April 14, 2026 NYT Connections Sports Edition #568 Hints and Answers

Connections Sports Edition #568 is live for April 14, 2026, and today’s puzzle spans boxing, baseball, football, and basketball. If you’ve hit a wall on any of the four categories, this guide has everything you need — from gentle nudges to the full reveal.

You can play New York Times word games directly on the NYT site.

What Is NYT Connections: Sports Edition?

NYT Connections Sports Edition is a daily word puzzle developed in partnership with The Athletic. Each puzzle presents 16 words that players must sort into four groups of four, with each group sharing a hidden sports-themed connection.

The four categories are color-coded by difficulty: 🟨 Yellow is the easiest, 🟩 Green is moderate, 🟦 Blue is harder, and 🟪 Purple is the toughest. Every day at midnight the board resets with a fresh set of 16 words.

How to Play

Select four words you think belong to the same category and hit Submit.
If correct, those four words are cleared from the board.
Each wrong guess costs you a mistake — you get four mistakes total before the game ends.
You can shuffle the board at any time to spot patterns more easily.
Share your color-coded result grid on social media once you finish.

Category Hints for April 14, 2026 — No Answers Yet

Not ready for the full reveal? Here are vague clues to nudge you in the right direction:

🟨 Yellow: Think about what a fighter wears and uses when training or competing in the ring.

🟩 Green: These describe the angle or motion a baseball pitcher uses to release the ball.

🟦 Blue: A popular last name shared by several famous athletes and sports personalities named Joe, Logan, Nolan, and others.

🟪 Purple: These look like they could be NBA team names — but one letter at the end has been swapped out.

Category Names for April 14, 2026

Still working through it? Here are the category titles without the words:

🟨 BOXING GEAR

🟩 BASEBALL PITCHING ARM SLOTS

🟦 ____ RYAN

🟪 NBA TEAMS, WITH THE LAST LETTER CHANGED

Full Answers for Connections Sports Edition #568 — April 14, 2026

Here are all four groups and every word in today’s puzzle:

🟨 BOXING GEAR — GLOVES, MOUTHGUARD, SHORTS, SPEED BAG

🟩 BASEBALL PITCHING ARM SLOTS — OVERHAND, SIDEARM, SUBMARINE, THREE-QUARTERS

🟦 ____ RYAN — BUDDY, MATT, NOLAN, REX

🟪 NBA TEAMS, WITH THE LAST LETTER CHANGED — BUCKY, HEAP, SPURT, SUNG

What Made Today’s Puzzle Tricky

The Purple category was almost certainly the one that tripped players up most. BUCKY, HEAP, SPURT, and SUNG look like nonsense words at first glance — but change the last letter of each and you get a real NBA team name. BUCKY → BUCKS, HEAP → HEAT, SPURT → SPURS, SUNG → SUNS. The deliberate misspellings disguise the connection brilliantly.

The Blue category was sneaky in a different way. NOLAN Ryan is the Hall of Fame pitcher, REX Ryan is the former NFL head coach, BUDDY Ryan was a legendary defensive coordinator, and MATT Ryan was a longtime NFL quarterback. Knowing your Ryans across multiple sports is required to solve this one.

SUBMARINE in the Green category might have confused players who weren’t thinking about baseball. A submarine pitcher throws with an extreme low-arm slot, releasing the ball nearly underhand — it sits alongside SIDEARM and THREE-QUARTERS as specific pitching arm descriptions.

The Yellow category — BOXING GEAR — was the most straightforward. GLOVES, MOUTHGUARD, and SHORTS are obvious, but SPEED BAG might have been the one word that made some players second-guess the group.

Tips for Solving Today’s Puzzle

1. Start with Yellow. The Boxing Gear group is the most concrete and tangible — physical objects you can picture in a gym. Lock that in first to clear some board space.

2. Think about letter changes, not word meanings. For the Purple category, don’t look for meaning in the words themselves. Say them aloud and imagine swapping the final letter — that’s where the NBA team will emerge.

3. Know your sports surnames. The Blue category rewards broad sports knowledge across NFL, MLB, and beyond. If a surname appears with multiple first names from different sports, it’s almost certainly the “____ [Last Name]” category.

4. Arm slot is a baseball term. If you see SUBMARINE or SIDEARM and can’t place them, they refer to how a pitcher angles their throwing arm — not direction of movement or ball type. OVERHAND and THREE-QUARTERS complete the set.

More Daily Puzzle Help

Looking for other puzzle answers today or from recent days? Check out these guides:

Shahid Maqsood

Shahid Maqsood is a digital entrepreneur and SEO specialist focused on building engaging web experiences. He is the creator of DotWordle, combining creativity with smart, user-friendly design.