One day, I’m going to tell my kids about when players actually signed their LOIs on national signing day.
Word of the Day: Haptic.
TOUGH CROWD. Here’s a head-scratcher – last week, Ohio State beat Penn State and smacked Michigan State to extend its hot streak to six wins in seven games, earning the Buckeye a No. 7 ranking in the AP Poll.
… and their national title odds somehow went down.
Yes, last week the sportsbook BetOnline.ag gave Ohio State 33/1 odds to win the 2021 NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament. As of yesterday, that number is 40/1.
Now, to be fair, pretty much everyone else’s odds dropped too. Only the top-four teams and Alabama (which lost its last game by five?) saw their odds increase. So basically, bettors are just increasingly convinced that one of those teams will win the natty.
That’s fine. Keep doubting Zed Key and the Buckeyes. Before you know it, they’ll be cutting down the nets.
GOTTA DO SOMETHING. You could pretty easily make a solid top-10 list of the wildest and most completely unprecedented things to happen in college football in 2020.
But my personal favorite is when the NCAA gave every single player an extra season of eligibility without seeming to even remotely consider the long-term roster, recruiting and financial ramifications.
But now, almost six months later, they’re realizing there are going to be some problems in the coming years.
The transfer surge is expected to continue well into next year’s cycle, not only because of the one-time transfer exception but as a result of a COVID-19-inspired rule granting each athlete an extra year of eligibility. While the seniors who return for next season do not count against a team’s 85 scholarship limit, players from all future classes do.
…
For instance, players who were juniors in the fall of 2020 and would normally have graduated by the 2022 season will now have the option to return as fifth- or even sixth-year seniors. They’d count against the 85. Meanwhile, some freshman classes in 2021 will be giant: 25 incoming freshmen will be coupled with roughly 25 “COVID-shirted” freshmen (true sophomores who were freshmen during 2020) for a 50-person rookie class. That leaves 35 scholarship spots for three classes.
While teams can have 85 players on scholarship each year, they can sign only 25 new players a year. The 100 signees over four years leaves a 15-player wiggle room for natural attrition. New transfer legislation and the impending COVID-shirter wave is causing unnatural attrition.
In the 2022 and 2023 recruiting cycles, coaches have one of two choices: retain their scholarship players and add fewer signees, or push out scholarship players and sign a normal class.
“The biggest challenge are these juniors who are going to be seniors [in 2022],” says Coastal Carolina coach Jamey Chadwell. “Those are going to be hard discussions.”
The entire piece does a great job of highlighting how there already aren’t anywhere near enough roster spots available for kids thinking they’re going to transfers, and that’s before you give every player for at least four classes an extra season of eligibility and allow a free one-time transfer for all players.
Unless the NCAA does something about the 85 scholarship limit, this is going to be a complete disaster in a couple of years and is almost certainly going to cost some kids college degrees they otherwise would have received.
I’m all for giving players extra eligibility – that’s fine. But doing it without adjusting roster size limits at all is going to leave countless kids hung out to dry.
OBEY YOUR ELDERS. Aaron Craft hasn’t put on a Buckeye uniform in almost seven years and didn’t even play under Chris Holtmann, but you’d be mistaken if you thought he didn’t still have some clout in that locker room.
Hey @dwizthekid4 can we tidy the space up a bit?!
— Aaron Craft (@ACraft4) January 28, 2021
Hows this? @ACraft4 pic.twitter.com/ligleKBZLS
— Duane Washington Jr. (@dwizthekid4) February 2, 2021
Aaron Craft needs to return to the program as a team manager. I’m sure medical school and being a father is hard and stuff, but priorities are priorities.
THAT WAS QUICK. Yesterday, EA Sports announced it will once again be making a college football video game. And Ohio State’s graphics team wasted absolutely no time turning that into a recruiting opportunity.
! pic.twitter.com/dQucu22pi6
— Dallan Hayden1 (@DCH__2) February 2, 2021
The ABCs of Ohio State football – Always Be ‘Crootin.
SONG OF THE DAY. “Honeysuckle Rose” by Fats Waller.
NOT STICKING TO SPORTS. A trip down Afghanistan’s deadliest road… The case of the serial sperm donor… Why you should never ‘unsubscribe’ from illicit spam emails and texts… Psychological tricks for coping with a midlife crisis… Philadelphia’s “building ghosts” have a lot to say…
Last week’s college basketball action was as wild as we’ve seen this season. Six teams ranked in the AP Top 25 went down last Saturday — including five in the top-15 — all while the likes of North Carolina and Kentucky took hits as their respective seasons continued to slip away from preseason expectations. Now this Saturday sets up to potentially be just as consequential.
