Sunday February 15, 2026

#DMD

Issue #4192

reading time: 3 minutes

I think that silly groundhog was wrong. We're just about ready to get out of winter and start with spring here in the Mid Atlantic.

That's the benefit of a month-long spell with 8 inches of snow on the ground. Once it's gone, we'll be in shorts and tee shirts before you know it.

I can actually see large patches of grass in my front and back yards. There's still a lot of snow out there, but I think by Wednesday of this week it will all be gone.

What a wild month that was, though, huh? I don't know about you, but if we go five more winters without snow here in Bawlmer, I'd be perfectly OK with that. Especially after seeing my BGE bill for the last month. But I digress...

You know it's spring -- or almost, anyway -- when they run the Daytona 500. And that happens to be today, starting at 2:13 pm.

If you came here for racing analysis and insightful commentary on the 500, I'm not going to have much of that for you.

But I will give you three names to think about and, you know, maybe throw a few bucks on if you're motivated by that sort of thing.

I'm going with Ryan Blaney, Chase Elliott and semi-longshot Connor Zilisch for win bets and Top 10 finishes. Elliott has 21 career NASCAR Cup wins but hasn't placed inside the top 10 at Daytona since 2022. Maybe the racin' gods have something for him today.

I spent most of yesterday afternoon watching the PGA Tour event from Pebble Beach, where the weather started to turn late in the day and the last group spent nearly 14 minutes on the 18th green because the wind was howling so bad the ball wouldn't come to rest on the putting surface.

They're calling for rain and wind today, too. It should be fun. Or not.

Editor's note: I'll be extra-interested today since my five-way, Top 20 parlay offering I handed out here on Thursday at #DMD is looking very good heading into today's final round: I'm looking at five names for Top 20 wagers this week; Jake Knapp, Ryo Hisatsune, Ryan Gerard, Rickie Fowler and Nick Taylor.

I also handed out Jake Knapp as a wagering winner of the event and he starts today tied for 2nd at 17-under par.

I hope you're as interested in today's final round as I am. If we can coax one big day out of Ryan Gerard and everyone plays well and stays on point, we'd be in grreeattt shape. And if Knapp wins...oh boy.

But more than that, I just love watching golf from Pebble Beach. CBS treats it almost like a major championship and because Jim Nantz lived there for 12 years before moving to Nashville 5 years ago, you get a lot of extra "trinkets", if you will, during a CBS broadcast from Pebble.

For those who are interested in these things, when they show the 18th green from the fairway, you can see Nantz's old house in the upper right portion of the screen (as long as the big tree in 18 fairway isn't blocking it out). It's the one with the red, brick colored roof.

Anyway, as I've written here many times, if you're a golfer of any serious stature at all and you're looking to break the bank on a once-in-a-lifetime golf trip -- in this country, at least -- you simply have to play Pebble Beach. There are other "costly" courses and resorts in this country that are worth the money; Bandon Dunes, Pinehurst, Whistling Straits and Kiawah are all outstanding in their own right.

But if you're going to fork over a few thousand bucks over a 3-day period to play somewhere, book a trip to Pebble Beach and play their 3-course rotation (Pebble, Spyglass and Spanish Bay). The golf course at Pebble Beach is just absolutely spectacular. The first three holes are a bit benign (fun golf holes, but no real "views" to speak of) but from there, it's an incredible tour of one of the best pieces of golf property God ever created.

If you're looking for something to watch this afternoon, the golf starts on The Golf Channel at 1 pm and then shifts over to CBS at 3 pm.

Rick P. sent me an e-mail asking for my opinion on the O's not sending broadcasters to Florida for the spring training games that are going to be televised by MASN.

Look, there are three ways to evaluate this particular issue.

First, let's be fair. It's pre-season, spring training baseball. The only reason you even remotely care is because you're excited about the season starting in another month. Nothing that happens in the games in February or March really matters.

Second, MASN is no longer the cash-cow it once was. Long gone are the days of blanket government approval for cable networks and affiliates. There was a time when MASN was raking in $8 million a month with its eyes closed. Those days are over.

Back then, you (we) had the right to complain when they penny-pinched. Not only were they making $90 million annually, they weren't even paying the Nationals the $25 million they owed them!

But now, they have to be careful with their expenses. Cutting broadcasters for spring training games is one way of doing that.

Third, we should just be happy the games are actually on for our viewing pleasure, no matter who happens to be calling them or where they're located.

I'm certainly not going to watch any games, but I realize there are people out there who will. And I say to you, "Would you rather have 8 games on WITH broadcasters there, on site, who improve the quality of the broadcast, or 16 games WITHOUT broadcasters and the analysis and play-by-play is "3 stars" basically?"

If I cared, I'd take the 16 games with the broadcasters sitting in Baltimore.

But that's just me.

Now, if you want to complain about the broadcast teams they shuffle in and out of there during the regular season, I'll listen to that, both on the radio and on TV. Some of it is dreadful. But that's a story for May or June, not mid-February.

I don't know about you, but over the last month, I've encountered numerous occasions when I've been navigating my way through snow and ice and either slipped or needed to steady myself by grabbing on to a rail, a car, a door, etc.

Just yesterday, I was out shopping and parked in a spot that was half-snow, half pavement. As I get out of the car, I slipped a bit and had to grab on to the side of my car to avoid slipping.

Last night, I watched a bunch of men in the Olympics compete in the "Large Hill" downhill ski jump. They whisked down the hill at 50 miles per hour prior to take off, then flew roughly 150 yards before landing perfectly -- like a cat -- on two feet.

The guy that won had a gold medal jump of 141 meters or 154 yards!

Now, I get it. Part of that distance is due to the height they're starting from, but I don't care. You're in the air for 150 yards! I mean, at that point, you're basically flying as a human being. Or, as Buzz Lightyear once said, "Falling with style."

Everything, measurement wise, always goes back to golf for me. Think of a 150-yard par 3 hole at your local golf course (Mount Pleasant #6 is roughly 135 from the very back tee, I think) and imagine being in the air that long and having to land on your feet when you finally reach the ground.

Oh, and you have to land on snow, too. And it has to look great or you don't win an Olympic medal!

And I can't walk from my house to the mailbox without almost falling twice.

	dale williams aims the terps spotlight
DALE WILLIAMS returns for his 10th season of covering all things Maryland men's basketball for #DMD. Terps Spotlight will preview and review all games in the 2025-2026 season.

terps visit rutgers today

The University of Maryland will travel north about 190 miles on I-95 just to look into a mirror and see a near perfect image of themselves. The stats, and personnel for these two Big Ten bottom feeders are close to identical.

Both teams struggle to score, each shooting just 41% from the field. The three-point difficulties that they equally share is reflected by their matching 32.2% accuracy from behind the arc.

Rutgers has given up 179 more points than they have scored, nearly equaling the Terps differential of 171. Each team has earned a pair of victories at home, against 5 home losses. On the road, Rutgers is 0-6, while the Terps beat Minnesota to up their away record to 1-5.

The Scarlet Knights do have some holdovers from last year’s team, but like Maryland (and a ton of other NCAA teams in this NIL and portal era) most of their roster is a blend of freshmen and transfers.

One area that Rutgers has had some continuity is with their head coach, Steve Pikiell. The Scarlet Knight skipper has been with the school since 2016, and he tapped an unusual source to obtain this season’s top scorer.

Tarique Francis leads Rutgers with 16.5 points a game. That’s almost 5 more points than any other Scarlet Knight.

The 6’1” junior guard came to New Brunswick via the New Jersey Institute of Technology. Francis takes a ton of shots. About 2/3 of his tries come from outside the three-point line, where he hits a passable 33%.

From inside the line, he’s a much better 50%. Like many of his teammates, Francis is not averse to the wild, low percentage shots. You’ll see some questionable shots from Francis and his mates, some of which lead to attempts way off the mark.

Similar to the Terps without Pharrel Payne, the Scarlet Knights don’t have a low post threat. They’ll play about 18 minutes with the huge 6’10”, 260-pound Emmanuel Ogbole on the court, but his offensive repertoire is awkward at best.

He gets more rebounds each game (6.5) than points (4.2), but he could be a difference maker if used properly today. This solid disrupter on defense will meet little resistance in the paint against Maryland. He needs to get an ample supply of low post touches today.

The Scarlet Knight’s Darren Buchanan is a strong guy that I feel will exceed his average points per game. Currently scoring 8.3 points each contest, Buchanan has the size (6’7”), power (235 pounds of muscle) and shooting ability (40% from three) to give the Terps real headaches today. I’ll be shocked if this physical GW transfer fails to exceed his normal 3.3 rebounds per game.

I’m going to describe the Scarlet Knight offense as chaotic, even hectic. There’s quick movement, aggressive dribbles to the lane, but not many passes that lead to easy buckets.

Rutgers and Maryland are the two worst assist teams in the league and both are more likely to score from one-on-one play than from an offensive set.

Both of the Rutgers Big Ten wins came at home in overtime against weak opponents (Oregon and Northwestern). Also at home was an overtime loss to Michigan State in a game that Rutgers pretty much gave away in the final 2 minutes.

Maryland is certainly on an upswing with recent wins over Minnesota and Iowa. As for Rutgers, that haven’t won a game in over a month. The books don’t seem to care about those trends though, having installed the Scarlet Knights as a 2.5-point favorite.

I tend to agree with the books. It’s the physicality of Rutgers that tilts me gently to their side when trying to forecast a possible outcome.

I see a low scoring affair with the game being played in the high 60’s. In a defensive battle, I’ll take the team with the longest and strongest guys. That would be Rutgers.

In this 12-noon battle carried by FS1, I’ll go with a 69-66 Maryland loss, as the Scarlet Knights hold serve at home.

Saturday February 14, 2026

#DMD

Issue #4191

you can even cheat in curling?

Everyone always complains that cheating at the Olympics is rampant in the sports where judges are the ultimate decision-maker for wins, losses and medals.

And it's not even "cheating" per se, rather just judges who see the event differently from athlete-to-athlete.

Last night, though, there was a full fledged cheating scandal in curling and it basically involved one team, Sweden, claiming the other team, Canada, was breaking the rules.

And it actually got heated. We even heard some foul language, believe it or not, in the calm, tepid sport of curling.

I won't bore you with the details, but Sweden accused Canada of "double-touching" the stone. Once a player releases the stone (prior to the "hog" or touch line), it can not be touched again. A Swedish player accused the Canadian of releasing the rock and then using the end of his finger to guide or straighten the rock just before it passed the line and started its trek down the icy surface.

Apparently, you can't do that.

The Canadiap player said he didn't do it, though. And things got a little tense for a few minutes while the two sides argued back and forth about it. The game official handed out no penalties, cooler heads prevailed, and Canada went on to win, 8-6.

Look, I know beyond zero about curling. Nothing at all. That said, when they showed the replay last night, you can definitely see where the Canadian player in question's finger is definitely extended and could have lightly touched the stone in an effort to straighten it out a hair.

"You can f**k off" he said to the Swedish player who accused him of touching the rock after releasing it.

So, yeah, I'll stay out of this one. I don't want to get blasted. But it certainly looked "close", I guess I'd say.

It's always fair to remember the line from the great Seve Ballesteros when it comes to cheating in sports.

"Cheating and not knowing the rules are two totally different things."

Ballesteros used that line on Paul Azinger and Chip Beck at the 1991 Ryder Cup after Azinger pointed out that he had mistakenly putted out using his ball instead of using Beck's ball that they played the hole with during an alternate shot match.

"Loss of hole, my friend, I'm sorry," Seve said to Azinger.

"Oh come on, Seve, it was a 3-foot putt," Azinger replied. "I pulled the wrong ball out of my pocket, that's all. We're not trying to cheat."

"I know that, Paul," Ballesteros countered. "Cheating and not knowing the rules...are two totally different things."

It's hard to imagine someone would cheat at the Olympics, particularly in this day and age when every single moment of every event is on video, television, live streamed, etc.

I mean, there's just no way the guy last night could have imagined he'd get away with it.

Then again, Patrick Reed once cheated on CBS at Torrey Pines and completely got away with it. That was the occasion when Reed, not wanting to have to hit a shot out of ankle-high, four inch rough, claimed his ball was embedded and pulled it out and put it in his pocket before the rules official even got there.

"They said it didn't bounce, and I believe it broke ground, but I'm gonna let you make that call," Reed told the official.

Reed, though, already "made the call" when he pulled his ball out of the rough.

"Where's the ball?" the official asked.

He meant, of course, where in the grass is the ball that's supposedly embedded?

"Well, since I picked it up to check..." and he points to the area near the cart path where his ball is sitting.

The rules official was clearly surprised that Reed made the rules call before the official showed up on the scene. You can hear Nantz and Faldo essentially calling Reed a cheater. Frank Nobilo then jumps in and also calls Reed a cheater.

It was an Oscar-worthy performance by Reed throughout the entire process.

He hit his ball way left and was unable to see it land.

He asked a female rules official who wasn't even paying attention to that hole whether she saw his ball land and she said, "No, I didn't see it bounce."

Reed then told his playing partners "I'm going to check it...she said it didn't bounce."

That's actually not what the female course marshal said. She said she didn't see it bounce.

Reed then interpreted that favorably, telling his playing partners, "She said it didn't bounce." (20 second mark of the video below)

He never once asked her, "Did you see my ball come in here?" In fact, on the video replay, she's not even in the picture.

Oh, and that video replay clearly shows the ball DID bounce. Reed didn't know it then, but he certainly knew it later when he saw the video of his ball bouncing and then nestling in the rough.

But once she said, "No, I didn't see it bounce," that was his green light to cheat.

And the rest, you saw on video, was Reed quickly "checking" to see if it was embedded, deciding it was, pulling it out of the rough, calling the rules official, and then getting free relief (after he gently pushed his ball down in the rough to create the "lip" the rules official felt).

All of that occurred on television and Reed still had the temerity to not only do it, but later on even deny it!

Faldo, as you hear, knows Reed cheated and won't let it go during the broadcast.

To the credit of CBS, they snagged Reed afterwards and Amanda Balionis asks Reed point blank to "take us through" the incident. Reed, as you can hear, flubs and fibs his way through an awkward 90-second recap of what happened.

Even today, on the PGA Tour, there are "cheating whispers" about a number of players, including Akshay Bhatia, who is leading this week's event at Pebble Beach. Bhatia is accused of "anchoring" his long putter, which means his top hand is touching his body during the putting stroke.

As a long putter user myself for 20 years, I'm always particularly interested in "anchoring" discussions.

I watched a number of replays of Bhatia's putting stroke yesterday and here's what I would say: "It's very, very close."

I can't tell if he's anchoring and I'd give Bhatia the benefit of the doubt since he knows the whispers are out there and he knows, especially as the tournament leader, that every putt he attempts will be seen by everyone.

It definitely looks close, that's for sure.

A lot of people have long accused Bernhard Langer of anchoring his long putter, but I can without question -- having played two practice roounds with him in the 2021 U.S. Senior Open -- that Langer absolutely does not anchor his putter.

Athletes are always looking for that edge, of course.

The Houston Astros made a cottage industry out of cheating their way to the 2017 World Series title.

Michigan football openly cheated via their sign-stealing scandal a few years ago.

What's the old saying in NASCAR? "If you ain't cheatin', you ain't tryin'."

But this curling scandal is the red-hot item of the first week of the Olympics. And it's only going to be more open and discussed as Canada moves on in the competition this weekend and into next week.

Cheating at the Olympics!!!

Maybe we need a new slogan --- Make The Olympics Great Again.

Friday February 13, 2026

#DMD

Issue #4190

pardon me?

My dad would be 99 years old today. That seems weird to write, but then again, I have two friends who each has one parent who has busted through the century mark and is still thriving.

Imagine, whatever age you are right now, knowing you're going to live to be at least 100. Wouldn't that be something?

I often wonder if we, those of us born in the 1900's and 2000's, let's say, were simply born way too early in terms of the history of mankind?

Like, the people who will be born in the year 3026, for example. Will they live to be 150? Over the next 1000 years, will scientists and doctors figure out a way for everyone's life to extend well into the 150's or so?

If that does happen, it will obviously all be of God's doing. If God decides we all need to live longer, He will simply arm the scientists and doctors with the necessary smarts and information to figure out how to extend our bodies well past age 100 and 125.

Those will be interesting times, I'm sure.

My dad was born on February 13, 1927 in Butler, Tennessee, which currently boasts a population of about 500 people. Butler is roughly 35 minutes from Johnson City.

My dad was alive and survived the big flood of 1940 in Butler. He would tell the story about his mom saying, "Grab your shoes and your Bible, we're going for a walk" and my dad and his 8 brothers and sisters and his parents all walked about 2 miles up a hill into a desolate area to wait for the flood waters to subside.

He went on to play football at Lees-McRae College in Banner Elk, North Carolina, where he met my mom. He later joined the Army and served courageously in the Korean War.

My dad passed away at age 76.

He loved the Colts and the Orioles. My dad was one of those in Baltimore who didn't "adopt" the CFL team when that product was in Baltimore and he never really latched on to the Ravens, either.

I remember the day after the Ravens beat the Giants in the Super Bowl, I called to check in on him and asked if he watched the Super Bowl and he said, "Off and on. I got busy watching a Buck Owens concert on TV and forgot to see what happened. Who won?"

Buck Owens was a country singer and a great guitar player and my dad's favorite musician. Ironically, Buck also passed away at age 76, but in 2006.

My dad opted for a Buck Owens concert instead of watching the Ravens win the Super Bowl. That's how much the Colts meant to him. He was never the same, sports wise, after the Colts left Baltimore for Indianapolis.

When the Super Bowl was in Indianapolis in 2012, Glenn Clark and I grilled the then Mayor of Indianapolis about the Colts colors and logo and records and urged him to discuss with the NFL the whole idea that Johnny Unitas was somehow in the records as an "Indianapolis Colt" when, of course, #19 never once played a down for that sorry franchise.

We went after the Mayor pretty hard on the air that day. I'd like to think my role in that was sparked in a big way by the heartbreak my mom and dad endured when the Colts moved to Indianapolis.

I've always thought the guys that played for the "BALTIMORE" Colts should be recognized as such, but on that occasion, I was taking up for my mom and dad when I roasted the Mayor of Indianapolis along with Glenn Clark.

My dad wasn't around in 2012 to hear that radio show, but I know he would liked hearing me talk about it and take up for "his" Baltimore Colts.

If your parent(s) are still alive today, give them a quick call and say hi. Tell them you love them.

I noted where President Trump pardoned a number of athletes yesterday, including former Ravens running back Jamal Lewis and ex-New York Jets defensive tackle Joe Klecko.

I'm trying to learn more about Presidential pardons, so here's what they are all about.

A presidential pardon is a constitutional power of the U.S. President to grant legal forgiveness for federal crimes, erasing guilt and punishment, and restoring civil rights like voting or firearm possession, though it doesn't declare factual innocence or remove all record of the conviction. This act of executive clemency applies only to federal offenses (not state crimes or impeachment cases) and serves as an act of mercy, allowing the President to address injustices or correct harsh sentences, typically after a formal application process.

Maybe I'm wrong, but a Presidential pardon is pretty much a nothing-burger unless by receiving one you're allowed to either, A) get out of prison or, B) avoid prison

Sure, if you're pardoned now you get to vote again or carry a firearm, but no one's life gets changed in any way just because you get those two rights restored to you via a Presidential pardon.

All that's happening to guys like Jamal Lewis, Joe Klecko and the others the President pardoned yesterday is "legal forgiveness". Are Lewis and Klecko really free of guilt? You'd have to ask them that, I suppose, but the whole things seems kind of weird to me.

After all, why Jamal Lewis? Why not someone else from, say, Baltimore City who was once charged with a drug crime but has since walked the straight and narrow and is now a community activist or outspoken voice against drug use?

In the end, not to spend my Friday preaching here, but if I don't say it, what good am I? The only forgiveness that really matters to guys like Jamal Lewis and Joe Klecko is the forgiveness they receive from God, which is eternal if they're willing to accept that God sent his only son, Jesus, to die on the cross so that all of us would be forgiven of our sins.

You can receive 100 Presidential pardons, but they're not getting you into heaven.

"What do you mean I'm not allowed in? I was pardoned on Earth for that crime I was involved in when I was 22 years old," you might say someday when you're on the doorsteps of heaven.

"Those pardons don't mean jack-squat here. Sorry," you'll be told.

This is my roundabout way of saying, "We all need to be pardoned. But not by the President. Get your pardon from God and you won't need anything else."

If you spent any time at all listening or watching the various John Harbaugh interviews from Wednesday and Thursday in Baltimore, a few things became quite clear.

Harbaugh thinks Jesse Minter is going to do very well in Baltimore and he, Harbaugh that is, would have tabbed Minter to replace him if given full authority to name his replacement.

For those of you who haven't yet heard/seen Glenn Clark's interview with Harbaugh, you can watch it by clicking here.

Your mileage might vary on how you feel about Minter receiving a full vote of confidence from Harbaugh. After all, Harbs also gave a full vote of confidence on guys like Zach Orr, Greg Roman and other coaches once upon a time.

You can tell by his demeanor, voice and general "look" that Harbaugh is "at ease" with his transition to the Giants. I guess $100 million helps with that, but it's now fairly evident that John knows he had reached his expiration date in Baltimore, he just didn't want to admit it.

He also knows that all he needs to do in New York is revive that organization into a winner and a competitive team in the NFC East and his career legacy gets cemented even more than it already is.

I said this back in early January when the Harbaugh firing first happened. Nothing in life replaces being "wanted" by someone, whether that's another human being or a company that wants you to join their team.

"We don't want anyone else. We want you." That's a very powerful human cocktail to consume. It changes the way you see yourself.

When you get fired, you think you're a bum. When someone comes along and says, "They don't want you? They're crazy. We'd LOVE to have you!", nothing can replace the europhia that comes with that.

So that's why guys like Harbaugh and Kevin Stefanski have a puncher's chance in their new spots. That new energy is limitless.

Deep down, in places he won't talk about, Harbaugh also knows the truth about Jesse Minter and Baltimore. There will be a wonderful "get to know you" period where the fans will fawn over Minter because he's the new guy in town and he replaced the man many of those folks wanted to see removed from the sidelines in Baltimore. But as sure as the sun rises in the East, Minter will eventually be the victim of the same witch-hunt Harbaugh endured.

There's no telling how long the marriage between Minter and Baltimore will last. It might be 5 years. Or 10 years. Who knows? But if you had $1,000 right now to bet if Jesse Minter lasts more or less than, say, 12 years, nearly every single person would take the "less" option.

It's inevitable that Minter will someday be public enemy #1 in Baltimore. We love you. Then we tolerate you. Then we turn on you. Then we chase you out of town.

In Harbaugh's case, that process took 18 years.

John knows, if nothing else, Minter will someday face the same scrutiny from a rabid fan base that he faced. And I assume that makes his move to New York a wee bit easier.

faith in sports

Everyone remembers Damar Hamlin from his scary, near-death experience on the football field a few years ago.

Wait until you hear him talk about that with the awesome folks from Sports Spectrum. Hamlin was a recent guest of SS at the Super Bowl and you're going to very impressed with this young man!

There's something brewing very strongly in the world of sports these days. If you're paying attention at all, more high profile athletes than ever before are publicly sharing their faith and love for Jesus in the media.

If you have ten minutes to spare (and we all do), please give this video a watch and hear about the growth of Hamlin and his on-field incident and how all of it turned him to God.

Thanks, as always, to our friends at Freestate Electrical for their continued support of #DMD and our "Faith in Sports" segment here every Friday.

Thursday February 12, 2026

#DMD

Issue #4189

here and there

OK, so things are starting to look up here in The Land of Pleasant Living.

Have you seen the 15-day weather forecast? It's going to be a very pleasant 60 degrees around here in the middle of next week.

I think we're on the verge of the great thaw.

Finally...huh?

My prediction: Golf balls will be in the air on Tuesday, February 24. Snow will be all gone by next Wednesday or Thursday and then we just need a few days for things to dry out and off we go. Golf on February 24. That's my official guess.

Maryland basketball is getting hot precisely at the right time. The Big Ten tournament is less than a month away and they still offer an automatic bid to the winner of that little shindig. So, you know, I'm saying there's a chance.

Alright, there's not really a chance for Maryland in the conference tournament. But that was a nice win last night over a good Iowa team. Baby steps, my friends. Baby steps.

And the O's made a late-winter splash of sorts by adding veteran pitcher Chris Bassitt for the 2026 season at the "mere sum" of $18.5 million bucks.

Bassitt, 37, has been a stabilizing presence throughout most of his career and comes to Baltimore on the heels of three respectable years in Toronto. I'm doing my best to chronicle Bassitt for what he is. He's a journeyman type, a notch or two better than the guy we saw them snag for peanuts last year, Charlie Morton. But he's a "good" journeyman, if you will. I like the signing.

This time last year, the O's rotation was, essentially, Kremer, Sugano, Morton, Eflin and GrayRod/Povich split.

Today, they have a healthy Kyle Bradish, a rejuveanted Trevor Rogers, a hopefully no-longer-injured Eflin, Kremer, Bassitt and Shane Baz.

Cade Povich is still hanging around, as is Tyler Wells, who wasn't with the club at the start of 2025, remember.

On a scale of 1-to-10, last year's opening day group of starters was a 4.5.

This year's group of starters is an 8. Maybe even an 8.5.

For everyone bellyaching about the O's rotation, it's waaaaaaayyy better than the 2025 version of the team's starting rotation.

Go back and look at what Toronto's starting rotation was at the beginning of 2025 and compare it to what the O's have right now heading into 2026 and tell me that Blue Jays group was head and shoulders better than what the O's are sporting. You can't. But I'll be here waiting for your effort, nonetheless.

The Bassitt signing offset a couple of pieces of disconcerting news from Sarasota on Wednesday. Jackson Holliday will likely miss at least six weeks, if not more, as he recovers from a broken hamate bone in his hand. And Jordan Westburg has been dealing with an oblique strain for 3 weeks that will keep him out of Grapefruit League action for another week or so.

It's always weird when a guy gets hurt before spring training even officially starts. Then again, Marty Cordova once feel asleep in a tanning bed and hit the injury report due to "excessive sunburn", so weird injuries in the O's organization do occasionally come along.

As long as Holliday's injury isn't something that keeps him out until June, who cares? And the same for the oft-injured Westburg. He does always seem to be battling some kind of ailment, but I'd rather hear about him being hurt in February than in May or July.

They're teeing it up at Pebble Beach (and Spyglass Hill) this week, as the PGA Tour's West Coast residence rolls on. They'll split Thursday and Friday at Pebble and Spyglass, then play both weekend rounds at Pebble.

There is a chance for some rainy weather over the weekend, which could shake things up a bit and give a nod to guys like Fleetwood, Lowry, Rose and MacIntyre, who are more used to playing in the slop over in Europe.

Rose, in particular, would be a worthy investment. He has won at Pebble before (2023) and was T3 there a year ago. Oh, and he already has a victory this season, don't forget.

The field is phenomenal, with both Scottie and Rory teeing it up. It has the look -- field wise -- of a mini-major, on a course where there have been a number of U.S. Opens over the last 50 years. Scheffler is a +325 betting favorite.

I'll say the same thing I say every week when Scottie's in the field. He's in "Tiger-territory" at this point. If he's playing, you have to assume he's going to win.

He's such a quasi-lock to win that online sports betting services are offering "without Scottie" win wagers, which essentially becomes a wager on who you think will finish in 2nd place. If Scottie wins but the guy you picked to win is the 2nd place finisher, your win bet cashes.

That said, as we saw last week, Scheffler doesn't always win. And, so, you should play at least one or two other win wagers and see if you can hit on the right guy.

I'm looking at five names for Top 20 wagers this week; Jake Knapp, Ryo Hisatsune, Ryan Gerard, Rickie Fowler and Nick Taylor.

I'll parlay a couple of those guys together here and there and I'll play one "all 5 finish in the top 20" wager to try to hit a grand slam.

I narrowly missed a 5-man Top 20 parlay last week in Phoenix. I had Matsuyama, Gotterup, Thorbjornsen, Theegala and Conners to all finish top 20. A meager $5 wager would have returned $344 if all 5 finished T20 or better. Early on Friday afternoon, with Conners lurking on the cut line and the others all playing well and easily inside the top 20 two rounds into the event, they offered me a $48 buyout and I turned it down.

Conners wound up missing the cut by a shot or two and my 5-way "grand slam" turned out to be a grounder to second for an inning ending double play.

I bring that up not to point out I was close on a 5-way, but to remind you to keep your eyes open for buyout opportunites, particularly on Friday as the cut looms. Online wagering houses are very good at knowing what's likely to happen and not likely to happen and they'll occasionally throw you a bone for your consideration.

Alas, I should have accepted last week's $48 since, even if Conners made the cut, there was no guarantee he was going to finish Top 20. But I thought he'd sneak in, like Scheffler did, and then play well over the weekend and I didn't think $5 for $48 was a smart move, so I waited to see if $5 for $344 materialized, which it didn't.

Moral of the story: Check your account to see if early buyouts are offered and proceed accordingly.

Back to Pebble Beach: I'll throw a few bucks down on Maverick McNealy (Pebble) and Bob MacIntyre (Spyglass) as first-round leaders this week. Because they use two different courses, you get two different first round leader wager options.

I'll throw a few bucks down on Jake Knapp and Justin Rose to win. If you're thinking Chris Gotterup might be a good win wager, I'm not going to laugh at you. He's on a legit, early-career heater.

And because I love playing one longshot "just in case he hits", I'll toss a couple of dollars on Denny McCarthy at 150-1. I don't want to miss out on him when he finally breaks through and wins. Spyglass and Pebble are not overly long tracks, which suits D Mac very well. He had a T-4 finish at this event a few years ago and generally puts poa greens well. Putting $5 on him to win $750, potentially, seems smart this week.

