Sports

Ice Hockey | Season ends in overtime thriller

The Jumbos thought that they had won. 

Men's Basketball | So Long, farewell

To other teams in the NESCAC, the impending graduation of senior tri-captain forward James Long may not look like a huge loss for the Jumbos. At 6-foot-5, Long is an undersized post player and has averaged just 4.1 points and 3.9 rebounds per game in his four years at Tufts. But ask Tufts fans — or, better yet, ask his teammates — and they will tell you No. 55 is an invaluable asset to the squad.

Men's Ice Hockey | Hockey team prepares for first-ever home playoff game

Women's Basketball | Jumbos look to freeze Polar Bears' offense in semifinals

Men's Swimming and Diving | Jumbos look to crack top three for seventh straight year

Tomorrow through Sunday, the men's swimming and diving team will compete at Williams in the annual NESCAC Championships. Williams is in search of its 10th straight conference title, and after the Ephs' 201-93 regular season win over the Jumbos, it appears that Tufts will not be the biggest threat to their hopes. That title will more likely belong to the Amherst Lord Jeffs, who managed a 145-98 victory over the Ephs in January.

Men's Basketball | Son of Medford, 'The General' is a student of the game

How do you win a battle when defeat nears inevitability? Aim for the war.

Women's Squash | Tufts trending up for team championships

Since falling 9-0 to Amherst in the first round of the NESCAC tournament, followed by losses to Colby and Conn. College in the consolation round, the women's squash team has come roaring back. The Jumbos, who are ranked 23rd nationally, closed out their regular season as winners of three games in a row. They will look to ride that wave of momentum this weekend at the Howe Cup Team Championships at Harvard.

Ice Hockey | Lord Jeffs favored heading into NESCAC tournament

This year, the NESCAC men's hockey tournament will be entering unchartered territory — there will be no defending champion, since Bowdoin's title was vacated after a violation of institutional policy. Nevertheless, the puck will drop this weekend, and No. 4 Tufts will take on No. 5 Williams at home after its best season in the NESCAC era.

Alex Arthur | King Arthur's Court

The Chelsea Football Club is in the midst of a serious crisis. For a team that has seen Russian billionaire owner Roman Abramovich spend more than $750,000,000 on player transfers alone since he bought the club in 2003, Chelsea's performance over the past season and a half has been subpar. With a managerial vacancy to fill, Abramovich paid $17.6 million to F.C. Porto for their 33-year-old superstar Andre Villas-Boas. Villas-Boas, who last season led Porto to a league cup, a first-place league finish and a Europa League championship, was expected to come to Chelsea and bring hardware to the club like his mentor and former Chelsea manager Jose Mourinho. Needless to say, this season has not gone according to plan.

Inside International Soccer | End of era approches in EPL

If sports teach us anything, it's that no one can hang on to a job forever. No matter how good somebody is for years on end, eventually the time will come when the reality of age sets in and new ideas are needed to move organizations forward. In the English Premier League, two such cases are playing out at almost exactly the same time. Sir Alex Ferguson of Manchester United and Arsène Wenger of Arsenal, two of the greatest managers of all time, are nearing ages after which they might need to consider stepping away from the game.

Women's Swimming and Diving | Jumbos break 11 school records, place third at NESCACs

The Jumbos went to the NESCAC Swimming and Diving Championships at Wesleyan with high hopes this past weekend, and they were not disappointed. Tufts posted 11 school records and seven national B-cut times,while earning third place overall.

Sam Gold | The OT

Men's Squash | Tufts falls to Hobart in rematch for Conroy Cup title

Inside MLB | Baseball offseason's winners and losers

While the MLB season officially begins in early April in sold-out ballparks around the country, true baseball fans know that the start of a new campaign really occurs in small towns around Florida and Arizona in mid-February. Now that pitchers and catchers have reported to spring training, it seems appropriate to begin gearing up for the 2012 season. 

Men's Track & Field | Men's squad claims third place at regionals

It was a battle right until the end for the title at this weekend's men's track and field Div. III New England Championships, hosted by Springfield. Ultimately, Bates stood atop the podium, becoming just the second team since 1991 to wrestle the title away from perennial powerhouses Williams and MIT — the first being when the Jumbos ended the streak in 2008. The Jumbos didn't topple any giants this year, but they did secure third place with 89 points, outscoring rival Williams and improving three places from their disappointing sixth-place finish in 2011.

Women's Track & Field | Tufts women place fourth at New England Championships

Despite a solid overall performance at the Division III New England Championships at Smith College this past weekend, the women's track and field team fell just short of its top-three aspirations, finishing in fourth with 64 points. Williams came in first place with 143, edging MIT by a single point. Third place belonged to Bowdoin with 72 points.

Men's Basketball | Fifth-seeded Bates upsets Tufts in NESCAC quarterfinals

The men's basketball team entered the NESCAC tournament this past weekend on a downswing. The Jumbos had dropped three in a row, and they seemed to have lost the rhythm that had earned them 16 regular season wins.

Ice Hockey | Jumbos earn home NESCAC quarterfinal matchup for first time in 12 years

In its final regular season doubleheader, the men's ice hockey team split a pair of home games against conference rivals Bowdoin and Colby to move to 9-8-1 in the NESCAC and, most importantly, clinch its first-ever home playoff berth in next weekend's conference tournament. They got there with a 3-2 defeat of Colby on Saturday afternoon after taking a disheartening 9-2 loss to Bowdoin on Friday.

Women's Basketball | Tufts pulls away from Conn. College in second half for first-round playoff vict

The women's basketball team entered postseason play this past weekend as the No. 2 seed and, in theory, the heavy favorite against Conn. College in the NESCAC quarterfinals. On the court, the Jumbos did not disappoint, taking care of business across the board.

Alex Prewitt | Live from Mudville

here is a sweeping turnaround occurring in Minnesota right now, a story perhaps relegated to the back burner amid the dizzying influx of Jeremy Lin-related puns, LeBron James' absurd statistical season and the battle for Hollywood supremacy. Then again, storylines involving .500 teams rarely attract substantial national media attention, lest the focal point be on a from-nowhere story about an underappreciated Harvard graduate filled with underdog love, layups and unintentional racism.