calibuck said:

Count me as one who believes that if a zebra decides the game, it is our fault.....shouldn't be in their hands for a win/loss. Every game is played with what the zebras allow. No contact, play through it, ticky-tack, or body blows. Each crew decides the tempo. Had many a game where had three fouls before halftime. But also believe if you end a game with one foul, you didn't play hard enough.

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Meh, that's true if it's the same on both ends!

Total respect and love to Bruce. Hope he just catches a supernatural fire for the next month!

Crazy Ivan!! Come on son time i unleash the Baltic Thunder on em

DZ83CK said:

Iowa coach McCollum has won 31 consecutive conference tournament games. Not jinxing him at all here.

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Iowa can suck it but respect to McCollum. Seems like he's likable enough

Iowa coach McCollum has won 31 consecutive conference tournament games. Not jinxing him at all here.

If we lose to Canadia just dissolve the freaking league already

Since he never laced them up once this year, an injury exemption should be automatic? Guess someone somewhere could just keep a kid on the bench, and gain another year by claiming injury.....guess I don't think that way, but hey. Would assume that tOSU had his regular doctor visits memorialized, so whomever grants that extra year has some documentation....

Count me as one who believes that if a zebra decides the game, it is our fault.....shouldn't be in their hands for a win/loss. Every game is played with what the zebras allow. No contact, play through it, ticky-tack, or body blows. Each crew decides the tempo. Had many a game where had three fouls before halftime. But also believe if you end a game with one foul, you didn't play hard enough.

Last week, we crunched budget data from FY25 to get an idea for what kind of money a school needs to allocate for an operating budget in order to compete in the NCAA Tournament in Women’s Soccer. We pulled the FY25 total operational spend for over 180 public schools, did some #math, and explained the outliers (like why Utah State, of all schools, reported the highest operational budget).
I know it’s almost March Madness, and we’ll get to men’s and women’s basketball shortly. Today, I’d like to share the information we’ve put together for college baseball.

First, some notes on the methodology​

Every D-1 and D-II school files an itemized athletic department budget report with the NCAA, called the MFRS report. This report breaks down how athletic departments generate and spend money, itemized by sport. It’s not a perfect data set, but it’s the closest thing we have in college sports to a unified data set.
We obtain these documents by filling hundreds of Open Records Requests. Because of those requests, and because of our data analysis, we’re able to compare spending across more than 170 schools.
The data you’ll see referenced here, and in all future newsletters in this series, comes from the Total Operational Expenses line item from that report. That number includes all the money a school spends on coaching salaries, administrative salaries, scholarships, travel, software, recruiting, and all sorts of other operational expenses. It does not include athlete revenue share payments. The numbers we are talking about here are not the “salary cap” for each team.
This data also comes from FY25, or July 1 2024-June 30 2025. That would be the 2025 college baseball season, when LSU won the national title, beating Coastal Carolina.
And finally, we can only obtain data from schools that respond to open records requests. Private schools, like Stanford, Duke, Yale, etc do not have to respond to FOIAs, and thus do not publish their MFRS reports. A few public schools, like Pitt, Temple, UCF, Delaware and Delaware State, are exempt from state open records laws. A handful of other schools have not yet responded to our repeated requests, either because they limit FOIAs to in-state residents (so we have to pay a stand-in), or because they’re simply very slow at responding to requests.
We are currently missing data from Air Force, Alabama State, Alabama A&M, Alcorn State, Army, Coppin State, ETSU, Georgia Tech, Florida, FIU, Jackson State, Morehead State, Morgan State, North Alabama, Texas Southern, Troy, South Alabama, South Carolina Upstate, UNC-Asheville, UNC-Greensboro, UC-Santa Barbara, UL-Monroe, UMBC, UT-Chattanooga, Tennessee State, and UT-Martin. If you happen to have the FY25 MFRS report for any of these schools, I’ll happily give you free premium Extra Points in exchange (and/or give you any of ours).

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One year ago:

A message from Incoming Executive Vice President and Provost Ravi V. Bellamkonda​

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Last Summer:

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Today:

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He'll be a stud on the interior of the OL

Meet President Ravi V. Bellamkonda​

Ravi V. Bellamkonda serves as the 18th president of The Ohio State University. He was appointed by the university’s Board of Trustees on March 12, 2026.

