Mississippi (44th), Indiana (43rd), Central Florida (42nd) and Utah (40th)
First Four Out:
Texas Tech (39th), McNeese State (45th), Nebraska (46th), Nevada (47th)
Conferences with more than one bid:
SEC - 13 (8 hosts), Pac 12 - 7 (2 hosts), Big 12 - 5 (3 hosts), ACC - 5 (2 hosts), Big Ten - 4 (0 hosts), Sun Belt - 3 (1 host), AAC - 2 (0 hosts), 26 1-bid conferences (0 hosts).
The 16 hosts were the top 16 in RPI at the time of the update. The 2-seeds were 17-32 in RPI at the time of the update.
Some movement among the seeded teams to reflect rankings, but I don't think anywhere else, except in the decision to bump Texas Tech.
Oklahoma State was 10th in RPI, but Kentucky 28th (5th from bottom of the second group) and Michigan 37th (5th from top in the third group). Big Sky champion Northern Colorado was 164th.
Michigan is in a representative regional, I think.
Michigan played Northern Colorado twice in a February tournament, beating them 9-1 in five innings on February 23 when Erin Hoehn allowed one baserunner (a home run) and struck out four. Lilly Vallimont and Avery Fantucci (her only home run before the grand slam ended the Maryland game) homered for Michigan against their number-two pitcher.
And again, 4-1, the following day. Lauren Derkowki and Jessica LeBeau combined to allow seven hits and eleven baserunners. They trailed, 1-0, entering the sixth inning, when Keke Tholl hit a two-out grand slam. The Wolverines only managed two hits total - both in the sixth inning - against Northern Colorado's top pitcher, Erin Caviness (17-8, 2.32). That's a bit scary, but, as we know, the young hitters on this team really didn't awaken until the Big Ten season started.
Derkowski's (and all of Michigan's) pitching stats for the Big Ten tournament:
19 innings, 13 hits, 5 runs, 5 earned, 12 walks, 20 strikeouts (202 on the season), 1 hit batter, 1.84 ERA, .200 batting average against, 348 pitches.
She really stepped up for the team.
Indiana will be right on the middle of the bubble for an NCAA bid. Hope to see the Big Ten take a fourth bid there. Bri Copeland certainly gave everything she has - it would be nice not to have her career end on that dive into first.
Unlucky to give up a run, because Derkowski is sharp today. But already at 37 pitches, and the top of the order is coming up in the third.
Does coach Tholl trust Hoehn? She pitched well against Indiana earlier this season. Second time through the lineup might be tough on Derk, who is not used to this kind of pitching load.
Indiana's the only team I've seen that often uses that once-through-the-order strategy with pitching. Copeland and Kleiman throw very different pitches, and Copeland has to be wearing down.
17-pitch inning for Derkowski. Looks like Indiana will sacrifice some at bats now to tire her out.
Avery Fantucci is starting at designated player for Ava Costales. First lineup change in a long time, but I think it's a good move given recent play. Fantucci was a huge get for Michigan - hoping she'll play her way into the starting lineup next season.
Huh. I thought "For the Washington game, I got a free trial of Fubo" was clear enough.
In case it wasn't, Fubo is a streaming service that includes ESPN, which carried the national championship game. I did, indeed, install the Fubo app on a Roku and successfully found ESPN amid the massive number of channels in time to watch the game.
And experienced catharsis.
But I don't think it's worth spending $1,200+ a year to have access to those hundreds of channels 24/7.
Gabi Salo, a senior from Escanaba, will probably start for Wisconsin on the mound. She was Miss Softball for Michigan in 2020. Her stats on the year: 5-4, 3.42, 59 1/3 innings (only 14 1/3 in the Big Ten season), 55 strikeouts. She has not pitched well lately. Hopefully, Michigan can take advantage. Derkowski will start for Michigan.
Nebraska and Indiana are headed into extra-innings (3-3 - hope you didn't bet the over, thought for sure this was going to be a slug-fest). So, expect a later start for Michigan - a half hour after the conclusion.
There's a little bit of weather out there. If anything, there's a small chance of a short lightning delay (about 20%, according to the NWS), not enough to have people waiting a long time or messing with field conditions.
I've saved thousands over the last five years. The key is in asking yourself "do you really need that service?" And the answer is always no.
For the Washington game, I got a free trial of Fubo. That would have been painful to miss. And I did miss out on watching Blake take us home, though I followed it closely online and in the game thread here.
OK. So two more NFL games I'll never see. Three games a week is plenty. And what I don't have is 400 channels I pay $100 a month for that I'll never watch. Unless I want to wade through the mass of commercials on Pluto for free.
One thing I do like a lot, though. My library card gives us access to 15 "tickets" for Kanopy every month. That, an antenna, and Tubi for when I'm truly wasting time, is just fine.
I had remembered yesterday to adjust central time to eastern time. Forgot today, sorry. Games are at 5:00 pm eastern and 7:30 pm.
I think this might be must-win for Michigan and the NCAAs. Two straight opponents with sub-100 RPIs does considerable damage to strength of schedule, which is 50% of the RPI calculation in softball. I have tried to examine changes in RPI, day-to-day, and there isn't a lot of data. Plus the pages that claim to track it show differing calculations.
When I report RPI, I use the chart the NCAA displays on its site. This was updated today, and shows Michigan is still 37th. It also shows Ohio State dropped seven spots after losing its opening-round game to Wisconsin.
