Connections Sports Edition Hints Today: Friday, November 13, 2026

Updated: Friday, November 13, 2026 · Hints reviewed by Omer Liban · New puzzle daily at midnight local time — free from The Athletic. · Puzzle editor: Mark Cooper.

This page has every level of help for the NYT Connections Sports Edition puzzle of Friday, November 13, 2026: 3 spoiler-free hint tiers that narrow things down step by step, followed by the complete answers with explanations — each behind its own tap-to-reveal card.

In a hurry? Jump straight to today's answers ↓

Stuck on today's Sports Edition? Same drill as regular Connections: work the tiers below from a single answer per group up to the full explained solution, revealing only as much as you want.

Connections: Sports Edition works exactly like regular Connections — four colour-coded groups from easiest 🟡 yellow to trickiest 🟣 purple — but every category is sports: players, teams, rules, moments. It's made by The Athletic and free to play.

Today's Sports Connections hints (November 13, 2026)

1One answer from each group

Yellow (easiest): one of its answers is “LAP”.
Green (easy): one of its answers is “DURHAM”.
Blue (tricky): one of its answers is “OCHE”.
Purple (trickiest, usually wordplay): one of its answers is “RIPKEN”.

2Category hints (no answers)

Yellow (easiest): the theme is “Portion of a sporting event”.
Green (easy): the theme is “Associated with duke”.
Blue (tricky): the theme is “Darts terms”.
Purple (trickiest, usually wordplay): the theme is “Cal _____”.

3One full group revealed

Yellow (easiest) — the connection is “Portion of a sporting event”, and its four answers are: LAP, ROUND, PERIOD, QUARTER.

Sports Connections answers — November 13, 2026

★Today's full Sports Connections answers, explained

Yellow (easiest) — the connection is “Portion of a sporting event”. The answers: LAP, ROUND, PERIOD, QUARTER.
Green (easy) — the connection is “Associated with duke”. The answers: DURHAM, COACH K, CAMERON INDOOR, LAETTNER.
Blue (tricky) — the connection is “Darts terms”. The answers: OCHE, BULL'S-EYE, NINE-DARTER, BIG FISH.
Purple (trickiest, usually wordplay) — the connection is “Cal _____”. The answers: RIPKEN, RALEIGH, GOLDEN BEARS, CLUTTERBUCK.

Today's puzzle, explained

The purple group is all words that follow "Cal" to make famous names or things: Cal Ripken (the Iron Man himself), Cal Raleigh (the Mariners catcher), Cal Golden Bears (UC Berkeley's athletic teams), and Cal Clutterbuck (the NHL player). The sneaky part is that "GOLDEN BEARS" looks like it should be about UC Berkeley athletics in general, but it's really just filling in that "Cal ___" pattern. "BIG FISH" was probably your biggest trap here—it sounds like it could be a darts term (since you've got OCHE and NINE-DARTER in blue), but it's actually part of "Cal Big Fish," which... okay, that one's more of a stretch, but the blue group already had enough legitimate darts terminology to pull you away from it. Meanwhile, QUARTER and PERIOD both describe parts of sports events AND could theoretically fit darts (a quarter of the board, periods in a match), but they belong safely in that yellow group about sporting event portions.

Yesterday's Sports Connections answers

★ Yesterday's answers (Nov 12)

Yellow (easiest) — the connection is “A western conference nba player”. The answers: SUN, LAKER, WARRIOR, ROCKET.
Green (easy) — the connection is “Teams in new york state”. The answers: ORANGE, SABRES, LIBERTY, BILLS.
Blue (tricky) — the connection is “Premier league managers”. The answers: EMERY, ROSE, LAMPARD, MOYES.
Purple (trickiest, usually wordplay) — the connection is “_____board”. The answers: SURF, SKATE, WAKE, SNOW.

Missed it? Yesterday's Sports Connections hints & answers (Nov 12) →

Next in today's routine: Soccer Connections → · every game's answers on one page. New puzzle daily at midnight local time — free from The Athletic. Bookmark this page for tomorrow's hints. Or play Sports Connections on the official site.

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Sports Connections — common questions

How is Connections Sports Edition different from regular Connections?

Same rules — sort sixteen answers into four colour-coded groups — but every category is sports: players, teams, rules, kits, moments. It's made by The Athletic (the NYT's sports newsroom), it's free, and it lives on The Athletic's site rather than the NYT Games app.

What time does Sports Connections reset?

At midnight in your own local timezone, like Wordle — not at midnight Eastern like regular Connections. Wherever you are, the new puzzle arrives when your clock strikes twelve.

What do the colours mean in Sports Connections?

The same difficulty ladder as regular Connections: yellow is the easiest group, then green, then blue, and purple is the trickiest — often wordplay or a sneaky link between the leftover answers.

Previous Sports Connections puzzles

Full Sports Connections archive (185 puzzles) → · How to play Connections: Sports Edition →