My buddy Glenn Clark did an excellent interview with John Harbaugh yesterday, as did a number of local media types who were afforded the opportunity to do a "one-on-one" with the former Ravens coach.

Clark's interview will air on WBAL Radio tomorrow night.

However, you can watch it on WBAL's YouTube channel right now.

I assume the folks at WBAL would be OK with me linking their page right here, but it's 5:50 am as I write this and I don't know how to get a hold of anyone to gain their permission.

So...just go to Google and type in "John Harbaugh, WBAL, YouTube" and it pops right up for you (I just did it. It's there.)

Glenn, as always, does a nice job of asking some interesting questions of the future Hall of Fame coach and Harbaugh, as always, gives outstanding answers and explanations in return.

It's an excellent "finishing touch" by Harbaugh, who clearly still has respect for various members of the Baltimore media.

	dale williams aims the terps spotlight
DALE WILLIAMS returns for his 10th season of covering all things Maryland men's basketball for #DMD. Terps Spotlight will preview and review all games in the 2025-2026 season.

terps surprise visiting iowa, 77-70

The “Amen” chorus was playing late last night in the XFINITY Center after Maryland handed Iowa a 77-70 defeat.

The Terp guard combo of Andre Mills, Diggy Coit, and Darius Adams powerfully blazed through the Iowa defense for countless layups, scoring 24, 19, and 11 points respectively in giving the Terps their second straight Big 10 win.

Maryland put 5 players in double figures as Elijah Saunders added 12 and Solomon Washington chipped in with 10. Three Terps each grabbed 8 rebounds as Maryland outhustled Iowa for the full 40 minutes.

Iowa did their part to help the Terrapin cause by making just 7 of 28 three pointers, including an anemic 3-16 in the second half. Take away Bennett Stirtz’s 4 for 10 from deep, and the rest of his Hawkeye team shot 3 for 18.

Stirtz was a one-man offensive show for the Hawkeyes, dropping 32 points but missing 4 of his 5 second-half three-point shots.

Perhaps the biggest story of the game was Maryland’s physical ability to get to the rim and finish. Maryland had 30 points-in-the-paint without any low post play. Mills was a star. Adans played well too. These were not the same freshman players that got worked at Iowa 2 months ago.

The game started with the Terps hitting a pair of threes, and securing an early 6-2 advantage. Unfortunately, when the first TV timeout rolled around, Maryland found themselves in a 9-6 hole.

The Terps had doubled up the scoring opportunities on the Hawkeyes, but the Terps hit the mark on only 2 of their 8 attempts. Every Terp shot up to that point was a three-pointer.

The second 4-minute segment saw Maryland get the ball inside, and have success. Elijah Saunders added a three and Maryland had surged slightly ahead, 17-15. The Terps were offering token three quarter court pressure on the defensive side, and had already grabbed 5 balls of the offensive glass.

The next 5 minutes saw the Terps hit just a single shot, go more than 4 minutes without a score, and trail 22-19 with 7:06 left in the half.

The Iowa size was a problem for the Terps, as 14 of the 22 Hawkeye points were easy buckets around the basket. At this point Iowa had 5 assists and just 1 turnover, compared to Maryland’s 4 turnovers and only 2 assists.

Andre Mills had 9 of the Terp’s 19 points, connecting on a single three-pointer and 4 successful drives to the lane.

A series of blocked shots, 2 by Collin Metcalf and 1 by Saunders, paired with 3 for 3 Terps shooting had the Terps back up by 2 points with 3:37 remaining. Maryland was winning on the glass 13-8, with Saunders grabbing 7 of those rebounds.

Another blocked shot led to a triple by Saunders and the Terps found themselves with their biggest lead of the night, 31-27.

With under a minute left in the half, Iowa was in an 0-6 shooting funk and trailed by 6. Stirtz ended the dry spell with a triple from the left wing, but his Hawkeye squad was still looking up at the Terps, 37-32, when the opening half ended.

The first 20 minutes was the best half of ball the Maryland team has played all season.

They allowed just 2 second chance points, and zero fast break points. Their ability to get to the rim, and finish, was the reason they shot 54% from the field despite hitting just 5 of 15 shots from deep.

Mills was 6-8 and produced 14 points for Maryland. Iowa was led by Stirtz and his 13 points.

The Hawkeyes were very late getting out of the locker room for the start of half number two. I had a feeling that coach Ben McCallum wasn’t discussing strategy that entire time. It’s more likely that he was using the time to “motivate” his troops.

The initial 4 minutes of the second half featured a lot of turnovers and little scoring. Maryland had 3 turnovers and 2 buckets, while Iowa had 2 and 1. Adams had all 4 Terps points and they came from strong drives to the rim.

Starting at the 15:18 mark, Adams picked up his 4th foul and Stirtz started to assert himself. He had 9 second-half points already and added a pair of assists when the under 12-minute media timeout came at 10:58. Iowa had reclaimed the lead, 52-50.

The Terps had made 7 of 10 second-half shots, but were being outscored 22-15, mainly because of the 7-0 difference in foul shots made. Iowa had hit 7 of 8 and the Terps were nothing for 3.

Andre Mills (who else?) ended the Maryland 0-for woes, by draining a pair of foul shots and tying the game at 56 with 8:38 left to go in the game.

Maryland ran off 8 straight points as Iowa went dry from the field. The Terps suddenly led by 6, 62-56 with 6:30 left to play. The Iowa guards who pressured and dominated the Terrapin guards were getting schooled. Coit, Adams, and especially Mills were finding little resistance when driving to the hoop.

Stirtz was the entire Hawkeye offense this half. When he wasn’t scoring, it was his dribble penetration and dish that was keeping Iowa in the game and it was abysmal Terp foul shooting the was keeping Maryland from getting it’s lead into a much more comfortable zone. They were just 5-11 from the line at the 4:22 mark.

Washington was at the foul line after he was fouled hauling in an offensive rebound. With the Terps in the double bonus, he made the second of 2, making the score 65-60 with 4:10 left.

Iowa then scored when a loose ball was converted into a layup, but Coit answered with 2 more Terps foul shots on a pretty ticky-tack foul that drew the protest of McCallum.

When Stirtz split the Terp “D” for an uncontested layup, the score became 67-64. The Terps were up 3.

Saunders padded that lead by swishing a triple. Iowa answered with 2 foul shots after Saunders was called for a foul while attempting a block.

Iowa had a great chance to get within a single possession, but Hausen missed a three and the rebound went to Washington. The Terp forward was fouled and made the second of 2.

Maryland was now up 5, 71-66 and looked in control when Stirtz missed a 3 with under 2 minutes left and Hausen missed another one with less than 1 minute remaining.

Stirtz scored again with 19.8 left, making the score 71-68. Iowa then fouled Saunders, who delighted the few fans in the building by making the pair.

Any hope that the Hawkeyes had for the miracle comeback seemed to end when Stirtz missed both foul shots, but the second miss was followed up by his own rebound and short jumper. However, it wasn’t to be. The Terps kept making clutch free throws, and Iowa continued to miss threes. The final was a hard fought and well deserved, 77-70 Terrapin victory.

The drives to the hoop by the Terp guards were hard and physical. Mills drove like a beast and Iowa seemed ill-prepared for that type of aggression.

Washington and Adams played with that same intensity too. They were all dogs, and the easy looks helped Maryland connect on 71% of their 2-point shots.

I’m not so sure that a 50/50 split of 3’s to 2’s is a favorable shot selection for an Iowa team that passes and moves so well, but that’s basketball in today’s world. The Terps defense deserves credit though. They played hard for 40 minutes, and made crucial foul shots in crunch time.

Maryland is back at it on Sunday against a struggling Rutgers team that hasn’t won a game in a month. It’s a noon start and will be broadcast by FS1.

Wednesday February 11, 2026

#DMD

Issue #4188

augusta national, the palestra, fenway, notre dame

Mark Suchy's excellent piece on Allen Fieldhouse and a recent trip to Kansas in Tuesday's #DMD got me to thinking.

What "bucket list" places I've had the pleasure of visiting actually lived up to the hype?

It turns out that I came up with 15 different sports venues or historical locations that I always wanted to visit and finally did. Some of them, like the old Chicago Stadium, I was able to visit through my two decades in the soccer business.

The Blast played several games in the old Los Angeles Forum, where Kareem, Magic and Worthy used to dribble and Gretzky used to skate.

I not only stepped foot in Detroit's Cobo Arena, I actually talked to a security guard there who was on duty the night Jeff Gillooly wacked Nancy Kerrigan with a pipe. The man calmly told the story about how he was situated some 50 feet away from the incident and saw it all unfold.

I was in Cobo because we were playing the Detroit team in indoor soccer there. Little did I know the security guard watching our locker room that night was basically a pop culture celebrity.

I've never been to Allen Fieldhouse, but when the Super Bowl was in Indianapolis way back when, Glenn Clark and I took in a Butler home game at venerable Hinkle Fieldhouse. That one lived up to the hype, too.

When it was all said and done yesterday, though, I zeroed in on four places that were "the best of the best".

I've been blessed (very, in fact) to have stepped foot on the hallowed grounds of Augusta National, The Palestra, Fenway Park, and the campus of Notre Dame.

I can't rank one over the other. Each of them are fondly tucked away in my "bucket list memory bank".

But Mark's story about Allen Fieldhouse got me to thinking yesterday about all of the places I've been and who I shared them with and what particular memory I have from each.

I've been to Augusta National close to a dozen times now. A lot of people over the years have asked me, "Why do you keep going back?" and my answer is always the same.

"It's just like the Smithsonian or the Museum of the Bible to me," I tell them. "I've been to both of those places a bunch of times. Every time I'm there, I find out something new or see something I didn't see the last time I was there."

Augusta National is the same. Every time I go, I discover something new about the golf course or the Masters tournament.

It's a museum.

The Palestra is also a museum. If you're a basketball junkie -- or more specfically, a college basketball nut -- you simply have to visit The Palestra at least once. Yes, you'll have to stomach a visit to Philadelphia at the same time, but the cheesesteaks are great up there, if nothing else.

The Palestra is a shrine, plain and simple. A walk around the concourse is an incredible trip through the great history of basketball in Philadelphia. Never been? You need to go. Period.

Fenway Park is a must-visit stadium if you have any love at all for the great sport of baseball. Is it small and cramped and all the stuff? Well, yes, it is.

But when you're sitting there watching a game, you can close your eyes and it's 1950 again. Or 1960. You can close your eyes and see Fisk waving the ball fair in the World Series.

When you watch a game from Fenway on TV, the Big Green Monster looks absolutely massive. When you're there, in person, it's really not that big at all. It's bigger than a normal wall, obviously, but it's not the 10 story "monster" you think it is.

The neighborhood around the stadium is almost as alluring as the ballpark is itself. It's all just...Fenway Park...like it has always been. Chavez Ravine is the best stadium in America to watch a baseball game, in my opinion. But if you gave me 4 tickets to any game in any stadium in the country, I'd say "Fenway Park" every time.

I finally got to see Notre Dame up close and personal about 10 years ago. It was a gorgeous late Fall day in South Bend. Duke was in town for a football game.

I did it all. I walked the campus, snuck into a building or two and visited the Grotto both both before and after the game. In fact, perhaps my fondest and most vivid memory of that afternoon was seeing two Notre Dame players, in their uniform(s) still, minus the shoulder pads, praying at the Grotto roughly 45 minutes after the Irish lost to the Blue Devils that day.

I'm sure glad I didn't visit Notre Dame when I was 16 years old. Had I made the trip to South Bend back then, my mom and dad would have been taking out a 2nd mortgage to send me to school there (if I could have gained admission -- a story for another day, I suppose).

There's something special about a campus that puts faith first and everything else second.

You can feel the "special aura" the minute you step foot on the Notre Dame campus. There's a reverance there you don't find at other schools.

I soaked it all in that day. I haven't been back since, but another trip to South Bend is on my "2nd visit bucket list".

The older I get, the more those trips to places like Augusta, The Palestra, Fenway Park and Notre Dame stick with me.

I never knew I'd get the chance to visit them. Then, when I did, I quickly realized how special they were.

History has been made in all four locations. Some of it you can go back and watch on YouTube or other sports-related options, which makes it really cool. And when you're there, you can sense it quite easily.

We're fortunate in our lives to be able to see places like the Smithsonian and the Museum of the Bible, along with sports venues all over the country that are available to us.

History is everywhere. Take it in and enjoy it. Some of those venues, like Fenway Park, might not be around forever.

I'm genuinely interested to see what "bucket list" places you eventually got to visit and what you remember about those visits. Use the Comments section please.

You're familiar with the Comments section. It's at the bottom of the page. It's where a lot of our readers visit to add something sophisticated and impressive to the site and a few people go to put on display what happens to your writing skills after you've taken your daily dose of Vitamin-Clownshoes.

If you're one of the "a lot", please check in with your bucket list sports trips and those memories. I'd love to read about them.

	dale williams aims the terps spotlight
DALE WILLIAMS returns for his 10th season of covering all things Maryland men's basketball for #DMD. Terps Spotlight will preview and review all games in the 2025-2026 season.

terps host iowa tonight

I rewatched the Dec 6th game between Maryland and the Iowa Hawkeyes hoping to find a handful of reasons that tonight’s outcome will differ from the 83-64 butt-whooping that the Hawkeyes put on the Terps the last time they played.

I didn’t find much, but it wasn’t a shut-out.

The most obvious and encouraging item is the change of venue. That first game was played in the Carver-Hawkeye Arena, and this one tonight will be at the XFINITY Center in College Park.

There’s a huge difference between playing at home late in the season and playing your first ever Big Ten away game, as many Terps experienced in that December contest.

The Terp freshmen were simply overwhelmed by the moment and by the Iowa backcourt. Darius Adams and Andre Mills now have a much better understanding of the defensive requirements in the Big Ten. They will both be better tonight, especially Adams.

It also bodes well for Maryland that over two months ago, Diggy Coit was still David. By that I mean Diggy, who had 13 points against Iowa in December, had yet to drop as much as 20 points in anything other than the 41 he posted against Mount Saint Mary’s.

Since then, he’s had games of 31, 30, 43, and 29. He’s streaky as anything, but I feel his team and his coach understand him, and his role, much better.

Lastly, Iowa will not start this game by making 7 of their first 8 three-point tries. In the previous clash, the Terps were shell-shocked before 10 minutes had been played. The Maryland guards were regularly turning the ball over and Iowa was dropping threes.

The Hawkeyes already had a 17-point lead after having played less than 9 minutes of ball. The crowd was roaring and Maryland was demoralized. That’s not happening tonight.

The biggest negative for Maryland is the absence of Parrell Payne. The injured Terp stuffed the stat sheet in the first game with 17 points and 14 rebounds.

Many Terp sets were designed to get the ball to their best and most effective player. Only poor foul shooting (9-18) kept him from having an even bigger night, offensively.

Payne had a positive effect on the defensive side too, causing some kickouts once the ball got inside. But even with him in the trenches, Iowa dominated Maryland in the paint, 44-20.

Almost all of Iowa’s 44 paint points came from great ball movement and well-timed cuts to the bucket. There were almost zero traditional low post, isolation, points. Iowa’s methodical half court offense was a real problem for Maryland, but now the Terps have seen it once and have a much greater understanding of what it takes to play defense in this league.

For the Hawkeyes, Bennett Stirtz eased up on the Terps and still dropped 25 points. He could have had 40 if he wanted. He’s had 20 or more in 10 of Iowa’s last 12 games. In his last 3 games, Stirtz has averaged 30. He’s going to get his tonight. He has too many ways to score and all of them are well done.

Maryland needs to keep him around 20 tonight, and hopefully it won’t because be backed off or sat down in a blowout.

Focal points for the Terps should be protecting the ball and guarding the three-point line. That could leave the interior somewhat vulnerable, but it’s a pick-your-poison scenario.

On December 6th, Maryland grabbed 5 more offensive rebounds than Iowa did. Payne had 7 of those, and he’ll be sorely missed tonight. Iowa will dominate the glass in this game.

While watching the live broadcast of game 1, I made a statement to a friend that if the rematch line was high enough, I’d be grabbing Maryland hard. In that first game, too many things went wrong for Maryland, creating a perfect storm for the Hawkeyes blowout.

Well, the number came out, and if you take Maryland you’ll be compensated with 10.5 points. I can’t do that.

For the Terps, being Payne-less is far from painless. The rebound numbers were dead even in the last game. That won’t be the case tonight. I’m prepared to see a basketball clinic starting at 6 P.M.

Great Hawkeye fundamentals on both ends of the court, coupled with a much greater supply of shooters, will allow the Hawkeyes to lead throughout and pull away late. That might change if Coit decides to drop bombs all night, but I’m not holding my breath on that.

Maryland fails to win consecutive Big Ten games and heads into Sunday’s contest at the RAC having suffered a 79-66 loss to Iowa. Watch it all on FS1.

Tuesday February 10, 2026

#DMD

Issue #4187

history

It was never my favorite subject in school, but the older I get, the more I understand the critical importance of history.

There's a saying, you know: History repeats itself.

Here's hoping that 100 or more years from now, our society isn't repeating the same mistakes we're making in 2026 in our great country.

We can't seem to figure out what to do to these days. As I've said here on a number of occasions over the last year, our biggest flaw, as a nation and people, is that we've lost the ability to disagree in a civil manner.

I'm right. You're wrong. And if you don't subscribe to the way I think, you're not allowed to be friends with me any longer.

I saw something on Facebook recently. Someone I like a lot, a friend of mine for a long, long time, wrote this, accompanied by a picture of two ICE officers in Minneapolis.

"If you support these ghouls and you believe ICE is a legitimate need in our country, unfriend me today, please. Like, right now. We're not friends."

I was disappointed. I didn't offer any commentary at all. Merely shook my head and moved on. And, no, I didn't unfriend him. In my mind, he's always my friend.

I have my own views on immigration. I see the need, in my opinion, for strict(er) immigration laws in our country. But I've felt that way for a long, long time. Way before the current administration or even the one before that came along, I had thoughts about why we let people enter the country and how we monitor them once they're here and what happens when they don't abide by those rules.

You might be one of those who says, "Let them all in. Let them in. And let them stay." If so, that's fine. I'm not mad at you. You have your thoughts. I have mine. It's all good.

So I was dismayed to see my friend basically say to me, "If you don't think exactly like I think, we're no longer friends."

I don't know that he and I are exact opposites when it comes to immigration. I see the value in the "American dream" and I'm grateful for immigrants who have come here with the right intentions and have made our country better.

My friend just believes ICE is not necessary and/or "right" and I believe they have a role, albeit carried out in a proper, ethical way. That particular sentiment, of course, is a discussion for another day.

But his line of thinking falls directly in the path of what I referenced above: "I'm right. You're wrong. And if you don't agree with me, we can no longer be friends."

On Sunday night, I made a remark on Twitter about the halftime performance in the Super Bowl.

"It's terrible," I said. "Was Better than Ezra not available?"

I don't follow or listen to Latino music in the same way I don't follow or listen to country music or classical music. They're just not "my style" of music.

I think Bad Bunny is supremely talented. I have no idea what he was saying or singing on Sunday because I don't speak Spanish, but that's neither here nor there. I also didn't get all of the "hidden meaning" things that were in place during his show. They all went over my head. Frankly, I don't have the energy to sit there and look at two farmers rolling cigars and figure out what that's supposed to mean.

This is why I always say: Just bring someone out there on stage and let them play a few songs and bridge the gap between the first half and second half. It doesn't have to be theater. This year doesn't have to top last year. Just play the hits.

To the degree that Sunday's halftime show was always going to be polarizing, a bunch of people agreed with me that Bad Bunny's act was lousy and several didn't, rushing to his aid and trying to explain to me why I was wrong and why it was great.

It's akin to you shoving a plate of sushi in front of me and saying, "Eat this, it's awesome."

"But I......I......I don't like sushi," I would say. "Like, at all."

"Yeah I know. But this is great sushi. Go ahead, eat it."

I don't want to eat sushi. I don't like it. And you trying to tell me it's great and that I should like it isn't changing anything.

Disagreement is expected. And it's actually OK.

So when people jumped in to disagree with me about Bad Bunny on Sunday night, I totally "got it". It's the same way people here get their feathers ruffled when I take a dig at the Beatles.

I understand the Beatles were popular to people 50 years ago. So was Buddy Holly. So, too, were the Bay City Rollers. If you asked me to rank those three, it would go, 1) Holly, 2) Rollers, 3) Beatles. But that's just me. You might disagree. And that's OK.

What's not OK, though, is when someone reads my words about Bad Bunny's performance: "It's terrible. Was Better than Ezra not available?" and then replies to me with this: "Crawl back into your racist hole."

Because I didn't like the music or the performance of a halftime musical, I'm now a "racist"?

I'm not a country music fan at all. Had Garth Brooks been the halftime performer and played his hits for 14 minutes, I'm probably going to write: "This is terrible. Were the Talking Heads not available?" What label would I have received then?

When Snoop, Dr. Dre and Eminem performed a few years back at halftime of the Super Bowl, I was singing along and proclaiming it "the best halftime show ever!" on Twitter. Was I not a racist back then? But suddenly now, I am?

There were a gazillion old white guys who cringed at hearing Dre and Snoop sing, "1, 2, 3 and to the 4, Snoop Doggy Dogg and Dr. Dre is at the door" on the halftime stage but I was there slinging it with them. I liked it. I loved it, actually.

But maybe you didn't. I get it. Old, '90's hip hop isn't for everyone. I'd never call you a racist if you didn't like hearing those two and Eminem sing the hits.

Why do I bring all of this up today?

To point you in the direction of the story you're going to see below from Mark Suchy.

It's a story about history.

It's a wonderful account of a cross-country trip with one of his sons, chasing the memories of a historical figure from the world of sports who spawned a lifetime of incredible opportunity for millions of people in this country and worldwide, even.

Mark Suchy and his sons love the sport of basketball.

It has bonded them in a way, perhaps, no other sport would have, for reasons Mark outlines below.

Mark takes you on his recent journey and gives you the ins and outs of the trip from the perspective of an athlete, a coach, a father and, perhaps, a wise old man.

He delves into history. And tells us all why it's good.

And you might not like basketball at all.

Or nearly as much as Mark and his boys do.

But I bet you're able to identify with his story in some way from your own life.

Read it. Enjoy it. And appreciate the fact that someone loves basketball enough to write about it the way Mark did.

And if, for some reason, you don't love basketball I can promise you this: Mark is not going to unfriend you.

	SUCH a sports fan
MARK SUCHY is a lifelong Baltimore sports fan, youth basketball coach and father of three athletic sons. A former weekend sports radio host in Baltimore, "Such" occasionally offers his memories and insights on sports related topics here at #DMD.

The view through the windshield is flat and brown. Looking around, the horizon seems hundreds of miles away, completely unobstructed by any kind of vegetation and trees.

There are no buildings to speak of, only the occasional grain silo off in the distance, miles from the highway. Every twenty miles or so, there are windmill farms, stretching off on either side of us, into the distance. The wind blows steady and strong out here.

I’ve never set foot in Oklahoma or Kansas before. We stop for gas and some breakfast and coffee somewhere south of Norman. Now I can say I’ve been in Oklahoma.

A few hundred miles later, we stop somewhere south of Wichita, and now I’m on terra firma in Kansas for the first time in my life.

There’s a continuous breeze. The windmill farms begin to make more sense. It’s also noticeably warmer here than back home. Seventy degrees in early January feels wonderful. I appreciate the change.

We’re on another basketball road trip, the middle son and me. I have to pause and think about the last time we did one of these together, just the two of us. It had to be sometime in the spring and early summer of 2018, before his senior year in high school.

There was a stretch of time in our lives when these trips were just a part of who we were. From late March until mid-July, for four straight years, we traveled around the eastern seaboard with his teams, going to tournaments almost every weekend.

As he grew older, we would sprinkle in college visits on some of those trips. Most of the time we’d just drive around a campus and take in the buildings and the surrounding area. It was helping him to gather ideas about where he wanted to spend his college years.

The youngest son began playing for the same organization, and so our trips became an impromptu father-son family bonding time, all thanks to basketball.

They introduced me to different modern music, most of which I simply tolerated. We’d listen to an occasional podcast. Sometimes we’d talk basketball theory and strategy, or look at the brackets for the upcoming tournament.

I have to jog my memory to recall all of the places we went. Pittsburgh and Providence and Albany and Hampton Roads and D.C. and Reading. I’m sure I’m forgetting other towns.

It’s not an exaggeration to say we drove tens of thousands of miles during those years. Tournaments, college visits (both official and unofficial), prospect camps, summer leagues, and practices, all because of basketball. The game we all knew and came to love. The game that shaped my life, and then theirs.

But this trip is different. This time, he’s not playing. He’s almost 25 now. His playing career ended after his senior year of college. Those were the years I would drive by myself to his games, home and away. I could listen to whatever I pleased on those journeys.

This time, we’re going to watch a game in the place where basketball became the game we know. Lawrence, Kansas.

The town Dr. James Naismith moved to in 1898, bringing along with him a game he had invented seven years earlier in Springfield, Massachusetts. A game he would teach to his students, who became players and coaches themselves. A game they all helped to shape and grow.

---

The gym at Riderwood Elementary School is a small brown box on the west end of a one-story building. The ceiling can’t be more than twenty-five feet high.

The floors are a smooth, varnished concrete, with different lines painted on them for different games.

The walls are made of concrete blocks, and there are pads on the walls beneath the baskets, to provide a small measure of protection for the players.

As a seven-year-old boy, this place seemed enormous. I can remember feeling intimidated by the height of the baskets. They seemed so high and so far away.

It was here that I was first introduced to the organization and the theory of the game of basketball. There were unofficial practices referred to as clinics, where we were taught the fundamentals of dribbling and passing and shooting the ball.

We were introduced to the 2-1-2 zone defense. I played center in that because I was always the tallest kid in my class. Pressing and man-to-man defense weren’t allowed until we got older.

Most of the games we played usually ended with scores like 6-4 or 8-2 or something along those lines. Baskets were hard to come by when the players were all first graders and couldn’t get the ball up to the rim. This was long before anyone came up with the idea of making adjustable backboards.

But I was taller than just about everyone else, and when I saw my shots start finding their target, I found a quiet confidence begin to grow inside of me. It was satisfying to realize I could score. There was genuine pleasure in seeing the ball go through the net.

We had a long driveway that opened at the end into a large parking area about the exact size as a half-court. My father put up a basket, mounted on a steel pole that he concreted into the slope on the one end of the driveway. It had a half-moon backboard, and Dad made sure to measure the rim at exactly ten feet.

It helped that he was an engineer. He also installed a floodlight on the corner of the house so we could shoot at night.

I fell in love with basketball during those childhood years. One of the beautiful things about the game is that you only need a ball and a hoop somewhere. You can immerse yourself in the simple act of dribbling and shooting, all alone. You can hone your skills in solitude. It’s just you and the ball and the basket.

There were countless days and nights of shooting around, either by myself or with my father or with my teammates and friends. No matter the weather, if I got the urge, I’d just grab the ball and head outside.

A tall row of pine trees stood along that side of the driveway, providing shade and a natural backstop if the ball bounced behind the basket. When I’d shoot around by myself at night, I’d imagine those trees as the crowd behind the basket, somewhere like Cole Field House in College Park, Md., or Carmichael Hall in Chapel Hill, N.C.

Looking back, it occurs to me that I never really knew about Allen Fieldhouse in Lawrence, Kansas. That’s probably because I was in Baltimore, the northern outpost of the old Atlantic Coast Conference.

Our television viewing experience was limited to Tobacco Road. Those Midwest campuses might as well have been located on another planet.

It turns out, that was my loss. Because no matter where you grew up, all it took to love the game was a ball and a basket, whether that was in a suburb of Baltimore with a driveway hoop, or a playground in a city, or a barn on a farm somewhere in Kansas with a basket hung on the wall.

---

Memorial Park Cemetery is located on East 15th Street in the heart of Lawrence, Kansas.

It sits in the middle of a quiet residential neighborhood, although all of Lawrence appears to be quiet residential neighborhoods. It’s a Midwestern college town; the campus is the center point, and there are no high-rise buildings to be seen.

There are just neighborhoods with pretty Victorian homes and ranchers, and streets lined with elms and oaks.

The idea to come visit Naismith’s monument sprung out of our conversations during our drive. We were reminiscing about our previous road trips, talking about the tournaments he had played in and the places we had seen.

In the summer of 2017, we were headed to Brandeis College outside of Boston. He had signed up for a three-day prospect camp. There would be lots of small college coaches there to scout the rising junior class.

We took a little detour off of I-95 and headed west to Springfield, Massachusetts. We spent the afternoon touring the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame. Looking back, we probably could have spent a lot more time there that day, but the four hours or so that we walked around gave both of us a deeper appreciation for the history and evolution of basketball.

We talked about that day as we drove across the plains of Kansas, and I suggested the visit to the cemetery. It seemed like a way to bring our journeys over the years full circle, and to make a pilgrimage to pay our respects to the good doctor. A small gesture of giving thanks for creating something that brought us so much joy in our lives.

The afternoon was pleasant and warm. It felt like spring weather compared to back home. The monument and the surrounding marble benches and plaques were easy to spot as we entered through the front gates.

In December of 1891, Dr. James Naismith invented the game of basketball while teaching Physical Education at Springfield College in Massachusetts. He wanted to provide an indoor game for the students to play during the winter months. Naismith was dealing with a particularly rowdy group of students, and he needed to give them some outlet for their youthful energy.

Using peach baskets hung on the railing of the elevated track circling the gym, Naismith decided on using a rugby ball initially, but soon switched to a soccer ball because its round shape was more conducive to passing and shooting. Initially, there was no dribbling, and players couldn’t take more than two steps, so each side consisted of nine players.

The game quickly became extremely popular. His students played daily, and within a year it was being taught and played at the Springfield YMCA. In 1893, basketball was introduced internationally by the YMCA movement.

