For vacation last month, we usually prefer nature and solitude (and found that later), but being big harry potter fans, we stayed at one of their fancy universal resorts and tried out BiCE one night. We're also not upscale dinner people.

The 10-15 miles of walking in the park beforehand may have tilted the scales a bit, but this was hands down the best pasta dish I've ever had
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Still begs the question of why production fell off. Maybe holding him back to 'spy' on the QB? Maybe the O targeted him as someone to stop? Didn't hear that he was injured in any way, but has to give the NFL pause would expect. Guess we'll see come draft day.

Fungo Squiggly said:

Pressure cooker stock. Saves hours for nearly identical results.

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That's pretty friggin cool. Thanks for sharing that. Gonna have to give it a go, for sure.

College football is “mirroring” college wrestling in many regards. NCAA increased scholarship count to (30) for P4 conferences….up from (10ish) they used to have.

On the surface, it appeared that would help more kids get scholarship opportunity. The opposite has happened though….where schools used to carry up to 50 wrestlers that could get partial scholarships, now it’s reduced to exactly 30. When that is multiplied across all programs, you see a huge net decrease in wrestlers on teams.

Division I football teams can now disperse up to 105 scholarships (in an increase from the 85 limit).

Very few teams will carry more than 75-80 scholarship players anymore because of NIL. We are going to see fewer DI players with a 105 limit, than when the limit was 85, because of NIL.

Back in my day, kids that turned 18 (!) during the season were removed from the team, as OHSAA had a rule that no HS player could compete past the age of 18. Well, it's be a minute (or three), so guess this rule changed. FWIW, daughter had a November birthday. Question was whether to start her, or do another year of Montessori. Board President asked me, "would you feel more comfortable putting a 17 year old on a plane for college?" Game over, and did the additional year. She turned out well, and note aside, make All-American 3x in swimming. Maybe the extra year helped with maturity, both mentally and physically. But there was always the kid who got his drivers license first, merely due to when was born.

Been able to travel a bit for work (and fun) lately, and wanted to recap some of the best stops

Din Tai Fung (Pasadena, CA) - November

When I asked my taiwanese friend where to go and what to get, they raved about this place (as did multiple locals).
- Excellent dumplings
- The cucumber appetizer was unique
-The Old Fashioned stole the show with the flame-smoked orange peel
.... it may have also ruined all future old fashioneds

Kavalan Taiwanese single malt whiskey, house-made Oolong tea syrup, orange bitters, and Luxardo cherry.

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Wonder how many botched landings separate #3 from #6? And wish the football team could/would score as many points as the gymnasts do...

Thanks Gracel....had to chuckle when you mentioned 'NCAA Sportsmanship Codes'.....Those wingnuts cannot keep their own rules straight, let alone establish niceties such as sportsmanship....personal opinion of course. From the length of your response, and the detail, might give me the opinion that I'm not the first to come up with that approach. But, as long as there are rules, there are those that can figure out a way to get past them....or you could just recruit good tennis players, hone them against each other, and take on all comers. As long as they're from New Albany. Go Bucks!

Browns get Defensive Player of the Year and Defensive Rookie of the Year awards.

The Buckeyes are projected to finish with 19 wins, which would mean going 4-5 over the last 9 games. IOW, bubblicious.

Right now they have a stretch with no true road games until 2/22. They probably need to win at least two of these games - UM, USC, UVA neutral and Wisconsin. The road trip combo of MSU and Iowa towards the end of the month looks brutal for these guys. Then a mixture of Purdue & 2 winnable games at the end. Overall, these guys still have a legit shot at the tournament, they just have to hold the line the rest of the way. I think the most likely pathway is win vs USC, UVA, @P S U, vs IU and either Wisconsin or Purdue. Tough but plausible.

I suspect a lot of smaller schools might be trimming their roster sizes some to make more money available for NIL. Scholarships, food, housing, medical, travel, it adds up. There are a lot of unused scholarship spots in the Big Ten.

It will get worse as the grandfathered walk-ons start to age out and their roster spots just disappear.

OHSportsFan said:

Whoever pissed Tilly off…do that before every game.

Came out like he took something personal. I love it.

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I sent him a love letter about being softer than the Pillsbury Dough Boy lounging on a mountain of Charmin tissue paper and his mom agrees.

Seems to have struck a chord

Also, Beanie didn’t graduate at 19. His birthday is the first week of August. He graduated at 17 and turned 18 after graduation.

Ted Ginn was held back in elementary school because he had a learning disability.

Brayton, while talented, is closer to Mike “The Abusement Park” Mitchell than he is to Ted Ginn.

Freak athletes at the HS level, but close to maxed out before the even hit campus.

otisu said:

There's is discussion on 11W that OSU's basketball NIL is ranked 12th in the Big Ten and TCUN is ranked 5th nationally (per something Jardy stated). I have no idea how accurate that is, but if relatively close then it's no wonder May is where he's at and Diebler has the bench he does.

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I'm not an insider by any means, even I can see OSU didn't spend in the last offseason. Tilly is German-born, which means his NIL options are more limited, and logically speaking that had to impact his decision as OSU's meager offering was comparable to what others could offer ... and he was the best transfer OSU got. Cupps and Ojianwuna, both coming off injuries (and Ojianwuna in fact missing this season because of it) were obviously not guys who would command significant dollars last year. Noel was a local guy who played at Wright State, again not someone you would expect would require big money to come to OSU. Bynum is the only guy they brought in that looks like he could have gotten some decent NIL offers from other schools, and it's not even clear he would have been in line for big money. I do believe some hesitancy with uncertainty regarding the Commission coming & restructuring of OSU's NIL collectives, along with the obvious need to devote most resources to football, were factors in OSU being hesitant to release substantial NIL funds for basketball last year.

Onebuckfan said:

Coach Day I don’t have the answer…Arvell has 10.5 sacks through 10 games then none in the last 6 games. Why?

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He had 6.5 sacks through the first 8 games and then none the rest of the season, fyi.

Tilleys grandfather was Hitlers pool man

Fungo Squiggly said:

Saunders instigated all of that. Chatman was defending himself, that’s some weak ass shit.

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Thank you! That was some chicken shit stuff by him. He's lucky chatman didn't 2 piece his ass in the chops

Encouraging to get a convincing win here.

Nice 70-60 win at Washington for the ladies. 26 and 7 for Jaloni with only 2 FT and 13-9 and 5 blocks for Elsa. Love the 9 boards for Elsa, but really hope we can get Kitts back soon.

brodybuck21 said:

any BP'ers in the Pensacola area...

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I want to be about now

82-62 final. Tilly with 19, Bruce 17, Mobley 15 and Chatman 10.

Meanwhile, the women just wrapped up a nice 70-60 win at Washington that shouldn't have been that close. Elsa played big with 13-9 and 5 blocks.