Gregory named top player

YOUNGSTOWN — Youngstown State sophomore Sophia Gregory has been named the Horizon League Women’s Basketball Player of the Week after a dominant two-game stretch that included one of the nation’s top performances in nearly a decade.

The conference announced its weekly awards Monday. It is the second time this season Gregory has earned the honor.

The West Branch High School graduate averaged 21.5 points and 18 rebounds in road wins over two teams that entered the week tied for third place in the Horizon League standings. She totaled 43 points and 36 rebounds while shooting 19 of 26 from the field. Gregory also added eight assists, five steals and three blocks.

She averaged nine more rebounds per game than any other player in the conference last week and ranked third in the league in scoring and field-goal percentage. Nationally, she tied for third in rebounding average for the week.

Gregory highlighted her performance with 37 points and 19 rebounds in Saturday’s victory at Purdue Fort Wayne, shooting 16 of 19 from the floor. According to HerHoopStats.com, it was the first 37-point, 19-rebound game by a Division I player since Columbia’s Camille Zimmerman accomplished the feat on Jan. 27, 2017.

Gregory scored 14 points over the final 5:28 to help secure the win and clinch the No. 2 seed in the upcoming Horizon League tournament. She also recorded three assists, three steals and two blocks in the game.

Earlier in the week, Gregory grabbed 17 rebounds in a win at Northern Kentucky, tying for the second-most rebounds in a game by a Horizon League player this season. She added six points, five assists, two steals and a block.

Gregory’s 37-point effort was the highest scoring game by a Youngstown State player since Heidi Schlegel scored 37 on Feb. 21, 2015. Her 19 rebounds were the most by a Penguin since Lilly Ritz had 19 on March 2, 2023.

Youngstown State will close the regular season Wednesday by hosting Detroit Mercy at Zidian Family Arena.

Olympics were ratings hit

The Milan Cortina Olympics averaged 23.5 million viewers in the United States, making them the most-watched Winter Games since 2014 with a 96% larger audience than the Beijing Games four years ago.

NBCUniversal said the average includes combined audiences on NBC, Peacock, CNBC, USA Network and other digital platforms. It covered the live afternoon (2-5 p.m. EST) and prime-time (8-11 p.m. EST/PST) windows.

The figures are based on Nielsen’s Big Data + Panel ratings (through Feb. 19), Nielsen’s early figures for the final three days (Feb. 20-22) and digital data from Adobe Analytics.

Viewership numbers for the United States’ 2-1 overtime victory over Canada in men’s hockey on Sunday morning were not expected until Tuesday. The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation said on Monday that 8.7 million were watching in Canada when Jack Hughes scored the golden goal in overtime.

“I feel in so many ways that these Winter Olympics exceeded our expectations. We were reminded that the Olympics are the most exciting, unpredictable and biggest stage in sports,” said Molly Solomon, the executive producer of NBC’s Olympics coverage. “And what I think came together in Italy was that the settings were stunningly beautiful, the access we had to the athletes and their lives was unprecedented. And then you take the technology, the first-person view drones, the audio, and it took the audience inside the stories in fresh, meaningful ways.

“And Team USA, I mean, the results, you’ve seen the numbers for the medals and things. America wants to see how their team’s performing, and it’s the best performance in an overseas Olympics. Everything lived up to the billing, and some of the superstars had riveting, dramatic performances. Not all of them gold, but that’s the Olympics, right?”

NBC broadcast the Super Bowl, the Olympics and the NBA All-Star Game in February, the first time a network had all three in one month. It also premiered “Sunday Night Basketball” on Feb. 1.

According to Nielsen, 215.6 million U.S. viewers tuned in for at least one of those events. Audience reach numbers have been higher under Nielsen’s new rating system since the minimum viewing requirement was reduced from 5 to 3 minutes.

Super Bowl 60 averaged 125.6 million viewers across NBC, Peacock, and Telemundo, the second-most-watched program in U.S. history. The All-Star Game had its highest audience in 15 years, averaging 8.8 million, and the Lakers-Knicks game on Feb. 1 averaged 4.5 million.

“I have to say it’s probably better than we expected. This doesn’t happen through luck or happenstance. This happens through just really good planning and then execution across the month. So really happy overall and I don’t think it could have gone better, honestly,” NBC Sports President Rick Cordella said.