Naismith moved to Denver in 1895 to teach at the YMCA, and he acquired his doctoral degree during his three years there. In 1898, he moved to Lawrence and began working as an instructor in Physical Education and the Chapel Director at the University of Kansas.

As we walked around his memorial area in the cemetery, it became clear that while he might have invented basketball in Springfield, the game was rooted and grown in Lawrence. The benches and the memorial plaques surrounding his marker are filled with familiar names to any fan of the history of college basketball.

The most important of Naismith’s former players was Forrest “Phog” Allen, who played for him on the 1905 to 1907 Kansas teams. Following his graduation, Allen coached the Jayhawks for three seasons. He returned in 1919 and continued his coaching career at Kansas until 1956.

The entire tree of college basketball was planted right there.

Allen coached several men who would go on to legendary careers of their own, most notably Adolph Rupp (Kentucky), Dean Smith (North Carolina), and Ralph Miller (who won 657 games from 1951 to 1989 at three different schools). Allen also coached one of the greatest players in the long history of the game, Wilt Chamberlain.

One of the most Important contributions Naismith made through his invention was his insistence that the game was for everyone. He had strong feelings against segregation, and he taught the game to anyone interested, no matter their color or creed.

During his coaching career at KU, his common opponents were Haskell Indian Nations University and William Jewell College.

It’s an ironic and unimportant footnote: Dr. James Naismith is the only head coach to have a losing record at the University of Kansas.

We finish taking our pictures and read all of the inscriptions surrounding his monument. The sun is getting lower in the west, and we have to get back to the hotel and change and find a place to get some dinner.

After all, predictably, there’s a basketball game to watch.

---

One of the beautiful aspects of basketball is its simplicity. It’s five-on-five on a court that’s ninety-four feet long and fifty-three feet wide. The rim is ten feet high. The free throw line is fifteen feet from the basket.

The concepts of offense and defense are relatively unchanged after one-hundred some years of experimentation. There are variances on basic themes, usually based upon coaching preferences, but at its core, the aim is to design a system that maximizes your best players talents.

When a team is in a collective rhythm it’s a beautiful sight. The game flows from one end of the court to the other, the ball moves quickly, and the players seem to have an innate sense of exactly where to be at the exact right moment. Five players all moving as one. There’s no other sport quite like it.

The fundamentals I was taught long ago still apply. Pass and pick away to the opposite side. Set a screen and open to the ball. Make all of your cuts towards the basket. Run hard in transition on both offense and defense. Get inside position when a shot goes up and box out the man nearest to you.

I taught the same things to my sons when they were little, during practices and when we’d shoot around in our driveway.

It’s a very simple game.

It’s also a game of scoring runs. One team gets hot and they reel off a few consecutive baskets. The lead grows to ten or twelve points. And then the opponent gets a key stop defensively and makes a quick bucket and follows it with a three-pointer and suddenly, it’s a one possession game again. The drama continues to build.

We watch this scenario play out below us from our seats near the top of Allen Fieldhouse.

The action on the court between the TCU Horned Frogs and the Kansas Jayhawks has been fast-paced and cleanly played.

Although TCU lacks the interior size of the Jayhawks, some unselfish ball movement and hot shooting has created a fourteen-point lead with just over four minutes remaining.

We’re amazed to see some of the Jayhawks faithful filing out as we look around the grand old fieldhouse during a timeout. Haven’t these folks seen enough basketball to know better? It’s a game of runs, after all.

After a three from the corner puts TCU up by nine with only seventy-five seconds left, it happens.

Kansas races quickly downcourt and drains a three in response. They foul quickly. TCU misses the front end of a bonus. The Jayhawks run a quick possession that ends in another made three-pointer.

It’s a three-point game with five seconds to play. Allen Fieldhouse is a sea of sound, with people jumping and screaming and the pep band playing a rendition of Seven Nation Army.

Ooooohhh-Ohh-Ohh-Ohh-Ooooohhh. The old steel rafters almost seem to shake with the crowd noise. I could swear I see the championship banners swaying.

The Horned Frogs fail twice to inbound the basketball successfully, and now the Jayhawks have possession on their end of the court, down three with just three seconds left.

A remarkable defensive lapse by TCU leads to the Jayhawks’ transcendent freshman, Darryn Peterson, getting fouled on a desperation three-point heave with only a second to play. He goes to the line and calmly drains all three free throws. The game heads into overtime.

I told you…basketball is a game of runs.

The Jayhawks take immediate control of the game and open a seven-point lead. There will be no response by TCU. They’re clearly exhausted and deflated as the clock winds down.

Kansas wins, 104 to 100. It’s the largest comeback win by the Jayhawks in the sixty-one-year history of Allen Fieldhouse. By some random cosmic twist, my son and I just happened to bear witness to it.

As we make our way out, surrounded by delirious, smiling Jayhawks fans of every age, I turn around to take one last look at this venerated arena.

I notice again, with a small sense of irony, that Dr. James Naismith Court is emblazoned on the baselines at each end of the court. Things make a little more sense now.

---

The following morning, we have breakfast at the hotel and depart Lawrence, headed back to Dallas. It’s a crystal-clear day as we drive south through the great open prairies towards Oklahoma.

Mark gets a text from his buddy Mike, the assistant coach at TCU who offered us the tickets for last night’s game. He tells me that Mike said it was a quiet flight back to Fort Worth for the team. He hoped we enjoyed the game and closed by half-jokingly saying that at least we got to see history. We both chuckle and agree that indeed we did.

As the miles pass, we talk about various sports-related subjects. The Ravens have fired their longtime Head Coach, John Harbaugh, so naturally we speculate about potential replacements. We always seem to come back to sports in our conversations.

At some point, we begin talking about all of the people and the experiences we’ve known because of basketball.

This entire trip happened because Mark and Mike met at Franklin and Marshall College when Mark was a freshman. Mike was a senior point guard. The game brought them into each other’s lives, and when Mark moved to Dallas for a job following his graduation, Mike was already in Fort Worth as an assistant coach for TCU.

Over the course of fifty-plus years, the game of basketball has introduced me to countless good people. Men and women who have given their time and efforts and dedication to the growth of future generations through a shared love of the game. Lifelong friendships and bonds that developed because of a ball and a basket.

I tell my son about my memories of Mike “Doc” Edwards, who coached me through my grade-school years at Mount Washington, and whose basic practice techniques I employed thirty years later when I coached his travel team. And Paul Baker, the diminutive Coach “PB”, Head Coach at the University of Baltimore and Wheeling Jesuit College, who showed me the Mikan drill and taught me to jump rope so I could improve my rebounding skills.

My son had several great coaches on his journey as well. Gerald Stokes at Chick Webb, and Pat McGlynn and Justin Seitz with the York Ballers, and the wonderful Jim Rhoads and Jon Capan at Hereford High School.

Each of them helped to shape the player and the man he became. They all had differing philosophies and approaches, but they all preached the same fundamentals.

I told you, it’s a very simple game.

While it’s possible to pursue improvement alone, shooting baskets and dribbling and rebounding, if you want to grow, you have to have teammates. You can’t possibly win any game one-on-five. You need to share the rock and create opportunities for others.

One Christmas a few years ago, Mark gave me a note along with his nameplate from his college locker. The nameplate is on the wall as you enter the kitchen from my back door.

The note is deeply personal, but the essence of it is his gratitude for all the opportunities that I provided for him through his passion for basketball. It opened doors for his education and his relationships that will serve him throughout his life.

The thing is, I was only passing along what I had been given. In a basketball scorebook, that would be marked down as an assist.

---

The wind is howling again as I drive across the Susquehanna River on a sunny and bitterly cold early February afternoon. Most normal people would be hunkered down inside, staying warm and waiting for warmer days.

Not me. There’s a basketball game to watch.

I know this drive well. As I approach Lancaster, I try and estimate how many times I’ve made this trip since 2017. It has to be in the hundreds.

I’m going to watch the Franklin and Marshall men’s team play a conference game against Swarthmore College. I want to see my son’s friends play one last time in the Mayser Center.

They were freshmen when he was a senior. Basketball has created a bond among them, and our families, that will last for the rest of their lives.

The arena is crowded and lively. The teams are currently tied for second place in the Centennial Conference, and their recent history suggests a feisty, competitive game.

I wander down the sideline opposite from the benches, deciding where to sit, when I notice a very familiar face walking in my direction.

Wonder of wonders, it’s the longtime Duke University Head Coach, Mike Krzyzewski! Coach K! In Lancaster, Pennsylvania! At an F&M game!

Knowing myself well enough to avoid engaging him in conversation, I give him and his family a wide berth and decide to walk around the baseline to the opposite side of the gym and find a seat.

As I approach the Diplomats bench, I catch the eye of Glenn Robinson, the now retired F&M coach who still attends every home game with his wife. I wander over and shake hands with them and have a warm conversation.

Coach Robinson recruited my son. It was only a week before the first game of his freshman season that “G Rob” suddenly decided to retire after forty years on the Dips bench. He stepped down as the all-time-winningest Head Coach in Division III basketball history, with 967 victories. His teams made five Final Fours but never brought the National Championship back to Lancaster.

Mark had hoped to be a part of Coach Robinson’s 1,000th win and maybe, possibly, help him win that elusive title. It wasn’t to be.

I ask G Rob about his relationship with Coach K. Krzyzewski’s grandson is a freshman on this year’s Diplomats team, which is what brought him to Mayser on this day.

Robinson tells me that while they’re friendly and they knew one another from coaching conventions through the years, he was much closer friends with Dean Smith. The two of them spoke frequently and used to spend time together in the offseason.

Dean Smith. A player and a disciple of Phog Allen. The first descendent of Dr. James Naismith.

Suddenly, it doesn’t seem so far from Springfield to Lawrence to Chapel Hill to Durham to Lancaster.

I settle into the top row of the bleachers behind the F&M bench and watch the game together with my youngest son. He’s good friends with the seniors, too. They spent the Christmas holidays with us when they were freshmen.

Coach K is sitting almost directly across the court from us. I notice people coming over to meet him during timeouts and at halftime. He’s signing autographs and taking pictures with everyone, being extremely gracious and patient.

I almost feel sorry for him. Almost. But the Maryland fan inside me will never die. How can you possibly forget Minneapolis in 2001? Or the countless calls he always seemed to get against the Terps? Or the way he always seemed to work the referees, especially at Cameron Indoor Stadium?

Some wounds will never heal, I suppose.

Regardless, I can’t help but think how cool it is that there are two men in the Mayser Center who won a combined 2,169 college basketball games between them. That ain’t nothing.

The Diplomats pull away from Swarthmore in the second half and cruise to a fifteen-point victory. With about thirty seconds left in the game, Coach K’s grandson subs in and the student section goes crazy. It’s a nice gesture and a fitting tribute to the guests of honor.

We get a few pictures with the seniors and head back out into the winter chill. There’s a part of me that knows that my association with this place and with this basketball program will end when these young men graduate. It’s been a good nine years, I think, as I drive back west across the Susquehanna River towards home.

---

Every year around mid-November I get a text from the coaches at Hereford High, Jim Rhoads and Jon Capan. It’s a screenshot of the upcoming season’s schedule, accompanied by a brief message telling me they appreciate my support.

I live a few minutes north of the high school, and even six years after my youngest son’s last season, I still enjoy going to as many home games as possible. There’s a familiar cadence and rhythm to it all. I can hear the sneakers on the hardwood as I enter the vestibule. The game is just through the doors on the left, a few steps ahead.

The last great bastion of amateur athletics is in these small gymnasiums around the country. Young men and women, most of whom will never put on a college uniform, practice and play basketball for four months every winter, simply because they love the game and the competition.

It’s in these places that the real lessons of basketball are taught. How to be a good teammate and opponent. How to create open looks for your teammates. How to hustle and how to guard. How to shoot and how to rebound. How to handle adversity and how to handle success. How to handle praise and how to handle criticism.

“Mud” and “Cap” have been doing this together at Hereford for many, many years. I watched them teach and coach young men when my boys were in grade school.

I watched them grow and develop my sons during their high school days. Now they’re doing the same thing for kids who were children when my guys were playing for them.

It’s a very simple game.

I’m crashing headlong into my sixties later this year. I’ve begun to seriously contemplate where I’d like to live as I get closer to middle age. This recent stretch of snow and ice and bitter cold have convinced me that I can’t spend my days shoveling snow and bundling up.

There are some places I have in mind. I won’t tell you where because it’s not crowded and I want it to stay that way (which immediately rules out Florida!). But it’s warm and there’s water, which is really all I require.

As I begin searching around, I find myself looking at maps of the areas. I think it would be nice to find a place with an active recreation council and a nice gymnasium.

Maybe I could volunteer my time teaching young boys and girls the fundamentals of basketball. How to dribble. How to properly place your hands on the ball to shoot. How to throw a chest pass and a bounce pass. How to slide your feet on defense.

How to be a good teammate. How to handle victory and defeat with equal grace. The little things, you know

The great thing about a basketball is that you can take one with you wherever you go. All you need is a hoop somewhere and you can enjoy the game.

The greatest thing about it all is where a basketball can take you. Just keep your eyes up as you dribble and the whole world will come into view.

Monday February 9, 2026

#DMD

Issue #4186

maryland, gotterup saved the day

Who woulda thunk it, right?

Of these three sporting events on Sunday, which would have turned out to be the most boring and uneventful?

The Super Bowl between Seattle and New England.

The PGA Tour event in Phoenix.

Maryland men's basketball at Minnesota.

The winner, by a landslide, was the football game. As was feared by many, it wasn't a Super "Bowl", rather a Super "Bore".

Seattle won, 29-13, in what could have been a massive blowout if not for New England's defense tightening up a few times and Christian Gonzalez playing a one-man wrecking crew in the Patriots' secondary.

It was 3-0 after one quarter and 9-0 at the half. If you flipped over at the intermission to watch the last 40 minutes of The Green Mile on The Movie Channel, you got more excitement there than you saw in the opening 30 minutes of the football contest.

The second half pitter-pattered along with the Patriots perfecting their punt coverage skills while the Seahawks merely looked to be smart and not do anything dumb on offense that would give New England a breath of hope.

When Seattle kicked another field goal to make it 12-0 and then tacked on a TD to go up 19-0, that was the end of the game.

New England avoided the embarrassment of getting shut out in the Super Bowl with a couple of late TD's, but no one was worried about a Patriots-Falcons 2.0 turnaround in this one. The better team won, convincingly, even if their performance on offense was sputtering at best throughout most of the game.

A lot of people have been bloviating endlessly about how New England should thank Bo Nix for their trip to the big game. If Nix doesn't break his ankle, the Broncos would have rolled past the visiting Patriots in the AFC title game.

Frankly, Seattle should join New England in writing their own thank you card. Denver would have provided a real tussle to Seattle. So, too, would have Buffalo, if the Bills wouldn't have lost that OT thriller in Denver in the Divisional Round.

Instead of facing -- and possibly losing to -- Denver or Buffalo, the Seahawks got football's version of a 3-foot putt. They coasted past an offensively challenged Patriots squad that looked inept for the first 40 minutes of the game.

Folks are going to blame Drake Maye, but the reality is New England's offense isn't built for primetime. They have one decent receiver in Stefon Diggs and a competent tight end and running back, but they're not going to be throwing up 30 and 35 point games against teams the way the Rams and Bills can at the snap of a finger.

And, so, as it turned out, the Super Bowl was the sleeper of the three sporting events we got to watch between 1 pm and 10 pm yesterday.

Maryland pulled off a surprising come-from-behind-win at Minnesota with a scoring flurry in the game's final 30 seconds.

Dale Williams handles all of the heavy lifting of the game in his review below. I caught the final 10 minutes of the game and it was, indeed, a thrill to see the Terps hang in there and not fold like the Flyers in April with the game on the line. Instead, they did just the opposite. They manned up under the gun and the Golden Gophers spit the bit.

Maryland stinks. We all know that. And one win against a bad team does not a season make. But winning's always better than losing, so hats off to Buzz and his crew on a nice Sunday afternoon in Minneapolis.

The next sports spectacle on Sunday was the always-entertaining Phoenix Open, where Chris Gotterup won for the 4th time in the last year after Hideki Matsuyama got the driver yips late in the round and couldn't play the 18th hole in regulation or the first playoff hole.

It didn't help Matsuyama that a moron in the stands yelled during his attempt at a winning putt and then again on the tee box when he was in the middle of his swing on the first playoff hole. Idiots are everywhere. One just happened to be at the Phoenix Open yesterday.

But Gotterup, according to the data, had a 1% chance of winning the tournament when he was at 15-under par and in the rough near a tree on the 18th hole while Matsuyama was at 17-under playing the easy 17th hole with (then) a 2-shot lead. The tournament was over, basically.

Gotterup hit his approach shot from 160 yards to two feet and made birdie to get to 16-under and pull within one shot of the Japanese star.

Matsuyama nearly drove the 17th green, but he couldn't convert the easy birdie from there and went to the final hole with a one-shot lead.

From there, he blasted his drive into the church pew bunkers, bladed a sand wedge from 100 yards that came up 45 yards short, hit an indifferent wedge to 25 feet, and missed the winning putt.

On the first playoff hole, he was interrupted by the aforementioned moron who yelled in his backswing, then reset from there, but promptly pulled his drive into the water left of the bunkers. Ballgame. Gotterup played the hole routinely and that was that.

Over the last three years, here are the guys with the most PGA Tour wins: Scheffler (15), McIlroy (5) and....Chris Gotterup (4).

Golf fans who follow me here and on Twitter know I've been touting Gotterup for the better part of 12 months now. I'm not saying he's the next Scheffler or anything like that, but I think he's the next guy who is going to pursue Scheffler for the time being. Like everyone else out there, he occasionally fights a balky putter, but his driving and ball striking skills are elite.

We're 18 months away from the 2027 Ryder Cup but there are already two American "locks": Scottie Scheffler and Chris Gotterup.

I definitely wouldn't have thought the Super Bowl would turn out to be the snoozer of those three events, alas, that's what happened.

I don't even know if the commercials were all that good. Frankly, I think the bloom is off that rose. A decade ago, the commercials were 50% of the game story. Now, I'm not sure anyone is paying all that much attention for whatever reason.

I saw three that I liked that caught my eye. The rest were pretty much forgettable.

I liked the Good Will Dunkin' commercial, plus the one with the anti-semitic message and the one involving Bradley Cooper and Matthew McConaughey. They were decent. Others might have been, but I wasn't really paying attention.

The only thing interesting about the game came in the final quarter as we watched to see whether the total of 45.5 would hit for anyone who played Seattle and the over. There was a moment when it looked like it was going to come through when Kenneth Walker rumbled into the end zone with a couple of minutes left to make it 36-13, but the touchdown was called back due to a (rare) penalty and Seattle punted two plays later and that was that.

I suppose it's fair to point out the halftime show might have been entertaining if you were (are) a fan of Latino music and you understand and/or speak Spanish.

Otherwise, you probably did what I did and shuffled the cars around in your driveway during halftime so everyone in the family could get out in an orderly fashion this morning.

So Sam Darnold of all people winds up doing something that guys like Dan Marino and Jim Kelly were unable to do. And Hall of Famers Drew Brees, Aaron Rodgers and Brett Favre only did once in their storied careers. And that is, of course, winning a Super Bowl ring.

Funny the way it is, right?

Josh Allen, Lamar Jackson, Justin Herbert, Dak Prescott and Jordan Love don't have a Super Bowl win, but Sam Darnold does.

I assume Darnold will send Bo Nix a warm note and a basket of fruit today.

	dale williams aims the terps spotlight
DALE WILLIAMS returns for his 10th season of covering all things Maryland men's basketball for #DMD. Terps Spotlight will preview and review all games in the 2025-2026 season.

terps shock minnesota with rare road win

Down by a bucket on Sunday in Minneapolis, with a mere 30 seconds left in the game and almost nothing left on the shot clock, Maryland’s Diggy Coit launched a three into high orbit from about 25 feet away on the left wing.

When the improbable happened (it went in), the Terps had a 1-point lead and only 26 seconds stood between them and a Big Ten road win.

The attempted Minnesota go-ahead shot, a highly contested layup by Jayden Crocker-Johnson, missed the mark and was rebounded by Coit. Coit was immediately fouled and converted both foul shots, putting Maryland up by 3.

Instead of allowing the Gophers to attempt a potential game-tying three, Buzz Williams elected to foul, putting Isaac Asuma on the line for a one-and one opportunity.

The game was essentially over when he missed the front end and the carrom went to Solomon Washington. Washington got the ball to Coit, who was fouled. Coit, again, drained a pair of foul shots. Ballgame, Maryland wins 67-62.

Coit’s 20 second-half points carried his team to this win.

For the game he had 29, which included all of the last 9 Terrapin points. It was quite a performance by the streaky guard. The shots he made were mostly tough step backs or mid-range jumpers. To say he was impressive yesterday would be an understatement.

The Gophers, who took 33 three-point shots and only 14 tries inside the arc, were led by Isaac Asuma and his 18 points. All of Asuma’s points came from his 6 three pointers.

The Terps packed the paint, which cut off the passing lanes inside. As a result, Minnesota was pushed outside, getting very little inside, and Maryland won the points-in-the paint war, 28-10.

The Terps got off to a solid start against a fairly lethargic Golden Gopher team, and led 7-2 before a 7-0 Minnesota run allowed the Gophers to inch ahead 9-7.

When the TV timeout came at 11:34, the Terps had pulled ahead 14-12 after a 7-point run of their own. Hot three-point shooting (3 for 5) accounted for 9 of Minnesota’s 12 points. The Terps had dropped a pair of threes, but it was the points-in-the paint advantage (8-0) that had Maryland ahead at this early stage.

When Isaac Asuma drained his 4th three-pointer of the night, the Gophers had a three-point lead 20-17. Asuma was now a perfect 4-4 from the three-point line. His hot hand belied the 29% average he had earned so far this year.

At the under 8-minute stoppage, Minnesota lead 21-20. The Gophers were 5-10 outside the arc, and just 1-5 inside it. Maryland was almost the opposite, hitting 5 of 6 close ones and just 3 of 9 from deep.

When the Terp offense drifted into ill-advised three-point bricks, they found themselves in a scoring drought of over three minutes and in a 5-point hole, 25-20. Uncharacteristically for Minnesota, they were enjoying a 14-9 rebounding advantage.

Minnesota extended the advantage to 7, 30-23, after another three was followed by only their second 2-point shot of the half.

The Terps finished the half with a short 6-0 burst, allowing them to trail just 33-32 at the conclusion of the first 20 minutes.

The teams had continued to travel different routes to almost the identical destination. Minnesota finished the half knocking down 8 threes in 16 tries. Only 2 of their 10 field goals came inside the arc. Maryland was just the opposite, winning the battle in the paint 14-2, but weren’t helped by their 5-15 three-point shooting.

Maryland started the second half by pounding the paint for 8 points, and led 40-38 at the initial media timeout. It was the dribble-drive from Adama and Mills that supplied the buckets.

It was at this time that I thought the officiating became a tad questionable, with Minnesota the beneficiary of several calls and no-calls.

It was still a single point game 46-45 when the second TV timeout rolled around. The teams were trading buckets with Maryland working the inside and the Gophers dropping bombs.

Another bomb, this time by Tyson, followed by a Langston Reynolds layup off a Darious Adams turnover pushed the Golden Gophers out to a 6-point bulge. The score read 53-47 with under 10 minutes remaining. You could feel this was a critical point in the game.

With Coit heating up and carrying the Terrapin offense, Maryland was creeping up on Minnesota, finally catching them 54-54 on another Coit jumper.

However, as he is prone to do, Coit turned it over on consecutive possessions and the Gophers cashed in for a three-point lead on yet another Asuma triple.

When Metcalf let Crooker-Johnson all alone at the top of the key, the Minnesota big man drained a three to put Minnesota ahead 60-56, with the Terp’s Adams going to the foul line for two crucial foul shots. He drained them both. It was 60-58 with under three minutes remaining.

After a Crooker-Johnson missed three, offensive rebounds gave Maryland three chances to tie or the game take the lead. The third try ended with Adams missing the front end of a one-and-one. The Terps were still down by 2.

A steal by Washington led to a Coit layup, tying the game at 60 all with 1:10 remaining.

An absolutely horrible no-call on a Tyson travel, and just as bad of a foul call on Maryland’s Metcalf, resulted in two successful foul shots by Tyson. The Gophers were now up by 2 points with 53 seconds left in the game.

The Terps were in a ‘must score” situation after a timeout with 31 seconds left and 7 on the shot clock. They went to Coit again and he proved he was the right choice, hitting a mega-deep step back triple, putting the Terps up by 1.

With the score now 63-32, and time running out, Minnesota ran their standard offense. The ball ended up in the hands of Crocker-Johnson. He missed a highly contested layup which was rebounded by Coit who was immediately fouled. He calmly knocked down both shots. The Terps now led by 3 65-62.

As detailed above, the Terps fouled Asuma and he missed the front end. The Solomon rebound of the free throw miss sealed the deal for Maryland.

Earlier in the game it looked like Minnesota would bomb their way to a victory.

They shot so many threes, and enough were going in to keep them either in the lead, or within very close range. The Terps were getting good inside looks, but it was more a case of dribble drives than smartly run sets leading to a crisp pass and easy bucket.

The Terps lived up to their reputation of being a horrible three-point shooting team with their 29% effort today. Making 71% from inside the arc put the Terps at 50% overall.

On Wednesday, the Terps will get to run back the 83-64 loss that Iowa put on them in their December 6th game in Iowa City. The XFNITY Center will be the site of this 6 pm contest and you can watch it on FS1.

Sunday February 8, 2026

#DMD

Issue #4185

let's hope only the halftime show is "bad"

OK, so it's February 8. Spring is right around the corner, believe it or not.

And tonight's Super Bore Bowl is set between two fairly unlikely opponents. I mean, at the beginning of the season, I don't think many people had Seattle vs. New England on their card of NFL predictions for 2025.

As I've alluded to here several times recently, I don't care who wins tonight. I just hope it's a decent game. I do think the fact that everyone thinks Seattle is going to win probably gives more credence to New England winning than people want to admit.

But as long as it's a quality game and it's in the balance in the fourth quarter, I'm good with it.

I expect the halftime show to be as polarizing as it has been for the last XX amount of years. Even the ones I've liked in recent times have drawn the ire of others. And the ones people have raved over have probably been the ones I thought were lousy.

Then again, the halftime show isn't for old men and women.

I suspect their target audience for the halftime show is 18-35 years of age.

Once you get above 35, you either, A) Don't resonate with their musical host for halftime or, B) You stopped caring enough about the halftime show to matter to the powers-that-be that schedule it.

I've heard tonight's host and his music, Bad Bunny. It's terrible. Or, I guess to be more on point, "he's" terrible. I'm not talking about his talent, per se. He's clearly talented.

I just think the music itself is terrible. Alas, no one affiliated with the NFL cares if I think he's terrible. They just want the 18-35 year olds who don't think he's terrible to watch and pay attention to the advertisers.

I get it.

I stopped caring about the halftime show a long time ago.

I'm sure he's going to get up there and make some sort of inflammatory or needling remark about the U.S. government and ICE like he did the other night at the Grammy's. Pearl Jam or Springsteen would do the same thing if they were on stage tonight, I'm sure.

It is what it is. That's one of the reasons why I don't really get hyped up about the whole thing. I know, when it's all said and done, I'll wind up getting aggravated. So I go make coffee or, in this case tonight, I'll probably surf the web and start planning for Monday's #DMD.

I just want to watch a good football game. If the game's good, I can tolerate a sub-par halftime show.

More than anything else, I love the Super Bowl because it creates something on my personal calendar. It basically starts the spring golf season for me.

I know, once the Super Bowl has arrived, that we're about 6 weeks or so from playing our first MIAA match. We've been training and hitting balls indoors for a month now, but nothing beats getting out on the course, obviously. Super Bowl Sunday generally kick-starts our outdoor practice time, although that's clearly not going to happen this coming week.

So, yes, I like the Super Bowl for football reasons. And I like it for other reasons as well.

Golf season is right around the corner.

Let it be said, right here, that I have zero interest in wagering on tonight's game. I don't care who catches how many passes or how many turnovers there are.

I don't care if there's a missed field goal.

I don't care about anything, gambling wise.

But........

I'll play the "props game" with you just to see if I'm right.

Let's play with a mythical $250, shall we.

I'll bet $50 that the Patriots are the first team to score in the second half at +115.

I'll bet $50 on a Seattle anytime touchdown by their defense or special teams at +400.

I'll bet $50 on a first-half fumble by either team at +135.

I'll bet $50 on a punt return of more than 24.5 yards at +210.

And I'll bet $50 that the team that wins scores any kind of point in all four quarters at +275.

There's my $250, spent.

As you can see, I went with all plus-money wagers.

You can't make any money the other way.

As for the game itself, because everyone thinks Seattle's going to win, I'd take New England (-4.5 points) and the under 45.5 total points. If the Patriots win, it will be something like 23-20.

If Seattle wins, I'm guessing it's a little more expansive. Maybe 30-17.

If you gave me your $100 and said, "Bet the game", I'd take New England.

But that's only because I get nervous when I see 58% of the people (USA Today poll of 27,000 participants on Friday, 2/6) picking one team. In any sport. In any game.

In a poll of national sportswriters and broadcasters, 76% of them pick Seattle to win.

Now, "winning" and "covering" are two different things, of course. Seattle could win and not cover, which would make your New England bet a winner despite them losing the game.

I'm just focused on who wins and loses. When everyone thinks one team is going to win, that raises a red flag. Well, to me, anyway.

I did find a betting house that will take this wager.

Will the halftime show featuring Bad Bunny be awful?

You can take the "yes" part of that bet for +210.

So, it turns out, I'm wagering on the Super Bowl after all.