A total of 19 ranked teams are scheduled to play Saturday in a day that will be busy from noon until midnight, nine of which are on the road in potential trap spots.
Our panel of experts is on the case to break down every major game with picks straight up and against the spread, so if you want to scratch that gambling itch, let us give you the edge with some analysis and thoughts below.
Jonathan Coachman is joined by Mike McClure to dissect the best bets & props in hoops for Saturday on The Early Edge. Download and subscribe on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.
When: 12 p.m. | Where: Fertitta Center in Houston TV: CBS | Live stream: CBSSports.com, CBS Sports App (Free) OTT: CBS Sports App (Apple TV, Roku, Fire TV, Chromecast)
This Houston team is on an absolute tear and already has a 26-point victory over Temple on the resume. The Owls should be more competitive this time as they play on their home court on the heels of consecutive league victories. Still, the Cougars are an elite defensive squad poised to capitalize on Temple’s offensive struggles. Prediction: Houston 74, Temple 59 — David Cobb
Latest Odds:
Baylor Bears
-9
When: 2 p.m. | Where: Gallagher-Iba Arena in Stillwater, Oklahoma TV: CBS | Live stream: CBSSports.com, CBS Sports App (Free) OTT: CBS Sports App (Apple TV, Roku, Fire TV, Chromecast)
Oklahoma State has not been blown out or overwhelmed by anyone this season and is good enough to give Baylor the same type of challenge the Bears faced in games against Texas Tech and Kansas. But the Cowboys probably aren’t quite good enough to pull the upset Prediction: Baylor 86, Oklahoma State 79 — David Cobb
No. 15 Ohio State at No. 10 Wisconsin
Latest Odds:
Wisconsin Badgers
-5
When: 4 p.m. | Where: Kohl Center in Madison, Wisconsin TV: CBS | Live stream: CBSSports.com, CBS Sports App (Free) OTT: CBS Sports App (Apple TV, Roku, Fire TV, Chromecast)
The Big Ten is brutal and unpredictable, as was demonstrated again Thursday night when Indiana upset Iowa on the road and held the high-powered Hawkeyes without a field goal for 11 minutes in the second half. So while Wisconsin appears to be trending in the right direction and Ohio State is coming off a close loss, there’s really no sense into trying to read the meaning of recent results. This has the makings of another brutally contested conference game, and the Badgers get a slight edge only because of their defense, which should be able to manage an Ohio State team getting increasingly 3-point happy. Prediction: Wisconsin 68, Ohio State 66 — David Cobb
When: 4 p.m. | Where: KFC Yum! Center in Louisville, Kentucky TV: ESPN | Live stream: fuboTV (Try for free)
Neither Duke nor Louisville has a ton of momentum at its sails right now — Duke has lost its last two in close road contests and Louisville has also lost its last two. But the Cardinals have been better on the whole this season, they’re more experienced, and they’ve got the benefit of playing this one at home. I’ll lay the points with them here primarily as a show of faith in Carlik Jones, Louisville’s senior who is playing at an All-ACC level right now. Duke is just 1-2 on the season against the spread in a road environment, and Louisville is 5-5-1 against the number as a favorite. Prediction: Louisville 73, Duke 70 — Kyle Boone
Latest Odds:
Tennessee Volunteers
-8.5
When: 8:30 p.m. | Where: Thompson-Boling Arena in Knoxville, Tennessee TV: SEC Network | Live stream: fuboTV (Try for free)
Tennessee had a wake-up call earlier this week when it got shellacked — by 26 points — on the road against a shorthanded Florida team. But that outcome is aberrational in nature given how UT has played this season. It has been one of the SEC’s best and most consistent forces. As it returns home seeking a bounceback, I expect it gets exactly that — in impressive fashion to boot as it reasserts itself as one of the SEC’s true contenders. The Vols are 8-4 against the spread as a favorite and get it done here with a double-digit dub. Prediction: Tennessee 72, Missouri 61 — Kyle Boone
No. 23 UConn at No. 11 Creighton
When: 12 p.m. | Where: CHI Health Center Omaha in Omaha, Nebraska TV: Fox | Live stream: fuboTV (Try for free)
UConn remains without star James Bouknight, one of the best scorers in all of college basketball. So without him, I can’t pick the Huskies on the road — at least not straight up. Their only quality outing in his absence came against Butler two weeks ago, and since, they’ve lost to St. John’s at home and narrowly squeaked a win over DePaul. Good spot here for the Bluejays to establish some much-needed confidence after dropping their second straight earlier this week. Going to meet in the middle and take UConn against the number but Creighton to win comfortably. Prediction: Creighton 76, UConn 70 — Kyle Boone
So who wins every college basketball game today? And which underdogs pull off stunning upsets? Visit SportsLine now to get picks for every game, all from the unbiased model that simulates every game 10,000 times, and find out.