Since RPI is a combination of three different concepts (team record, opponents' records and opponents' opponents' records), without a database of softball results, I can't do anything more than guess. Even the sites that track it themselves and apparently do have a database make mistakes (D1 Softball, for example, shows that Rutgers beat Wisconsin last night - poor Tessa's heroics went for naught).
All this is something to think about when we look at spring schedules. Since the Big Ten is last by a wide amount among power conferences in softball, you have to build strength of schedule in the spring. Which means playing the good tournaments, something Michigan did a little less of this year, which is why a 39-16 record isn't top 25 material.
Obviously, this is a very winnable game, but I'm adjusting my expectations of pitcher usage from my preview assessment. I think Derkowski pitches until she either is clearly tired or the Wolverines can build a huge lead. No word on Wisconsin and Magnanimo. But she is already at 260 pitches for the tournament, and while that was not all that unusual in the days before the mound was moved back, it is now. On the other hand, this could be her last game in competitive softball, so why not?
The committee doesn't look at it like that. To RPI, it just adds a 24-30 opponent to the biggest weight within the equation. And then the same thing happens tomorrow.
I think they're in, but if they lose tomorrow, I'm not exactly betting the farm on it.
Root for rain for the increasingly small chance the last quarterfinal is delayed to tomorrow (nice split in the heavier rain clouds going either side of Iowa City tonight). At least both Wisconsin and Rutgers are going with their number-one pitchers tonight.
Getting some runs on the board in the bottom of the fifth. It has been raining for a while, but not hard enough to stop the game. Ella McVey led off with a single, bunt, then a walk, then an error fielding a come-backer loaded the bases with one out.
Keke Tholl and Ella Stephenson each worked walks, each fouling off two-strike pitches. Jenissa Conway worked another walk. Wyche has six walks and seven strikeouts through 4 1/3 innings, and they're going to the bullpen.
Michigan threatened in the third, infield single, bunt, bunt single setting the table. But Wyche struck out Erickson and Tholl to end the threat. No score headed into the fourth, looks like the rain's there now.
Billie Andrews with a pair of home runs (17 overall) to lead Nebraska to the mercy kill. It is strange to see Minnesota without pitching - they've had some real aces in recent years.
First pitch is scheduled for 6:35. The way it looks now, I'd expect a weather delay early, if not right from the start. But I think they can get the game in tonight, which is very important for them.
I don't know how late they can start the last quarterfinal, but delaying that to tomorrow would also help the Wolverines if they get past Maryland.
Maryland's going with Courtney Wyche tonight. Hopefully, the Michigan hitters will be patient against her, make her throw strikes.
Northwestern is out. I'm not sure what their plan was, since it's three games from quarters through the final. Usually, a team will go with an ace as much as possible, but Ashley Miller wasn't sharp today, so maybe she was fighting off an injury.
Nebraska/Minnesota is underway. Jess Oakland, whose six walks yesterday apparently tied a Division I record (three intentional) led off the game with her 20th home run. Point Illinois. While it ended in a loss, the Illini were the 12th seed and came within a pitch of upsetting Minnesota a few times.
They're still in the middle of the fifth of the opener and it's raining. According to radar, there might be several hours of bad weather coming. So I wouldn't be surprised if the Michigan game is late tonight and Rutgers/Wisconsin pushed to tomorrow.
Editing: they're underway again, after a one-hour delay. It does look like there's a lot more rain out there. Brief tornado warning to the northwest in the last hour, and flood watches popping up.
Northwestern will probably pull this one out since they have a lot of offensive weapons, but they trail, 3-1, going into the bottom of the fifth against Indiana.
They got cute and did not start Ashley Miller. They put her in when Indiana's Alex Cooper homered in the fourth inning, and they threatened to score more with two out.
Miller ended the threat, and never gave up a hit, but in the fifth she walked a batter, hit a batter, messed up a sacrifice bunt attempt with a bad throw, then walked in two runs before leaving the game.
Northwestern is the heavy favorite to win the tournament, but it's wide open if they lose, and Derkowski would be the top pitcher remaining.
When I was a kid, I remember reading about the outbreak on April 3, 1974, most notably an F5 that leveled Xenia, Ohio (apparently Fujita himself considered calling it an F6). Killed more than 300 people, 34 in Xenia.
According to the NOAA database, 28 tornadoes have hit anywhere in Washtenaw County in the last 75 years - three F3 (before 2008) and one EF3 since (the Dexter tornado of 2012, which thankfully didn't hurt anybody). Only six tornadoes in the last 30 years, including four EF0s (which have winds up to 85 mph).
The National Weather Service's Storm Prediction Center produces a very thorough report every few hours, with frequent updates during storms like these.
I've found they're particularly useful about 48 hours out. Longer than that, it's not very precise.
This time of year is always volatile. Gets cool enough with a passing front that the warmer air of our middle-America springs is often trapped. Seems like every 2-3 years there's a month like this, when every front produces severe weather. Really wet spring here in Ohio.
I assumed someone was making a case that the NFL should switch to a 6-on-6 format, and figured on some commentary weighing the advantages of reduced injury against the difficulty of implementing an effective "one Mississippi, two Mississippi...." rule.
Maryland just knocked Michigan State out of the conference tournament, completing a sweep over Wisconsin. Maryland will probably be the #10 seed.
If Indiana beats Northwestern (they trail in the third inning), I think Ohio State will be the #7 seed. If Northwestern holds on, there will be a three-way tie for 6-7-8 (Ohio State, Indiana, Penn State), no clear head-to-head data.
