A Pleasant Surprise

The Blue Jackets continue to be underwhelming and firmly ensconced at the bottom of the Metro Division, with only 7 wins and 16 points. A recent long home stand did produce some wins but not enough. Patrik Laine and Elvis Merzlikins are coming off IR and will be available tonight for a game at Winnipeg. This article from The Hockey Writers offers some hope that the Jackets are headed in the right direction: https://thehockeywriters.com/blue-jackets-direction-earning-national-respect-december-2022/

The Kentucky football program hit a low point for the season with a home loss to Vanderbilt. The ‘Dores ended a long string of consecutive conference losses with the victory. Ironically, a big contract extension for head coach Mark Stoops was announced shortly thereafter. As expected the Cats lost to Georgia 16-6, holding the ‘Dogs to their lowest point production of the season. To end the regular season, UK beat in-state rival Louisville 26-13 to finish the season 7-5. Kentucky’s bowl game will be announced once the college football playoff matchups have been determined.

For the second straight year, Ohio State lost to Michigan which ended the Buckeyes’ undefeated season and almost certainly their playoff hopes.

Basketball season is well underway and Ohio State and Kentucky are both 5-2 heading into the weekend. The Bucks lost to San Diego State in the Maui Invitational but then rebounded to win two before getting back on the plane for home. This week, in the last Big Ten/ACC Challenge, OSU lost to Duke in Cameron Indoor Stadium. Kentucky lost to Michigan State on a neutral court, then lost to Gonzaga in Spokane.

The Kentucky women only have one loss, to Virginia Tech during their trip to The Bahamas. But that brings me to the “pleasant surprise”, the Ohio State women. The Bucks are 7-0 and ranked #4 in the country. This includes wins over Tennessee in Columbus and Louisville at Louisville, and neither game was particularly close. OSU’s full-court press is the best I’ve ever seen in the women’s game, and the offense is pretty good with a 94 point-per-game average.

Basketball Starts Monday

Columbus has the fewest wins (3) of any team in the NHL. It’s been a nightmare of a season so far. The goaltending has not been good at all. Patrik Laine was out for awhile with injuries but is back. Along with Johnny Gaudreau obtained from the Flames, hopes were high for more goal scoring this year. So far it hasn’t happened. I suspect a coaching change is coming soon, but I have no inside information on that.

The Buckeyes continue undefeated but had a surprisingly close game in Evanston today, winning 21-7. The Bucks are #2 in the College Football Playoff rankings, sandwiched in between Tennessee and Georgia who are playing right now in Athens.

Kentucky became bowl eligible with a hard-fought 21-17 win today at Missouri. The Cats were blown out of Knoxville last week. Coupled with a home loss to South Carolina when quarterback Will Levis was hurt, UK is an even-steven 3-3 in the league with SEC games against Vanderbilt and Georgia remaining. It looks like overall, the Cats will finish with 7 or 8 wins.

Basketball starts Monday. I do not watch exhibition games, but I understand Kentucky has looked reasonably good. Ohio State is a mystery right now so we’ll have to see.

On the women’s side, Kentucky and Ohio State will probably both be respectable this year. The Bucks have an early game with Tennessee which should be a good measure.

We’ve had near-record high temperatures here lately and good weather is expected to continue well on into next week.

Came Up Short In Oxford

Kentucky was undefeated and ranked in the Top 10 before Saturday’s game at Ole Miss. The Rebs prevailed 22-19 as the Cats committed just too many mistakes to secure the win. There were kicking game issues as well as fumbles. I have to think, though, that the result might have been different in the friendly confines of Kroger Field in Lexington. It was good to have Chris Rodriguez back from suspension.

Ohio State is 5-0 and ranked third after mostly lopsided wins. The opener with Notre Dame was a bit close as I suspected (21-10) but a win is a win. Michigan and Penn State are also in the Top 10 so the Big Ten East might be the toughest division in the country right now.

High Expectations

College football season for me starts tomorrow, as Ohio State plays host to Notre Dame, and Kentucky hosts Miami of Ohio. Expectations for both UK and OSU are high this year. That always puts a lot of pressure on players and coaches.

The Buckeyes are a 17-point favorite over a very good Fighting Irish team, and I don’t look for the Bucks to win by that much. One thing for sure, the game will be a good measure of Ohio State.