Believe it or not, there are other sports worth watching today. No, not Maryland basketball. Dale Williams handles our Terps game preview below, but I can't imagine the game will be "worth" watching.

There's golf from TPC Scottsdale, where there are 9 players within 2 shots of the lead heading into today's final round of the Phoenix Open.

Hideki Matsuyama is the leader at 13 under par, looking for his 3rd career Phoenix Open title.

Scottie Scheffler started the tournament tied for 86th after an opening round 73.

He moved to T28 after Friday's second round 65.

And yesterday he inched his way even higher up the leader board with a 67, currently sitting at T16.

The network went into full "Scottie has a chance on Sunday" mode when he finished at 8-under par, but the reality is he probably can't win today unless he does something really goofy like shoot 63 or 62...which, of course, he's very capable of doing.

There's just too many people for him to leap over at this point.

But the leaderboard is filled with interesting names, including a few Americans who could use a win today to jump start their quest to make the 2027 Ryder Cup team.

Maverick McNealy is at T2 (-12). Three guys are at -11. Jake Knapp, Akshay Bhatia and Michael Thorbjornsen are all T6.

And then you have Chris Gotterup and Pierceson Coody at 9-under par.

My suspicion is at least two of those, maybe even three, will have a real chance of playing in Ireland at the '27 Ryder Cup.

I'd say Gotterup is pretty much about 80% at this point. Unless something wacky happens, he's going to win 2 or 3 times over the next 12 months. By this time next year, I think he'll be a Top 10 player in the world (currently 16th).

I think Michael Thorbjornsen is the "next man up" in that group. He's a terrific young player, baseball grip and all. I'd love to see him win today.

Keep an eye on the front nine scores. If Scheffler somehow goes out in, say, 4 under par to get to 12 under while the leaders are just starting their rounds, he could have a puncher's chance. But anything above 63 today won't be good enough. One of the guys at 11, 12 or 13 under is going to shoot 67 and get to 17 under at least.

	dale williams aims the terps spotlight
DALE WILLIAMS returns for his 10th season of covering all things Maryland men's basketball for #DMD. Terps Spotlight will preview and review all games in the 2025-2026 season.

terps visit minnesota today

For some reason this year, my game tape reconnaissance of future Terp opponents has led me to a slew of Minnesota Gopher games.

I’m watching Gopher cutters, switches, ball movement, one on one game, and all kinds of on-the-ball and off-the-ball activities. I was paying so little attention to the final score of those games, that I was somewhat stunned to see Minnesota had recently lost 7 straight games.

The run of Minnesota losses ended on Wednesday night when, while playing at home, the Gophers stunned Michigan State. One thing I did recognize, was that the Golden Gophers have been involved in more than a few close games while accruing their 4-8 Big Ten record.

Minnesota has lost 2 overtime conference games already this year. They’ve also been on the bad end of losses by just 2, 3, and 4 points. They’ve been good enough to lose close games. Beating Michigan State was an amazing feat, given that Minnesota loses players almost as frequently as they lose games.

A quick scan of the injury report shows 5 Gophers out for today’s 1 pm. game in Minneapolis.

“Out for the Season” is the official listing for 4 players, and Chance Stephens is listed as “out” with an illness.

Against the Spartans, Minnesota had a total of 17 minutes played by non-starters. Every starter played 35 or more minutes. The minutes compiled by the starting lineup was easily the most I’ve seen in a Big Ten game this year.

The severely depleted Minnesota roster is one of a whole host of reasons that the Terps must force the tempo today. Maryland needs to create scoring opportunities, and forcing the pace is an easy way to do it.

Yes, I know Maryland is turnover prone and are likely to see that number climb with a faster pace. But this Terp team can’t shoot, don’t have break-you-down iso guys, possess no low post threats, and hardly resemble the “Princeton Offense” when running sets (the game needs more Pete Carrill types).

Fast break points have to happen tonight. In order to do that enough times to make a difference, Maryland needs to win on the glass.

Minnesota is a weak rebounding team who are 1 spot away from dead last in Big Ten offensive rebounds. The Terps will collect enough carroms to start breaks. The question becomes will they push the ball, and who leads the way?

The Gophers love the slower pace, as shown by their KenPom ranking of 349 in adjusted tempo. Make them adjust. If for one day, I could change my name from Dale Williams to Buzz Williams, I’m letting this Terp team run. All the boxes are checked for running to be successful.

The Golden Gophers’ offense leans heavily on Cade Tyson and his almost 20 points a night. His 6’7”, 195-pound self should be getting a heavy dose tonight of Solomon Washington’s defensive efforts.

If Maryland has upset hopes today, a solid effort from Washington will go a long way in making those hopes a reality. A must for slowing down Tyson is to keep him off the three-point line. I’d much rather have him putting the ball on the floor than showcasing his almost 40% three-point shooting.

Maryland may have a defensive answer for Tyson, but checking the 6’8” Jaylen Crocker-Johnson will prove a bit mor difficult. He moves his 245-pound frame very well on both ends of the court.

Offensively, he takes as many threes as he does twos, but the big man can put the ball on the floor too. The Terps have no one on the roster to match his physicality and will need to resort to defense by committee. I can see Maryland interior players racking up some fouls trying to stop this strong Gopher center.

Just as physical as Crocker-Johnson, but in a smaller package, is the 6’4” senior guard, Langston Reynolds. With a woeful 25% three-point shooting %, Reynolds is highly unlikely to do much damage from long range.

He gets his 11 points-per-game by being an absolute bull in the paint. Minnesota will run sets to get him the ball on the low blocks and just let him do his thing inside. He’s successful 60% of the time when shooting inside the arc. He’ll be a tough matchup for Maryland guards.

I’d love to see the athletic body of Andre Mills hawking Reynolds most of the night.

The Gophers run good offensive sets with solid movement and accurate passing. It’s been so effective, that they lead the nation in percentage of assisted buckets made. Minnesota’s assists per game, doubles that of Maryland, 17-8.5.

Here are the Terrapin keys tonight: rebound, run, defend the Tyson and Crocker-Johnson three.

That’s it. It’s an easy blueprint for the Terps to contend.

We’ve chronicled the Minnesota win over MSU and noted some of their tight losses. Also on the Minnesota resume is a bad loss to San Francisco and a win against Green Bay in a game where the lowly Phoenix took the Gophers to OT.

This is a capable, but not dominant Minnesota team. The matchup with them is good for Maryland.

The bulk of Crocker-Johnson and the muscle of Reynolds has me concerned, but Maryland has the personnel to limit Tyson, point guard Isaac Asuma, and small forward Bobby Durkin.

The books may have the Gophers as an 8.5-point favorite, but expect the Terps to compete here.

Perhaps they even win this game.

Maybe Minnesota has a let-down after beating Michigan State. Maybe Washington fired up this Terrapin team with his words about playing with 100% effort. Perhaps the matchups are perfect for Maryland.

On Super Bowl Sunday, the Terps may be playing their own Super Bowl against a 4-8 conference foe. For this Terp team, beating anyone on the road might feel like a Super Bowl win, but that’s how this season has played out.

Something feels a little different about this game. Maryland will be in this thing today. Enough so that pulling out a “W” is not out of the question. Let’s go with a final tally of Terps 73, Minnesota 70.

Saturday February 7, 2026

#DMD

Issue #4184

quick hits

This cold weather is getting on my nerves.

I guess I should say, the foot of snow we still have on the ground two weeks later is getting on my nerves.

Cold weather, I get. I mean, it's winter here in the Mid-Atlantic and we're going to get days (and weeks) where the temperature hovers around freezing.

With "cold weather" (winter), also comes days of 38 and 44 where you can, at the very least, head to the driving range and hit balls or, if it's a balmy day in the high 40's, you might even sneak in 9 holes late in the day.

But this snow has no value. The roads are a mess, schools are off schedule and I find zero value in having a foot of snow on the ground just sitting there.

And with that comes a panic, like yesterday, when Baltimore County schools closed early because of the "threat of late afternoon inclement weather".

That ploy worked like a charm. Just like when you bring an umbrella with you to the golf course and it never winds up raining, it never actually gets "inclement" when schools close early because of a threatening forecast.

And then you had the various ICE protests at numerous area schools on Friday. There was a weird irony in having students milling around outside on York Road protesting ICE when it was 27 degrees outside, I guess.

On one of the Baltimore newscasts last night they interviewed a college student and her teeth were chattering as she talked about "standing up for what's right".

Protesting's not for the meek of heart, ya know. It is, like I tell my golfers about golf on 40 degree days in March, an "outdoor sport".

I don't follow the NBA very closely, but all of these trade-deadline deals involving star players is pretty fascinating stuff. Teams just completely giving up on great, Hall of Fame players, shipping them off elsewhere to help opposing teams win, potentially.

And on some occasions, what they get in return are Hall of Fame players who are also being "dumped".

When healthy -- and admittedly, that's about 50% of the time -- Anthony Davis is a game-impacting player, still. He was a key acquisition for the Lakers in their quest to go one-on-one with (then) Golden State and (now) Denver, then they shipped him off to Dallas for Luka Doncic last year because they couldn't beat the Nuggets with Davis.

Now, Dallas is pretty much a laughingstock except for Cooper Flagg, so they pawned Davis off on one of the worst franchises in all of sports, the Wizards. If he plays, he can help in D.C.

But when is everyone going to realize Davis is who we think he is? He's a check collector. Plays about half the games, tries in half of those, which means you're getting a "real" player about 25% of the season.

Yet, he somehow has value in the league, still.

Here's everything you need to know about the Association. The guy taking the league by storm is a kid who just turned 19 in December and he's from the basketball-centric state of.......Maine. Cooper Flagg is taking veteran players to the woodshed every night.

The NBA is a crazy circuit.

The Emmanuel Clase story out of Cleveland is getting crazier by the day. We're now finding out that Clase is being investigated for "rigging pitches" in as many as 48 games over a 2-year period.

Forty eight games!

I'm not here to absolve the dude when I say this, but if it's 2 or 3 games along a 162-game season, that's one thing. A rigged pitch in May in Kansas City, another ball in the dirt to start an inning in Detroit in July and then a wild pitch in Cleveland in a meaningless game in late September...still wrong, but not the worst thing I've ever heard in sports.

They have evidence of Clase rigging pitches in 48 games. In case you're wondering, during the span of the investgation, Clase pitched in 197 games.

A record of the court documents states that Clase "has identified at least 250 pitches on which bets were placed, so the Court encouraged the government to disclose discovery to Clase as to any additional pitches that it alleges were included in the conspiracy."

What will be interesting, if anyone has the time to do this research, is to see how many times in those 48 games did the outright win/loss result or the betting spread or the scoring total change because of Clase's involvement in the game.

Forget the "betting on pitches thrown" side of the scandal. No one I know sits there with their phone and says, "First pitch in this inning will be a ball" and puts $100 on it at +135.

But I know a lot of people who will put $50 on the Guardians at (-1.5) when they're home against the White Sox and it's 5-3 in favor of Cleveland heading to the 9th and in comes Clase to close the deal. He throws a ball or two in the dirt, a runner gets on, he eventually comes around to score, and the final is 5-4, Cleveland. And you....are a loser of $50.

How many times did that happen? How many times was the run total 9.5 and Cleveland led 6-2 going into the 9th and Clase gave up two "meaningless" runs to make it 6-4? Are we supposed to believe he wasn't involved in that as well?

Shoot this dude straight to the moon. Throw the book at the guy.

It's crazy how streaky professional golf is these days. Golf is, actually, one of the more "got it today, don't have it tomorrow" sports you can play. And that's at any level.

Amateur golfers can shoot 90 today, 88 on Sunday and then 104 on Monday, looking like they've never played before.

One year at the U.S. Amateur qualifier, circa 2003 or so, I shot 78 in the morning, which gave me no shot of securing one of the three qualifying spots that day. A lot of guys -- especially those who work and were taking a day off for the competition -- will just withdraw after round one when they put up a score like that.

I stuck around for the second round and wound up shooting 68. I still didn't make it, of course. My 36-hole total of 146 was, I think, four shots too many.

But how could I go from 78 to 68 in the span of six hours? Golf...that's how.

I have said this about competitive golf for a long time. It's a "3-week sport". You play great for 3 weeks. Then you struggle for 3 weeks. Then you take 3 weeks to figure out what's going wrong. Then you play "better" for 3 weeks. And then, if you're lucky, you're back to square one where you play "great" for 3 weeks. So about every 12 weeks, you actually play the kind of golf you want to play.

At the pro level, you see this all the time. You're seeing it right now, in fact, with three players who are on real heaters as they get ready to start the 3rd round of the Phoenix Open today.

Ryo Hisatsune (leader at -11), Pierceson Coody (-8) and Chris Gotterup (-8) have all been on fire at the start of this season 2026 PGA Tour season.

Hisatsune, 23, has now made 3 of 4 cuts and he already has a Top 25 and a Top 10 (which was a runner-up) finish this season. And here is now, the midway leader in Phoenix with another chance to win.

Coody, 26, has now made the cut in all 4 tournaments he's played this season and has 3 Top 25 finishes thus far. He might win this week in Phoenix.

And Gotterup, who won the season opening event in Hawaii, is now 3-for-3 in cuts made this season with a win, and a top 25. And now he's in the hunt again this week in Phoenix.

I think I mentioned this here before, a week or two ago, but I was able to find Gotterup at 55-1 to win a major championship of any kind this year and I snagged it. Of the three guys above, he's the one most poised right now to win a big event in 2026.

But Hisatsune might be a really nice "off the radar screen" play for The Players that is just around the corner. He's just the kind of guy who sneaks in there at Sawgrass and leads after 54 holes and gives you a Top 10 and a Top 5 finish on your wagering card and, perhaps, even wins the event outright.

I'd be watching those three names on the TOUR for the next couple of weeks. They're well into their 3-week "heater", but they might have really found something with their respective golf games that makes them a contender almost every week they tee it up.

Friday February 6, 2026

#DMD

Issue #4183

getting it right

The Hall of Fame selection committee might have botched the Bill Belichick thing, but they got it right last night when they announced this year's four selections.

Drew Brees and Larry Fitzgerald both made it to Canton in their first year of eligibility. Luke Kuechly and Adam Vinatieri were also selected. Roger Craig got in via the "senior" category, which is essentially the Hall's way of saying, "We probably should have voted you in the first time, but we didn't, so hear you go, a gift from the gods."

Ravens candidates Terrell Suggs and Marshal Yanda did not gain enough votes to make it to Canton for this year's class. Suggs will make it someday, almost certainly, while Yanda is probably more like 50/50.

Matthew Stafford won the league MVP award, as expected. Myles Garrett (who could have been the MVP) won the Defensive Player of the Year award and Jaxon Smith-Njigba (who could have been the MVP) won the Offensive Player of the Year.

So, since the HOF selection committee got it right, let's see if we can get it right with some questions from the #DMD audience. I've collected a bunch over the last three weeks or so, but I'll try to use the ones that are the most evergreen or "time sensitive" today.

If you sent in a question or posted one and I didn't get to it, I apologize. With all of the Ravens news that's been pouring out of Owings Mills recently, it's been tough to squeeze in a Q & A session here.

I love your questions. I love answering them. Thanks for your participation in making #DMD great (again).

Tim B. asks -- "Drew, if you set up a table in Towson or White Marsh Mall today and asked everyone who walked by you to name a player on the Maryland women's basketball team, how long would you be there until someone named a player?"

DF says -- "All day, probably? I mean, I guess you could stumble into a group of girls who went to high school with someone who just happens to play at College Park. That's possible, I suppose. But other than, I'm not sure you'd ever find someone who knows a player's name on the Maryland women's team. What's your point?

I have news for you. You'd probably be standing there for an hour or so before someone knew the name of a player on the men's team. I don't know. Would someone blurt out Darius Adams or Andre Mills because they follow Maryland basketball? Probably. Those are two easy-to-remember names and if you're a fan of the team at all, you'd know those two. Or Pharrel Payne.

But if you're just asking the question about the women's team just to ask it, I get it. If you're asking the question to somehow poke fun at the fact that no one in Baltimore knows anything about Maryland women's basketball, I don't think many people in Baltimore know much about this year's Maryland's men's team, either."

Rich asks -- "Now that the O's lost out on Valdez and their hot stove session is pretty much done, what do you think of their off-season and what's your projection for 2026?"

DF says -- "Framber Valdez would have helped. No sense in trying to act like he wouldn't have. But I don't think it's a season-killer, either. Everyone thought losing out on Corbin Burnes last off-season was a season-killer and then he went to Arizona and blew out his arm. Who knows what Valdez will do in Detroit.

He might go 20-7 with a 3.04 ERA and people are going to say "20-7 and a 3.04 ERA sure would have helped the Orioles, thanks a lot, Elias", without realizing that just because he goes 20-7 with a 3.04 ERA in Detroit it doesn't mean he would have replicated those stats in Baltimore. There's probably nothing in baseball that drives me more crazy than people transposing statistics from one team to the next as if stats accumulated for one team just morph into stats for another team. Anyway, I digress...

They probably need another pitcher of some kind. A reliable one, I should say. But if their offense percolates and the guys who are supposed to hit wind up hitting, I think they can creep in the area of a playoff spot. Their bullpen appears to be better, if only by a small margin. Alonso will certainly help offensively. More starting pitching would help, for sure. But I think they can win 85 or 90 games."

Frank asks -- "What has more chance of happening this year in golf? Scottie Scheffler wins 3 majors or Rickie Fowler wins 1 major?"

DF says -- "This is definitely a loaded question, because the right answer is the one that's probably the most improbable.

I do think Scheffler is capable of doing some amazing stuff in golf. And I'd never rule out him winning three majors in one year, at least not now while he's at his zenith and playing the best golf we've seen in the world since Tiger Woods circa 2000.

But winning three in one year is a really tough ask.

Fowler isn't even eligible for all of the majors yet. There was a time when he exempt into everything but those days are gone. He has to "play his way in" to the majors.

That said, and I'll try to couch this the right way, if Fowler played in all four majors, he would have a better chance of winning one of them than Scheffler would have of winning three in one year. Not by a lot, mind you. Maybe by small percentage points. But it's much easier for any one guy on TOUR to win one major than Scottie (or any other top player) winning three of the four in one year."

Bart asks -- "Now that all of the NFL coaching hires have happened (assuming Kubiak goes to LV Raiders), who made the best hire and who made the worst?"

DF says -- "I have no idea. Honestly. I mean, it sure looks like the Ravens got a good one in Jesse Minter. But I assume the Titans think they got a good one in Robert Saleh. And the Cardinals think they got a good one in Mike LaFleur. Everyone assumes the Steelers pick of Mike McCarthy was a bad/odd decision, but who knows? Maybe they get a real quarterback there in a couple of years and McCarthy takes off with him.

I tend to look at franchises with great pedigrees and just wonder, "Can that guy keep it going in (new city)?" Minter is coming into a pretty great situation in Baltimore, for example. Unlike Willard-to-Buzz down in College Park, John Harbaugh left Minter with a pretty full cupboard of quality players and a history of success in Baltimore. If Minter can't do well with the Ravens organization, that says more about him than anything else.

Now, Mike LaFleur is walking into a fiasco of a situation in Arizona. The Cardinals stink. They almost always stink. And no one has been able to go out there and fix them. What makes anyone think LaFleur will be able to do it? The same with Kubiak in Las Vegas. He might inherit Mendoza from Indiana and that's a good start, but there's no guarantee that kid is going to be a star in the NFL.

Minter and McCarthy will likely do well because they're going to franchises who almost always do well. That's my only real take on the situation."

Eric in Bel Air asks -- "What do you think the chances would be for, say, the 2 best golfer/members at Caves Valley (this is a concept question, pick a local course with some very very good hackers, I'm sure there are plenty and you know them all) beating Scottie Scheffler if they played scramble as a team vs (Scheffler / Top Tier Pro) playing his own ball?"

DF says -- "This is an awesome question. And the answer totally depends on course layout and set-up. If you're asking two local plus handicap amateurs to play against Scottie (scramble vs. his ball) at Caves Valley, from the TOUR tee boxes, I don't see the scratch players winning.

But if you moved up a tee box or two and played the course from, say, 6600 yards, instead of 7400 yards, I could see the two plus handicap guys having a chance, particularly in a scramble format for them. If the two amateurs are hitting it 275-290 off the tee (which, if you're a plus as an amateur, you probably are), they'd have a shot on the 6600 yard course. Scheffler would hit wedge into a lot of holes where those guys would be hitting 9 irons, probably.

But if you stretch it out to 7400 or so, Scottie's hitting 7 iron into a lot of greens and the amateurs are hitting 5 irons and hybrids into some/most of the greens. Now, that gets evened out a little bit by the fact the ams get two putts on every green and Scottie only gets one. But, still, nothing makes up for distance.

The answer to this totally depends on the course layout and set-up, I think."

Alan asks -- "How many wins do you think a baseball pitcher needs in today's game to be considered for the Hall of Fame? It used to be 300 was an automatic "in". What is that number now?"

DF says -- "Good question! I'm guessing 200 wins is "just about a slam dunk" and 225 is "pack your stuff, we're going to Cooperstown."

No one wins 20 games any longer, at least not regularly, so you have figure it like this. Can a pitcher win 15 games a year for 12 years (180) and in five of those 12 years, actually win 18 or more, which gets them over 200 and in the direction of 225.

200 wins in baseball, as a pitcher, is really something special given the new way pitchers are used.

If you get to 225 wins in this era, that's definitely like 300 in the old days. That's basically 15 wins a year for 15 years. Last year in Major League Baseball, only seven pitchers (seven!) won 15 or more games. And only four won more than 15 games. Amazing, right?

Fried (19), Rodon (18), Crochet (18), Peralta (17), Luzardo (15), Webb (15), Woo (15).

So, in order to win 200, those guys would all have to duplicate their 2025 campaigns for the next 14 years.

It's crazy how pitching has changed over the last 50 years or so.

Great question, Alan!"

	dale williams aims the terps spotlight
DALE WILLIAMS returns for his 10th season of covering all things Maryland men's basketball for #DMD. Terps Spotlight will preview and review all games in the 2025-2026 season.

terps get roasted by double digits...again

The only good thing about this most recent destruction of the Maryland basketball team was that very few people witnessed, in person, the Ohio State 82-62 shellacking of the Terrapins.

The gap between these two teams was wide, as OSU beat Maryland in every phase of the game.

The Buckeyes grabbed an early advantage and used a 12-4 run at the end of the first half to lead by 12 at the break. They coasted from there, as the Terps struggled to score and couldn’t buy a stop.

Christopher Tilley led OSU with 19 points on 7 of 10 shooting. Bruce Thorton dropped 17 and John Mobley added 15.

For The Terps, Elijah Saunders led them with 20 points before getting ejected for his tussle with OSU’s Taison Chatman.

Turnovers were a big issue for Maryland as evidenced by the points-off-turnovers favoring the Buckeyes, 24-2.

All the Terp interior players picked up at least 4 personal fouls, as did Andre Mills. Many of those fouls can be traced to the Terp guards inability to stay in front of a ball handler. The Ohio State drive and dish game was in full effect with OSU picking up 17 assists on their 28 made baskets.

I can’t say I’ve ever seen a team start a player who, at the midpoint of a season, has made just 3 shots and is last in minutes played per game.

But there he was, the Terp’s Collin Metcalf, on the starting lineup sheet that was handed to me about 20 minutes before tipoff. Time would tell if the move to get bigger would pay dividends for Buzz Williams and the Terps.

The Terps came out with energy, grabbing offensive rebounds and challenging shots, bit still trailed 7-6 at the first TV timeout because of a multitude of ill-advised three-point shots. Both Andre Mills and Solomon Washington were guilty of taking deep shots when they either were on the move or barely had possession of the ball.

The result was an 0-4 start from behind the three-point arc and a 1-point deficit courtesy of a banked in triple by the Buckeye’s Trevor Chatman.

What little Terp offense there was dried up when Diggy Coit entered the game. His 2 turnovers and 2 missed threes put Mryland into a scoring drought during which they fell behind 17-8.

Both teams were freely using zone defenses, forcing outside shots that were failing to fall.

With 11:28 left in the half, the Terps trailed 16-10, having missed all 7 of their three point tries. Foul trouble was beginning to be a problem for Maryland as both Metcalf and his replacement, Goerge Turkson had accumulated a couple of fouls.

It was another Coit mishandled pass and subsequent Tilly layup that caused Buzz Williams to call a timeout and remove Coit. The Terps immediately answered with a Saunders three, but it was matched by Mobley’s second triple of the night. The Terps had yet to go the foul line, being outscored from the charity stripe 5-0.

With 4:26 left, Darius Adams converted a 4-point play cutting the OSY lead to just 4, 30-26. Until that point, Maryland was just 1 for 9 shooting threes. Not enough made Terp triples, and too much Tilley (5-6, 11 points) kept the Terps trailing.

The moderate 4-point gap was pushed to 9 points in a matter of 44 seconds. Two Adams turnovers gift-wrapped 4 points to the Buckeyes and a Tilly triple accounted for 3 more OSU points.

The half would end with OSU enjoying a 42-30 lead. The two most glaring stats were Ohio State’s advantage in points-off-turnovers, 13-0, and their 3-point shooting. OSU had hit 55% of their threes (5-9) while the Terps struggled again, going 2 for 11.

It’s no secret that this Terps team is in dire need of (among other things) a ball-handling, play-making point guard. But it may have never been as evident as it was in yesterday’s first half. Switch the Buckeye’s Thorton and Maryland’s Adams, and this is an even game in my humble opinion.

When the first media timeout of the second half stopped play with 15:55 left, the Terps had piled up 4 personal fouls and another pair of turnovers, The OSU lead had grown by another point, 48-35. The Terp offense was nothing more than perimeter passes and then a prayer.

From this point on the game was a struggle for Maryland.

The gap extended to 22 points, 68-46. The Terps struggled to make a shot, struggled to hold onto the ball, and struggled to play anything that remotely resembled meaningful defense.

OSU hit 10 of their first 14 second half shots. Layups or dunks accounted for over half of those made shots. Maryland offered little resistance.

This was another Maryland game where the final 15 minutes were of zero consequence to the outcome. An offensively challenged team that can’t get stops doesn’t stand a chance against even a middle of the road major conference team. The game was the most recent in a season of non-competitive contests.

Not much else can be, or needs to be, said. This is a patchwork team of limited capabilities. They have no size, poor ball-handling, very little Big Ten experience, and don’t play very smart ball.

The Terps get to try again on Super Bowl Sunday against a Minnesota team that just beat Michigan State. Tip-off is at 1 p.m. at the Williams Arena in Minneapolis.

faith in sports

This is a timely, and awesome, Friday edition of "Faith in Sports" here at #DMD. You're going to see a group of NFL coaches, including a former Ravens coach is in this Sunday's Super Bowl, talking openly about their faith.

It's one thing when a player stands up and professes his faith to the camera. It's another, entirely, when the coach does it!

Enjoy this 10 minute video today and hear what these NFL coaches have to say about "Living for Jesus" and other faith messages they are willing to share with their players and the football loving public.

Thanks, as always, to our friends at Freestate Electrical for their continued support of #DMD and our "Faith in Sports" segment every Friday.

Thursday February 5, 2026

#DMD

Issue #4182

how many coaches do you need?

Please know this isn't a criticism of the coaches the Ravens have hired since the January 6 dismissal of John Harbaugh.

Not in the least.

They all might turn out to be outstanding coaching contributors for all I know. I sure hope that winds up being the case.

But let me show you this. For discussion purposes only.

Head Coach: Jesse Minter

Offensive Coordinator: Declan Doyle

Quarterbacks coach: Israel Woolfork

Running backs coach: Eddie Faulkner

Wide receivers coach: vacant

Tight ends coach: vacant

Offensive line/run game coordinator: Dwayne Ledford

Assistant offensive line coach: Shawn Flaherty

Offensive special assistant: Joe Lombardi

Defensive coordinator: Anthony Weaver

Defensive line coach vacant

Inside linebackers coach: Tyler Santucci

Outside linebackers coach: vacant

Secondary coach/pass game coordinator: Mike Mickens

Assistant defensive backs coach: Miles Taylor

Defensive assistant: P.J. Volker

Game management coordinator/defensive assistant: Charlie Gelman

The Ravens will also eventually have three (3) coaches in their Special Teams department.

What's the first thing that comes to mind when you see that list of coaches?

That's a lot of coaches. Is there any way that's too many?

Maybe that's not what you think. But that's definitely what I think.

OK, look, everyone needs a mentor or a coach. I get that.

But how many offensive "minds" does it take to get Lamar Jackson to play to the highest level he possibly can?

I mean, you would assume Jesse Minter has something to say to Lamar, like, occasionally at the very least.

The offensive coordinator will probably want a word or two with Lamar.

The quarterbacks coach definitely will want Lamar's ear.

What about the run game coordinator? And the offensive special assistant?

Are they able to talk with or suggest something to Lamar during the season?

No offense to the guy named Eddie Faulkner, but tell me, please, what Faulkner (once a practice squad member of the Steelers, if you were wondering about his NFL "experience") is possibly going to teach Derrick Henry about running a football through, around and over opposing NFL defenses?

I can hear it now.

Faulkner: "Hey Derrick, got a minute? I'd like to chat with you about that "34 Dart" play and how I think you might need to hit the hole a second or two later to let the guard get to the second level."

Henry: "You serious, bro?"

And I'm not suggesting Henry would be disrespectful to his position coach. I highly doubt he would. But I just can't imagine the Ravens could hire someone that would teach a future Hall of Fame running back to be a better Hall of Fame running back.

I realize they have other guys on the team (Keaton Mitchell, Justice Hil, Rasheen Ali) who could potentially use coaching in the run game. But, again, what's a guy who never carried a ball once -- for a living -- going to teach someone like Keaton Mitchell?

I could go on and on.

And I'm not picking on the Ravens, per se. Every team in the league has a 20-some person coaching staff.