I'm glad I never caught the bug. I went to Vegas with a friend a long time ago, having memorized a book on card counting strategies. It worked, but I found betting really, really uncomfortable, and stayed on the $5 tables and felt lucky to walk away with just the trip paid for. No urge to go back. Card-playing is supposed to be fun. That felt like a working trip.
I saw a fight just about break out at my table because someone lost a hand after the guy next to him took a bad-percentage hit. I get the frustration, bad play meant you got a different card, but there's an equal chance the bad play would have benefited you. You can't know until the card is dealt. It's an irrational hobby.
With spreads and under/overs, you're betting on things that have little to do with the goals of the players on the field. Claiming a bad beat seems a lot like getting upset over someone else taking a card he shouldn't have taken.
That show is free on Tubi - watched a few episodes one night a few weeks ago. There were some wonderfully written shows in the '70s, and that was not one of them.
Anyway, up Amorion's nose with a rubber hose, whatever that means (whether that was good or bad seems hard to determine).
The courts have made it clear that the concept of paying universities to televise athletic events makes athletes employees of a sort. The concept of "amateur" is meaningless. That was even conveniently discarded long ago in the U.S. for the Olympics when the basketball people complained that they weren't winning enough.
The conferences are playing catch-up here. And they might trap themselves if they continue to grant rights as an umbrella encompassing all sports, aside from the playoff/NCAA tournament.
If revenue sharing cascades down to the notion that rights fees must be shared with all sports (and that will be litigated, undoubtedly), then only a handful of universities will be able to afford sports. Some might try to hang on, but they will fall further and further behind.
Caitlin Clark arrived at the worst possible time for this. She generated enormous value for the handful of telecasts that drew millions - culminating in, what was it, 19 million viewers for the championship game? ABC must have made a bundle having those rights. Clark signed a shoe deal for about $28 million, and she's probably worth it.
What now? Women's basketball surely got a bump, but what kind of bump? The bidding process won't be based on an assumption that the Clark phenomenon is permanent - the difference in ratings from the games she played in to ratings in other games is huge. However, as comments from sportswriters and others indicate, there's a perception out there that women's basketball players deserve huge contracts.
I mention all this because if revenue sharing in the Big Ten, for example, requires half the television rights revenue and that is spread out among all the athletes at a university and scholarships aren't considered payment, non-revenue sports suddenly cost maybe $20 million per year more than they did. Michigan can absorb that, but most Big Ten schools can't. Non-majors that offer athletic scholarships fund their programs from donations, student and government fees. Even football. Akron concluded a few years ago that it should discontinue football, but didn't because it would have required leaving the MAC and a one-time fee that they simply couldn't afford.
We say that players should earn a good portion of the money they bring in. I agree. It's fair. But I think it would surprise sportswriters and most people out there to realize that for at least 99% of scholarship athletes, their scholarship is worth a lot more than the revenue they bring in.
I hope all of this doesn't end up destroying college athletics in order to give that 1% their deserved payday.
I don't want to start a new item just for the post-week stuff, but the latest ESPN/USA Softball poll has Northwestern back in the rankings at 23 (first Big Ten team in more than a month) and Michigan received one top-25 vote.
Ella Stephenson is Big Ten Freshman of the Week for the fourth time in five weeks.
And, burying the lede, Lauren Derkowksi is Big Ten Pitcher of the Week as well as D1Softball's National Pitcher of the Week.
Updated RPI through Sunday (change from Thursday):
Northwestern 30 (up 3), Penn State 34 (down 4), Michigan 36 (up 7), Indiana 47 (down 8), Nebraska 48 (up 1), Ohio State 55 (no change).
Last season, 45th was the lowest at-large, 42nd was highest not to receive a NCAA bid.
Standings: Northwestern 17-2, Michigan 17-3, Rutgers 12-8, Minnesota 12-8, Nebraska 10-8, Penn State/Indiana/Purdue 11-9 (not sure how tie-breakers are resolved when there is no clear HtH), Ohio State 10-10.
Softball America (which is a little more enthusiastic about the Big Ten than other rankings), has Northwestern 20th and Michigan 25th in their latest rankings.
Key weekend series: Ohio State at Michigan, Indiana at Northwestern, Penn State at Rutgers, Nebraska at Minnesota.
12 of 14 Big Ten schools are invited to the conference tournament, four receive byes, single-elimination.
The courts are making it clear that athletes are employees, not necessarily students. There should be contracts and a CBA in place to protect both universities and the players.
I think we all know about the weather issues the Lincoln area has been dodging this weekend.
Since Northwestern owns the tie-breaker over Michigan, a no-game is the same as a loss when it comes to deciding first seed for the conference tournament.
It will be interesting to see who gets the 3-seed and is (assuming chalk, which in a 1-game series is a big assumption) a potential semifinal opponent if Michigan advances. Could be any of the six teams bunched from 12-8 to 11-9 now. OSU's nine-game streak ended today - and at 10-10, they can't get there. Rutgers is actually quite dangerous right now.
Correction on Rodriguez - she is a fourth-year player, and would definitely have a red-shirt season available. She stood with the other four players who are out of eligibility today when Penn State honored their seniors. It was a nice gesture on Penn State's part to also honor Michigan's.
Third on the depth chart is a practice-squad spot for half of NFL teams the last few years.
