I’ve done it two times, so now it’s a tradition. For the last Pryor Inquires of the year, I offer up my prediction about sporting events and sports-adjacent events that will occur before we return to campus in August. And, in the spirit of that great annual tradition, feel free to keep a copy of this article so you can tell me how many I got wrong! (Here’s a hint: it’ll be all of them.)
I will keep my current NBA Championship prediction of the Rockets. Even though they lost to the Timberwolves last night (the 21st), everything I said in my previous column remains the same.
In that great competition of Dancing with the Stars, as much as I would like to say that Adam Rippon will win, I’m now quite cognizant of the difference between myself and the majority of the voting public. So I bet that he’ll get the same treatment as Simone Biles and he’ll be defeated by his Olympic teammate Mirai Nagasu instead.
In the NFL Draft, too many teams will pass on Saquon Barkley, the best player in this draft class, in the first round. (How many is too many? One at the least.)
A horse will win the Kentucky Derby, a horse will win the Preakness Stakes, and a Horse will win the Belmont Stakes. However, they will all be different horses, and no one will win the Triple Crown.
And of course, I need to make a prediction for that most august of competitions, the World Chess Championship. I know nothing about chess, but I do know that Fabiano Caruana is from the United States. So that means that I will predict that he wins so that America has its first Champion since Bobby Fischer.
Finally, it is my continued hope that athletes in all sorts of sports continue to use their platforms to make this country and world better. Their voices and platforms are too important for them to just “shut up and dribble.”