But is there a chance it's all way too much?

I just don't understand the need for all of those position coaches. A few? Sure. Maybe an Offensive Coordinator and two other guys or three, tops? I get that. But eight offensive coaches? There are only 11 players on that side of the ball. Eight?

I don't know, man.

Paralysis by analysis? Maybe?

I'm still not an ardent fan of the indoor golf circuit -- TGL -- but I definitely have watched enough of it over the last two years to say this: It's like the opera. It's better than you think it's going to be.

I did catch part of Jupiter Links' 8-6 win over Atlanta on Monday night. As far as indoor golf and the TGL goes, that was a pretty significant upset.

But there's still one thing missing from TGL and I can't believe the folks-who-built-the-enterprise didn't think of this from jump street.

There has to be an "amateur team" added into the mix somehow, even if that team changes on a weekly basis. There has to be a group of three golfing buddies somewhere in the U.S. who would like to take on Tiger, Akshay Bhatia and Kevin Kisner, via the online forum, and "play a match" against them.

Imagine how cool it would be if three friends from your club got to tee it up against Justin Thomas and the rest of the Atlanta Drive sometime in February. Granted, the chipping and putting part of it wouldn't be the same as the guys face in the arena down in West Palm Beach, Florida, but you could figure that out somehow.

That's the brilliance of it all. You (and I) can't play against Rory or Morikawa or Tiger in real life, but we can tee it up against them on a TV screen. We're probably gonna lose, but at least we didn't spend money on airfare, a hotel room and a greens fee in exchange for getting our rear ends handed to us.

I think the TGL is perfect for what it is. Something to watch on Monday or Tuesday night in January, February and March before the weather turns and April and the Masters rolls around. At that point, "real golf" takes over.

I definitely didn't care much about TGL when it was birthed last January. I thought it was a nothing-burger, honestly.

But now? I've grown to actually like it. It's not a replacement for real golf on a real course. Not even close. But it's a nice time-filler until we get to that point.

Maryland hosts Ohio State tonight in college hoops and, as always, our friend Dale Williams has the best pre-game analysis of that tilt you'll find anywhere.

In case you haven't been following, this hasn't been the best season ever for the Maryland men's team.

They are a Big Ten bottom feeder.

We've chronicled some of our own thoughts about Buzz Williams and the Maryland program here at #DMD. Our thought is that something's wrong besides the team being terrible on the court. There's a disconnect -- and it's growing -- down in College Park between the basketball program and the Maryland community.

Yes, winning would help sew some of that back together. There's no doubt part of what we're seeing happen down there directly relates to the woeful on court product.

But there's something else going on.

Our friend Glenn Clark senses it too. Take a minute, and click here to read what Clark thinks is going on with Buzz and the Maryland program.

Clark is a longtime ardent supporter of all things Maryland. I used to joke with him on the air when we were together as a morning show team that he once volunteered to wear the turtle mascot costume when the regular mascot called out sick one day.

If Glenn Clark is on your case down at Maryland, you've really tripped up.

Let's see how tonight's game goes for Buzz and the Boys. Maybe they'll pull off an upset this evening and temporarily quell some of the angst and tension in College Park.

And one final note of "thanks" to all of you who supported my Calvert Hall Golf team at yesterday's annual Polar Bear Plunge at Sandy Point State Park.

We had an incredible time!

And, yes, it was cold.

As I told anyone who asked when we got back to school around 1:30 pm, there's nothing I can say to make you understand how cold the water was. You have to experience it yourself.

It. Was. Freakin'. Cold.

When we dipped in at 12 noon, it was 34 degrees. Thousands of people went in with us, almost all of them affiliated with a Maryland school as part of the Plunge's "Cool School Campaign".

A huge thank you to Jeff Abel and his staff for pulling off this year's event in light of the snownstorm that gripped the area ten days ago. What a job they did putting everything together and keeping everything together. Just great, great work.

My golfers all participated in this project with enthusiasm. Not only did we raise $4,500 to benefit Maryland Special Olympics, but we met several Special Olympic athletes, including our designated golf representative, Annu, and got to share in the day with them.

We're trying to teach our your student-athletes that there's more to being on a team and in a program than just actually "playing" the sport itself. Thank you for supporting us (and me) in that endeavor if you were a contributor to our Polar Bear Plunge donation drive. You helped more than you realize.

	dale williams aims the terps spotlight
DALE WILLIAMS returns for his 10th season of covering all things Maryland men's basketball for #DMD. Terps Spotlight will preview and review all games in the 2025-2026 season.

upset-minded terps host ohio state tonight

The Ohio State Buckeyes, Maryland’s opponent in tonight’s Big Ten game, sit almost smack dab in the middle of the conference with a 6-5 record. The Buckeyes are 14-7 overall and clearly on the Big Dance bubble (CBS lists them as a First Team Out).

Six of their losses are Quad 1 with the Buckeye’s only Quad 2 loss being a tough buzzer beating loss against Pittsburgh.

OSU has had a handful of tight losses against real good teams. North Carolina beat them by 1 point, 71-70, in another game that went down to the final second. Nebraska bested OSU by three, while a very good Illinois team used 29 made foul shots to beat the Buckeyes 88-80.

Consider the play of 7’ center, Christoph Tilly, as somewhat of a bellwether for the Buckeyes. If this Santa Clara transfer plays well, the Terps are in for long night.

That said, Tilly was 0-8 from the floor against Wisconsin in Ohio State’s most recent game, a 10-point loss. Clearly suffering the effects of the lower leg injury that kept him out of the Buckeye’s previous game against Penn State, Tilly is a good passer out of the post and has the size that the Terps can’t match. He tends to miss some chippies when pressured, but the Terps might not be able to do that.

Tilly could be a wild card tonight, but the Buckeyes can count on production from the guard position. Bruce Thorton is the engine that drives the OSU offense. He’s one of the top scorers in the Big Ten with 19.5 points per game.

Not only does he produce the most point on this team, but Thornton also leads OSU in assists (3.6) and steals (1.3). His 5.3 rebounds each contest is second on the team. That’s not a bad rebounding number for being just 6’2”, but he carries a tough and strong 215 pounds. For good measure, Thornton shoots 40% from the three-point stripe.

Also shooting 40% from deep is the OSU 2-guard John Mobley Jr.

Like Thorton, Mobley Jr. can create his own shot, but doesn’t hit with the same frequency as his backcourt mate, 43%-55%, respectively. Mobley, a 175-pound sophomore, can't match the toughness or maturity of the senior, Thorton. I do like Mobley’s quickness on defense, though.

Devin Royal and Amare Bynum round out Ohio State’s starting five.

Royal is bigger at 6’8” 220 and a better shooter. Bynum also carries 220 pounds, and plays a similar game to Royal with his 6’6” body. Both are physical and will mix it up under the boards on either end of the court.

Royal scores more, Bynum might be tougher in the paint. I will also say this about Bynum; he misses more dunks than any player I’ve ever seen. Both of these forwards can, and will, run the floor.

The Buckeyes are not an elite defensive team. They are very susceptible to the dribble drive and are not dominating on the glass despite their size and bulk. They play at a slower pace, but score with efficiency.

As has been the case with many games this season, with Maryland’s Pharrel Payne sidelined with a leg injury, there’s not one Terp that could crack the starting lineup of OSU. The talent disparity goes even deeperhe Buckeyes have 2 reserves, Taison Chatman and 7’1” Ivan Njegovan, that could start for the Terps.

I loved how the Terps’ Andre Mills took the ball to the rim in the blowout loss to Purdue. The Terps will need much more of that against an OSU team that can’t afford another “bad” loss if they want to still entertain March Madness hopes.

The big man, Tilly, isn’t intimidating but could be effective against a Terp team with no center.

Bynum and Royal could be a problem, but Thorton and Mobley give OSU too much firepower for a challenged Maryland offense to counter.

The Buckeyes should win this 8:30 p.m. start at the XFINITY Center, 82-72. Can’t wait to see the “Red Panda” at halftime.

Wednesday February 4, 2026

#DMD

Issue #4181

remember where you were?

All of this Olympics-related talk about the 1980 U.S. hockey team gave me a comfortable stroll down memory lane as my Calvert Hall bus rolled down 97 South today towards Sandy Point State Park for the Polar Bear Plunge.

I just celebrated a birthday last week. And in my six-plus decades on this planet, there are realistically five events (that didn't involve ME) that took place where I remember exactly where I was when the news was delivered...or I learned of the news, at least.

The 1980 U.S. Olympic hockey win is one of them. I was watching the game at my then-girlfriend's house in Glen Burnie. People forget the game had actually been played earlier in the day but was televised on tape-delay. And back then, no one knew how to get the information earlier.

Heck, in all honesty, I'm not sure we even knew it was tape-delayed in the first place.

Anyway, I remember I was at her house, watching the game with her parents and younger brother.

I remember watching Notre Dame end UCLA's 88-game winning streak in 1974. I was 10 years old at the time. I was in my living room, with my mom, viewing the game on television. That Notre Dame team had two players I specifically remember; John Shumate and Adrian Dantley.

We all remember where we were on 9-11-01 when the early morning news broke about a plane crashing into the World Trade Center. I was at the Schaefer-Strohminger car dealership on Joppa Road finalizing a sponsorship for a golf expo I was running at the Timonium Fairgrounds.

I was sitting in the lobby waiting on a meeting to start at 9:00 am, with a coffee, when the whole thing unfolded in front of us on television.

I remember I was driving to Queenstown Harbor Golf Course for a Maryland Open qualifier practice round on May 4, 2012, when I heard the news on the radio that Adam Yauch of the Beastie Boys had died. I pulled over on the side of the road for 10 minutes or so and collected myself. That one hit hard.

Oddly, I remember where I was when Mookie Wilson's ground ball went through Bill Buckner's legs at first base in the 1986 World Series. I was at Northway Liquors on Route 3/301, watching the final three innings on TV after playing pick-up hockey at Benfield Ice Rink.

And I remember where I was for two significant golf tournaments involving Tiger Woods; I remember I was at King's Creek CC when he came back to beat Steve Scott in the 1996 U.S. Amateur, watching the final 9 holes in a cozy chair in the pro shop.

Then, when he won the 2019 Masters, I was having a bite to eat at Eagle's Nest and watched his improbable win unfold right there in front of me on one of the big screens at the club.

Oh, and I was in my house, pacing, watching the Caps beat Las Vegas in Game 5 of the Stanley Cup Finals in 2018.

"The Capitals just won the Stanley Cup," I said with a tear (or two) rolling down my face. "I've been waiting most of my life to say those words."

It was the first night of our Eagle's Nest member-guest and I watched the first two periods with Dale Williams (my Member-Guest partner) and then said to him, "Let's head home. If these guys wind up winning tonight, I don't want everyone at the club to see me cry."

Those are the places and the moments where I remember exactly where I was when I heard the news.

---

the day (after) the music died

Man, I hate that I goofed up and missed "the day the music died" on Tuesday. I saw a video about it on Monday and totally meant to write about it yesterday and it somehow got away from me.

You know what they say about getting old. The first thing to go is your memory. The second thing to go is........is.........is.........damn, I forget what the second thing is.

February 3 is always remembered as the anniversary of one of the saddest days in music history. Three incredible young talents were killed in a plane crash following a concert in Iowa. One of them was Buddy Holly.

I was introduced to Buddy Holly's music by my mom in the 1970's. She played his songs constantly in our Glen Burnie home. Her favorite tune of Buddy Holly's was "Rave On".

I've watched "La Bamba" probably ten times, at least, in my life. It's the story of Ritchie Valens, but it ties into Holly and The Big Bopper because they were on the plane that crashed in Clear Lake, Iowa on February 3, 1959.

If you believe the movie -- and we all know facts occasionally get twisted around for theatrical and drama purposes -- Valens was originally not supposed to be on the private plane but had a bad cold and his agent insisted Valens fly instead of taking a bus to North Dakota for the next show on the American tour.

Others wanted to fly as well, though, so a coin flip decided the "winners". Valens won the coin toss and got to fly, as did Waylon Jennings. Jennings, however, in a last minute, life-altering decision, offered his spot on the plane to J.P. Richardson, who went by the stage name, "The Big Bopper", because Valens was afraid to fly and Richardson wanted to sit next to him for comfort reasons.

Jennings gave his seat to Richardsons, rode the bus, and survived.

Valens, Holly and Richardson all perished in the plane crash.

And that was, as Don McLean told us in his amazing 1971 song, "American Pie", the day the music died.

One of the cool things about music is it's generally timeless. Buddy Holly still stands up today. So does Led Zeppelin. And my kids, both still not in their 20's, knew all the words to "American Pie" because they heard me play it in the car 100 times over the last ten years.

"Dad, put on American Pie!" my teenage daughter says often. And then she sits there and sings it like the song just came out last week.

Music connects us in a special way.

In my lifetime, "American Pie" is an all-time top 10 song. Like, ever. I have it below, with the lyrics, if you want to follow along.

NFL owners are quietly starting to push for an 18th game to be added to each team's regular season schedule, and in the first of many posturing stances yesterday, the NFL Players Association denounced the idea saying, "the players don't have any appetite for it."

Expect an 18th game to be added by 2027 or 2028 at the latest.

"The players don't have an appetite for it" is merely code word for, "The players aren't going to allow an additional game to be added without a significant increase in their compensation."

Imagine if the owners went to the players and said, "We're actually going to reduce the number of games from 17 to 14, but we're also going to reduce everyone's pay commensurate to how much money we're going to lose as a league."

The players would all flip out.

"Play for less money? NEVER!" they'd shout.

The truth is, the players would be agreeable to a 20-game schedule if they got paid for 20 games.

This chatter about "player safety" and "career longevity" and all that other stuff is nonsense. The players just want money. And more money. And then, a little more money.

And that's all perfectly understandable.

If the owners are going to add another game, which in turn generates additional revenue via TV, gate receipts, etc., the players should absolutely share in that money haul.

But it's the rhetoric from the Players Association that's hard to hear without snickering.

"Our members have no appetite for a regular-season 18th game," NFLPA interim executive director David White said at the union's annual Super Bowl week news conference, citing player health and safety concerns that come with a longer regular season. "The 18th game is not casual for us. It's a very serious issue. It's something that comes out of negotiations, and nothing will move forward until players have the opportunity to account for all of those factors, take that into consideration and then through negotiations, agree or not to the 18th game."

Player health and safety concerns.

Yeah, I'm sure that's what the main worry is, Mr. White.

We all know what the biggest issue is. It's called "money". Pay the players more money and an 18th game will be added in a flash.

If it's not 2027, it will be 2028. 18 games is on the way.

You can count on it.

Now that the PGA Tour season is heating up and football (scores AND news) is pretty much over, I'm back to focusing on weekly tournaments and who might be worthy of a small, short-term investment on your part.

Or my part, too. I rarely ever give someone out that I don't have an "interest" in myself.

They're in Phoenix starting tomorrow for the Phoenix Open, which, of course, has the craziest 16th hole in all of golf.

Scottie Scheffler is in the field. That means, unless something weird happens, that Scheffler is likely going to win. In fact, it's such a done deal that Scheffler will win that almost every online wagering site now has a "Without Scheffler" wager available.

In other words, the guy you pick to win just has to finish 2nd if you're in the "Without Scheffler" wager.

Scheffler is +220 this week, which is basically 2-1. It's unheard of to have a golfer tee it up at 2-1 odds. But that's how dominating Scheffler has been over the last three years.

Here are my five plays for the week: If you're looking for one outright win bet at great odds, I'd go with Sahith Theegala (+5500). Theegala battled through an injury-riddled 2025 but he's healthy and off to a nice start in 2026. He's played in 3 events, has made the cut in all 3, and has 2 top 10 finishes thus far.

Theegala to win at 55-1? Yes please. You can also get decent odds on him for Top 20 and Top 10 as well.

Others I'm going to play for Top 20 and Top 10 wagers this week are J.J. Spaun, Corey Conners, Cameron Young and Hideki Matsuyama.

If you look at the history of this event, it's been mostly "names" winning over the last ten years, with a couple of "surprises" winning at TPC Scottsdale in '25 and '24.

2025 Thomas Detry (surprise), 2024 Nick Taylor (surprise), 2023 Scottie Scheffler, 2022 Scottie Scheffer, 2021 Brooks Koepka, 2020 Webb Simpson, 2019 Rickie Fowler, 2018 Gary Woodland, 2017 Hideki Matsuyama, 2016 Hideki Matsuyama.

I think there's a chance Theegala jumps in there as a 3rd straight "surprise" winner.

Spaun, Conners, Young and Matsuyama would constitute "names" that wouldn't be a shock at all if they claimed the trophy on Sunday.

If you're someone who loves a good longshot or two, how about these two "just in case": Tony Finau (150-1) and Tom Hoge (200-1). You never know...

The Winter Olympics start this Friday, in case you didn't know, and I really, really wish my motivation level for watching and following along was higher than it is.

I can remember when the Olympics were a big deal. They were, circa 1976, the biggest of big deals, in fact.

Like a lot of things in our lives since then, it's just not the same.

I don't know why.

But I think about it a lot when the winter and summer games come along and I don't really pay all that much attention to the lead up in advance of the competition(s).

"What happened?"

That's usually what I think to myself when I watch it on any given night and get caught up in it for a few hours.

"What happened? This is sooooo cool. Why don't we all love it any longer like we used to in the old days?"

There are so many great events in the winter games. For the record, in case you care, I think the winter games are far superior to the summer games. But that's just me.

Maybe it's because we're all cooped up here in Maryland still dealing with the aches and pains of winter, but I love watching the skiing events and the bobsled events and, yes, of course, ice hockey.

I'm not huge on the figure skating events, but I can appreciate how great they are at what they do nonetheless.

I also like curling, which, I know, is about as exciting as the Beatles (White Album) power washing your deck in May.

But there's something about curling. It's more "art" than "sport", I think. I don't know, man. It just looks fun.

Way more fun than power washing your deck.

I'll check in over the weekend and let you know how much of the opening days of the Olympics I watch. You do the same, too, please.

I'd like to know if any of us are actually following along.

My Calvert Hall Golf team will be "Freezin' for a Reason" today at Sandy Point State Park, as we are all set to take part in the annual "Polar Bear Plunge" to benefit the Maryland Special Olympics.

The Plunge was originally scheduled for last Wednesday but was postponed a week due to the snow and hazardous conditions. But we're heading there this morning for a 12 noon dip in the 37 degree waters of the Chesapeake Bay.

I just wanted to take a quick second to thank all of you who donated to our "Plunge Page" and helped us raise funds for Maryland Special Olympics.

Our involvement as a golf program doesn't end today. We're teaming up with Maryland Special Olympics in the spring and summer with golf clinics and lessons and a day at Top Golf sometime before the school year ends.

I think it's important for my players to connect with Special Olympics programs. The Plunge is just the start of our relationship with their athletes.

The fundraising element of the Plunge is critical to Maryland Special Olympics. It's their biggest event of the entire year, raising, hopefully, one million dollars. Presently they're at roughly $940,000.

I had a very modest goal of $1,500 for my Calvert Hall team and thought, if we hit a home run, maybe we'd get to $2,000.

Well, like they do on the golf course, my players simply blew me away with their effort and enthusiasm for the Plunge. We're at $4,400 and 90% of that has been raised BY ALL 11 OF THEM!

I'd love to somehow get to $5,000 just to say we did it. If you can help with just $20 today, that would be awesome.

Here's the link where you can donate: Click here and then press the "donate" button.

One quick note: I had previously vowed to go under water if the team raised $2,000. I spoke before I knew the rules. Because of the water temperature, I'm not allowed to go under. There are "patrol officers" in the water making sure you don't go under.

But it's the thought that counts, right?

Tuesday February 3, 2026

#DMD

Issue #4180

let them play what they want to play

I know it doesn't feel like it out there right now, but spring is in the not-too-distant future here in The Land of Pleasant Living.

Late next week, we're going to start seeing temperatures in the 40's during the day. For, maybe, five straight days even!

I'm sure they'll call it "The Big Thaw" or something like that once all the snow and ice starts to melt. It's going to be a mess.

But the calendar just turned to February and this time next month, we'll be one month from Easter and the Masters and flowers might even start thinking about blooming.

We're close, friends. It's not spring yet. We still have another month or so of cold weather. But the hardest part is behind us now, I think.

And don't worry about that silly groundhog and the news he announced yesterday. He's right about as often as the Flyers make the playoffs which -- checks notes for accuracy -- has only happened 3 times in the last 10 years.

In fact, here's a fun bar bet you can win with your buddies this week: Did you know the Flyers have missed the playoffs six years in a row? (Yes, I know it looks like they might make it this year, but you never know. Flyers might Flyers and all.)

Anyway, back to sports. Wait, the Flyers missing the playoffs is sports. It's actually the best thing about sports.

Back to spring. And hope springs eternal.

#DMD reader Phil sent me an e-mail over the weekend and I thought I'd share it -- with Phil's permission -- with the rest of you. There's a chance someone else reading this today might face the same situation either this spring or in the future.

Phil's son attends an area private high school. He's a 10th grader in '25-26.

"Drew, my son is facing a dilemma this spring and I thought I'd see what you think of the situation and provide any guidance if possible. He made his JV baseball team last year and played or started almost all of the games. Last summer, I noticed a slight decrease in his love for baseball. I thought maybe it was just a little bit of burnout and didn't think anything of it. Then, over Christmas, he told me he wants to play rugby (probably JV this season) instead of baseball this spring. The varsity rugby coach has pretty much assured him he will play varsity rugby as a junior and senior. His best friend is a 4-star rugby player who already has a bunch of interest from prominent D1 rugby schools and my oldest son also played rugby in high school but gave it up before trying to play in college. I tried not to let on how crushed I was at the news he is giving up on baseball. I think it's the best sport for him and I hate seeing all of that time wasted over the years with camps and leagues and tournaments. Any ideas on how to steer him back to baseball or at least give him a way to see the bigger picture? Thanks for any help."

First of all, this is an issue that happens all the time in high school sports. A student-athlete goes to his/her school driven to play a sport and then, midway through their four years, pivots and decides to play another sport.

True story: One of the best golfers in my 14 years at Calvert Hall actually came to me via the lacrosse program. I did not bring him to Calvert Hall to play golf. He played a season of JV lacrosse and then abruptly gave that up to turn to golf. And he went on to win the MIAA Individual Championship, played four years of Division 1 golf and is now studying at St. Andrews University in Scotland.

Quite a story for a lacrosse player turned golfer, huh?

So, first things first. It's not weird or odd or uncommon at all for a boy or girl to suddenly say, "I want to play another sport."

The summary of Phil's note to me is pretty simple, as I explained to Phil in my e-mail reply.

This is not about you, the parent. It's about your child. And it's about his/her enjoyment of the sport and their high school years.

Phil's son is not going to be a Major League Baseball player someday. And he's not going to be (I'm guessing) a "major league" rugby player. He's just a kid who is good at sports who prefers rugby over baseball at this point in his life.

So, with that said, just let him play the sport he wants to play and do so knowing it's far more likely he's going to enjoy the sport he wants to play (rugby) over the sport he's moving away from (baseball).

The answer is obvious and easy if you remove yourself (the parent) from the equation.

I mentioned to Phil how I always wanted my son to grow up loving golf and being crazy about it, but he never really got the bug and I was not going to force it on him. He liked video games and soccer more than he liked golf. But something happened to him when he got to watch me play at the U.S. Senior Open in 2021. The "golf light bulb" went off and he was suddenly crazy about golf!

And I didn't have to do anything to force him, push him or prod him into it. Almost out of nowhere, he started getting the golf bug. He wound up on my Calvert Hall team as a junior and senior. Someday down the road, if he continues to improve, he can be a very good amateur player if he so chooses.

Kids discover themselves through sports at various ages and times in their lives.

Phil's son might have discovered he really doesn't love baseball all that much. Maybe Phil loved his son playing it more than Phil's son loved playing it.

And now he has friends who play rugby and he sees the value of maintaining those friendships and how those friends are more important to him than baseball. Maybe he deeply admires his older brother and wants to follow in his footsteps.

The answer to all of this, as painful as it might be given the financial investment(s) you've made as parents, is to let your child figure out along the way what's important to them and what motivates them and what inspires them, sports wise.

We all love watching our children play sports and we do tend to live vicariously through them and their accomplishments. And that's simply human nature.

But in the end, let them decide what sport makes them feel the best about themselves and their growth from youth to adult.

If your son's a baseball player who now wants to play rugby, I'd tell him: "Go be the best rugby player you can be and I can't wait to watch you play."

Before Sunday night, I didn't know much about the musical artist "Jelly Roll". I don't really follow much of today's music if I'm being honest, although I have heard of both Olivia Dean and Lola Young, who were finalists for "Best New Artist of 2025" (Dean actually won).

Anyway, Jelly Roll won an award at Sunday's Grammy's and did something really cool.

No, he didn't go up there scantily-attired with his breasts hanging out.

No, he didn't go up there and drop the f-word and denounce our country and our government.

No, he didn't go up there and stir the pot with inflammatory commentary and inuendo about the President.

Those themes were very "center stage" throughout the awards, of course. Give someone a stage and a microphone and they're apt to say just about anything these days, decency disregarded.

Instead, Jelly Roll went up on stage and........well..........I'll let the video below tell the story.

I don't know much about his music or his life, but the video tells a little bit about his story and how broken he was at one point in the past. I'm definitely a fan now, though. Thank you for speaking the truth.

Monday February 2, 2026

#DMD

Issue #4179

(sad) end of an era

For a lot of people in our reading area -- meaning Baltimore/suburbs mostly -- the Washington Post was probably not much of a daily habit in their lifetime.

But if you're someone who grew up as a fan of the Capitals, for example, the Post was your go-to daily source for information on the "local" NHL team you followed.

Over the years they also had an incredible staff of sportswriters and columnists like Tony Kornheiser, Mike Wilbon, John Feinstein and dozens more.

Today is the day massive staff layoffs go into effect and people start losing their jobs at the Post. When all of the blood is finally mopped off the floor down there, it's expected that roughly 240 positions will be eliminated with roughly 70% of those belonging to writers in the sports, local (metro) and foreign departments.

There has been a rumor floating around D.C. for a few months now that the Post might actually totally scrap their sports department and rely solely on news agency (Associated Press, Reuters) reporting in order to fill the actual pages of the newspaper and their online content.

I was an ardent reader of the Washington Post throughout the 1970's and 1980's when I was a teenager and young adult, but only because of Bob Fachet and his excellent coverage of the Capitals. There was a convenience store on B&A Boulevard next to Glen Burnie High School that carried the Post and on the morning after a game I'd go in there before or after school and hand over my 25 cents to read Fachet's coverage of the game.

I think the lady working at the counter thought I was some kind of pre-Harvard student who was catching up on all of the world's business and financial news.

"Here's my Washington Post friend!" she would announce to anyone near the counter.

I didn't let on that I was only interested in the sports section and that I'd give the page that had the horoscopes on it to my cute friend Rene Miles in an attempt to curry favor with her.

Back then, the Post was the only way to really follow the Caps on a day-to-day basis. Bob Fachet was an outstanding writer and since D.C. didn't have a baseball team back then, the hockey coverage was immense.

I haven't read much of the Post in a decade or more now. Maybe two decades. Heck, maybe three. But I know a good newspaper when I see one. And, despite whatever political leanings it might have, the Post is still a vital part of our local and national media landscape.

And, starting today, it will sadly become "less vital" because, in the end, profit always wins out. And with the advent of AI and other forms of computerized literacy booming these days, there's just not a need for human beings to sit there and pound out stories, make deadlines and pour humanity into a sports game or a family of four who just lost their house to a terrible fire in Silver Spring last week.

I hate it.

As someone who once lost a job in radio to a company "chasing profits", I know what it's like to be part of something that provided a "community service", only to have that enterprise (mostly) be shuttered because of money and a bad decision or two along the way that reduced sales and, ultimately, created the need for mass firings.

But there's a difference between a little radio station that talked about sports and an institution like the Washington Post that, in some ways, helped serve as a voice for our country. It's a newspaper situated in our nation's capital. It has its finger on the pulse of our government, as it should, and if it's being done right, they can represent all sides of the news, political and opinion worlds.

I realize that's a slippery slope. CNN was once a news entity that just delivered the news and could be easily tolerated and accepted by virtually anyone. Now, they've become a bit of a cartoon show, with show hosts in place there to simply rattle cages and make bombastic commentary designed to light a fire under their faithful legion of viewers and readers.

But here's the difference between the Post and CNN -- as an example. They're still able to sell advertising at CNN. Lots of it, in fact. And because of that, profits remain high and the show goes on. And on. And on.

Once the Post started seeing profits dip, they did what every other business does. "Cut costs!"

It's not entirely the Post's fault, of course. Our world has changed. People consume news and content differently these days. Why wait for something to come along tomorrow that tells me about yesterday when I can just read it right now, today, in the moment, on the internet?

I'm just spitballing here, but in my next life, and your next life, there won't be actual "newspapers" any longer. They simply won't exist in their current form. They will, like everything else, be consumed via your cell phone.

What's the one valuable by-product of a place like the Washington Post pivoting with their business model and reducing their writing staff and content?

I hope it serves as a reminder that the few local people who remain are worthy of your time, patronage and support.

Like this place, hopefully.

And other local websites and news agencies who serve to function as a "community voice", whether that's covering the Ravens, Orioles, or that family who is going through a difficult time and needs your help.

I hope we continue to provide the coverage you enjoy. And as I always say, if I write about golf one day and you're not a golfer, come back tomorrow and we'll have something you do enjoy or understand.

The Post no longer being the Post reminds me that my number one mission here is for Drew's Morning Dish as it started on August 25, 2014 to remain Drew's Morning Dish for as long as it possibly can.