The NFL implemented the Purdy Rule last year, allowing a 47th active player if it's a third quarterback, but teams rarely used it. Idea being that the odds of two quarterbacks getting injured in the same game are so low that it's not worth keeping the third guy active.
Your third quarterback is either A) a prospect you've just drafted and are easing along and needs to be protected on the 53-man roster or B) someone stashed on your practice squad who anyone can sign, but teams tend not to raid practice squads unless they really need someone.
So, if Milton is worth drafting, then he has potential, which means he can't be stashed on a practice squad. He's raw, so there's not much use making him the 47th guy. Once in a great while, a team has four quarterbacks on the 53, but that fourth quarterback has to do something else - IIRC only New Orleans occasionally does that, and Taysom Hill has an interesting package that they pay him $10 million a year to run.
Nathan Rourke is a camp arm. At best, he's a practice squad guy somewhere. Zappe hasn't panned out - they will stash him on the practice squad. So, there's room to take a look at a prospect in camp and see if they've hit the lottery and he's worth developing. If he isn't, no harm done - teams often overdraft positions in rounds 6-7 because everyone left at that point is either end-of-roster and you bring him along because you always need special teams bodies or someone who flashes something, but is a long shot to become useful at the next level. Milton falls into that second category - that arm is something else if you can build a quarterback around it.
It's hard not to like what Nabers can do out there - well worth the pick. It looks like they brought in a range of solid players, hard to say otherwise.
But... Daniel Jones is the elephant in the room. They paid him after he looked maybe OK, but below average. And then he regressed back to his mean last year. He's got five years under his belt, and he still runs the ball too much, takes too many sacks and won't push the ball on third down. There's no easy out there. I thought they'd take McCarthy, but they definitely got a potential game-breaker in Nabers. Question is whether they can make effective use of him.
It's hard to say much of anything about a draft until you've had 3-4 years to see if the players they drafted lived up to expectations.
Mostly, what you need is to have some impact with that first-round pick and at least a couple of other guys who can start, maybe in year two. We'll know more about the Lions if we see Arnold starting and not looking lost in September.
I think two teams really blew it. Atlanta, because they created their own quarterback mess right after finally admitting that forcing a third-round talent (Ridder) into the starting role wasn't going to get them to the next level. Ridder isn't bad for a third-rounder, but he is ideally a backup, not a starter.
And Denver picked Nix out of desperation, right after looking silly for offering a roster spot to the biggest #2 overall bust in recent memory. That shouldn't have happened. My sense is that Nix is unlikely to start in the NFL. You don't want to be the last team in on a position run.
But you never know. I don't think anyone would take Young ahead of Stroud right now, and the only quarterback worth a damn from 2022 was drafted 262nd overall. At first, it was "oh, he's just a game manager," and analysts tried to fit him into that pigeon-hole. Then it became apparent that he had whatever gene exists that allows him to sense who's coming open in a half-second, and no one could scout that because it's just not going to show up against college opponents.
We're transitioning from college athletes as a subset of the student population to college athletes as paid employees.
When that happens, if there's no CBA in place with implied oligopoly protection from Congress, then it's entirely possible this would happen. Might be too late to bring Brady back to Michigan at that point, though.
That's on the NCAA. He is literally following NCAA rules, like many others. Sucks to be in the class of 2025 or 2026, especially since they took the brunt of the COVID closures in high school, but calling out Dickinson or anyone else for using the opportunity doesn't seem reasonable.
The NCAA made this decision years ago. They can't undo it, as dumb as it was at the time.
I might recommend that with a lineman. Picking WR is, I think, tougher than picking QB in many respects. They really have a low hit rate and a lot of them grade out pretty much the same. The salary for the hits is huge now, so the fifth-year option on those guys is a lot of money anyway - you might as well give them the big contract anyway. So no, I wouldn't recommend it for a WR.
Interesting trade 32/33. Legette (the big WR Carolina picked) just won the lottery, sneaking into the first round with a huge bonus difference. Carolina must have wanted him very badly to screw with their cap like that.
Whoever Buffalo starts out with tomorrow - he'll come in with a big chip on his shoulder, missing out on that money. It's a tough business, but I don't think you want to do that to a guy you're making your first pick in a draft. They should probably trade down again just out of principle tomorrow.
Recent Comments
Based on the last update of RPI on the NCAA site:
Last Four In:
Mississippi (44th), Indiana (43rd), Central Florida (42nd) and Utah (40th)
First Four Out:
Texas Tech (39th), McNeese State (45th), Nebraska (46th), Nevada (47th)
Conferences with more than one bid:
SEC - 13 (8 hosts), Pac 12 - 7 (2 hosts), Big 12 - 5 (3 hosts), ACC - 5 (2 hosts), Big Ten - 4 (0 hosts), Sun Belt - 3 (1 host), AAC - 2 (0 hosts), 26 1-bid conferences (0 hosts).
The 16 hosts were the top 16 in RPI at the time of the update. The 2-seeds were 17-32 in RPI at the time of the update.
Some movement among the seeded teams to reflect rankings, but I don't think anywhere else, except in the decision to bump Texas Tech.
Oklahoma State was 10th in RPI, but Kentucky 28th (5th from bottom of the second group) and Michigan 37th (5th from top in the third group). Big Sky champion Northern Colorado was 164th.
Michigan is in a representative regional, I think.
