Folks, I'm officially a Columbus resident.
My lone request is that God please turn up the heat and sun outside. I sure ain't in Georgia anymore.
Word of the Day: Abide.
TWO-SPORT STAR. Ohio State hoops added a little reinforcements this week with Wright State guard/wing Tanner Holden announcing plans to join the squad. As it turns out, this is actually his *second* chance at becoming a Buckeye; his first was on the football field.
At Wheelersburg High School in southeastern Ohio, he had caught the winning touchdown pass in overtime of the 2017 Division V state title game, was named the state’s Co-Offensive Player of the Year in Division V and was a finalist — already as a junior — for Ohio’s Mr. Football.
Urban Meyer, then OSU’s coach, even sat him down before the Buckeyes’ game with UNLV and asked him to envision playing for the scarlet and gray.
“Oh, I gave it a look for sure,” Holden recalled Thursday night after scoring a team-high 16 points and grabbing nine rebounds to lead Wright State to a 75-62 victory over Cleveland State at the Nutter Center.
...
As for being wooed by Ohio State, Holden said: “It was just a huge opportunity that you can’t overlook. Not a lot of people get that chance.
“But I looked at the longevity of it and I felt if I played basketball somewhere, I could make an impact my freshman year. And at Ohio State or another big-time school I’d have to sit out a few years and kind of just waste time.
“I didn’t want to regret my decision and move away from basketball just to chase a big name or try to get verification on Instagram or Twitter.”
After he averaged more than 20 points on the season and dropped 37 in an NCAA Tournament game, I'm fairly confident in saying he made the correct career choice.
I think it's also safe to say that Ohio State fared just fine at the receiver position without him. So, no harm no foul all around.
PACKED HOUSE. Hey, it looks like people are excited to watch Buckeye football in the 'Shoe again.
Season-ticket sales for Ohio State football games have returned to pre-pandemic levels, according to figures provided to The Dispatch on Friday.
The school has sold 53,606 season tickets to the general public and to faculty and staff for the upcoming 2022 season, associate athletic director for ticketing and premium seating Brett Scarbrough said in an email.
It’s the first time Ohio State has sold more than 50,000 non-student season tickets since COVID-19 began impacting attendance two years ago and is the most sold since selling 53,926 in 2017.
I'm sure it helps that there are five home games this season against opponents that could realistically be ranked in the top-25, including both Notre Dame and Michigan. I'm not sure you could possibly concoct a better and more marketable home slate outside of a video game.
But whatever the reason, it'll be nice to see that concrete cathedral rocking this season.
THE OTHER TERADJA. You would think that a team captain returning who was once a top-50 recruit and is now returning for his super senior season with the team would be fairly easy for fans to identify, all things considered.
Turns out, you'd be extremely wrong!
Then someone told me they remember me from the national championship team
— Teradja Mitchell (@teeraaw__) April 2, 2022
I feel your pain, Teradja. People confuse me for Jacob Elordi all the damn time. It gets so exhausting having to correct them.
AND THE WINNER IS... Don't get me wrong, I'm glad Duke got dumped and Coach K is ending his career with a Final Four loss to his biggest rival. You couldn't have scripted it better. However, the North Carolina victory does set up an extremely anticlimactic end to the 11W Bracket Challenge.
Since not a single one of the 1,092 entries picked North Carolina to win the national title and our first and second-place entries both picked Kansas to win, we have the competition wrapped up before tonight's title game even tips off.
Boring as hell, but here's our top-10 heading into tonight:
We'll wait until it's officially official, but congrats to Jimijmac and TheJarzenski for having the two least bad brackets in our entire pool. Expect an email from me in the next couple of days.
SONG OF THE DAY. "Perfect" by One Direction.
NOT STICKING TO SPORTS. Inside the lavish, top-secret world of private gigs... A grandma lays out 'funeral rules' insisting her guests get drunk and do shots... A mafia hitman escapes from federal custody... A Chinese man has been living at the Beijing airport for 14 years because he doesn’t want to give up smoking and drinking... Why have female animals evolved such wild genitals?...
