PLAY BALL Opening weekend of the College Baseball season commenced, so I took a stroll out to TCU’s Lupton Field to watch the Horned Frogs take on the Bearkats of Sam Houston State in their opening three game series. The weather cooperated, with temps in the mid-60s to mid-70s, and the Frogs were successful in opening their season with an impressive sweep of the Bearkats.  For the league as a whole, it was a decidedly mixed bag.   The ...

Georgia football fans can be a very fickle bunch. Of course we are not alone in the college football world. The "what have you done for me lately" crowds are quick to line up to protest when their team falters just slightly. So it was no surprise to me on National Signing Day, that many Dawg fans lined up to hear coach Mark Richt explain how we simply "blew it" with certain players, and ultimately this ...

When driving back to Lawrence from my parents' house after having Sunday lunch with them after church yesterday, my significant other, who is in law school at Kansas, needed to stop by the law building to pick up a couple of things she had accidentally left there on Friday.  So from 23rd Street (Lawrence's main east-west thoroughfare), I made the right turn onto Naismith Drive. In moments I had to—no, I got to—drive by Allen Fieldhouse, the ...

After a promising start to a "rebuilding" season that saw three consecutive road wins against UConn, Syracuse, and Cincinnati, it appeared the Panthers were destined to return to earth. Panther faithful began to curb expectations as Pitt was mired in a mid-season slump. Currently, after this recent five game winning streak that included wins over top-10 teams Villanova and West Virginia, Pitt finds itself in position to win the Big East with a strong finish. ...

As the spring practices begin, we find many football programs dealing with legal and discipline issues.   Before the bowl games started, we saw a flurry of arrests come out of East Lansing, Mich., where 11 Spartans football players were arrested for assault and battery charges. Now that two of those players have transferred, we see new problems arising on other teams.    The University of Oregon has experienced new arrests of their own in their football program.   If you can recall, ...

It's fitting the two teams that faced the most dramatic changes during the past week in terms of the Bleacher Report Top 25 came about those changes after fighting it out on the hardwood in Pittsburgh over the weekend. Pittsburgh, which is untouchable in the Peterson Events Center, knocked off a team ranked third at the time. With the victory, the Panthers have now defeated a team ranked first, second, third, fourth, fifth, and sixth during ...

1. Purdue — 23-3 (11-3) The Boilermakers are still the team to beat this week in the Big Ten. They got their first ever win in Value City Arena against The Buckeyes last week. The Michigan State game next Sunday will be huge for the conference standings.    2. Michigan State — 21-7 (11-4) Wow! I would’ve never though this Spartan squad would lose to an Ohio State team with Evan Turner being partially sidelined with the ...

Here we are in the last week in February, and what do you know, the tourney picture has cleared up. In the last week, Kansas and Kentucky have shown why they’re the favorites (yes, I’ve come around on the Cats), Syracuse has shown both its potential and its limitations, and Villanova has dropped down a peg. At this point, your No. 1 seeds are: KU, UK, ‘Cuse, and Purdue…with ‘Nova, Duke (oddly, the Pomeroy No. 1 ), ...

The end of February is an exciting time for college basketball enthusiasts. March is coming, and along with it comes conference tournaments, Selection Sunday, and of course, the Big Dance. We're still a few weeks away from all that, but we have already entered the always-exciting Bubble season, where hopes and dreams are raised and dashed every day. The Big East has widely been regarded ...

Looks like Huggins thinks it's time for the for the NCAA basketball schools to follow the lead on the football side and split up Division I (ala FCS and FBS football). "We ought to do what football does and go to a Division I-A and I-AA," Huggins said, according to the Times West Virginian . Huggins says cutting the number of team's in the sport's premier level would force schools to make ...