Michigan played Northern Colorado twice in a February tournament, beating them 9-1 in five innings on February 23 when Erin Hoehn allowed one baserunner (a home run) and struck out four. Lilly Vallimont and Avery Fantucci (her only home run before the grand slam ended the Maryland game) homered for Michigan against their number-two pitcher.
And again, 4-1, the following day. Lauren Derkowki and Jessica LeBeau combined to allow seven hits and eleven baserunners. They trailed, 1-0, entering the sixth inning, when Keke Tholl hit a two-out grand slam. The Wolverines only managed two hits total - both in the sixth inning - against Northern Colorado's top pitcher, Erin Caviness (17-8, 2.32). That's a bit scary, but, as we know, the young hitters on this team really didn't awaken until the Big Ten season started.
I don't know - he might still be cowering under the stage in Houston.
But Gregg Doyel did propose marriage to Derk.
Yes. She's made some smart moves this season. Kept cool when they started slow, but made some changes that all paid off for the team.
Derkowski's (and all of Michigan's) pitching stats for the Big Ten tournament:
19 innings, 13 hits, 5 runs, 5 earned, 12 walks, 20 strikeouts (202 on the season), 1 hit batter, 1.84 ERA, .200 batting average against, 348 pitches.
She really stepped up for the team.
Indiana will be right on the middle of the bubble for an NCAA bid. Hope to see the Big Ten take a fourth bid there. Bri Copeland certainly gave everything she has - it would be nice not to have her career end on that dive into first.
WTG, Derk!
No question about tournament MVP there. None at all.
Baserunning today has been a lot like punting in Iowa games - you don't think it's going to make or break a game, but sometimes it's everything.
Iowa... of course... that's where they're playing - even though the hosts didn't qualify for the tournament after finishing last in the standings.
How in the world was Conway left off the all-freshman team? She carried the offense until Sieler and Tholl caught fire mid-season.
Unlucky to give up a run, because Derkowski is sharp today. But already at 37 pitches, and the top of the order is coming up in the third.
Does coach Tholl trust Hoehn? She pitched well against Indiana earlier this season. Second time through the lineup might be tough on Derk, who is not used to this kind of pitching load.
Indiana's the only team I've seen that often uses that once-through-the-order strategy with pitching. Copeland and Kleiman throw very different pitches, and Copeland has to be wearing down.
17-pitch inning for Derkowski. Looks like Indiana will sacrifice some at bats now to tire her out.
Avery Fantucci is starting at designated player for Ava Costales. First lineup change in a long time, but I think it's a good move given recent play. Fantucci was a huge get for Michigan - hoping she'll play her way into the starting lineup next season.
Huh. I thought "For the Washington game, I got a free trial of Fubo" was clear enough.
In case it wasn't, Fubo is a streaming service that includes ESPN, which carried the national championship game. I did, indeed, install the Fubo app on a Roku and successfully found ESPN amid the massive number of channels in time to watch the game.
And experienced catharsis.
But I don't think it's worth spending $1,200+ a year to have access to those hundreds of channels 24/7.
154 pitches. Tied a career high with 7 walks. Poor Derk... nothing left out there, but she got it done.
Tomorrow will be tough. They can't possibly expect her to go far against the best hitting team in the Big Ten.
15th for Keke. Hopefully, that was the NCAA tournament entry hit, right there.
Gabi Salo, a senior from Escanaba, will probably start for Wisconsin on the mound. She was Miss Softball for Michigan in 2020. Her stats on the year: 5-4, 3.42, 59 1/3 innings (only 14 1/3 in the Big Ten season), 55 strikeouts. She has not pitched well lately. Hopefully, Michigan can take advantage. Derkowski will start for Michigan.
Lots of fireworks in the eighth - Indiana beat Nebraska, 9-5.
First pitch between Michigan and Wisconsin at 8:20 eastern.
Nebraska and Indiana are headed into extra-innings (3-3 - hope you didn't bet the over, thought for sure this was going to be a slug-fest). So, expect a later start for Michigan - a half hour after the conclusion.
There's a little bit of weather out there. If anything, there's a small chance of a short lightning delay (about 20%, according to the NWS), not enough to have people waiting a long time or messing with field conditions.
I've saved thousands over the last five years. The key is in asking yourself "do you really need that service?" And the answer is always no.
For the Washington game, I got a free trial of Fubo. That would have been painful to miss. And I did miss out on watching Blake take us home, though I followed it closely online and in the game thread here.
OK. So two more NFL games I'll never see. Three games a week is plenty. And what I don't have is 400 channels I pay $100 a month for that I'll never watch. Unless I want to wade through the mass of commercials on Pluto for free.
One thing I do like a lot, though. My library card gives us access to 15 "tickets" for Kanopy every month. That, an antenna, and Tubi for when I'm truly wasting time, is just fine.
I had remembered yesterday to adjust central time to eastern time. Forgot today, sorry. Games are at 5:00 pm eastern and 7:30 pm.
I think this might be must-win for Michigan and the NCAAs. Two straight opponents with sub-100 RPIs does considerable damage to strength of schedule, which is 50% of the RPI calculation in softball. I have tried to examine changes in RPI, day-to-day, and there isn't a lot of data. Plus the pages that claim to track it show differing calculations.
When I report RPI, I use the chart the NCAA displays on its site. This was updated today, and shows Michigan is still 37th. It also shows Ohio State dropped seven spots after losing its opening-round game to Wisconsin.
