Mark La Monica

1 month ago | newsday.com | Mark La Monica

It took just two seasons for Rick Pitino to live up to "St. John's will be back" promises when he was hired to coach the Red Storm men's basketball team. What were they coming back to? Well, national prominence. It was 40 years ago when the NCAA Tournament expanded to 64 teams, and St. John's reached the Final Four. That 1984-85 team coached by Lou Carnesecca, who had guided St. John's to  March Madness in eight of the previous nine seasons, remains the most talked-about team in the program.

2 months ago | newsday.com | Mark La Monica

Super Bowl LIX features Philadelphia and Kansas City meeting in New Orleans on Feb. 9. That leaves us with two weeks of analysis, silly stuff, recipes, commercials and, of course, sports betting to occupy our time. Super Bowl kickoff time is approximately 6:30 p.m., as it has been for years, just in case you still Google that information. In the mean time, as you think about prop bets, here's the history, both recent and longer term, for a few props that have nothing to do with teams.

Jan 17, 2025 | newsday.com | Mark La Monica

As a young man who wanted to become a professional fighter, Chris Weidman once grabbed a random mouth guard off the floor of Ray Longo's gym in Garden City. stuck it in his mouth and entered the octagon. Several years later, the Baldwin-raised Weidman stomped around the cage and flung his mouthpiece somewhere into the MGM Grand Garden Arena as he became the UFC middleweight champion with a surprising knockout of Anderson Silva, then the king of the division and, arguably, the entire sport.

Nov 17, 2024 | newsday.com | Mark La Monica

1. Will it be Jon Jones vs. Tom Aspinall or Alex Pereira or retirement next? Dana White calls the shots when it comes to the UFC, but Jon Jones holds all the chips when it comes to his next fight. White wants Jones, still the reigning heavyweight champion after his TKO over Stipe Miocic at UFC 309 on Saturday at Madison Square Garden, to fight the interim heavyweight champion Tom Aspinall.

Nov 16, 2024 | newsday.com | Mark La Monica

And still. Still the heavyweight champion. Still unbeaten by any opponent inside the octagon. Still the best to ever do it. Jon Jones solidified all of that when he knocked out Stipe Miocic in the third round at UFC 309 at Madison Square Garden on Saturday night. Jones dominated Miocic the entire fight, ending it with a spinning heel kick that landed near Miocic’s liver and sent him collapsing to the canvas.