Wednesday Skull Session

By Chad Peltier on March 20, 2013 at 6:00 am
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Welcome to your Wednesday Skull Session. 

While it's always a good day to wake up a Buckeye, you're currently in the midst of both spring football practice and the beginning of the NCAA basketball tournament (by the way, get those brackets ready!). 

Buckeye multitaskers will have to shuffle between tournament predictions, Noah Spence eating people updates, and news about hot-shot recruit visits.

I'm miserable at multitasking (unless it comes to making coffee, breakfast, and studying at once), but I'll be giving it a go anyway to keep up with the top two-sport school in the country

I've already told you what I'm hoping to see during spring practice, so here are some of my favorite updates: 

  • I don't know about you, but I couldn't be happier to see Tyvis Powell making some news and running with the ones at Star. Tyvis is one of those guys who always wanted to be a Buckeye, so it's great to see him with early success
  • So how about Rod Smith? It'll be a pretty big battle for that backup running back spot behind Hyde. 
  • It's encouraging to hear that JT Barrett is not only practicing, but is already throwing "beautiful" over-the-shoulder passes. 
  • Also, the Spence-Diesel Washington tandem is going to fearsome next season. 

 MARCH MADNESS BEGINS. Tournament action has already begun, with the NIT and First Four giving us some exciting action already. 

An experienced St. Mary's squad cut down Middle Tennessee and North Carolina A&T took down Liberty, but the real action was in the NIT last night, as last year's national champion Kentucky Wildcats fell to Robert Morris

Kentucky couldn't get it going against the regular season Northeastern onference champions, losing 59-57 off of two free throws made in the last ten seconds. “This is humbling,” Calipari said. “They think we’re supposed to win 30 a year, 35 a year, go to the Final Four, win a national title.”

The Big Ten hopes to avoid Kentucky-ing this year in the Dance, but Gregg Doyel is confident that won't happen. In fact, he put four Big Ten teams in the Final Four: 

When in doubt, pick the better starting point guard or the tougher coach. If one team has both of them in the same game? Then that game is a gimme. And that's how I ended up with four Big Ten teams in the Elite Eight, and three in the Final Four, and two in the national title game. Great point guards. Tough coaches.

And I think you'll like what he has to say about Ohio State:

Ohio State has the toughest coach in the country in Thad Matta...Combine him with Aaron Craft, throw in a scoring savant like Deshaun Thomas, and the Buckeyes aren't losing again until next season.

 DECISION TIME FOR RECRUITING DEREGULATION. The NCAA has officially backed off of two new recruiting rules that many coaches have come out against. 

Matt Hayes discusses the irony of the potential recruiting rule changes – why should we protect the kids when they control the process by flipping commitments all of the time? The relaxed recruiting rules would make recruiting a wild west, deregulating the amount of contact schools have with recruits. Would this allow: 

...grown men to take advantage of young men—or [will] those true do-gooders get their way and protect high school recruits from the overwhelming burden of ignoring a phone call?

Hayes decries what he calls the hypocrisy of the coaches, who argue against deregulation but then mail hundreds of letters to recruits. However, if the rules really do change, how could any coach afford to not send hundreds of letters? 

DANE NOOOOOOOO FIGHT THE URGE TO CELEBRATEDane, don't you know there's no celebrating in football? 

 STOICS UNITE. Since we've now entered that holy period where college football and basketball overlap in the spring, it seems like a good time to ask the important comparative questions.

For Dennis Dodd, that is "Why doesn't football have basketball's swag?" 

Dodd argues that basketball allows for more expression than no-fun, militaristic football. In fact, behavior that gets you thousands of Twitter followers overnight in basketball will just get you flagged in football. 

"The kids [in both sports] are different," said Big 12 commissioner Bob Bowlsby. "A lot of military analogies in football are appropriate -- the esprits de corps and regimentation, trying to get more people going the same way. I worked with both groups all along. Basketball kids tend to be a little more loosey-goosey. Football kids tend to be a little more structured."

What do you think would be the equivalent of the slam dunk contest in football? The "throw a football with more rad-ittude competition?" Or how about the "make sideline toe-drag catches with swagger-off?" No, it would probably just be a touchdown dance-off – and for that, we're already covered.  

 THE BUCKET WILL LIVE. With Rutgers and Maryland coming in to the Big Ten, the head honchos have had to redo the divisions. The results are in and it's come down to an epic tug of war for Indiana and Purdue. Don't worry though – their rivalry "Bucket" game will be preserved regardless. 

The problem is that the divisions will be divided by the time zone line, but eight schools fall on the eastern side and just six are in the Central time zone. All of the dominoes have fallen except for Indiana and Purdue, so now it's just a question of competitive balance. 

The worry is that the East is far better, with Ohio State, Michigan, Michigan State, and Penn State, while the West only brings Nebraska and Wisconsin as consistent threats to win the B1G championship. Most are now advocating that Purdue go to the western division. But if the rumors are true...

 BREAKFAST LINKS. Have you dreamed about the end of Saban's reign?... Former five-star quarterback transfers out of Notre Dame... Time for some more debate about different pay-for-play models... Community-source your mascot... Cool guy Kingsbury throws out the first pitch... Deep life... Don't date early, apparently.

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