Since RPI is a combination of three different concepts (team record, opponents' records and opponents' opponents' records), without a database of softball results, I can't do anything more than guess. Even the sites that track it themselves and apparently do have a database make mistakes (D1 Softball, for example, shows that Rutgers beat Wisconsin last night - poor Tessa's heroics went for naught).
All this is something to think about when we look at spring schedules. Since the Big Ten is last by a wide amount among power conferences in softball, you have to build strength of schedule in the spring. Which means playing the good tournaments, something Michigan did a little less of this year, which is why a 39-16 record isn't top 25 material.
Obviously, this is a very winnable game, but I'm adjusting my expectations of pitcher usage from my preview assessment. I think Derkowski pitches until she either is clearly tired or the Wolverines can build a huge lead. No word on Wisconsin and Magnanimo. But she is already at 260 pitches for the tournament, and while that was not all that unusual in the days before the mound was moved back, it is now. On the other hand, this could be her last game in competitive softball, so why not?
The committee doesn't look at it like that. To RPI, it just adds a 24-30 opponent to the biggest weight within the equation. And then the same thing happens tomorrow.
I think they're in, but if they lose tomorrow, I'm not exactly betting the farm on it.
Root for rain for the increasingly small chance the last quarterfinal is delayed to tomorrow (nice split in the heavier rain clouds going either side of Iowa City tonight). At least both Wisconsin and Rutgers are going with their number-one pitchers tonight.
And Avery Fantucci ends it emphatically... 10-0 and Derkowski gets some needed rest tonight.
Getting some runs on the board in the bottom of the fifth. It has been raining for a while, but not hard enough to stop the game. Ella McVey led off with a single, bunt, then a walk, then an error fielding a come-backer loaded the bases with one out.
Keke Tholl and Ella Stephenson each worked walks, each fouling off two-strike pitches. Jenissa Conway worked another walk. Wyche has six walks and seven strikeouts through 4 1/3 innings, and they're going to the bullpen.
Michigan up 3-0, bases still loaded with one out.
Michigan threatened in the third, infield single, bunt, bunt single setting the table. But Wyche struck out Erickson and Tholl to end the threat. No score headed into the fourth, looks like the rain's there now.
No score through two innings.
Wolverines are failing to make Wyche work for it. Low pitch count, two walks, four strikeouts, no hits.
Derkowski has allowed one hit, two walks and has three strikeouts, but has thrown 33 pitches so far.
Billie Andrews with a pair of home runs (17 overall) to lead Nebraska to the mercy kill. It is strange to see Minnesota without pitching - they've had some real aces in recent years.
First pitch is scheduled for 6:35. The way it looks now, I'd expect a weather delay early, if not right from the start. But I think they can get the game in tonight, which is very important for them.
I don't know how late they can start the last quarterfinal, but delaying that to tomorrow would also help the Wolverines if they get past Maryland.
Maryland's going with Courtney Wyche tonight. Hopefully, the Michigan hitters will be patient against her, make her throw strikes.
Northwestern is out. I'm not sure what their plan was, since it's three games from quarters through the final. Usually, a team will go with an ace as much as possible, but Ashley Miller wasn't sharp today, so maybe she was fighting off an injury.
Nebraska/Minnesota is underway. Jess Oakland, whose six walks yesterday apparently tied a Division I record (three intentional) led off the game with her 20th home run. Point Illinois. While it ended in a loss, the Illini were the 12th seed and came within a pitch of upsetting Minnesota a few times.
They're still in the middle of the fifth of the opener and it's raining. According to radar, there might be several hours of bad weather coming. So I wouldn't be surprised if the Michigan game is late tonight and Rutgers/Wisconsin pushed to tomorrow.
Editing: they're underway again, after a one-hour delay. It does look like there's a lot more rain out there. Brief tornado warning to the northwest in the last hour, and flood watches popping up.
Northwestern will probably pull this one out since they have a lot of offensive weapons, but they trail, 3-1, going into the bottom of the fifth against Indiana.
They got cute and did not start Ashley Miller. They put her in when Indiana's Alex Cooper homered in the fourth inning, and they threatened to score more with two out.
Miller ended the threat, and never gave up a hit, but in the fifth she walked a batter, hit a batter, messed up a sacrifice bunt attempt with a bad throw, then walked in two runs before leaving the game.
Northwestern is the heavy favorite to win the tournament, but it's wide open if they lose, and Derkowski would be the top pitcher remaining.
If Michigan wins today, their opponent in the semifinals is either Rutgers (RPI 83) or Wisconsin (RPI 107).
I'm reminded of the lesson learned in Hollywood's first true venture into machine learning, War Games.
A strange game. The only winning move is not to play. How about a nice game of chess?
When I was a kid, I remember reading about the outbreak on April 3, 1974, most notably an F5 that leveled Xenia, Ohio (apparently Fujita himself considered calling it an F6). Killed more than 300 people, 34 in Xenia.
According to the NOAA database, 28 tornadoes have hit anywhere in Washtenaw County in the last 75 years - three F3 (before 2008) and one EF3 since (the Dexter tornado of 2012, which thankfully didn't hurt anybody). Only six tornadoes in the last 30 years, including four EF0s (which have winds up to 85 mph).
If you're interested in sleepless nights, I'd recommend the following site: https://www.spc.noaa.gov//
The National Weather Service's Storm Prediction Center produces a very thorough report every few hours, with frequent updates during storms like these.
I've found they're particularly useful about 48 hours out. Longer than that, it's not very precise.