As I mentioned last spring, I've been pressured by people far smarter than me about the internet and web-based content sites like this to "keep up with the times", but I've never fully bitten that apple. I've taken a bite here or there, but the #DMD you see today is pretty much the same #DMD you saw 11-plus years ago.

I hope that continues to be a successful business model for me and that you keep enjoying our product.

Sadly, the days of enjoying the Washington Post have come to an end, apparently.

Time marches on. Sometimes with us. Sometimes without us.

	dale williams aims the terps spotlight
DALE WILLIAMS returns for his 10th season of covering all things Maryland men's basketball for #DMD. Terps Spotlight will preview and review all games in the 2025-2026 season.

boatraced...at home...by 30

It’s an epic era of futility in Maryland basketball history as they suffered the worst home Big Ten loss ever, getting toyed with by Purdue on Sunday, 93-63.

The Terps have now lost their last 2 games by a total of 73 points. That’s 10 more points than they have scored in any of those 2 games.

Yesterday, their inability to (or decision not to) defend the three-point line did them in, as Purdue’s Fletcher Loyer and Brendan Smith combined to make 9 first half threes in just 12 attempts, enroute to a 49-28 halftime lead.

Those two, alone beat the Terps in the first 20 minutes, 35-29.

I’m not sure if Buzz Williams’ game plan was to protect the interior while giving up the three (to two of the best long-range shooters in the league), but it didn’t work out. The pair of Boilermaker guards, in the initial 20 minutes, dropped 27 points from deep, while Purdue’s interior made 8 of 12 against the Terp frontcourt.

Loyer led all scores with 29 points, and it could have been worse but Purdue called off the dogs early in the second half. Smith dropped 19 to go with his 6 assists.

Andre Mills had his best game as a Terp, pacing them with 18 points, 3 assists, and 6 rebounds. He looked good going hard to the rim and finishing with power. Mills also connected on 2 of 4 three-pointers.

The Terps had 2 starters that barely got into the score book. Myles Rice missed his only shot and had 2 turnovers with 1 rebound. Elija Saunders missed all three of his shots, failed to get a single rebound, turned it over once, and fouled out after 13 minutes of game time.

In the opening minutes of the game, Purdue used what Maryland can’t defend, and what the Terps didn’t defend, to run off a 10-2 start. Inside buckets by each of the Purdue bigs, paired with 2 triples by Fletcher Loyer put the Terps in an early hole.

Maryland couldn’t defend the inside game of the bigger Boilermakers, which made not defending the wide-open looks by Loyer even more unacceptable and inexplicable.

A trio of Terp turnovers then gave Purdue the opportunity to extend their lead and they did just that, gaining a 19-7 advantage with 11:37 left in the first half. The Boilermakers had dropped 3 of 5 threes, led 8-0 in points off turnovers and allowed Maryland to corral just a solo rebound.

After Gicarri Harris made a pair of foul shots, Maryland found themselves down 22-7 and the Terps hadn’t scored in over 5 minutes. The Maryland guard play was awful as the team had now amassed 6 turnovers, no assists, and just 3 made baskets. It also meant that in their last 50 minutes of ball, the Terps had been outscored by 58 points. Make that 61 after Maryland’s Turkson Jr missed a pair of free throws, followed by another Smith 3.

At the under 8-minute timeout, Maryland trailed 27-12. Too much of their offense was ball rotation on the perimeter, but never really moving it fast enough to gain any advantage. When they did get inside, their shots were pull-up, fade-away, short range, off-balance jumpers that missed.

Darius Adams and Solomon Washington did that a lot. I’d rather see them attack the rim, even if the try gets rejected.

The final media timeout of the first half occurred with 2:24 remaining in the half and Purdue at the line, shooting 2, with a 41-22 lead. Loyer and Smith were a combined 7 of 10 from the three-point line, and had yet to commit a turnover.

Maryland was getting pounded on the boards, 16-7, and looked overmatched on both ends of the court. The horn ending the half couldn’t come soon enough.

When the half did end, Purdue led 49-28.

The first 20 minutes not only brought the Terrapin physical inadequacies to the forefront, but also shined a light on their mental game issues too. With Purdue, for the season, shooting almost 40% from the three-point line, you simply can’t allow them to fire off 17 softly contested three-point tries in a half. It’s not smart basketball.

Give credit to Purdue too, they run a ton of plays with continuous motion, but the three-ball is the one thing you can’t give them.

With their 21-point deficit in the first half, the Terps had been outscored by an AVERAGE of over 21 points in each of their last three halves of basketball. That’s probably the most inept consecutive 60 minutes in Terp history.

When Smith hit yet another trifecta in the opening minute of the second half, the game had been secured for the visitors.

Unlike when they quit in the Michigan State game last Sunday, the Terps were still fighting. Even after an unusual 6-point play by the Boilermakers put them up by 24, and a dunk off a Myles Rice turnover made the lead a game best 26 points, Maryland was still trying.

The score was 69-43 with 12:17 left. The Purdue duo of Smith and Loyer were outscoring the entire Terp team by 5, 48-43. The remainder of the game was mop-up time.

Everyone who watches the Terp games can see that they have zero inside threats, and no size to stop teams in the paint. What may not be as evident, is Maryland’s lack of a solid point guard. Someone to assume that roll just isn’t on this roster. They also need a lock-down guard defender.

That guy may turn out to be Mills. He definitely has the body and physicality to defend, and if only he handled the rock a bit more effectively he could get more court time.

On numerous occasions, the Terps were hurt by bad transition defense after a turnover. Easy threes were had by Purdue as Maryland failed to recover in time to stop the easy looks.

Throughout the game, Terrapin ball handlers were able to get inside, but Adams and Washington looked tentative once they penetrated. Only Mills went to the hole with authority.

With the Boilermaker guards lighting up Maryland from the outside, the Purdue bigs weren’t as involved in the offense. Trey Kaufman-Renn and Oscar Cluff combined for only 7 shots, hitting 5 of them.

Maryland will next play this Thursday at 8:30 pm against Ohio State at the XFINITY Center.

The Buckeyes are a bubble team at this point of the season and have lost 2 of their last 3 games.

Sunday February 1, 2026

#DMD

Issue #4178

quick hits

I still think the Caps are in for a dogfight in terms of securing an Eastern Conference playoff spot, but if they manage to sneak in and, say, secure a post-season berth by one or two points, they can look back to yesterday's 4-3 OT win over Carolina and say, "That one made a huge difference."

Yes, every win between now and the end of the season has the same 2-point value. But Saturday's game was pretty much a done deal when visiting Carolina went up 3-0 with the Caps forced to use the #3 goaltender because their two full-time starting netminders were unavailable due to injury.

But Washington battled back from that 3-goal second period deficit to tie it and then Justin Sourdif won it for the Caps in overtime. It pretty much looked and felt like an instant classic a Miracle on Ice, if you will.

Some wins are bigger than others along the way. That one, yesterday, was huge for Alex Ovechkin and Company.

Justin Rose has a 6-shot lead heading into today's final round at Torrey Pines. It's golf, so anything can happen, and when Rose's putter doesn't cooperate -- like it didn't on Saturday -- he can give shots back in a hurry. But I assume he'll hold on to win today on Torrey's more difficult South course.

I've had the pleasure of playing both courses out there. The North Course is good, and has some awesome views of the Pacific Ocean, but it's not nearly the tough test of golf that the South Course provides.

I'm not going to rank the best public courses I've ever played, but Torrey Pines South is right up there with Bethpage Black and Pinehurst #2 in my opinion. It's pricey if you're not a San Diego County resident -- I think something like $250 or even $300 now -- but if you're ever out there and you can secure a tee time on the South Course, scoop it up and play the course at least once.

By the way, Rose is going to be a very oft-wagered player at the Masters this year. A two-time playoff loser, I'm guessing lots of folks are going to lean on the golf gods angle when they decide to throw some bucks on Rose to at Augusta National. I wouldn't tell you not to do that, but I just don't know if he can putt well enough to win there.

I'm not going to harp on this too much because you know who you are. But some of you are getting close to a temporary-but-well-deserved sabbatical from #DMD.

As I always say, I realize it's a very small minority of you who like to dirty the water here. One of you, for whatever strange reason, used three different aliases just yesterday to make your variety of points. I don't get that, but whatever. I'm on it nonetheless.

I have no idea why some of you insist on veering off course here and yapping about stuff that is of very little interest to anyone except you and the person you're in conflict with, but please stop the juvenile, bickering amongst one another.

I admittedly didn't follow along here very much from Wednesday through last night because I was away on a trip and intentionally tried to distance myself from "work" except for morning publishing duties. But when I perused the comments last night when I got home from the airport at 11:00 pm, I was less than pleased.

And don't mistake this admonishment for me not wanting you to be here. I very much appreciate you being here. I'm simply asking you to rise above the fray and follow along with what the Ravens ask of you at every home game. Don't be a jerk. That's all I'm asking.

Just please comment on sports and whatever is in that day's edition of #DMD. Oddly enough, in fact, I'm asking you to do what you probably ask of our athletes, musicians and celebrites. You know how it goes when a basketball player speaks up about something they support. "Shut up and dribble," you might say.

"Stick to sports", you might state when a football player speaks out against an agenda item you support.

That's exactly what I'm asking you to do: Stick to sports. And stop fighting with one another over what is basically a nothing burger nothing in the grand scope of your life. Be better. And I mean that. Really, seriously, try to be better. Thank you for your attention to this matter.

I have zero enthusiasm at all for the Super Bowl next Sunday. I don't know why. I usually have a rooting interest in some form or fashion, but I can honestly say I couldn't care less who wins.

I'm looking forward to watching the game that way to see if it adds to my enjoyment or takes away from it. If the game is out of hand, like it was by the 3rd quarter last year, I might even call it an early night and head to bed.

Nothing is worse than a Super Bowl that doesn't live up to the hype. You go through all of Sunday getting ready for the big moment and you have to endure all of the pre-game hype and the stoppages and the commercials and then the game falls flat on its face like a bad Beatles album like New Coke.

Just give us a good game. Please. It doesn't matter who wins as long as the game is enjoyable.

I watched the World Series in that same way last October and really enjoyed it. I didn't care if the Dodgers or Blue Jays won. I just wanted to see a good, memorable series.

And we got perhaps the best World Series of my lifetime and it didn't matter to me one bit that the Blue Jays choked away a 3-2 lead and basically lost the title because one of their players tried to slide into home plate instead of just running across the dish with the winning run.

I remember the Freddie Freeman homer in the 30th (?) inning like it was hit by an Oriole.

So maybe next Sunday night will yield the same kind of memorable drama as last October's and I won't care one bit that Seattle leads 20-7 going into the 4th quarter only to see the Patriots rally for a 21-20 win on the last play of the game.

Or it won't bug me at all to see Seattle storm back from a 17-3 halftime deficit and win with two late 4th quarter touchdowns, 34-30.

Just show me good football, a few (6 or 7 maybe? haha) solid commercials, and I'll be more than pleased.

Speaking of the Orioles and the World Series and championships, do you know the Flyers haven't won the Stanley Cup since 1975 how many titles a Seattle team has won over the last 47 years? I'm going to tell you. And then, without the aid of our best friend, Google, see if you can figure out which teams won those eight championships.

Ready? The total is EIGHT.

Eight major sports titles have been won by Seattle teams in the last 47 years.

Name those teams and sports.

I'll share the answer with you later today here at #DMD.

I've been fortunate to travel to a lot of different parts of our great country. I'm not sure I've ever met a group of people more friendly than those who live in Florida.

It has to be the sunshine.

"How was your round today?"

"Where are you guys from?

"Your shirt says "FCA", is that Fellowship of Christian Athletes? My son leads a FCA huddle at his college in North Carolina."

"Try the pancakes here, they're fantastic." (as they hold the door open for you at the breakfast restaurant)

Everywhere I went, people were just.........nice.

Maybe it looked like we had "visitor" stamped on our forehead because we weren't sporting a late-January tan, I don't know. But people were just genuinely pleasant in Florida. No horns honking in the intersections. No one butting in front of you at the supermarket. No one barking at you at the airport when it took you an extra few seconds to get your bags checked.

People were just enjoying their lives in Florida and trying to make others around them happy.

I had a pair of golf shoes that were in the October of their lifespan but they're the best shoes I've ever worn, so I took them on the trip with me. At the end of Thursday's round, I gave them to the locker room attendant to "clean up" and acknowledged how much work would be needed to get them looking new again.

"Richard," I said to the man running the locker room. "If you can pull this miracle off and get these things back to life, you're in the lead for Employee of the Month."

"I'm on it right away, sir," he said. I went back in the locker room 40 minutes later and he proudly presented them to me.

They looked absolutely brand new. Almost like I got them off the shelf at the store.

I stored them in my locker and walked over to him with a $20 bill.

"Amazing work," I said as I handed it to him.

A little while later I walked back in. He handed me a small envelope and said, "Sir, I can't take tips here. I'm just happy that I did well for you."

"Please...keep that," I said to him.

"I can't, sir," he reconfirmed. "But I do appreciate it."

I later asked our host if tipping wasn't allowed. I have been at the club before and we were never told tipping was prohibited. Maybe this was a new club policy or something.

"We prefer that our visitors or guests don't tip," he said.

"We want them to have a good time without the worry of tipping."

Florida, man.

Everyone's so nice.

Answer to the Seattle championships question

Seattle has had 8 major sports champions.

1 in the NBA.

1 in the NFL.

2 in Major League Soccer.

4 in the WNBA.

	dale williams aims the terps spotlight
DALE WILLIAMS returns for his 10th season of covering all things Maryland men's basketball for #DMD. Terps Spotlight will preview and review all games in the 2025-2026 season.

terps host reeling purdue today

Something has happened to the Purdue basketball team.

The Boilermakers were sailing along on top of the Big Ten with a perfect 7-0 record. Now, less than two weeks later, they find themselves at 7-3, in a three-way tie for fifth, and two games behind four different teams.

So, what happened?

For one, their schedule got tougher.

Also, their once mighty three-point shooting percentage dropped precipitously. After feasting on some of the lesser Big Ten schools, the Boilermakers sandwiched a 6-point loss at home to 11th ranked Illinois between tight road losses to UCLA and Indiana.

Purdue had been shooting almost 40% from long range as a team. In their recent three losses, they managed just 31%. During those same three games, their opponents hit 43% of their threes, outscoring Purdue on triples by 54 points.

That’s a huge difference and very significant when you’ve only lost those three games by a combined 13 points.

Today at the XFINITY Center, Purdue looks to get back into the win column with their 1 p.m. tussle with the Maryland Terrapins (1-8).

Each team has had ample rest for this game, and both should have a bad taste in their mouth from recent defeats. Purdue has that aforementioned 3 game losing streak irking them, while the Terps have that historic 43-point loss to Michigan State fresh on their minds.

With Purdue owning one the nation’s top offenses (#2 KenPom in offensive efficiency) and the Terps yielding the most points per game in the conference, today’s ou ting looks to be another blowout.

With highly recruited big man, 7-foot Obinna Ekezie Jr. in attendance, let’s hope Maryland gives him some non-NIL money reasons to choose College Park. He’d look really good beside the smooth Terps signee, 6’10” Baba Oladotum. Ekezie is more of an inside guy, while Oladotum’s game draws comparisons to Kevin Durrant. Adding Ekezie would be a huge “get” for coach Buzz Williams as he rebuilds this roster.

Today, the Terps must deal with a Purdue team led by a point guard who many think will be the Big Ten Player of the Year and is also a Naismith Candidate.

Yes, Braden Smith will be a handful for Maryland. He boasts 42% three-point efficiency and his 9 assists per game leads the Big Ten. By comparison, the whole Maryland team only averages 10.6 assists. He’ll control the pace of the game. His stealthy hands get him a couple of steals each time out, but he’ll turn it over about 3 times also.

Smith is Purdue’s leading scorer (15.1 ppg), but in this game, I most fear Trey Kaufman-Renn. The 6’9” senior won’t hurt you from the three-point line, preferring to do his damage on the interior. He’s a solid 56.5% from the floor, using his bulk to create space and get off his shot.

His 13 points per contest is second on the Boilermaker team, as is his 2.7 assists. He's also their top rebounder with 8.3 per-game. Kaufman-Renn is not flashy, has limited range, and is not a great leaper, but he’s solid and consistent. Pencil him in for a 20 piece today. The Terps don’t have a suitable matchup for him.

The other starting big for Purdue is Oscar Cluff. He’s 6’11” and listed at 255. He has more bulk than 255. Cluff was dropping over 17 a game last year with San Diego State.

He gets limited offensive touches on this team, but ranks 5th in minutes played and also 5th in field goal attempts. His value lies in protecting the paint, grabbing rebounds (7.7 a game) and knowing his offensive limitations.

Cluff is fairly stiff with the ball, and doesn’t put it on the floor very well, but he takes shots that he can usually make. That’s how he gets his stellar 74% shooting percentage.

Joining Smith in the backcourt are Fletcher Loyer and C.J Cox. Both shoot over 37% from three, but I think that’s where the comparison ends. Almost 70% of Loyer’s field goal tries come from long range. He’s an average athlete, but like most of his teammates, has a heady floor game.

The Terps need to respect Smith’s outside shot, taking precautions to not let him get set, get hot, and get on a streak. Watch him on curls going to his right.

Cox has the capability to provide pesky on-ball defense. He doesn’t get enough touches to be a dominant scorer, but he does connect on almost 50% of his overall tries.

Purdue will run frequent sets with the purpose of getting an iso on the low blocks. They then run high post screens, with Loyer getting the movement to mostly the right side. If they are in dire need of a bucket, their go-to is a pick and roll with Smith and Kaufman-Renn. It’s very simple basketball, but it’s very effective when you have the Big Ten’s all-time leading assist man in Smith, making the decisions with the ball.

Purdue isn’t as physical as some other Big Ten teams, especially the Michigan State team that clobbered the Terps last week. That fares well for Maryland, but the Boilermakers still possess size that the Terps can’t answer.

Add that size to what may be the nation’s top point guard, and add a handful of very capable role players, and you have a tough task for the Terps.

In past Terp encounters, I’ve been giving the Terrapin guards too much credit for their defensive prowess. Not today, though. Even though the Purdue backcourt doesn’t “WOW” me, they are still a solid bunch with Smith being exceptional.

I still feel that the Maryland guards can score on this bunch of Purdue defenders, but the combo of Smith, Kaufman-Renn and Cuff will control this game.

The books say Purdue wins by 13.5, and I agree that the Boilermakers get a safe win, but the 13.5 could be too much.

It’s another CBS game for Maryland (the CBS schedule makers obviously didn’t know this Terp team before booking them into nationally televised games) and another loss. The game starts at 1:00 pm, and by 3:15 Maryland will have suffered another loss, this time by a final of 82-72.

Saturday January 31, 2026

#DMD

Issue #4177

luck of the irish? let's hope!

People in Baltimore sure do love them some Declan Doyle, huh?

Three weeks ago, 11 people in town knew the guy. Maybe even more like 6 or 7.

See what I did there? If you have a teenager, you know all about it.

But seriously. Before John Harbaugh got fired on January 6, no one in Baltimore knew who Declan Doyle was, let alone did they have an inkling he'd be taking Todd Monken's spot as the Ravens Offensive Coordinator starting with the 2026 season.

Now, it's January 31 and everyone is a Declan Doyle fan. Did you know he's only 29 years old? You do now.

"We slayed the f***ing coaching hires!" someone said on Twitter yesterday afternoon.

"Minter doing what Harrible (sic) could never do - hire a great staff!" was another comment that made me shake my head.

"These coaches are the s**t, ngl," was another offering.

Editor's note: For those that don't know today's lingo, "ngl" represents the phrase, not gonna lie.

Anyway, you get the picture.

Declan Doyle, most recently with the Chicago Bears, is the new offensive coordinator and we are pumped friggin' up about it.

Except...

You know what I'm going to say.

Because it's the same thing I said about Jesse Minter.

I think Doyle is going to be a very good offensive coordinator. Key word in that sentence: "think".

I surely don't know for certain, in the same way I had no idea John Harbaugh would be an 18-year, championship winning, Hall of Fame entering NFL coach way back in 2008 when he was the team's number two choice to replace Brian Billick.

I want Doyle to do well. And I suspect he will do well because I have faith in the Ravens and the vetting they did along the way to narrow it down to the right candidates.

Their initial 1-2 wishlist was Davis Webb and Joe Brady. And I'm not sure what order those two finished in, although I do know if Brady wouldn't have taken the Bills job earlier this week the Ravens were poised to offer him their OC position.

And third on that list was Declan Doyle.

He was ahead of guys like Mike McDaniel, Kliff Kingsbury and Frank Smith, all of whom were quickly pondered and dismissed by the Ravens front office and hiring committee. "None of those guys distinguished themselves as the right fit," a source aligned with the team told me yesterday.

Doyle was always considered a "right fit" if it came to pass he was the next man up on the "available list".

So, while he might not have been the Ravens' premium, 1A choice, he was in the mix as a viable candidate for the last seven days. And to the degree that he has a good background working with the likes of Sean Payton and Ben Johnson, I'm going to assume Doyle will turn out to be a competent offensive coordinator.

There's a big part of me that likes the Doyle hire because it's different and a bit on the edge, if you will. OK, so he's never called his own plays as an offensive coordinator. I get it. Andy Reid never called a play in his life before he took over as the head coach in Philadelphia and I say, two decades later, he turned out just fine.

Everything can't always go by the book in coaching or "managing". Sometimes you have to roll the dice and maybe take a gamble here and there to see if your instincts are right.

The fact that he's 29 and "inexperienced" should be balanced out by the fact that he's 29 and "doesn't have any scar tissue."

There were times when Todd Monken coached scared, in my opinion. "We can't run the ball here. If we go three and out on this series, we're giving the ball right back to the (Chiefs, Bills, Steelers, etc.)"

Doyle won't have those same failures in the back of his mind because he doesn't have any memories. The benefit of youth, I guess.

So while I'll acknowledge the hire might seem like it's a bit of a roll of the dice, I actually respect that part of the process. Let's roll them out and see what we throw.

I have a hunch it will work out for the Ravens and Doyle.

But I'm going to stop far short of proclaiming his hiring a "slam dunk" or a "great get" because I simply don't know if that's the case.

News flash: I would have said the exact same thing had the Ravens hired Webb or Brady. I think they would have been good hires. But I have no way of knowing for sure.

I like everything I've heard from Jesse Minter thus far.

His college and professional pedigree alone suggests he'll be successful with the Ravens.

But would I bet my house he'll lead the Ravens to a Super Bowl in five years or less? I absolutely would not. And that's because I don't think I'd bet my house on anyone or anything when it comes to the Ravens and the NFL.

I mean, if in 2019 I would have said, "I'll bet you a grand the Ravens don't make a Super Bowl before 2026 with Lamar as their quarterback," most ardent Ravens fans would have scooped up that wager.

I understand the enthusiastic nature of sports fans, particularly when it's a situation where fans clamored for the dismissal of the former head coach and, by connection, his offensive and defensive coaching specialists.

People want to be right, as I've mentioned here hundreds of times. It's one of our top societal infections in 2026. We have to be right.

So if you're one of those folks who wanted Harbaugh gone, you simply have to be on board with the Minter hiring.

And if you wanted Harbaugh gone and now you have to be happy with Minter, you're going to also have to approve of Declan Doyle. If you didn't approve of him joining the organization in Baltimore, you'd look pretty foolish.

"You wanted Harbaugh and Monken gone and now you're not happy with Doyle? That's your fault!"

I'm going the other way on these hirings. And I'm quite comfortable with my stance.

I hope they're the right coaches for the various jobs they've been given.

I think we got ourselves two good, young coaches in Minter and Doyle.

I want them to succeed.

My own business model benefits greatly from a championship football team, so it behooves me to root, root, root for Minter and Doyle and any other coaches they bring on to be successful.

But I'm certainly not going to try and buffalo any of you into thinking these hires are 100% going to yield a slam dunk, easy street path to a Super Bowl or two.

No one knows.

People get offended whenever that topic get broached, but it's true. You can rant and rave and talk about how great Jesse Minter is and how much Harbaugh and/or Monken sucked and how Declan Doyle is going to "unlock" Lamar Jackson but you have no real idea at all if any of that is true.

You're just saying it to say it, in part because you have to say it.

I don't have to say it. In fact, I won't say it.

Because I don't know.

But I sure hope those guys are going to be good coaches in the league. It feels to me like they will be. And I trust the Ravens and their football knowledge far more than my knowledge or your knowledge, that's for sure.

If the Ravens think Jesse Minter should be the head coach, I'm good with it.

If they believe Declan Doyle should be the offensive coordinator, I'll sign off on that, too.

Now we get to sit back and see if they were right about those two and any other coaches they bring on.

Friday January 30, 2026

#DMD

Issue #4176

friday stuff

Six months ago I planned a quick 3-day trip to South Florida for some FCA golf-related business. As it turned out, this was the week of the trip.

Little did I know we'd get clobbered with snow in Baltimore three days before I left. Timing is everything, it's been said.

I get down to Florida once or twice a year now. I have a lot of friends with "second homes" in Vero Beach, Tampa Bay and the West Palm area. For a few of them, their place in Florida is eventually going to be their full-time spot and Baltimore will be a fond memory for them.

Every single time I'm in Florida, the exact same thought strikes me: "How does anyone ever get any work done down here?"

I realize a significant portion of the population in Florida are retired people who actually don't have to do anything every day except wake up, make some coffee, take the dog for a walk, play golf or tennis, grab an early dinner, and enjoy an evening cocktail on their porch.

But there are plenty of other people who actually have to work for a living in Florida and the question always looms for me: "How do you ever work here?"

The days are simply too nice. The warm weather is much too inviting. The casual pace of the people too alluring. The golf courses are too plentiful.

How do you sit in an office or in a place of business and get anything done in Florida?

Then again, maybe it gets boring driving around in 86 and mostly sunny every day.

As I said to an older man I met yesterday in a bagel/breakfast place we gathered in, "You don't know what life's all about until you've shoveled 10 inches of snow and ice."

The Jesse Minter press conference went off without a hitch on Thursday, that is, unless you consider the brewing social media controversy about Lamar Jackson and other Ravens veterans not showing up something worth talking about.

Minter was calm, thoughtful and handled the (mostly softball) questions very well. In fairness, he wasn't up there explaining how to do a knee replacement. It's easy for football people to talk about...football.

One interesting note that largely went unnoticed was Minter's admission that it was his former boss and the man he displaced, John Harbaugh, who recommended to Steve Bisciotti that Minter should be the choice to replace him. Harbaugh even went as far as texting Minter and telling him those very words: I think they should hire you.

I realize we're well past complimenting Harbaugh on his personal qualities -- he is the enemy now, after all -- but there aren't many people I know who get canned and then contact the guy who did them dirty and suggest the name of the person that should assume their old position. Classy move by Harbs there.

Back to yesterday's press conference and the percolating story that is pretty close to a nothing-burger.

A number of Ravens rookies and players who stay in the Baltimore area year-round attended the event in Owings Mills. Lamar Jackson did not attend. Neither did Kyle Hamilton or Roquan Smith for that matter. In fact, about 85% of the roster didn't show up.

And now people are bashing Lamar for his lack of "leadership" and "caring".

They're not really picking on Hamilton or Smith. Just Lamar.

In the case of all three, it's a big, fat dose of "who cares?"

Here's the truth no one wants to talk about at parties: Lamar wasn't really all that interested in participating in the head coach search. He helped when asked. He sat in on several interviews. But as a team source said to me, "Lamar liked them all. And he basically said to the committee, 'Hire the guy you think is the best guy for the team.'"

That probably shows more leadership than anything else, in my opinion.

"Don't worry about me, I'll be fine. Worry about the team."

A leader thinks "team first". That's what Lamar and other veterans did.

When Steve Bisciotti mentioned earlier this month that he would offer Lamar the opportunity to fly up and sit in on interviews with the coaching finalists, he was doing that mainly as a chess move.

It was the Ravens way of saying, "We're offering you the chance to have a say in who we hire (no power, just a "say", as Bisciotti mentioned) so you can't complain if we hire someone you ultimately don't agree with."

News flash: The Ravens did that exact same thing with Kyle Hamilton and Roquan Smith. They were also allowed to sit in on interviews with the finalists and coordinator candidates.

And news flash #2: The Ravens were never, ever going to ask those three players WHO they wanted. Because they know that's a recipe for disaster if the team hires someone the players didn't all mutually agree upon.

And they also know if they allow "Player A" to vote on the head coach or the coordinator that somewhere down the road, a star player is going to ask for that "right" in his next contract.

So no player -- even Lamar -- was going to ever get to "vote" or "pick" the next coach.

Instead, the team merely said, "Sit in on the interviews and ask whatever questions you want and participate in the interview and give us input if you want. But you don't get a vote in who we hire."

Lamar took part in a few of those, but for the most part he wasn't overly interested. He didn't fly up and spend four days intently going through every single candidate.

And there's nothing wrong with that, just like there's nothing wrong with not flying up to Baltimore to be there for Jesse Minter's press conference.

In fact, there's nothing wrong with anyone not attending.

It was Jesse Minter's day.

Lamar's no more or no less of a "leader" because he wasn't there yesterday.

His relationship with Jesse Minter isn't going to change for better or worse because he wasn't in Baltimore on Thursday.

Maybe he was in Greece. Maybe he was on a cruise. Maybe his favorite Aunt Brenda was having major surgery yesterday in Florida and he wanted to be there.

I have no idea what Lamar was doing yesterday but I know that his absence at the press conference is a nothing burger.

Brooks Koepka made his return to the PGA Tour yesterday and there was other golf-related news this week that impacted the sport when Patrick Reed announced he was giving up his career on the LIV Golf circuit and returning to the PGA Tour.

Koepka returning is a bigger deal than Reed, but the two of them departing LIV after 4 years there tells the story.

LIV Golf offers their best players only ONE thing: Money.

The competition sucks.

There's no value in winning, either individually or as a team.