“The system exists against the odds,” said Brian Powell, a data scientist at NASA’s High Energy Astrophysics Science Archive Research Center about the source of starlight that was mysteriously brightening and dimming some 1,900 light-years away. The source, named TIC 168789840, is a system of three pairs of binary stars: three different stellar couplets revolving around three different centers of mass, but with the trio remaining gravitationally bound to one another and circling the galactic center as a single star system.
“Just the fact that it exists blows my mind,” said first author, Powell. “I’d love to just be in a spaceship, park next to this thing and see it in person.”
Eclipses in the Lightcurves
The breadth of observation of TESS, encompasses nearly the entire sky, allowing for the identification of many candidate multiple star systems through the analysis of eclipses in the lightcurves. A collaboration between the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center and the MIT Kavli Institute, in conjunction with expert visual surveyors, has found well over 100 triple and quadruple star system candidates.
Most Systems are Quadruples
The large majority of the TESS discovered candidate triple and quadruple star systems are quadruples, followed by triples since it began searching the galaxy for exoplanets in 2018. But the source of starlight that was mysteriously brightening and dimming some 1,900 light-years away,” reports Robin George Andrews for the New York Times, “may top all those discoveries for its science fiction-like grandeur.”
“Though quadruple systems are much more rare than triple systems,” reports NASA, “the large outer orbit of the third star in a hierarchical triple, necessary for stability, substantially reduces the probability that the eclipse or occultation of the third star will be visually noticed in a TESS lightcurve. Beyond quadruple stars, the probability of systems with more stars being identified via photometry alone is remote, as the formation of sextuple systems is likely quite rare. This low probability is compounded by the requirement that each binary must be oriented in such a manner that they are all eclipsing.”
A Unique System
Although several of other six-star systems have been discovered, reports Andrews about NASA’s TESS discovery, this is the first in which the stars within each of those three pairings pass in front of and behind each other, eclipsing the other member of its stellar ballet, at least from the TESS space telescope’s view.
“These are the types of signals that algorithms really struggle with,” said lead author Veselin Kostov, a NASA Postdoctoral Fellow at Goddard Space Flight Center working. “The human eye is extremely good at finding patterns in data, especially non-periodic patterns like those we see in transits from these systems.”
Although exoplanets within the star system have yet to be confirmed, only one of the pairs could have any planets. Two of the system’s binaries orbit extremely close to one another, forming their own quadruple subsystem. Any planets there would likely be ejected or engulfed by one of the four stars. The third binary is farther out, orbiting the other two once every 2,000 years or so, making it a possible exoplanetary haven.
Its Origin a Mystery
“The origin of this whirling six-star system will remain a puzzle until we find others like it,” concludes Andrews. “Just the fact that it exists blows my mind,” said first author, Powell. “I’d love to just be in a spaceship, park next to this thing and see it in person.”
In 2019, TESS discovered its TOI 1338 its first circumbinary planet, a world orbiting two stars, 1,300 light-years away in the constellation Pictor. The two stars orbit each other every 15 days. One is about 10% more massive than our Sun, while the other is cooler, dimmer and only one-third the Sun’s mass. TOI 1338 b, the only known planet in the system. It’s around 6.9 times larger than Earth, or between the sizes of Neptune and Saturn. The planet orbits in almost exactly the same plane as the stars, so it experiences regular stellar eclipses.
The Daily Galaxy, Jake Burba, via Goddard Space Flight Center, NASA Arxiv.org PDF, and New York Times Science
Image Credit: NASA/MIT/TESS shows the spacecraft’s 13-sector mosaic of the southern sky, recorded over the course of a year. One object shown in the mosaic is a long, bright edge of our Milky Way galaxy.