This time of year is always volatile. Gets cool enough with a passing front that the warmer air of our middle-America springs is often trapped. Seems like every 2-3 years there's a month like this, when every front produces severe weather. Really wet spring here in Ohio.
I assumed someone was making a case that the NFL should switch to a 6-on-6 format, and figured on some commentary weighing the advantages of reduced injury against the difficulty of implementing an effective "one Mississippi, two Mississippi...." rule.
Standings:
Iowa 6-17
Tournament begins Wednesday morning. Michigan plays the winner of Penn State/Maryland on Thursday at 4:30.
Single-elimination. Makes the semis interesting, since your number-one pitcher usually needs to rest.
Maryland just knocked Michigan State out of the conference tournament, completing a sweep over Wisconsin. Maryland will probably be the #10 seed.
If Indiana beats Northwestern (they trail in the third inning), I think Ohio State will be the #7 seed. If Northwestern holds on, there will be a three-way tie for 6-7-8 (Ohio State, Indiana, Penn State), no clear head-to-head data.
I'm glad I never caught the bug. I went to Vegas with a friend a long time ago, having memorized a book on card counting strategies. It worked, but I found betting really, really uncomfortable, and stayed on the $5 tables and felt lucky to walk away with just the trip paid for. No urge to go back. Card-playing is supposed to be fun. That felt like a working trip.
I saw a fight just about break out at my table because someone lost a hand after the guy next to him took a bad-percentage hit. I get the frustration, bad play meant you got a different card, but there's an equal chance the bad play would have benefited you. You can't know until the card is dealt. It's an irrational hobby.
With spreads and under/overs, you're betting on things that have little to do with the goals of the players on the field. Claiming a bad beat seems a lot like getting upset over someone else taking a card he shouldn't have taken.
That show is free on Tubi - watched a few episodes one night a few weeks ago. There were some wonderfully written shows in the '70s, and that was not one of them.
Anyway, up Amorion's nose with a rubber hose, whatever that means (whether that was good or bad seems hard to determine).
The courts have made it clear that the concept of paying universities to televise athletic events makes athletes employees of a sort. The concept of "amateur" is meaningless. That was even conveniently discarded long ago in the U.S. for the Olympics when the basketball people complained that they weren't winning enough.
The conferences are playing catch-up here. And they might trap themselves if they continue to grant rights as an umbrella encompassing all sports, aside from the playoff/NCAA tournament.
If revenue sharing cascades down to the notion that rights fees must be shared with all sports (and that will be litigated, undoubtedly), then only a handful of universities will be able to afford sports. Some might try to hang on, but they will fall further and further behind.
Caitlin Clark arrived at the worst possible time for this. She generated enormous value for the handful of telecasts that drew millions - culminating in, what was it, 19 million viewers for the championship game? ABC must have made a bundle having those rights. Clark signed a shoe deal for about $28 million, and she's probably worth it.
What now? Women's basketball surely got a bump, but what kind of bump? The bidding process won't be based on an assumption that the Clark phenomenon is permanent - the difference in ratings from the games she played in to ratings in other games is huge. However, as comments from sportswriters and others indicate, there's a perception out there that women's basketball players deserve huge contracts.
I mention all this because if revenue sharing in the Big Ten, for example, requires half the television rights revenue and that is spread out among all the athletes at a university and scholarships aren't considered payment, non-revenue sports suddenly cost maybe $20 million per year more than they did. Michigan can absorb that, but most Big Ten schools can't. Non-majors that offer athletic scholarships fund their programs from donations, student and government fees. Even football. Akron concluded a few years ago that it should discontinue football, but didn't because it would have required leaving the MAC and a one-time fee that they simply couldn't afford.
We say that players should earn a good portion of the money they bring in. I agree. It's fair. But I think it would surprise sportswriters and most people out there to realize that for at least 99% of scholarship athletes, their scholarship is worth a lot more than the revenue they bring in.
I hope all of this doesn't end up destroying college athletics in order to give that 1% their deserved payday.
I don't want to start a new item just for the post-week stuff, but the latest ESPN/USA Softball poll has Northwestern back in the rankings at 23 (first Big Ten team in more than a month) and Michigan received one top-25 vote.
Ella Stephenson is Big Ten Freshman of the Week for the fourth time in five weeks.
And, burying the lede, Lauren Derkowksi is Big Ten Pitcher of the Week as well as D1Softball's National Pitcher of the Week.
Updated RPI through Sunday (change from Thursday):
Northwestern 30 (up 3), Penn State 34 (down 4), Michigan 36 (up 7), Indiana 47 (down 8), Nebraska 48 (up 1), Ohio State 55 (no change).
Last season, 45th was the lowest at-large, 42nd was highest not to receive a NCAA bid.
Standings: Northwestern 17-2, Michigan 17-3, Rutgers 12-8, Minnesota 12-8, Nebraska 10-8, Penn State/Indiana/Purdue 11-9 (not sure how tie-breakers are resolved when there is no clear HtH), Ohio State 10-10.
Softball America (which is a little more enthusiastic about the Big Ten than other rankings), has Northwestern 20th and Michigan 25th in their latest rankings.
Key weekend series: Ohio State at Michigan, Indiana at Northwestern, Penn State at Rutgers, Nebraska at Minnesota.
12 of 14 Big Ten schools are invited to the conference tournament, four receive byes, single-elimination.
The courts are making it clear that athletes are employees, not necessarily students. There should be contracts and a CBA in place to protect both universities and the players.