Kentucky will be without running back Chris Rodriguez for a few games due to suspension. Quarterback Will Levis is highly touted as a possible Heisman trophy candidate. They are 17 point favorites over a Red Hawk team that is expected by many to win the MAC. It will be interesting to see how the Cats do without Rodriguez in the game.

Yesterday was the first day of “Meteorological Autumn”. That’s in name only. I had to hurry up and mow and do some yard trimming today before seven straight days in which we may have rain. It is still quite hot and humid today in central Kentucky.

Parks On The Air

One of the coolest things to happen in amateur radio recently is the Parks On The Air (POTA) program.

A few years back, during the 100th anniversary of the National Park system, the American Radio Relay League (ARRL) developed a special program to celebrate the centennial. Hams went into national parks and set up portable stations. They would work stations operating in other parks and from home. Awards were given out for the various accomplishments during the year.

Everyone enjoyed the special program so much that it was quite a letdown when the year ended. Jason Johnston, W3AAX, decided to create a perpetual award program, where stations set up in parks (“activate”) and operate from home (“hunt”) and accumulate various awards.

Due to my broken leg last year and other things, I got a bit of a slow start in POTA. But as of this writing I have done five activations in a total of four different parks. I also have made a lot of “hunter” contacts from home, portable or mobile working activated parks.

You can learn more about POTA at https://parksontheair.com

You can also follow my progress at https://pota.app/#/profile/KU4A

In other ham radio news, I worked all 13 Colonies during the annual special event in early July. Bonnie’s granddaughter was visiting from North Carolina, so I set up a portable station at Bonnie’s house so I could enjoy the visit and still do some operating.

I usually operate Field Day from Bonnie’s using temporary antennas. This year, unfortunately, she had to have roof damage repaired due to a bad hail storm in June. With the work going on around Field Day weekend, I ended up operating from home using battery power. I made 245 Morse Code contacts running 5 watts.

College Football

Anyone who follows college sports knows that massive changes are underway. Some of the changes are good, some are not so good. And they all involve money in some way shape or form.

Amateur athletics has been broken for awhile. Many have made the point that the universities make so much money (especially in football) that it is time that the athletes be able to share the wealth in some respects.

Scholarship athletes are given a lot of perks in addition to a free education and room and board. A lot of them receive extensive tutoring and counseling, and get to enjoy top-notch athletic facilities.

While I’ve been a proponent of the concept of amateur athletics, I frankly don’t object to the new concept of “Name, Image and Likeness” (NIL) rights, where an athlete can be financially compensated for the commercial use of his persona. Naturally, the NCAA has developed a set of specific rules for how the system is to operate.

Unfortunately, either due to a lack of understanding or a willingness to openly break the rules, dozens of schools have begun offering recruits a specific amount of money (from a commercial enterprise) in order to sign with the team. This has led to a giant bidding war for the best athletes.

The way it is supposed to work is that potential sponsors can get together and create a pool of NIL money for a specific incoming class of recruits, and the recruits can be made aware of the pool of money. But it cannot be promised to a specific athlete or athletes ahead of enrollment at a school.

So many colleges and universities are breaking the rules that many speculate that the NCAA will not take any enforcement action. So, we end up with a system that the school that has the wealthiest fans/alumni are virtually guaranteed to obtain the best athletes.

I’ve been a college football fan all my life, but I have to admit that I am rapidly losing interest in the sport due to how it is presently evolving. I will keep tabs on my schools (Ohio State and Kentucky) but will no longer spend all-day Saturdays watching the sport.

Wrapping Up The Season

None of my basketball teams did particularly well in the post season.

The absolute worst was the Kentucky men who lost to St. Peter’s in the first round, a 15-seed over 2-seed upset. St. Peter’s went on to the Elite Eight, so they were an awesome Cinderella story this year. Their coach was immediately hired away by Seton Hall.

The Ohio State men did manage to beat Loyola of Chicago. Many brackets had Loyola penciled in as a mild upset winner, given their tournament success in the past, and Ohio State’s slump toward the end of the season. In the second round, the Buckeyes lost to Villanova, who will be playing in tonight’s national semifinal, and has an excellent chance of winning it all.

