Today’s NYT Links: Sports Edition Tips, Answers for January 20, #119

Search for the latest regular responses to Connections? Click here for today’s Connections tipsas well as our daily answers and hints for The New York Times mini crosswords, Wordle and Strands puzzles.

Today’s Links: Sports Edition caught me again with the purple category. Fortunately, if you do well with the previous three, this one will resolve itself by default. Read on for hints and answers for today’s Connections: Sports Edition puzzle.

For now, the game is in beta, meaning the Times is testing it to see if it’s popular before adding it to the site’s Games app. You can play it every day for free for now — and then we’ll have to see if it sticks.

Read more: The NYT has a link game for sports fans. I tried it

Tips for today’s Connections: Sports Edition groups

Here are four tips for grouping in today’s Connections: Sports Edition puzzle, ranked from the easiest yellow group to the difficult (and sometimes weird) purple group.

Yellow Group Tip: It doesn’t go up

Green Group Tip: Pin ten

Blue Group Tip: Empire State Schools

Purple Group Tip: Sounds like a hoop

Answers for today’s Connections: Sports Edition groups

Yellow group: decline

Green Group: Browsing Terms

Blue Group: New York Colleges

Purple group: NBA player name homophones

Read more: Wordle Cheat Sheet: Here are the most popular letters used in English words

What are today’s Connections: Sports Edition answers?

The yellow words in today’s links

The theme is decline. The four responses are drop, dip, slide, and drop.

The green words in today’s relationships

The topic is surfing terms. The four answers are barrel, crest, swell, and wave.

The blue words in today’s relationships

The topic is colleges in New York. The four answers are Colgate, Columbia, St. John’s and Syracuse.

Purple words in today’s relationships

The topic is homophones of names of NBA players. The four answers are Barns, Connect, Heart and Hero.