He's clearly preparing for an assault on the College of New Jersey. The Lions are defending NJAC champs, and this will be a considerable challenge.
I think we all know about the weather issues the Lincoln area has been dodging this weekend.
Since Northwestern owns the tie-breaker over Michigan, a no-game is the same as a loss when it comes to deciding first seed for the conference tournament.
It will be interesting to see who gets the 3-seed and is (assuming chalk, which in a 1-game series is a big assumption) a potential semifinal opponent if Michigan advances. Could be any of the six teams bunched from 12-8 to 11-9 now. OSU's nine-game streak ended today - and at 10-10, they can't get there. Rutgers is actually quite dangerous right now.
Correction on Rodriguez - she is a fourth-year player, and would definitely have a red-shirt season available. She stood with the other four players who are out of eligibility today when Penn State honored their seniors. It was a nice gesture on Penn State's part to also honor Michigan's.
Third on the depth chart is a practice-squad spot for half of NFL teams the last few years.
The NFL implemented the Purdy Rule last year, allowing a 47th active player if it's a third quarterback, but teams rarely used it. Idea being that the odds of two quarterbacks getting injured in the same game are so low that it's not worth keeping the third guy active.
Your third quarterback is either A) a prospect you've just drafted and are easing along and needs to be protected on the 53-man roster or B) someone stashed on your practice squad who anyone can sign, but teams tend not to raid practice squads unless they really need someone.
So, if Milton is worth drafting, then he has potential, which means he can't be stashed on a practice squad. He's raw, so there's not much use making him the 47th guy. Once in a great while, a team has four quarterbacks on the 53, but that fourth quarterback has to do something else - IIRC only New Orleans occasionally does that, and Taysom Hill has an interesting package that they pay him $10 million a year to run.
Nathan Rourke is a camp arm. At best, he's a practice squad guy somewhere. Zappe hasn't panned out - they will stash him on the practice squad. So, there's room to take a look at a prospect in camp and see if they've hit the lottery and he's worth developing. If he isn't, no harm done - teams often overdraft positions in rounds 6-7 because everyone left at that point is either end-of-roster and you bring him along because you always need special teams bodies or someone who flashes something, but is a long shot to become useful at the next level. Milton falls into that second category - that arm is something else if you can build a quarterback around it.
It's hard not to like what Nabers can do out there - well worth the pick. It looks like they brought in a range of solid players, hard to say otherwise.
But... Daniel Jones is the elephant in the room. They paid him after he looked maybe OK, but below average. And then he regressed back to his mean last year. He's got five years under his belt, and he still runs the ball too much, takes too many sacks and won't push the ball on third down. There's no easy out there. I thought they'd take McCarthy, but they definitely got a potential game-breaker in Nabers. Question is whether they can make effective use of him.
It's hard to say much of anything about a draft until you've had 3-4 years to see if the players they drafted lived up to expectations.
Mostly, what you need is to have some impact with that first-round pick and at least a couple of other guys who can start, maybe in year two. We'll know more about the Lions if we see Arnold starting and not looking lost in September.
I think two teams really blew it. Atlanta, because they created their own quarterback mess right after finally admitting that forcing a third-round talent (Ridder) into the starting role wasn't going to get them to the next level. Ridder isn't bad for a third-rounder, but he is ideally a backup, not a starter.
And Denver picked Nix out of desperation, right after looking silly for offering a roster spot to the biggest #2 overall bust in recent memory. That shouldn't have happened. My sense is that Nix is unlikely to start in the NFL. You don't want to be the last team in on a position run.
But you never know. I don't think anyone would take Young ahead of Stroud right now, and the only quarterback worth a damn from 2022 was drafted 262nd overall. At first, it was "oh, he's just a game manager," and analysts tried to fit him into that pigeon-hole. Then it became apparent that he had whatever gene exists that allows him to sense who's coming open in a half-second, and no one could scout that because it's just not going to show up against college opponents.
We're transitioning from college athletes as a subset of the student population to college athletes as paid employees.
When that happens, if there's no CBA in place with implied oligopoly protection from Congress, then it's entirely possible this would happen. Might be too late to bring Brady back to Michigan at that point, though.
That's on the NCAA. He is literally following NCAA rules, like many others. Sucks to be in the class of 2025 or 2026, especially since they took the brunt of the COVID closures in high school, but calling out Dickinson or anyone else for using the opportunity doesn't seem reasonable.
The NCAA made this decision years ago. They can't undo it, as dumb as it was at the time.
I might recommend that with a lineman. Picking WR is, I think, tougher than picking QB in many respects. They really have a low hit rate and a lot of them grade out pretty much the same. The salary for the hits is huge now, so the fifth-year option on those guys is a lot of money anyway - you might as well give them the big contract anyway. So no, I wouldn't recommend it for a WR.
Quick First-Round Tally: QB - 6, WR - 7, TE - 1, OT - 7, IOL - 2 (offense 23), EDGE - 5, DT - 1, CB - 3 (defense 9).
Interesting trade 32/33. Legette (the big WR Carolina picked) just won the lottery, sneaking into the first round with a huge bonus difference. Carolina must have wanted him very badly to screw with their cap like that.
Whoever Buffalo starts out with tomorrow - he'll come in with a big chip on his shoulder, missing out on that money. It's a tough business, but I don't think you want to do that to a guy you're making your first pick in a draft. They should probably trade down again just out of principle tomorrow.