The Kentucky women finished the season in high gear, winning their first SEC Tournament title in 40 years with a big win over South Carolina. But the momentum didn’t carry them far as they also lost in the first round of the NCAA, to Princeton in a game played in Bloomington, Indiana. It was the last game in a Kentucky uniform for senior superstar Rhyne Howard. A week or two later, three UK players announced they were entering the transfer portal. So, the team will look completely different next year.

After sharing the Big Ten regular season title with Iowa, the Ohio State women struggled in the first round against Missouri State before prevailing 63-56. The Bucks then routed LSU in Baton Rouge 79-64. In the Sweet 16, OSU had a close game against #2 seed Texas but lost 66-63.

March Outlook

The Kentucky men and women are playing quite well at the right time, and I look for both of them to go far in the upcoming NCAA tournament. Should the Cats win the SEC Tournament this week, a number one seed is not out of the question. But Auburn could probably also grab a top seed with a tournament championship.

The Ohio State men need a strong Big Ten tournament run for anyone to have confidence in their prospect of a deep NCAA run. But they do have the talent to turn things around. I don’t get to see the OSU women play very often but they do bring a lot of skill to the table.

I had pretty well given up on the Blue Jackets and I still don’t think they have much of a chance of making the playoffs. But they did win four games of a five-game road trip in February, and finished that month with 8 wins and 4 losses. In looking at the standings, Columbus is “first team out” of a wild-card spot. But at 10 points behind #8 Washington, it would be a tall order for the CBJ to get back in the race.

We’ve already had a couple days with temperatures in the 70s here, so Spring has sprung. I just had a new roof and gutters put on the house, and am hoping to make some progress on my long-running kitchen remodel project. I continue to spend a lot of time volunteering for our local radio club, and have been listing some of our surplus parts and equipment on eBay. Look for us using the seller ID “bluegrassars”.

Wrapping Up The Regular Season

The Ohio State men were in position for a share of the Big Ten regular season championship, but poor play down the stretch ended up leaving them in a tie for fourth.

A road win at eventual co-champion Illinois on February 24th gave reason for optimism despite having lost at home to Iowa. But the Bucks then lost at Maryland (a sub-.500 team) then returned home and were upset by cellar-dweller Nebraska. A win over Michigan State followed, but then Sunday on Senior Day OSU lost to visiting Michigan. The Bucks were 2-4 over the last six games against unranked opponents.

Things are considerably better for the Kentucky men. The Cats lost at Tennessee and at Arkansas (a team that seldom loses at home) to finish in a tie for second place with Tennessee with 14-4 conference records. Auburn won the regular season championship at 15-3, having pulled out a bunch of close wins.

In the conference tournaments this week, Kentucky is a 3-seed and Ohio State is a 6-seed.

SEC Tournament Champions

The Kentucky women made a dramatic turnaround in the month of February since my last post, winning their last six conference games to go from a 2-8 league record to an even-Steven 8-8. I think the big difference was the emergence of Dre’una Edwards who had several 20+ point games. Along with Rhyne Howard, this gave the Cats two big scoring threats and made them difficult to handle.

As the SEC Tournament started, I expected UK to overachieve. Sure enough, they quickly routed Mississippi State, LSU and Tennessee to earn a spot in Sunday’s championship game against the nation’s #1 team, South Carolina.

In February, the Gamecocks visited Lexington and beat Kentucky, their last loss. Although South Carolina held a working lead for most of the game, the Cats rallied in the fourth quarter to make it close.

Yesterday’s game was very similar, except this time UK got over the hump and won 64-62 with the winning shot a 3-pointer by Edwards with just a few seconds left. So the Cats won their second-ever SEC Tournament title, the first since 1982.

With a 19-11 overall record, Kentucky will not be a particularly high seed in the NCAA, but they are clearly playing as well as anybody in the country and will be a force to be reckoned with.

In the Big Ten, the Indiana and Michigan women looked so good that I actually quit following the conference standings. But Ohio State kept battling while IU and UM faltered, and the Bucks ended up sharing the regular season conference title with Iowa. In the semifinals of the Big Ten tournament, the Bucks ran into a newly-rejuvenated Hoosier team and lost after a quarterfinal win over Michigan State.

At 23-6 overall, OSU is currently ranked #14 in the AP poll. So, a top-4 seed is a distinct possibility.