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The Utah Utes (+240) won the conference last season after starting 1-2, and despite returning a good deal of production, they currently hold the second-best odds to win the Pac-12 behind USC (+220). Can the Utes repeat as Pac-12 champs, or will another school get in their way? If you’re interested in getting involved in the Pac-12 futures markets, Sporting News has you covered. Below, we’ll break down the top teams, a couple of sleepers, and a long shot who could win the Pac-12 championship....

The conference thrives on top-to-bottom competition, and that’s reflected in the coach rankings. A total of 10 Pac-12 coached ranked in the Top 50. The conference, however, lacks a national championship coach. Washington’s Chris Petersen led the Huskies to the College Football Playoff, but the question remains as to whether one of these coaches can lead that national title run. MORE: Ranking FBS coaches 1-130 How do the Pac-12 coaches stack up?...

Arizona no longer has DeAndre Ayton leading the way, Oregon is promising but largely unproven, and UCLA just lost freshman center Shareef O’Neal for the season. It is the only Power 5 conference without a top-10 team in Sporting News’ preseason top 25, though Arizona, Oregon and UCLA all made the list. MORE: Sporting News’ updated preseason top 25 While the league might not attract much national attention — except when ESPN announcer Bill Walton is on the broadcast — it’s shaping up to be a hard-fought race to the top....

All that begged the question: Had he been too nice during his first five NBA seasons? “Maybe,” he said. “A little bit.” NBA ALL-STAR 2018: Teams, rosters, how to watch Too nice in Orlando, apparently, where he had been the No. 2 pick in the 2013 draft but was never able to take control of a young team scrambling for a leader. By his third and final season with the Magic, he’d spent a quarter of a season as a sixth man, losing his starting backcourt spot to Evan Fournier and rookie Elfrid Payton....

All-Star forward Paul George, who had a career-best 43 points in the last game, was cold-handed for most part of the game, finishing with 19 Wednesday. Lance Stephenson and Luis Scola got 15 and 14 points, respectively, for the Pacers. Roy Hibbert added 13, reports Xinhua. Derrick Favors had a team-high 22 points and 13 rebounds for the Jazz. The Pacers stayed on top spot of the league with a 17-2 record after the win....

RELATED: Overwatch 2: Pharah Guide (Tips, Abilities, And More) But the pros are keen to discuss how the reticle can be altered in Overwatch 2. Although functionally the same, some players just vibe better and have better accuracy with different types of crosshairs. Every gamer should at least know how to change the crosshairs and decide for themselves if the default crosshair is for them. Changing Crosshairs Menu > Options > Controls > General > Reticle...

In a recent interview, Overwatch 2 lead hero designer Geoff Goodman confirmed that at one point in development, the original Overwatch had a ping system similar to what players have now in Apex Legends. The team ultimately cut the feature prior to release, not finding it super helpful in moment to moment gameplay and replacing it with the current communication wheel. RELATED: Overwatch 2 Reveals New Hero Sojourn While Goodman wouldn’t fully commit to the ping system in the newly announced sequel, the new PvE cooperative story and hero missions does present a new opportunity....

The big Overwatch 2 leak from ESPN claims that Echo will be hero 32 for the series. It’s unclear if Echo will also be added to the original Overwatch as a playable hero, or if she will be exclusive to Overwatch 2. We should learn a lot more about Echo and what role she will play in Overwatch 2 come BlizzCon, but in the meantime, we do already know some minor details about the hero....

Most rumors put the release date for Overwatch 2 for sometime in 2021, with a beta releasing before the full launch. This seems increasingly likely after a comment from Overwatch League Vice President Jon Spector. RELATED: Overwatch League Championship Sees San Francisco Shock Take Second Consecutive Win In a YouTube video update, Spector talked about the Overwatch League, which began in 2017, and what to expect moving forward. The fourth season of the league will be beginning in the spring of 2021, which is later than normal....