As president, Bellamkonda leads the state’s flagship, public research university with six campuses in Ohio and a student body of more than 67,000. Ohio State’s largest campus is in Columbus, the state capital and one of the fastest growing cities in the country. Additionally, the university has campuses in Lima, Mansfield, Marion, Newark and Wooster, as well as the nationally recognized Wexner Medical Center, a global research and innovation enterprise, and a leading athletics program.

He played an integral role in crafting and leading early phases of the Education for Citizenship 2035 strategic plan through its core academic excellence initiatives aimed at enhancing student success, investing in faculty and strong programs, and advancing Ohio State’s leadership in artificial intelligence. Under his leadership, the university launched AI Fluency, a bold initiative to integrate AI into the undergraduate experience; a new Career Center of Excellence designed to better connect students with internships, jobs and success after graduation; and faculty hiring programs that are attracting top scholars to the university.

Bellamkonda, who trained as a bioengineer and neuroscientist through a PhD at Brown University and a postdoctoral fellowship at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, joined Ohio State in January 2025 to serve as executive vice president and provost. As chief academic officer, he oversaw the university’s core academic enterprise, which includes 15 colleges, four regional campuses and more than 8,800 faculty. He also led a university-wide portfolio of programs and initiatives in the Office of Academic Affairs and Enterprise for Research, Innovation and Knowledge that support innovative and lifesaving research as well as faculty and student success in Columbus and on campuses across the state.

Prior to Ohio State, he served as the provost and executive vice president for academic affairs at Emory University. At Emory, Bellamkonda launched and led several major initiatives, including faculty recruitment and retention efforts focused on arts and humanistic inquiry, and artificial intelligence in areas such as medicine, business, law and more. He helped lead the Student Flourishing initiative, which included curricular innovations, and the Emory Purpose Project focused on well-being and ethics.

Before becoming Emory’s provost, Bellamkonda served as the Vinik Dean at Duke University’s Pratt School of Engineering. Previously, he was the Wallace H. Coulter Professor and chair of the Department of Biomedical Engineering at Georgia Institute of Technology and Emory University, and he also served as associate vice president for research at Georgia Tech. He began his academic career at Case Western Reserve University, where he served as an assistant and associate professor.

He is an internationally renowned biomedical researcher whose lab has invented novel approaches to treat pediatric and adult brain tumors. He won numerous honors from professional societies in biomedical engineering and biomaterials. Bellamkonda served as president of the American Institute of Medical and Biological Engineering from 2014 to 2016.|

In 2021, he received a National Institutes of Health Director’s Transformative Research Award for his work, supported by the National Cancer Institute. The tumor monorail device developed in his lab has been recognized as a breakthrough technology by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. He is the scientific founder of Exvade Bioscience, a startup that is pioneering first-in-human trials for the tumor monorail device. In December 2025, the first patients were enrolled in a Phase 1 clinical trial to evaluate the device, designed to safely monitor recurrent glioblastoma.

Additionally, Bellamkonda is an elected Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science; International Academy of Medical and Biological Engineering; and Society For Biomaterials; as well as an elected senior member of the National Academy of Inventors. He has been awarded 11 U.S. patents.

President Bellamkonda and his wife, Dr. Lalita Kaligotla, are the proud parents of two adult children and C.J. the goldendoodle.

Since we are pretty much firmly in now I really hope that Saint Louis/VCU don't win the A10 tourney, Utah State doesn't win the MWC tourney, and Miami OH doesn't win the MAC tourney. Give me all of the bid steals to push teams like Auburn completely out.

I might barf if Auburn backs in at barely above .500 because everyone else keeps losing.

Jagdaddy said:

I have the good fortune to be in Bonaire for a SCUBA diving trip. This is a fried whole snapper:

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I love whole fish fried in a skillet, best way to eat it.

Between 77 and 83 and sunny to partly cloudy for the next week because I’m in Bonaire.

I have the good fortune to be in Bonaire for a SCUBA diving trip. This is a fried whole snapper: