earn MVP honors.
Tennis:
Roger Federer earned his 20th Grand Slam title by defeating Marin Cilic 6-2, 6-7, 6-3, 3-6, 6-1 in the Australian Open final. Federer is the first men's tennis player to win 20 major singles championships, with six coming at Melbourne. The 36-year-old Federer is second-oldest man to win a Grand Slam title in the Open era, topped only by a 37-year-old Ken Rosewall in 1972.
NBA:
Angel Delgado grabbed 19 rebounds to become the all-time Big East leader in conference games, Myles Powell scored 21 points and Seton Hall defeated DePaul 86-70. Delgado has 719 rebounds in conference games, passing former Syracuse and NBA star Derrick Coleman, who had the record since 1990 with 701.
NCAA:
Top-ranked Villanova, third-ranked Purdue and No. 6 Michigan State earned close victories on Sunday. Jalen Brunson scored 31 points in the Wildcats, 85-82 win at Marquette, and the Boilermakers got a career-high 26 points from Isaac Haas in a 74-67 victory at Indiana. Joshua Langford scored 19 points and the Spartans opened the second half on a 20-4 run to turn a 13-point, halftime deficit into an eventual 74-68 win at Maryland.
Shizz Alston Jr. scored 18 points, Quinton Rose had 17 and Temple rolled to an 85-57 win over UConn. Christian Vital finished with 15 points for the Huskies, who were playing for the first time since it was revealed their program is the target of an NCAA investigation.
PGA:
The PGA's Farmers Insurance Open will spill into Monday after Jason Day and Alex Noren remained tied through five playoff holes. Day sank a 6-foot birdie putt on the fifth extra hole before Noren followed with a 5-footer for birdie in darkness. They were tied with Ryan Palmer through regulation at minus-10 before participating in the longest playoff in the 67-year history of the event.
LPGA:
Brittany Lincicome has successfully defended her Pure Silk-Bahamas LPGA Classic title with a late flurry of birdies. Lincicome birdied the final two holes and four of the last five for a 7-under 65 and a two-stroke victory over Wei-Ling Hsu. Lincicome completed a second-round 67 in the morning to begin the final round two strokes behind top-ranked Shanshan Feng. She finished 12 under in her eighth career LPGA win.
MLB:
It was a big night in New York baseball as Giancarlo Stanton and Aaron Judge sat side by side at dinner, together in public for the first time as Yankees teammates. The towering duo joined several of the game's top stars in attendance as the New York chapter of the Baseball Writers' Association of America held its 95th annual banquet.
Alex Cora is the youngest Red Sox manager in decades and the team hopes his ability to relate to his players will help the team on the field. The 42-year-old Cora has been retired only six years and he was teammates with two players on his current roster.
Olympics:
Russia's team was banned from the upcoming Pyeongchang Paralympics on Monday because of its doping past. The International Paralympic Committee said about 30-35 Russians will be allowed to compete in five sports as neutral athletes at the games, which run from March 8-18.
That mirrors the situation for next month's Olympics. The Russian team has been barred, but 169 Russians have been invited to compete. It will be the second Paralympics without a Russian team. The country was also excluded from the Rio de Janeiro Paralympics in 2016. Since then, there has been enough improvement to justify allowing Russians to compete as neutral athletes after extra drug testing, IPC president Andrew Parsons said.
The neutral Paralympic athletes will be allowed to compete in Alpine skiing, biathlon, cross-country skiing, snowboard and curling. Russians had been allowed to compete as neutral athletes in some qualifying events ahead of the games before a final decision, but that came too late for Russia to qualify in hockey.
To be reinstated, Russian officials must either accept or disprove World Anti-Doping Agency investigations which found it ran a doping program. The IPC also requires the Russian anti-doping agency to be fully reinstated by WADA, which is also demanding Russia accepts the investigations' findings. The Russian government denies ever supporting any doping programs.
The Russian Paralympic Committee was praised for fulfilling other criteria which also required it to tighten up enforcement of drug-testing rules and distance itself from what the IPC called government "propaganda."
UFC:
Dana White's rise as the leader of UFC is magnified because of his professional beginnings in Boston as a hotel bellhop and bar bouncer. He helped rehabilitate a local gym that got him into combat sports more than 20 years ago and now leads a $4 billion company that's the top promotion in mixed martial arts. White says like his Boston days, leading the UFC isn't about the money but about doing what he wants.
NWSL:
The National Women's Soccer League says the Boston Breakers will cease operations in advance of the 2018 season. There had been widespread rumors that an investor or group of investors might step forward to save the team. Fans who bought tickets for the upcoming season will be given full refunds. The league will hold a dispersal draft on Tuesday to move Breakers players to new teams.
Skiing:
Mikaela Shiffrin's six-race winning streak in World Cup slaloms ended when she stunned her rivals by skiing out when leading by a full second within sight of the finish. Shiffrin lost rhythm and balance going into a straight combination with six gates left, handing victory to Petra Vlhova of Slovakia. Meanwhile, Marcel Hirscher has claimed his 55th World Cup victory by finishing well ahead of his rivals in Sunday's giant slalom in Germany, the last before the Olympics.
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