Of course, Overwatch 2 wouldn’t be a true sequel without adding new heroes to the existing roster. Sojourn and Junker Queen have already been confirmed as free heroes for everyone, but a third character - Kiriko - is locked behind certain walls. While the concept of gating heroes isn’t unheard of in other video games, Overwatch 2 could definitely learn from one of the biggest hero shooters out there: Apex Legends....

A different approach was selected so that the developers can focus more on the sequel that will be released in the upcoming months. The first phase of the Anniversary Remix event will start on April 5, 2022 at 6:00 pm BST UK time, 10:30 pm IST, and 10 am PDT. All details related to Overwatch Anniversary Remix Event 2022 Volume 1 Release date and time Since Blizzard Entertainment’s main focus is Overwatch 2 at present, the Anniversary Event of the 6v6 team-based action game will have a slightly different approach....

Deathmatch pits eight players against each other in a free-for-all style mode with an Overwatch twist to the scoring system. One point is awarded to the player that manages to land the killing blow, though players will also lose a point for killing themselves with environmental of self-inflicted damage. First player to reach 20 points in total wins the match. Team Deathmatch follows a similar pattern only the eight players have been grouped into two teams of four....

Releasing a video on the subject over at the official YouTube channel, Blizzard’s game director Jeff Kaplan went into some length about this Overwatch feature. Kaplan gave players an overview of exactly how competitive play works, as well as running through the development changes that have taken place since the game’s beta. In particular, it seems as though Overwatch players felt that the game’s competitive mode was not quite competitive enough, and to help solve this issue Blizzard decided to get rid of the tier-based progression system within competitive play....

As one of the original heroes found in Overwatch, Lucio has remained a popular pick for many different team compositions. As a support class hero, he provides passive healing for his team. In addition, he can use his Crossfade ability to switch from healing his teammates to giving them a speed boost. This can prove useful for breaking through difficult choke points on the various maps found in the game....

By far the most significant addition in this latest Overwatch patch is the Game Browser, building off of the Custom Game mode. Blizzard originally called it the Server Browser in their Developer Update video three weeks ago, but it’s the same thing as the Game Browser. It allows players to create or join custom games with unique rule-sets, such as recreating competitive environments or crazy modes Blizzard can’t provide on its own....

This is according to Overwatch game director Jeff Kaplan, who recently discussed the game’s next hero, though didn’t provide many concrete details. “Hero 26 is very playable and very fun internally, and that’s all I’ll say,” Kaplan said. “It’s not coming out as soon as you think, but Hero 26 is already amazing.” Kaplan’s comments indicate that even though Hero 26 is supposedly “very playable and very fun,” it may be a long while before fans actually get their hands on the new character....

This rumor stems from Twitter user Metro, which gives it a bit more credibility than it would have otherwise. For the uninitiated, Metro leaked a lot of Overwatch 2 news prior to the game’s reveal at BlizzCon 2019, and many of their claims were correct. Now Metro says that a big Overwatch update is coming in a few weeks, and that it will “very likely” include hero bans. Presumably, this would give players the ability to vote on banning a certain character or characters from use in a match, similarly to how we’ve seen it implemented in other games....

In a recent interview, Kaplan has stated that he and his team have “frequent and ongoing discussions about” this possible feature. Kaplan further iterates that having player’s progress shared between console and PC would be “something [the team at Blizzard] would like to explore.” Implementing this feature would seemingly do a lot of good for players, as it is fairly common for dedicated players to have Overwatch on their PC and at least one console....

At the Toronto Fan Expo, we sat down with the assistant art director of Overwatch, Arnold Tsang, to discuss how certain Overwatch heroes evolved from the conceptual stages to the finished image. He revealed that when the support sniper was in the conceptual stages, it was more than her gender that was in the air: the conceptual character almost ended up giving off some strong Bane vibes in both look and function....

One such online complaint was made by Overwatch forum poster Deventh who took to the game’s online community to leave what could certainly be seen as far from constructive criticism. In a General Discussion post they created under the heading “Anyone else getting fed up with the balancing going on?”, the user complained that the team responsible for the game’s balance should be replaced. Although the thread attracted a lot of other less-than-happy Overwatch players, it was Deventh that suffered Jeff’s wrath this time....