History Awesome / Sports

* Australia's 2023 World Cup is one of the best comebacks in the competition's history with them losing their first 2 games against India and South Africa and then coming back to win all of their games for the rest of the tournament including games against South africa in the semi final and the undefeated India in the final. But the one game worth remembering the most is Australia's game against Afghanistan when chasing 292 to win the game, Australia found themselves in a near unwinnable position when Afghanistan got them down to 7 for 91. Enter Glen Maxwell who, with some great defensive batting from team captain Pat Cummins, overcame a back injury, all over body cramps and the 200 run deficit to score an incredible 201 to win the game for Australia with a huge 6.

** In one corner, we have AC Milan: winners of the tournament in 2003, a side full of world class international players, household names who're more than familiar with winning the tournament, such as Clarence Seedorf, who had won it with three separate teams, Milan included, and Cafu, twice a World Cup winner with Brazil, the second time as captain. They've strolled to the final, easily topping a group featuring giants such as Barcelona and Celtic, before swatting aside Manchester United, Inter Milan, and PSV Eindhoven in the knock out stages, while narrowly losing out on the Italian league title.

* Four years later, almost to the day (February 15), Iowa's Caitlin Clark stood 7 points away from becoming the all-time career scoring leader in Division I women's basketball. Four days earlier, she did Sabrina one better by becoming the first D-I player ever with ''3,000'' points and 1,000 assists, though she missed out on the scoring record after an uncharacteristic scoreless fourth quarter in a road loss to Nebraska. Back home in Iowa City, Clark wasted no time claiming the career record, getting the 8 points needed in the first ''2:12'' of the game. The record-setting points came on one of her signature shots, a three-pointer from the edge of the midcourt logo. But she was ''far'' from done. Clark ended up with 49 points, setting a new Iowa single-game record and leading the Hawkeyes to a 106–89 win over Michigan. Between her points and 13 assists, she had a direct hand in 79 of Iowa's points that night—the most by any D-I women's player in the past 25 seasons.

* February 24, 2020: To say that this day was emotional for Sabrina Ionescu was the grossest of understatements. The Oregon superstar, favorite for national player of the year, began the day in Los Angeles, where she was one of several featured speakers at the memorial service for Kobe Bryant and his daughter Gianna, who had died in a helicopter crash a month earlier. (Kobe had become a mentor and close personal friend to Ionescu in the last two years.) Immediately after the service, she boarded a charter flight to the Bay Area, where the Ducks were set to play Stanford in a key game in the Pac-12 and NCAA tournament seeding race. Also, she was chasing history of her own. Already one of only two players in NCAA history (men or women) with 2,000 points and 1,000 assists, Ionescu was 9 rebounds away from 1,000 in her career. No college basketball player at any level had reached [="2K-1K-1K"=] before. And may we add that she was battling the flu, and barely ate that day. So what does Ionescu do? 21 points, 12 assists, and 12 rebounds, reaching the unprecedented [="2K-1K-1K"=] and leading the Ducks to a 74–66 win. The triple-double extended her NCAA career-record total to 26. That's more than twice the total of the NCAA men's career leader, and more than the next three players on the NCAA Division I women's list combined. It was also her eighth of the 2019–20 season, tying her own single-season record from the previous season. And, even the numbers of the date proved telling. 2: Gianna's number in youth basketball. 24: Kobe's number for the last half of his career with the Los Angeles Lakers. 20: Sabrina's Oregon number.

** On one side, Denver became the ones to finally end Los Angeles's impressive 7-seed run, culminating in a historic sweep for the Nuggets as they achieved not only their first-ever NBA Finals appearance, but also the first-ever 4-0 series victory for the organization. On the back of two-time MVP Nikola Jokic's transcendent playoffs performance so far (averaging a ''triple-double'' across the entire playoffs), along with the returns of both Jamal Murray and Michael Porter Jr., who were both injured prior to the season, and with the pick-ups of Aaron Gordon and Kentavious Caldwell-Pope, they are looking like the favorites of the Finals.

** And in the end, Denver won their first title ever in its 47 year run, on home court. And Jokic would be named playoffs MVP, the first center since 2005 and the lowest drafted person ([=41st=], in fact) to have been named MVP.