Best of luck to the Blue Jackets as they try to even their playoff series against the Pittsburgh Penguins in Game 2 tonight in Pittsburgh. The puck drops at 7 p.m. ET on FSOH, NHL Network, and something called ROOT.
For full coverage, check out our sister site, 1st Ohio Battery, and be sure to follow them on Twitter, too.
ICYMI:
- Bill Belichick, speaking at Ohio State's coaching clinic, lauded Ohio's history with football.
- Video: Urban Meyer tells a hilarious story of how he became a GA under Earle Bruce.
- Five things to watch Saturday.
- Spring game commitment watch.
- Nike released a sweet pair of Buckeye-themed shoes.
- Ohio State received its spoils for dumping Michigan.
- Johnathan Hankins signed with the Indianapolis Colts.
- Help put a life-size statue of Woody Hayes in his hometown of Newcomerstown, Ohio.
Word of the Day: Agog.
KNEEPADS COMING. Folks, it's with a heavy heart I inform you the heavy hand of BIG GOVERNMENT is at it again.
For years, NCAA footballers have worn kneepads at their discretion. That is no longer the case thanks to a new NCAA rule.
Refs won't call penalties on players for not wearing them; they'll just remove perpetrators from the contest until they bring their wardrobe into accordance with NCAA bylaws.
K.J. Hill isn't a fan.
From the Ohio State beat G.O.A.T. Tim May of dispatch.com:
“The last time I played with pads over my knees, it was probably at my calf muscles or my ankles because I was a small little boy playing at 5 years old,” the Ohio State receiver said.
The next time could come Saturday at Ohio State’s spring game if Big Ten officials choose to enforce a new NCAA rule that demands the knees be covered by the pants and enclosed pads.
[...]
“I kind of just shrugged it off. ... I always play like this,” he said, looking at his knees, which were showing, the bottom of the pants tucked up with the knee pad at the base of his thigh. “I’m not really comfortable with the kneepads actually on my knees.”
If I were on the local team, nobody would wear kneepads until the NCAA caved on this craven law. Unfortunately, that would mean Urban Meyer would remove from the program shortly before asking how the hell I got through the door in the first place.
Will kneepads protect players from ACL tears? I'm not sure. I assume smarter people than me analyzed the physics of it all, thus the NCAA rendering its decision. We'll see how it plays out Saturday.
THE POWER OF COOMBS. Ohio State softball had lost 21-straight games to Michigan, something I didn't know was possible in the 21st century of Jim Tressel and Urban Meyer.
Enter sentient cocaine kilo Kerry Coombs to rectify the matter.
From my high-achieving son, Kevin Harrish, of The Lantern (and Eleven Warriors):
Ohio State softball coach Kelly Kovach Schoenly wanted her team to be extra motivated ahead of last weekend’s matchup with archrival Michigan. So she called in some help from the football team, asking cornerbacks coach Kerry Coombs to speak to her team.
Coombs visited the team on Friday afternoon and delivered a fiery motivational speech that energized the team immediately, Kovach Schoenly said.
“I’m so grateful to him because our girls hear the same thing over and over from me, so to hear it from someone who understands the tradition, somebody who’s all about it … they literally were ready to run through walls,” Kovach Schoenly said.
Conclusion? A 5-0 dumping of that team up north. Looks like we found the next softball coach once Schoenly hangs up her cleats, assuming Coombs isn't the head football coach by then. (Hell, if there were anybody who could oversee two programs, it's gotta be Coombs, right?)
Coombs should speak to every spring program during their NCAA postseasons. The Buckeyes would run the table more than they already do.
TRANQUIL MIKE CONLEY. Who was the highest paid NBA player during the 2015-16 season? You might think it would be LeBron James, but salary caps do the darndest things.
It was actually Memphis Grizzlies point guard Mike Conley.
More impressively, Conley hasn't been called for a technical foul in his entire career.
From wsj.com:
Conley has never earned a technical foul in his entire life. Not in the NBA. Not in college. Not in high school, summer tournaments or any other level of organized basketball. The league’s highest-paid player is also its most polite.
It’s almost impossible to be in the league as long as Conley and completely avoid unsportsmanlike conduct. Conley has played about 23,000 minutes over the last decade. That is 43% more than anyone else in the NBA without a tech, according to Stats LLC. No one with as much experience as Conley has anything close to a clean record. The average number of career technical fouls for those players: 39. In fact, according to their rate of techs per minutes played, Conley should have 24 by now.
“Well, I’m way below that,” he said.
That's the definition of "handling business." Compare that to Jim Harbaugh, who whined about the refs on national television after he lost to Ohio State with Michigan's best team in a decade.
BRAGG WANTS MATTA TO CALL HIM. Many Buckeye fans were crestfallen when five-star Cleveland product Carlton Bragg selected Kansas over Ohio State in 2015.
Kansas suspended Bragg twice in the last two months, and he elected to transfer after the Jayhawks' early ouster from the NCAA tournament.
Now Bragg reportedly has interest in talking to Thad Matta.
Source close to the situation reports Kansas transfer Carlton Bragg is interested in talking with Thad Matta and Ohio State.
— Chip Miller (@BLUEChip_Miller) April 13, 2017
I talked to 11W's resident basketball expert, beat writer Tim Shoemaker, whom you should follow on Twitter. He says it doesn't seem like Matta's style to bring in an oft-suspended player. So don't go ordering those Bragg #69 jerseys from Ali Baba Express just yet.
OSU COMMIT SAYS BAMA GETTING DUMPED. Alabama and Florida State square off on Sept. 2nd in one of the premier out-of-conference bangers of 2017.
Ohio State commit Jaiden Woodbey has seen into the future, and it's bad tidings for Bama:
Florida state is going to beat Alabama on September 2nd , mark my words
— DUBSKI (@JaidenWoodbey6) April 13, 2017
Works for me. I loathe Florida State, but it'd be hilarious to watch Nick Saban have to deal with a two-game losing streak. A pit would open in the earth and swallow Tuscaloosa, not that you'd be able to tell much of a difference between how it looks already.
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