In general, nobody who follows golf knows anything about what's happening with LIV Golf. I follow everything about golf and I know nothing at all about LIV. I don't know how many times Jon Rahm has won. I don't know if Koepka won once, three times or eight times when he on LIV.

And the players wind up feeling that while they're playing for LIV.

No one cares.

And their ego and brand building can't handle that.

Only one player has gone to LIV and upgraded his personal brand: Bryson DeChambeau.

And that has nothing at all to do with LIV and everything to do with DeChambeau and his use of social media to spike his popularity.

He'd be just as popular -- if not more -- had he just stayed on the PGA Tour from jump street.

That said, Koepka and Reed and nearly everyone else who is still toiling on LIV has discovered the truth: LIV Golf offers nothing at all to them except money.

And money is great. $100 million, $200 million, it's all generational, life changing wealth for guys like Koepka and Reed.

Whatever personal feelings you have about the blood-stained money they deposited from LIV have very little to do with the actual golf itself.

Once you were able to come to terms -- on a personal level -- that you were directly taking money and making a living from people who helped fund and operate the attacks on the U.S. on September 11, 2001, the rest of your journey there was cake and ice cream.

Except the golf stunk. And no one knew who you were any longer. And, most importantly, life on the PGA Tour went on without you.

And they missed "real golf" far, far more than they ever thought they would.

That's what happened to both Koepka and Reed.

The money was great. But they missed the golf. They missed competing in real tournaments on TV. They missed being recognized in airports and coffee shops. They missed, in essence, the life they previously had built for themselves before they whored their way to a gazillion dollars from a heinous outfit that used them like a pawn.

And now they're back. And I think that's great.

Golf on the PGA Tour will be better because Koepka and Reed have returned, although the TOUR will likely have to invest in a couple of additional rules officials for any tournament Reed plays in.

The PGA Tour is the only circuit in the world where the best players convene on a weekly basis to play meaningful golf.

A lot of players on LIV are finding that out. Or, in the case of Koepka and Reed, "found" that out.

faith in sports

I had the pleasure of "meeting" Riley Leonard last summer at the FCA national golf camp at Liberty University.

By "meet", I'm talking about virtually, not in person. But he was part of a testimony we showed the 1100 kids who were at the camp and he appeared on stage, via ZOOM, to talk about his faith and his life with Jesus.

What an awesome young man he is.

So I thought I'd share this Sports Spectrum interview with Leonard in today's edition of "Faith in Sports".

He has his act together, that's for sure. I have no idea if he'll ever be a starting, elite quarterback in the NFL but I know he's an elite young man. That's a definite.

Thanks, as always, to our friends at Freestate Electrical for their continued support of #DMD and our "Faith in Sports" segment here every Friday.

Thursday January 29, 2026

#DMD

Issue #4175

making sense of it

As we've said here on a number of occasions, we're not in the "grading" business with all of these coaching hirings we've seen over the last 2 weeks in the NFL.

The grades will come in a few years when there's been a big enough body of work to at least say, "Yeah, that was a good hire" or "Wow, they really botched that one."

But we'll cave in to the pressure today and have some fun with the hirings. And, yet, try to be serious at the same time. Because every team can play the coulda, shoulda, woulda game at this point.

We'll start with the Cleveland Browns, who yesterday finally got their new coach, and it's a familiar name: Todd Monken.

Why it makes sense -- Monken has been in the AFC North for three years now. Say what you will about him, but few things in life beat experience. And he can now take what he's learned about the three division teams -- including the Ravens -- and use it in his new gig with the Browns. Here's the deal with reaching the playoffs. You almost always have to go at least 3-3 in the division to win the division title. There are some rare occurrences of teams going 2-4 and doing it, but you're looking at mainly a record of 3-3 -- at the worst -- to win the division. So, the Browns now have a guy who at least knows enough about the AFC North to give them a puncher's chance of going 3-3.

Why it doesn't make sense -- Because they're the Browns, mainly. And in the process of gaining Monken, they lost defensive coordinator Jim Schwartz. And it would appear they probably could have hired Nathan Scheelhaase of the Rams had their owner not insisted he keep Schwartz on his staff. When Scheelhaase rejected that idea, the Browns pulled away from him because of their loyalty to Schwartz. So they hired Monken -- who likely agreed to keeping Schwartz as part of the hiring process -- and Schwartz left anyway. Browns gonna Browns.

The Tennessee Titans didn't take long to name their next head coach, as they snatched up Robert Saleh from the 49'ers soon after he became available.

Why it makes sense -- Saleh is a strong defensive leader and the Titans have a young, improving defense in Nashville. He is probably far more suited for success with Tennessee than he was in his first coaching go-round with the Jets. He has a demanding presence in the room. I'm not sure the Titans will understand all of his crazy stories (the one about the eagle suffocating other birds is a doozy) but he'll garner respect, which is huge.

Why it doesn't make sense -- It seems like Nashville is the new "hot place to live" in the U.S., and with a new stadium on the horizon down there, the Titans probably could have had their pick of the litter, particularly with an offensive mind to work with QB Cam Ward for the next 5 years. Why did Tennessee jump on Saleh right away? Scheelhaase, Webb, LaFleur, Kubiak were all in the mix to be interviewed and/or hired. Patience, young grasshopper. Patience...

We all know who the New York Giants hired. It didn't take them long to give John Harbaugh a 5-year, $100 million after he was dismissed by the Ravens.

Why it makes sense -- Harbaugh was, by far, the most attractive off-season coaching candidate. Here in Baltimore, people snicker at his clock management or his defenses choking away 10-point fourth quarter leads, but from 35,000 feet, the rest of the league sees something else: winning. In a town where reputation really matters, the Giants went for the jugular right away. Who will help them sell tickets, sponsorships and other forms of revenue-generating material...Harbaugh? Or...Kevin Stefanski? Or Kliff Kingsbury? Or Grant Udinski? Or Brian Flores? Harbaugh was always their guy. He is football. And they are, the New York FOOTBALL Giants as they like to say.

Why it doesn't make sense -- This might be one of the only instances where the hiring of their new guy can't be faulted. I mean, here in Baltimore, we find fault with it, but that's only because we think Harbaugh was the reason why the Ravens couldn't get to the Super Bowl (again). There's no one else the Giants should have hired. Now, they just have to hope they were right.

The Buffalo Bills shook up the entire process this week when they went against popular thought and promoted Joe Brady to run their team.

Why it makes sense -- Brady knows the team. He knows the quarterback. He knows how to generate points. He'll bring a veteran like Schwartz or Wink Martindale to run the defense and he'll never venture over to that side of the office in Buffalo. If the Bills think they're "this close" to the Super Bowl, why blow up the whole thing when you have one of the guys in Brady who has helped you inch closer and closer to the big game for the last four years?

Why it doesn't make sense -- It certainly looks like the Bills didn't know what they wanted in this most recent coaching search. Then again, they're probably still trying to figure out why they fired Sean McDermott in the first place. But they could have easily brought in Denver offensive assistant Davis Webb and thrown caution to the wind by saying, "We're rebooting here with one of the best young minds in the entire NFL. A lot of folks are whispering that Webb is "the next Sean McVay". No one is saying that about Joe Brady. They also co could have waited for Klint Kubiak as well. They tried to hire Mike McDaniel but McDaniel told Buffalo officials "it's too cold" and didn't even bother interviewing. The point? They had a lot of other young, impressive minds to chase and they went with the same old-same old.

The Atlanta Falcons didn't waste any time, like the Tians, immediately going with Kevin Stefanski, the erstwhile coach in Cleveland.

Why it makes sense -- Stefanski is a 2-time Coach of the Year (which, in fairness, is probably a step above making the Pro Bowl these days) and he is a well respected offensive mind who will be asked to get the Falcons to the next level. Whether he can do that with Michael Penix Jr. is the issue he faces right away. "Can Penix Jr. take a team to the Super Bowl?" is the bigger question than "Can Stefanski lead them to the Super Bowl?"

Why it doesn't make sense -- Atlanta is known as one of the more solid, stable franchises in the league with a very well respected owner in Arthur Blank. Why jump in right away and lure Stefanski to the Falcons? Immerse yourself in the search process, bring in guys like Webb, Scheelhaase, LaFleur, Kubiak, etc. and see if one of those doesn't become your version of Baltimore's John Harbaugh or Pittsburgh's Mike Tomlin? Stefanski is the guy you hire at the end of the cycle when all your other candidates went elsewhere.

The Pittsburgh Steelers are sorta-kinda like the Ravens. They lead a charmed life for the most part. So somehow, despite themselves, you assume the odd hiring of Mike McCarthy is going to work out for them.

Why it makes sense -- McCarthy is a veteran coach. He will be respected right away. In a league where respect from a younger generation of players is hard to come by, McCarthy won't have to worry about that. From a technical standpoint, there's no telling if MM makes sense for them. But he's not the bumbling idiot that people make him out to be. He'll likely squeeze one more half-decent year out of Aaron Rodgers for old times sake and then the Steelers will be on the lookout for their next franchise quarterback. One of the things about the Steelers coaching job is the most obvious: They're the Steelers. We're not going to call them "America's Team", but you get the point. They love their football in Western PA and McCarthy is the hometown boy made good.

Why it doesn't make sense -- The Steelers -- just from a league history standpoint -- are a job virtually no one would turn down. In that way, it was a more lucrative opening than the Giants or the Ravens. They're the friggin' Steelers. So, with that said, McCarthy's what you settled for? Why not lure Kubiak to Pittsburgh, get him a franchise quarterback in 2027, and roll from there? Or Webb. Or Scheelhaase. Any of the young, offensive guru types. Mike LaFleur even. Bringing in a refurbished 8 cylinder engine in Mike McCarthy was what you do when none of the brand new engines wanted to take your $40 million for 5 years.

The Miami Dolphins jumped in and made one of the surprise hirings of the cycle by bringing in Jeff Hafley, the former OC in Green Bay.

Why it makes sense -- OK, we're nothing if not honest here. This hire makes very little sense other than Hafley has been on the outskirts of being a "hot name" for a couple of years now. So, in an odd way, the reason it makes sense is because no one in Miami cares enough about football to worry about who the coach is. The Dolphins are one of the more nothing-burger franchises in the league. They have beautiful weather down there and a lot of great pop-up smoothie shops, but no one is going there for football.

Why id doesn't make sense -- Oddly, we can't find fault with this hiring either. And it's for all the reasons we listed above. No one cares about the Dolphins in Miami. They could have hired Mike Locksley to coach down there and people would have said, "Hmmmm, OK, just please tell me the games don't interfere with my Sunday pilates class."

And the Baltimore Ravens, of course, got their guy in former Chargers defensive coordinator Jesse Minter, who was target #1 for the Ravens from the start of the search.

Why it makes sense -- Minter is one of the top young defensive minds (age 42) in all of football. To wit, he actually made defense a thing with the always-defenseless L.A. Chargers. That's how good he is. He also has purple in his DNA, having once worked for the team a decade ago under John Harbaugh. There won't be any more double-digit 4th quarter leads squandered on Jesse Minter's watch. That's what this hiring tells you. The Ravens want to win with defense, like the old days. And in fairness, the two teams playing in next week's Super Bowl have the defensive ability to shut teams down. Make no mistake about it, the Ravens think Minter is the next John Harbaugh. 18 years? Well, that might be a stretch. But I'm sure they're thinking "we got our coach for the next decade" or more.

Why it doesn't make sense -- The Ravens could have had their pick of the litter. Virtually any of the candidates would have said "yes" to the idea of coming to Baltimore and working with Lamar and Derrick Henry. Given the roster in Baltimore, an offensive mind seemed like the better fit and there were a lot of them to choose from. They were never going to hire McDaniel. His interview was "all over the place" I was told by more than source. But they had plenty of others to consider, including Klint Kubiak. And they fell in love with Joe Brady, but it was too late in the process. Webb, Scheelhaase, LaFleur...any of those young offensive guru-types would have jumped at the chance to coach in Baltimore. Bring one of those guys in and let Schwartz or another veteran coordinate the defense and off you go. Time will tell if going "defense" over "offense" is the winning tonic in Baltimore.

Wednesday January 28, 2026

#DMD

Issue #4174

who wants a prize?

OK, let's get the low-hanging fruit out of the way first.

Late yesterday afternoon, we learned the news that might very well wind up winning "#Clownshoes Sports Moment of the Year".

"Wait, Drew. It's only January 28." That's probably what you're saying.

It doesn't matter.

I think this year's competition is over.

Bill Belichick was eligible for the NFL Hall of Fame in 2026. The votes were cast in December and announced yesterday. He didn't get in.

You need 80% of the 50 votes to make it into Canton.

Flyers fans, do not rush to your calculators. It's a new year and we're taking on a vow to help you guys whenever we can.

80% of 50 means that 40 people had to vote "yes". 10% of 50 is...5. So 20% of 50 is...10. See how we do that without a calculator?

OK, so as Snoop Dogg once said, "Back to the lecture at hand."

Bill Belichick didn't get 40 votes.

There were, at a minimum, 11 people who got their 2026 Hall of Fame ballot, looked down and saw Bill Belichick's name, and said, "You know what, I gotta think about him a little more...give me another year to mull it over."

So, Belichick was not voted in.

6 Super Bowl victories. A dynasty unlike anything we've seen in the NFL. Like, ever. And he didn't make it into Canton.

Now, his critics are going to point out the obvious:

"He had Tom Brady."

That's correct. He did. And Bill Walsh had Joe Montana and Jerry Rice. So, what's your point?

Here in Baltimore, we have a (someday) Hall of Fame quarterback who, in 8 years, hasn't been able to take the Ravens to the Super Bowl once and folks in town ultimately laid the blame for that on his head coach and offensive coaches.

If coaching matters -- which, I think we all agree, it does -- is there any train of thought that connects Brady's success with the fact he was coached by Belichick? Or is that logic only applied when it's the player-who-makes-the-coach, not the other way around?

Then there's the Spygate and Deflategate controversies, both of which happened under Belichick's watch.

He was penalized for those ordeals.

Spygate led to a $500,000 fine for head coach Belichick and a $250,000 fine for the franchise, plus the loss of a first-round draft pick.

I thought back then the Spygate penalty was overly harsh and I still think that today, but whatevs. They had to make an example out of Belichick. All good.

Deflategate wasn't even Belichick, directly. Tom Brady ordered the deliberate deflation of footballs that were used in the Patriots' victory against the Indianapolis Colts during the 2014 (in '15) AFC Championship Game. The controversy resulted in Brady being suspended for the first four games of the 2016 NFL season, while the Patriots were fined $1 million and forfeited two draft selections in 2016.

Belichick gets connected to it because he was the head coach, but really, what person with a working brain thinks Bill Belichick sat around in a dark room at the stadium with Tom Brady and snickered like Beavis and Butthead saying, "Heh, heh, heh, I know what we can do to throw people off...we'll lower the air pressure on the footballs for you, Tom."

Deflategate was such a nothingburger they were Buy One Get One free at Five Guys.

But it would appear those two moments somehow got shoved in Belichick's face yesterday when we learned at least 11 of 50 voters looked at his career and said, "Not good enough for Canton."

And then reporters and media people wonder why fans think they're clueless.

I've seen a lot of folks jumping up and down about Mike Florio's recent take that the Ravens might be interested in dealing Lamar to the Raiders. Folks here think Florio's insane for that take.

I personally don't think Lamar is getting traded. That said, I also see, read and digest Florio's scenario on why it could be a possibility and I say, "Sure, maybe."

I don't think Florio's a media moron for outlining that potential deal.

But I think everyone in America thinks you're a media moron if you had the chance to vote for Bill Belichick for the Hall of Fame and said, "Nahhhh, give me Marshal Yanda instead." (With all due respect to Yanda, of course)

One final note about the Hall of Fame and then I'll find another cloud to bark at.

If you really wanted to do the Hall of Fame (in any sport) right, you'd simly be eligible for the Hall of Fame and if you didn't get voted in, that would be the end of it.

You're either a Hall of Fame player or you're not.

I don't know why Torry Holt hasn't been admitted into the Hall of Fame yet. But I think we're on year 6 or 7 for him (as a finalist) at this point. With all respect to Holt, who would get my vote, I don't see how you can vote for him this year if you didn't vote for him in 2022, 2023 or 2024.

"Well, I had a chance to vote for Holt in 2022 and I didn't...but then I really took a long, hard look at his stats in 2025 and decided, why, yes, he actually IS a Hall of Famer."

Come on, man. Either vote the dude in or don't. And if that means there's a mega-super-class where 8 guys get in, do the Hall of Fame ceremony over two days or something. You can charge two admission prices and double the money you're bringing in. Everyone wins.

I've always thought having someone eligible for 5 or 10 years is stupid.

Look at the list of candidates and simply say, "Hall of Fame...yes or no?"

If it's yes, he gets in. If it's a no, he doesn't. Thanks for playing.

But no matter what format or voting system you use, anyone who didn't vote for Bill Belichick should have their voting privileges immediately removed.

It would be akin to seeing Elton John's name on the music Hall of Fame ballot and saying, "Eh, he was nothing without Bernie Taupin. Make him wait a year or two."

#Clownshoes Moment of the Year. In the books. The prize has already been awarded.

The Ravens continue to look for their next prize, in the form of a new Offensive Coordinator, but yesterday's news that Joe Brady would be taking the head coach gig in Buffalo has changed the landscape of the search in Baltimore.

The Ravens were overly impressed with Brady during their two inteviews with him.

If Jesse Minter didn't take the job in Baltimore, your new head coach would have been Joe Brady.

And they were perfectly willing to give him the Offensive Coordinator spot. But Brady kept them on hold while he talked with the Raiders and Bills.

The Ravens told Brady they would prefer it to be done by today in order to prepare for tomorrow's Jesse Minter press conference and Brady agreed that he'd either have a head coach spot by today or he'd take their offensive coordinator offer in Baltimore.

Brady got the Bills job yesterday and the search continues for the Ravens.

It got a hair more unsettled yesterday when the Broncos fired offensive coordinator Joe Lombardi. Now, Davis Webb, whom a number of teams covet, has another option to consider. He's a finalist for the Raiders head coach gig, plus there are open OC positions in Baltimore, Pittsburgh, Detroit, Arizona, Cleveland and now, Denver.

And the Browns head coaching vacancy still plays a role in all of this as well. If Nathan Scheelhaase doesn't get the job -- which is looking more unlikely by the hour -- than he's still available for the Ravens, but there's the ongoing thought that Mike LaFleur is going to leave the Rams for the Cardinals and that would open up an OC spot for Scheelhaase under Sean McVay in L.A.

Right now, there are three known candidates for the Ravens OC spot. Lions offensive assistant Scottie Montgomery, Bears offensive assistant Declan Doyle and Ravens offensive assistant Tee Martin, who interviewed for the Lions offensive coordinator spot a few weeks ago but apparently didn't get past the first round.

And I'm not 100% sure Tee Martin is actually a "candidate" in Baltimore. I'm just adding him into the mix because he's still technically with the club and it makes sense they'd at least consider him for the spot.

But the chips are starting to fall and none of them are coming up favorably for the Ravens unless they can somehow land either Webb, Scheelhaase or Doyle.

The first two look improbable. Doyle is still unknown.

My guess is the Ravens are probably secretly interviewing someone from the college ranks. Those names tend to be guarded much more closely than those from the pro ranks. It wouldn't shock me at all to see someone from the game college game surface today as a potential candidate.

It's a little bit like the old "Let's Make A Deal" game show.

There's a prize behind one of the doors that the Ravens really want. There's a prize behind one of the doors they'd accept if they had to. And there's the lesser of the three prizes they'd take, but it's certainly not what they want.

They're getting a prize.

But which one?

I don't want to bore you (any more than I already have this morning) with all of the details about my new role with FCA (Fellowship of Christian Athletes) Maryland Golf, but I'm pleased to report my role and the club itself are expanding in 2026.

Some of that expansion can be directly attributed to those of you here who have supported me and the various FCA Maryland Golf endeavors I've presented to you over the last four years.

Any kind of ministry work is hard, but sports ministry is particularly challenging because you're working, generally, with a narrow scope of interest. In my case, it's golf.

You either love FCA, golf, or me. That's how I garner support for the program.

When I appeal to donors, I'm asking them to first take into account the great work FCA does. Then I ask them to take into account the great lessons our junior golfers (and adults!) learn from the sport of golf. And then I ask them to value the work I do in marrying FCA with golf.

Hopefully, I create a "mission-picture" that makes sense and people in my world feel good about donating their time, talent and treasure to my FCA Maryland Golf program.

Sooooooo...

One of my biggest fund-raising projects of the year is upon us. It's a yearly, one-time "ask".

We run a monthly prize drawing with FCA Maryland Golf that looks and feels like a "raffle". You buy a ticket, numbers are drawn, and if your number is pulled, you win a great prize.

Except we do the raffle every month. And we award two monthly prizes. And in almost every case, the winning ticket holder gets a prize that greatly exceeds the $100 cost (one time) to join the FCA Maryland Golf Prize Raffle.

This year, we're giving out FCA Maryland Golf wristbands/bracelets. In the past we've done calendars, cups and key chains. This year, you'll get a FCA Maryland Golf bracelet and on it will be your "raffle number".

At the end of each month, we generate two lucky winners. We e-mail you the video of the raffle drawing so you know it's all legit and you get to follow along all year.

Prizes for 2026 include free golf at area clubs like Eagle's Nest, Hayfields, CC of Maryland and Baltimore CC.

Masters apparel from the 2026 Masters at Augusta National.

New golf clubs including hybrids and putters.

Paintings, artwork and other golf-related keepsakes for your home.

And much, much more.

We're constantly adding to our prize catalog.

We ask for a one-time donation of $100. This money goes directly into my FCA Maryland Golf budget. We use it to host free monthly junior golf clinics, junior tournaments and trips for junior golfers to attend local tournaments (PGA and US Open in 2026) and see professinoal golf up close and personal.

This year, my budget is also going to provide every FCA Maryland Golf junior member (hoping to reach 100 this year) with a book called "How Good Is Good Enough?" by Andy Stanley that gives an incredible testimony into how all of us can get to heaven. Hint: The answer is probably not the one you've been led to believe your entire life.

If you're interested in joining the 2026 FCA Maryland Golf Prize Raffle group, please send along $100 and I'll get your bracelet out to you immediately. In the meantime, though, you'll get a number right away so you can be in our January drawing that will take place this Saturday.

Venmo: @MarylandJuniorGolf

PayPal: 18inarow@gmail.com

If you do buy a bracelet, please be sure and put your address in the "notes" column of Venmo or PayPal so I can mail your bracelet to you. Or e-mail me your address (18inarow@gmail.com).

And yes, in case you're wondering. You can buy more than one for friends and family members! Or you can buy more than one for yourself.

Thank you for your continued support of FCA Maryland Golf!

Tuesday January 27, 2026

#DMD

Issue #4173

sources

They come in a variety of ways.

Some have nothing more than their client's best interests at heart.

Some want to help.

Some want to make sure the story is portrayed the right way. Or, at the very least, presented so their side and agenda gets equal and fair treatment.

Sources are everywhere. You just need to know how to find them or let them find you.

Sometimes, like my buddy Mark Viviano once discovered, they come in taxi cabs.

He unearthed the biggest story in the history of Baltimore sports because he was fortunate enough to jump into a taxi being driven by a man who knew something almost no one else in town knew.

The Browns were moving to Baltimore.

A taxi cab driver gave Viviano the biggest scoop of his career.

Late last week, the agent of one of the coaches who is/was up for the Ravens offensive coordinator job reached out to me. He was following along with the robust social media chatter using the #Ravens hash tag and found me. I never heard of or met the dude in my life, but there he was, in my DM's, spilling details about his client and the Ravens.

That's my version of the taxi cab, I guess. I also know he reached out to at least one other media member in town because that person contacted me to say, "Your name came up in a conversation tonight. The person was asking if you're legit."

I get it. Just like I have to vet agents and contacts who become sources, they have to vet me, too. It works both ways.

And then that agent gave me info on another name in the offensive coach search. Now, I'm the one doing the juggling. Is he telling me that to help me? Or is he telling me that to help me present his client in a different light?

I find myself asking this question all the time whenever I get information or a tip or I'm pressed to share information: "Cui bono?"

"Who benefits?"

I have to figure out why I'm getting the information and what benefit there is to sharing it. Sometimes I get information and I don't see the need to share it. Someone reached out to me recently and mentioned that a certain former Mount Saint Joseph graduate would "love to come home" to serve as the Ravens defensive coordinator.

Well, of course he would. That's the "duh" statement of the day. That's like me saying to an Augusta National member, "You know, I'd sure love to play at your club someday."

Agents are tricky, wise people. They're working every angle to get their client a job and/or more money because that's how they get their 3% "fee".

And they're usually trying to get it done quickly so their client's situation gets put to bed and they can move on to the next situation they're dealing with. Most agents have multiple clients.

Sometimes it's the team who reaches out to me or provides information, although there's admittedly a lot less of that going on these days because they actually don't want or need the media any longer. I was given a Lamar Jackson injury related tip earlier this year but then was quickly (within the next 15 minutes) asked not to run with it because of an extenuating circumstance.

I didn't post what I learned. The tip proved to be accurate. But it's not like I lost anything because I didn't post it.

Sometimes a player comes forward in a discreet way. It depends on what they want and what help you can provide. A former Ravens first round draft pick told me some stuff at a charity golf outing a few summers ago that I could have used, but I wasn't that interested in starting a firestorm so I just let it go.

But players will talk. When they need you.

I think I know a few things about the relationship Todd Monken had with certain players on the team that I've learned over the last few weeks. But I don't know for sure, 100%, that they're true. And, if I'm being honest, I just don't feel like digging at the story to see if it's totally accurate.

I'm pretty sure it's accurate. But......

Monken's gone. It's a new era of Ravens football. Let's just move on. There's nothing to benefit from uncovering a potential story that, in my mind, isn't really all that big of a deal anyway.

I have heard some things about Lamar over the years that I could have "run with", but, again, what's the real benefit in doing that? And even if I could/would go with it, I have to be careful how I present it. So, I usually just look the other way and leave it to someone else to eventually present the story if they so choose (no one has as of yet, so apparently everyone feels the same way as me).

The year a disgruntled Ravens veteran called Josh Bynes a "bench warmer" at Auburn (which he wasn't) during a post-game incident in D.C., do you know how I got that story? I was standing outside of the locker room after that loss to the (then) Redskins, but I was at the wrong door, and overheard it when an equipment guy for the Ravens opened the door to take laundry out to the truck.

I guess the player himself was my source that day. But totally by accident. I deliberated quite a bit about whether I should go on the air the next day and share that story. Was it fair to share something I overheard in the locker room when I wasn't actually in the locker room?

I came up with my answer by consulting a veteran of the Baltimore media (who was no longer covering sports) and asking him what he thought about the situation. "Fair game," he told me.

I still know several/many people who are aligned with the Ravens these days. I only know a couple of people who are associated with the Orioles. I don't really use much of anything those guys and gals ever tell me because I'd never jeopardize our friendship(s), but when they do give me something useful, I always say, "Are you OK if I use this without attributing it to you, obviously?"

I recently had someone involved with the Orioles tell me one of the minority partners of the team "walks around the office like their s**t doesn't stink". I don't know how I'd weave that into any kind of meaningful story and, so, I don't care enough to pursue how, if at all, it impacts what's going on in the front office at The Warehouse.

20 years ago, when I was on the radio, there were a lot of people willing to talk in that Orioles organization because they didn't like what was going on with the team and/or the front office. I know I've shared this story before, but the day the Orioles applied to have "Baltimore" put back on the front of the road jerseys, I got an amazing tip about it from someone there.

"How do you know, for sure, it's true that they're putting "Baltimore" back on the shirts?" I asked. I had been campaigning for that for a year or more on the air. The O's would later call it a "crusade" and used that as a reason why they stopped giving me a media credential.

"Because I know the person here who just put the drawings in a FedEx envelope and sent them to New York," the source told me.

"And this is 100% true? For sure?" I asked.

"One thousand percent true," I was told.

And so, the next day, I went with it on the air and all hell broke loose. The Orioles were outraged. They even put it off for a year, if you remember. They would later say that it was the league who delayed the change while they went through various copyright issues of the script and blah, blah, blah.

But anyway, I got that story from the tap, as it were.

These days, the Framber Valdez-to-the-Orioles rumors are swirling. The "streets" say the Orioles have offered him 3 years and he wants 4 and if the Orioles give him 4, he's coming. I have little to no interest in monitoring that story and chasing it down. If he signs, he signs.

But if I get a source come through who tells me it's done, I'll certainly consider posting it.

I've talked to maybe 20 different people throughout the Ravens coaching firing/hiring ordeal. Many of them I knew already and some of them I didn't. A few of them turned out to be less-than-accurate with their information. I probably won't reach out to them again.

Sources are like 5-foot putts in golf. You're going to make most of them. But some will be off target.

But some have been very helpful along the way. Someone closely associated with John Harbaugh told me he would have seriously considered taking the Browns job if not for New York stepping forward.

Funny the way it is, right? The Browns can't find anyone to take the job right now. But Harbaugh would have taken it had the Giants not surfaced right away.

I could have asked John that myself, of course. And probably would have at some point. But I knew from who I was dealing with that it was true because, in part, I know how John is and how competitive he is.

The only disappointment that Harbaugh has in taking the Giants job is that he likely only gets to play the Ravens once every four years.

He would, for sure, love two cracks at Steve Bisciotti and the Ravens twice a year.

I saw here where someone wondered if my sources aren't simply other media members?

That comment obviously came from someone who has never worked in the media. When you get a tip or a story as a media member, the last thing you're doing is telling a rival or competitor the information you worked hard to generate.

I don't really talk to other people in the media, except maybe for Glenn Clark and some folks in the golf world that I value. I've never been one of those guys to have a "media circle" of friends and contemporaries.

