Skull Session: E.J. Liddell Can't Handle Spice, Why Sevyn Banks Left Ohio State, and Juwan Howard Still Makes Excuses

By Kevin Harrish on March 10, 2022 at 4:59 am
We're ready for hoops in today's skull session.
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Good news!

Word of the Day: Gasconade.

 SEE YA, SEVYN? The last season of Sevyn Banks' Ohio State career was about as bizarre as it gets.

First off, he was listed on several preseason mock drafts as a potential first-round pick and then just mysteriously didn't play in the first two games with very little explanation as to why. He worked his way back onto the field and it got to the point where he was playing more snaps a game than Cameron Brown. But then he was unavailable for the final three games of the season.

Then, after the season, nobody seemed to know what the hell he was doing. He kept delaying his decision longer and longer until Ryan Day finally announced in one of his press conferences that Banks would be "moving on" from the team. Even then, Banks was in the comments of our Instagram post accusing us of posting the news before he'd made a decision.

It was a wild ride, but thankfully, Austin Ward of Lettermen Row was able to explain at least a little bit about what was going on.

"Sevyn Banks had made his intentions clear that he was going pro all throughout the season. He participated and walked on Senior Day. He was dealing with a significant hip injury – that's what kept him out the last two weeks of the regular season, that's what kept him out of the Rose Bowl. He was still intending to go to the NFL Draft – he received an invitation to the Scouting Combine.

"After he got some feedback about the actual severity of the injury which was compared to Bo Jackson's hip, he said 'well, it may be in the best interest of Sevyn Banks to try to come back.'

"Well, he wasn't enrolled in classes for Ohio State when the semester started. Ohio State, their scholarship situation – they had already moved on because they had been consistently told that Sevyn Banks would not be part of the roster moving forward.

"There was a conversation in February with the Banks family and the Ohio State coaching staff and they laid all that out. You can try to file an appeal and a waiver, because you were not enrolled in classes, to try to get back into Ohio State if you want to do. It's going to be hard – there's no guarantee. Also, his health may not even allow him to play next year.

"So, he entered the transfer portal. To the best of my knowledge, he has not found a place to play. That's going to be the hardest part beacuse nobody knows when he's going to be able to play on that hip."

That certainly clarifies a lot (though maybe not everything), and I sincerely hope he's able to bounce back and find somewhere to finish his career and prove himself for one more season. Nobody deserves to go out like that.

 CAN'T TAKE THE HEAT. E.J. Liddell brings plenty of sauce to the court, but he absolutely was not ready for the spice in the Indianapolis-style shrimp cocktail sauce.

The reaction was incredible.

To be fair, Andy Katz warned him!

For those traveling to Indy who haven't experienced the glory that is St. Elmo's shrimp cocktail, it's worth the hefty price and that burn in your mouth when that horseradish cocktail sauce hits your tongue.

If $60 steaks ain't your thing, I highly recommend Kilroy's – if the Long Islands don't kill you, the breadsticks will take a few years off your heart health. In a good way!

 NO EXCUSE, BUT... Juwan Howard is officially back and yesterday, he had his first press conference since he was reinstated.

Naturally, he took a very apologetic and remorseful tone and said things like "I take full ownership for my actions" and that there were no excuses and all that sort of stuff. 

I saw lots of Tweets that looked like this:

Very cool, good for him! But that first part bothered me a bit. I mean, how sincere is it to say that you aren't making any excuses for your actions when you literally open up your presser by saying that you could come up with a thousand excuses?

So I decided to watch the full press conference myself. And less than two minutes in, I was audibly laughing.

“I could come with a thousand excuses, but I’m not. I take full ownership for my actions. I could talk about the timeout. We could discuss the pull on the arm. We could talk about the words we exchanged with coaches – but all that would be excuses."

He opens up his press conference by insisting he's not going to make any excuses, then immediately rattles off several examples of the excuses he's definitely not going to make – as if bringing them up unprompted doesn't count as "making excuses."

To his credit, he did say he sought professional help and will continue to do so. I genuinely applaud that. But I can't get over the fact that this dude just got up to the podium and took "full ownership" of his actions before offering several reasons why it actually wasn't his fault in the very next sentence.

Never change, Juwan.

 PURE MICHIGAN. Jim Harbaugh's known for taking his team on some crazy offseason trips, like Italy, France, and South Africa.

Well, he's at it again.

... kind of.

The only thing that would make this any more perfect is if they were doing it all in RVs.

 SONG OF THE DAY. "Something In The Way" by Nirvana.

 NOT STICKING TO SPORTS. A Japanese 'killing stone' splits open, unleashing a legend of a trapped demon... Project Icarus is creating a living map of Earth’s animals... Ernest Shackleton's lost ship is found in the Antarctic... A man that was given a genetically modified pig heart dies... How wrongful arrests based on AI ruined three men's lives... Is "fake it till you make it" good advice or a setup for failure?... A man wins $75,000 after tracking down and suing telemarketers over illegal robocalls... 1 in 5 people consider OnlyFans to afford living in New York City... 

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