In the end, I'm probably far less inclined to "break news" than I am to be the person who gets the story first and then splashes it out everywhere. I just don't care all that much about what teams do.

They're going to hire who they hire.

And, despite what a lot of people out there in the world believe, the teams and their staffers know more far more about hiring coaches and managers and signing players than we do.

I know that disappoints people at the end of the bar, but it's true. John Harbaugh forgot more about coaching and evaluating football players while he took a leak this morning than you and I will ever know. I don't resent that. It is what it is.

When I go watch a band, I realize every person in the group knows more about music than me. I like how it "sounds" but I sure can't do it myself.

I play golf with people all the time who say, "Wow, how did you hit that shot?" and I shrug and say, "I don't know. I've hit it 500 times in my life. It's pretty easy when you've done it that many times."

We all tend to think we know a lot about stuff because we watch it on TV or read the internet.

Everyone thinks Jesse Minter is going to be a great coach. A lot of that enthusiasm, at least in Baltimore, stems from what Mike Macdonald has done in Seattle.

"You're getting the next Mike Macdonald" people in Los Angeles claim. Maybe. But you're pretty much just saying that because you saw Macdonald go 14-3 this year. You wouldn't have said that this time last January.

People with the Chargers are "talking up" Minter and the Ravens themselves are very high on him, obviously. He was always the favorite to get the job.

But the proof will be in the pudding.

If the Ravens win and go to the Super Bowl with Minter and his staff, that's going to make it a "great hire" and the Ravens might very well have their "Mike Macdonald".

If the Ravens somehow flatline next year and go 9-8, Minter will no longer be the fair-haired boy in town.

I don't need a source to tell me how fickle the fans are in Baltimore.

Monday January 26, 2026

#DMD

Issue #4172

what will the puzzle yield?

This is going to be a wild two weeks in the NFL.

We're interested in how things shake out here in Baltimore because, for the first time in 18 years, we're directly involved in it.

The remaining head coaching openings in Buffalo, Cleveland, Las Vegas and Arizona are all going to shape the landscape of who goes where and into what spot. It's a huge puzzle that is just starting to get assembled.

What pieces fall where?

In addition to the four head coach openings that remain, you also have offensive and defensive coordinator positions still available in places like Pittsburgh, Baltimore and Atlanta, where head coaches have been hired but staff rebuilds are underway.

Klint Kubiak appears to have cemented one of those head coach slots last night after Seattle's win over the Rams. If Kubiak wants to leave, he'll have his pick of the lot.

With Kubiak likely to depart, that will open up an offensive coordinator spot in Seattle. They have someone in-house they could approach in Jake Peetz, a heralded offensive assistant, or they could eventually turn to someone like Nathan Scheelhaase from the Rams or Davis Webb from the Broncos.

The problem there is Seattle is playing football for the next two weeks. So it's unlikely guys like Scheelhaase or Webb are going to wait around for an opportunity on Mike Macdonald's staff. So Peetz -- who could have been a target for the Ravens offensive coordinator job -- will probably earn "next man up" honors in Seattle if Kubiak departs for a head coaching gig.

Scheelhaase and Webb are the two scorching-hot commodities right now. Both are expected, at worst, to receive multiple OC offers and it's not out of the question that both of them could jump from offensive assistants right to head coach spots.

Scheelhaase is rumored to be a candidate in Cleveland and Webb has connections to Josh Allen and the Bills.

Both Webb and Scheelhaase were very impressive in their interviews in Baltimore during the head coach search and it's expected that the Ravens will offer at least one of them their offensive coordinator role as early as today.

Then there's Joe Brady of the Bills. He interviewed twice -- so far -- with the Ravens during the head coach search and there are whispers the Ravens would have strongly considered him for the head coach role if Minter would have taken the job in Las Vegas.

If Brady -- who was in Las Vegas yesterday meeting with the Raiders -- doesn't get a head coach gig, could he be the guy who ultimately snags the OC role in Baltimore?

So much of what's going on with the Ravens hinges on what happens in Las Vegas, Seattle and, perhaps, even with the Rams.

If Mike LaFleur, Rams offensive coordinator, takes the vacant Arizona job, that leaves an OC spot open for Scheelhaase to move up and take, as long as he doesn't accept the head coach role in Cleveland or elsewhere.

But if LaFleur leaves and Scheelhaase goes to Cleveland (or anywhere), perhaps that leaves the door open for Davis Webb to take the open OC role with Sean McVay and the Rams.

And that's only if Webb doesn't take the job in Las Vegas or Buffalo.

Get it all?

It's crazy.

And that's only on the offensive side of the ball, which is the Ravens primary concern at this point because of the number of talented people available in this cycle coupled with the fact that they're bringing in a defensive minded coach who will run most of the team's defense anyway.

The Ravens did add a member to their coaching staff yesterday with the hiring of Mike Mickens as the team's defensive backs coach. Mickens was a long time defensive specialist at Notre Dame prior to joining Jesse Minter's staff.

One other interesting development on Sunday was the ongoing saga involving Mike McDaniel.

The former Dolphins head coach still doesn't have a defined role, recently rejecting interview requests in both Buffalo and Cleveland.

Rumors of a "verbal agreement" with the Chargers are still floating out there, but there's been some speculation recently that perhaps McDaniel is still free to sign with any team for any coaching position.

The Ravens interviewed McDaniel for their vacant head coach spot, but a source told me yesterday that interview was far more about getting a feel for McDaniel as perhaps the team's offensive coordinator rather than the head coach spot that Minter eventually accepted.

"Don't rule out McDaniel with the Ravens if somehow things don't work out with the Chargers," I was told yesterday.

McDaniel has expressed an interest in coaching somewhere "warm" and his wife is also from the west coast, so the Chargers' gig makes a lot of sense in that regard. But the Ravens can be very convincing with coaches and coaching prospects when pushed to be convincing.

If McDaniel indeed shook hands with the Chargers and said, "If I don't get a head coaching gig, I'll be your OC" then it's highly unlikely that Minter and the Ravens would play dirty pool and pursue him for the OC spot in Baltimore.

But if there's no handshake or verbal agreement in Los Angeles and McDaniel is indeed "free to choose", there's a thought that the Ravens are going to go after him in the next 24-48 hours.

However...

McDaniel might be 3rd in line behind Webb and Scheelhaase. And then there's Joe Brady, too.

While McDaniel waits to hear about the Las Vegas job, the Ravens are trying to fill their staff and not lose out in the game of musical chairs they're playing with a potential OC.

One final name that hasn't been mentioned much is erstwhile Commanders offensive coordinator Kliff Kingsbury, who interviewed for the head coach spot in Baltimore but that, like McDaniel, was more about sizing him up as a potential OC in Baltimore.

That head coach interview with the Ravens "wasn't a needle mover", I've been told.

A national report last week indicated Kingsbury is a "favorite" of Lamar Jackson, but another source says nothing at all should be read into that.

"Lamar likes everyone," the source told #DMD. "He's not the kind of guy who is going to speak negatively about anyone. If you asked him if he liked Joe Brady, he'd say yes. If you asked him if he liked Matt Nagy, he'd say yes. If you asked him if he liked Mike LaFleur, he'd say yes and he probably doesn't even know who LaFleur is."

That source tells me Kingsbury, in a perfect world, would love to return to the west coast, where he once coached for the Arizona Cardinals and later at Southern Cal.

"In a game of last man standing, Kliff might be the guy the Ravens have to turn to at the very end," the source says. "But they're hoping to land someone else."

On the defensive side, guys like Anthony Weaver and Jim Schwartz are still available, but it's unknown if they'd be willing to take a "lesser" role in Baltimore to serve as the team's DC.

One new name to add to the candidate list could be Houston Texans defensive line coach Rod Wright, who has been in Houston for three years after one season coaching the defensive side of the ball at the University of Miami and three years at the University of Texas San-Antonio.

"He's ready for a next-step kind of challenge," a source tells #DMD. "And with DeMeco (Ryans) and Matt (Burke) in Houston, he's not going to get that with the Texans."

I didn't have a dog in the hunt yesterday, so I didn't care who won the respective conference championship games.

In a reflective kind of way, it's cool to see a member of John Harbaugh's coaching tree earn his first trip to the Super Bowl. Mike Macdonald and the Seahawks will be favored to beat the Patriots in two weeks in Santa Clara. Sam Darnold also gets his "how ya like me now?" opportunity after being summarily dismissed in Minnesota.

I also love a good coaching redemption story, and Mike Vrabel certainly authored one of them this season. After being fired by the Titans in 2023 and not landing another head coaching job in 2024, Vrabel got to "go back home" and coach the Patriots in 2025. And now, he's headed to the Super Bowl after a three-win playoff run where his offense bested three straight top 10 defenses in the AFC post-season (L.A., Houston and Denver).

This will be a "blah" Super Bowl for me, at least, simply because I don't have any reason to root against either team.

I mean, in the old days we were always rooting against New England because of Belichick and Brady, but I really like Drake Maye and Vrabel, as I noted above, is making good on his career mulligan. If the Patriots win, I'm fine with it. It also means they're less likely to win again next year, which could benefit the Ravens.

And what's there not to like about the Seahawks? They're harmless, basically. If they win, good for them.

In Baltimore, we needed Buffalo to get to the Super Bowl to give us a real reason to get amped up for the game. Rooting against Josh Allen? Easy to do. We here in The Land of Pleasant Living have developed a really weird obsession with Allen of late.

We definitely could have rooted against the Bills.

I never want to see Pittsburgh get there on the off-chance they might actually win, but if the Steelers would have somehow moved through the bracket to Santa Clara, we also would have spent all of our time cheering for the NFC representative in two weeks time.

I'll watch it, I'm sure. At least until halftime, anyway. Then I'll jump back on and watch the second half once Bad Bunny is finished boring us to tears.

But I don't care who wins.

And that makes it a weird Super Bowl for sure.

By winning the American Express Championship yesterday, Scottie Scheffler has now done something that only two other players in the history of golf managed to do. Before his 30th birthday, Scheffler now has 20 career TOUR wins and 4 major championships.

The other two guys to do it? Nicklaus and Tiger.

20 wins on TOUR.

4 major championships.

And he's only 29 years old.

Amazing.

It has been a long time since we even thought about someone approaching Tiger's mark of 15 major championship wins. Only three active players have 5 or more; Mickelson (6), Koepka (5) and McIlroy (5).

But if Scheffler -- looking kind of long range here -- can win four majors before he turns 32, he'll be at 8 major victories at that point and will have a decade to catch up to Tiger.

Woods, remember, went from age 32 to 43 without a major championship. If Scheffler can add four more between 29 and 32, it might not be all that far fetched to think he can piece together a run at Tiger's 15.

If you asked me to bet whether Scheffler gets to 10, I'd say, "I'm not sure..."

If you asked me to bet if he can get to 15, I'd say "No way..."

But if 4 years ago you would have told me you saw the golf script and Scottie Scheffler wins 20 times between February of 2022 and February of 2026 and also wins four major championships, I would have said about that -- "No way..."

Golf hasn't seen anyone play like this since Tiger. It's generational success, now. Scheffler is the best player in the world and with all due respect to Rory, it's really not close.

Sunday January 25, 2026

#DMD

Issue #4171

there's no.....buzz

There was no movement that I'm aware of on the Ravens front from Saturday. They're still trying to get a final group together for offensive and defensive coaching roles, including the coordinator in each of those departments.

My sense from those in the know is the organization is waiting until they see the results of today's conference championship games to put everything into place. The winter storm in the Baltimore/Washington area over the next couple of days could impact in-person interviews as well.

One interesting note I'm discovering is this: There are far fewer people talking about the offensive and defensive coordinator candidates -- to me, at least -- than there were during the head coach search. I was gathering lots of intel during the coaching search. But not so much during the coordinator search.

Unlike the head coaching search, when the Ravens were always zeroed in on Jesse Minter -- and vice versa -- there are a number of guys they'd be willing to hire for one of their two coordinator spots. This part of the process definitely feels like the college draft.

"Well, we want Webb. But if he's not available and Scheelhaase falls to us, we're happy with him, too."

And unlike the draft, you can't "move up" to get the coordinator you want. They're either taking your job or another job, based sometimes on things out of your control. Maybe Davis Webb wants to stay "out west". Perhaps Joe Brady wants to go someplace where it's warm after spending five-plus years in Buffalo.

Scheelhaase is a candidate to land the head coach job in Cleveland, so he might not be available anyway.

My best guess still centers on one of these three eventually winding up in Charm City: Scheelhaase (Rams), Webb (Broncos) or Brady (Bills), with the latter perhaps being the best fit at this point given he has a history of play-calling and scheming while the others would be rookies in that endeavor.

An industry source also told me the team has an interest in Bengals quarterbacks coach Brad Kragthorpe -- a longtime member of the offensive staff in Cincinnati -- but I've yet to hear if he's being interviewed for the open offensive coordinator spot in Baltimore.

On the defensive side, things are up in the air as well. The Ravens plan on interviewing Chiefs' defensive line coach Joe Cullen for the open coordinator spot. A source says Cullen understands his role in Baltimore would not center on game-by-game scheme development and in-game play-calling. Those duties will belong to new head coach Jesse Minter.

The new defensive coordinator's main job in Baltimore will be to handle scheme implementation during meetings and practices, in concert with Minter and other defensive specialists he brings to the Ravens.

So while the buzz in Baltimore has died down a bit over the last day or so, it hasn't died down in College Park,, where the basketball program is closing in on "shambles" territory after getting taken to the woodshed by 43 points in East Lansing yesterday.

Dale Williams does all of the heavy lifting in his game review below. I've intentionally not read or entered his piece yet -- as of 6:09 am on Saturday -- because I don't want to know what he thinks before I tell you what I think.

I think......

And it's important to see that distinction. I don't "know" this. I'm not etching it in stone. I'm not jumping up and down saying, "This is definite..."

But I'm starting to think Maryland hired the wrong basketball coach.

And this is not totally tied into their on-court performance this season. There's more to it than that.

The losing is not helping, that's for sure.

But, pun sorta-kinda intended here, there's no buzz around the team or the program in College Park. And that's not the fault of the basketball fans down there, either.

The school has done very little to co-promote the basketball team. The players are disengaged, which is probably understandable given that most of them are hired-guns who showed up last April and will hang out on Route One for a year before hitting the portal this March and moving on to another school.

A person closely associated with a different athletic team in College Park summed it up like this: "There's no sizzle or interest in the basketball team here. It's almost like they're an afterthought. No one knows the players. And the weird thing is everyone on campus knows all the female basketball players. No one knows the guys. There's no interest on campus when it comes to men's basketball."

That's coming from someone on campus, every day, in the buildings, who has a far, far better feel for Maryland basketball's inner workings than I would ever have.

"The players are insulated," the person in College Park said. "The coach wants it that way. He's insulated too. There's no effort to connect the team and the players with the school. Kevin (Willard) had his issues, but one thing he did well was make sure the students and the basketball team were connected."

Now, a solid recruiting class in 2026 will help the Terps, most likely. Nothing replaces winning.

But the $64,000 question is the obvious one: Can Buzz coach the talented group of recruits and win with them at College Park?

I don't know.

But this first season of Buzz Williams basketball at College Park is a semi-disaster. And that's being kind.

Better players will help. Anyone who has watched the Terps this season knows they're in need of better players. The loss of Pharrel Payne has definitely hurt Maryland, but they wouldn't be all that much better with him in the lineup. One more win? Two, perhaps, at the most?

Maryland decided Buzz Williams was the man to take them to the "next level" after Kevin Willard wrecked the program.

And it's fair to say "give him time". Rome wasn't built in a day.

But there are things about Maryland basketball that have nothing to do with wins and losses that are starting to surface in College Park.

And because we've now moved fully into the "money talks" era of college sports, some things need to improve down there within the next year or two or players will simply get their rewards elsewhere.

I don't really care who wins today in the two NFL playoff games, but just for kicks and giggles, here you go:

New England holds off Denver in a low scoring battle, 17-7. I don't see Denver being able to win this one with Stidham at QB. He'll be involved in a costly turnover of some kind. The Broncos defense will hang in there but New England moves on to the Super Bowl.

Seattle wins a shootout over the Rams, 34-30. I think this one might be "last team with the ball wins". Or, as some folks annoyingly like to say, "an instant classic". In this case, though, it might be a back-and-forth barnburner that bumps up into that instant classic territory.

	dale williams aims the terps spotlight
DALE WILLIAMS returns for his 10th season of covering all things Maryland men's basketball for #DMD. Terps Spotlight will preview and review all games in the 2025-2026 season.

terps get shelled at michigan state

The most descriptive term I can find for the beat-down that the Terps received yesterday is, overwhelmed.

Michigan State was far too big and way too strong for Maryland. They overwhelmed the Terps in a 91-48 win.

Instead of responding in kind, with their own aggressiveness, the Terps put their tails between their legs and took that beating like an abused dog. The Terps were abused.

Actually, that description might be better than “overwhelmed”. Abused. I can’t remember a more embarrassing loss. In my 56 years of following this team, it’s the worst I’ve ever seen a Maryland team play. Overwhelmed. Abused.

I’m not even going to get into who scored what points. Let’s just say that everyone on MSU scored a lot, and all the Terps were disgusting.

The one stat that emphasizes Maryland’s lack of hustle and the total lack of preparation by the coaching staff was fast break points favored MSU, 31-0. That’s effort, or lack thereof. It’s coaching, or lack thereof.

Up 37 points in the second half, Tom Izzo was still mainly playing starters. I guess he wanted to see just how badly he could beat Maryland.

I try to mostly keep personal opinions out of my analysis, but I’ll will say this, my feelings for Tom Izzo run about equal to Drew’s feelings for that Philly hockey team. Izzo gets more calls than Mike Krzyzewsky ever got. Yesterday he didn’t need any of them, but he still got them.

The Terrapin shooting numbers were just awful…again. But that had a lot to do with the intense Spartan defense and the Terrapin lack of a point guard that can get them into an offensive set. The Terrapin lack of ball movement and movement without the ball made it easy for Sparty to get stops.

Maryland is small, but on Saturday in East Lansing they were not tough. They were soft, weak, and played without pride. 31-0 on fast break points clearly points to, “We’re not winning, so I don’t care”. That’s totally unacceptable”. 31-0!!! Maryland didn’t make one bucket.

Going into the first break, the MSU defense looked like it was suffocating the Terps offense. Maryland was 1-5 from the field early on, with their only field goal a short runner in the paint from Elijah Saunders. They trailed 9-4.

Turnovers became an issue for the Terps, and the Spartans used the extra possessions to extend the lead to 14-4. MSU was on an 8-0 run with the Terps turning it over 3 times in a little over 2 minutes.

By the time Coach Williams temporarily stopped the carnage with a timeout, his Terps were down 16-4 and had made just 1 of 7 shots. The errant Maryland shots were all tough, heavily contested, attempts. Maryland hadn’t scored in almost 5 minutes.

The second break came with 11:28 left in the half and Michigan State had more points from the foul line (6) than Maryland had in total (4). In eight and a half minutes of game time, Maryland had just one lone field goal. They were 1 for 11 from the field, 0-7 from the three-point line, and just 2-4 from the foul line.

I won’t list all the team stats, suffice it to say that every one of them was drastically in favor of the Spartans.

Coming out of the 3rd break, Solomon Washington hit a three and Diggy Coit drove inside for a pair of buckets. When Washington hit a tough slasher, Maryland had pulled off a nice 9-2 run.

Coit made the run 11-2 with a mid-range jumper, and when Saunders hit a triple, the Terps had the lead down to 10. However, a questionable shot and a Terp turnover had Sparty on the foul line with a chance to get the lead back to 14 with 6:30 left in the half.

Not only did MSU get 2, but they followed that with a triple and 2 foul shots. A 9-0 run had the lead extended to 19.

The MSU run reached 11 straight and the score stood at 39-18 when Buzz Williams was forced to call another time out. His team was being undressed. The talent level discrepancy was obvious and vast. Fast break points favored MSU 14-0, and second chance points were 10-3 in favor of MSU.

An MSU turnover ended the first half, but it didn’t matter. They had doubled Maryland on the scoreboard at 46-23. The Terps were being totally dominated, physically and on the scoreboard. Fast break points were now 19-0, leaving me to wonder just what Buzz Williams must have been thinking at the intermission. He couldn’t have been happy with his team’s effort.

This game had been decided at the 7-minute mark of the first half when Michigan State started their half-ending 23-5 run. The Terps were simply pushed around and beat up by MSU. You know things were bad when MSU center, Carson Cooper, hit the first three-pointer of his career.

MSU was rubbing salt in the wound by hitting 3 of 4 triples to start the second half. The Terps trailed by 28 points at 15:03. The game had long been over.

So, I’ve been following UMD basketball since the late’ 60’s. There have been a bunch of bad losses in that time, but this embarrassment was the worst I’ve ever seen.

This Maryland team was simply not prepared for Saturday’s game. Yes, Maryland has a non-competitive Big Ten roster, but Buzz Williams did not have his team prepared for what MSU offers.

Being too small is one thing, but not caring enough to get back on defense is another. Getting blanked 31-0 on fast break points should be grounds to terminate a contract. That’s an effort thing. That’s a coaching thing.

I’m not the guy who wants to fire a hitting coach because his team had stopped hitting, I also don’t go right to blaming the coordinator because the offense has looked bad. I tend to look more at the players. Tonight, Buzz Williams needs to look into the mirror and ask himself, “Did I properly prepare my guys?” The answer is an emphatic “No”.

Maryland next plays Purdue at home on Sunday, February 1. They’ll lose that game too, but the Boilermakers don’t offer the same kind of physicality that MSU has. Perhaps the Terps can give a better effort. The effort they gave yesterday was totally unacceptable.

Yes, for sure, the Terps have a roster that’s barely of Big Ten quality, but have some pride. Play hard, and be respectable.

Yesterday they weren’t respectable. They were soft, overwhelmed, and abused. 31-0. I’ve never seen anything like that. Gotta be better, coach!

Saturday January 24, 2026

#DMD

Issue #4170

"risky business?"

Here we are in the Jessie Minter era and everything's just peachy.

"The phones were buzzing in the (Ravens) sales office," I was told by a source. "People are excited."

And well they should be. Hope springs eternal, as the saying goes.

There will be -- and with very good reason -- a lot of enthusiasm and excitment surrounding Jesse Minter over the next seven months. The Ravens, as they should, will go about creating a crafty marketing and sales plan to hopefully generate ticket sales, suite sales and sponsorship sales in connection with their new head coach.

Every team does that. You know the Giants are doing it in New York, for sure. John Harbaugh has already penned his first "letter to the fans" up there, telling them how pumped up he is to be their head coach. Go Big Blue! (the letter read).

But the real hard work in the Jesse Minter era starts now. The Ravens got their guy. And they're thrilled. But he certainly can't do it alone. Minter and the Ravens need to compile a staff and they need to start doing it quickly. Time's a wastin'.

On the surface, you would think assembling a group of coaches would be rather easy in Baltimore. I mean, you have a top 5 quarterback on the offensive side of the ball (Lamar) and a top 5 defensive player (Hamilton) on the other side.

Mixed in with that you have guys like Henry, Andrews, Flowers, Smith, Wiggins and Starks. There's plenty to like if you're a coach looking to potentially work for the Ravens.

But two sources are wondering if the Ravens actually did, in fact, get it right by hiring Minter instead of someone like Klint Kubiak or Kevin Stefanski or Mike McDaniel.

"If there was ever a hiring cycle where it's much better to hire an offensive minded coach than a defensive minded coach, it was this one," offers one source, who has spent two decades involved in the league. "Hiring a defensive guy in this cycle is risky business."

"The Ravens are in a pickle unless they go with Brady, Nagy or Kingsbury," the source continues. "And the truth is that all three of those guys are "B" prospects. But if they don't go with one of those three, their offense is going to be run by a first-time coordinator who has never created a playbook or a scheme and he'll be partnering up with a first-time coach in Jesse. That's not a great combination, especially if you're a franchise that expects to win from day one."

"On the flip side, you would prefer to scratch the slate clean and start with one of the young guys like Webb or Doyle," the source continues. "Scheelhaase is also an option. There will be other names that surface in the next few days, but if you bring one of those three on board you're asking a brand new coach and a brand new offensive coordinator to win 11 or 12 games in the league next season and that's a really tall task."

Another source more closely aligned with the Ravens says the team factored all of that in when they hired Minter earlier this week.

"Joe (Brady) makes the most sense for them and it probably makes the most sense for him, too," the source states. "But if you're the Ravens you're still not sure he's going to be available in a timely fashion. There's still a thought that if he doesn't get the head job in Buffalo that he could stay there as an OC. But the one problem with joining the Ravens as an offensive coordinator is you're not going to get much of the credit if the offense gels and the Ravens have a productive 2026 season. Lamar will get all the credit. You'll just be the guy who called the plays."

For a guy to go from coordinator to head coach, he has to be the reason why his side of the ball jumped," the source explains. "Like Jesse (Minter) did in L.A. He got that Baltimore job because he was the reason why the Chargers defense was excellent this past season."

"For Brady, his path to a head coaching spot is to probably take a lesser job like the OC in Cleveland, Pittsburgh or Las Vegas and see if he can't make an immediate impact there. If he can help one of those offenses work, he has the golden ticket. Getting Lamar and the Ravens offense to perform well isn't going to be valued around the league like getting the offense in Cleveland or Pittsburgh to spike would create value."

To wit, the Ravens do have an interesting puzzle to solve.

There are a number of unemployed defensive coordinators available, but none are overly valued around the league. One candidate, Dennard Wilson interviewed with the Chargers yesterday. The Ravens will interview Chiefs' defensive line coach Joe Cullen this weekend.

Both of those guys have ties to the Ravens organization from prior coaching stints, but there aren't many teams beating down their doors to interview for (current) vacant defensive coordinating jobs.

Even a veteran like Jim Schwartz (still in line for the Browns HC job) might not be a great fit.

"Jesse's bringing his defense to Baltimore," a source says. "There will not be any doubt about that. So the defensive coordinator in Baltimore will basically just do the film work and some self-scouting each week and Jesse will implement the scheme and help with the in-game flow and play calling."

"The Ravens did this backwards," the source continues. "They would have been much better off getting a proven offensive mind as their head coach and then turned their defense over to someone like Jim (Schwartz) or Wink (Martindale) or even Chuck (Pagano) if he's still interested in coordinating for a year or two while they get their feet under them."

One person familiar with the Ravens coaching staff search says the organization is eagerly awaiting the results of this Sunday's two conference championship games.

"There will be meetings on Monday in Baltimore with one or more candidates depending on the games (this weekend)," the person says. "Jesse has an idea of who he wants. But it takes two to tango. And some of the candidates in Baltimore are also desired in other cities as well."

	dale williams aims the terps spotlight
DALE WILLIAMS returns for his 10th season of covering all things Maryland men's basketball for #DMD. Terps Spotlight will preview and review all games in the 2025-2026 season.

terps take on sparty in east lansing today

A national TV audience awaits the Maryland Terrapins today as they prepare to tangle with the Spartans of Michigan State.

The Breslin Center is a tough place to play, but we can expect an elevated level of craziness for this CBS game at noon.

The linemakers have already said, “Good luck Terps”, having made Maryland an 18-point underdog. So, what does MSU have, and how does Maryland counter?

Sparty has sparred with 5 teams ranked at 14 or higher. They are 3-2 in those games with wins over Arkansas (69-66), Kentucky (83-66), and a 74-58 victory over the Tar Heels of North Carolina.

The losses were to Duke (66-60) and Nebraska (58-56). I was very impressed with what Nebraska did, defensively against MSU. We’ll get into that in a bit.

First, Sparty coach Tom Izzo has always fielded teams that rebound well, especially offensively. This team is no different. They have size and aggressively attack the glass on the offensive end. They are near the top of the Big Ten offensive, defensive, and total rebounds. They have size and use it well around the glass.

Second, MSU teams usually lean on the three-point shot. The 2025-2026 edition of Michigan State basketball isn’t so reliant, but they have two guys that can kill you from long range.

Chasing Jaxon Kohler and Kur Teng off the line is essential for the Terps tonight. Kohler is 6’9” and knocks down a super impressive 46.5% of his threes. Teng, the 6’4” guard, makes almost 38% from the three-point line. Maryland cannot offer help against the MSU bigs down low , leaving those two players open. It’s a sure recipe for disaster.

The third thing the Spartans always do is bring physicality to the court. They have some thick dudes and some GREAT athletes. The Terps have a few “dogs” on their squad too, and they need to flex their muscles today.

I loved how Nebraska went after the Spartans. Every low post entry was double teamed and many baseline drives were met with multiple defenders.

The ‘Huskers also frequently pressured the ball in the half court.

This strategy produced an Izzo-infuriating 21 turnovers. Obviously, the Terps don’t have Nebraska’s personnel, but a similar game plan would be very wise for Buzz Williams and his crew.

Offensively in that game, the ‘Huskers only scored 59 points, so their offense wasn’t the story of the outcome. Nebraska took 37 threes in that game, 65% of their total tries.

When not shooting threes, they had significant success with their movement without the ball. That’s a very active offense, and it’s something Maryland must emulate if they want to get quality looks.

MSU is led offensively by Kohler with 13.3 points per game, and point guard Jeremy Fears. Fears drops 13.2 points and 9.1 assists each game. He’s their catalyst.

The most athletic guy on the court will be MSU’s Coen Carr. This 6’6” 225-pound strong man can flat out get off the floor. If he’s not the most dynamic dunker in college hoops, he’s in the top 3.

Carr is also the guy I leave open if forced to double down low. His 25% three-point rate dictates that you’d rather him shoot from long range as opposed to letting an MSU big operate one-on-one in the paint against a single tiny Terp.

The bulky Carson Cooper mans the paint for Michigan State. He’s just over double digits in points, but Maryland must keep him off the offensive glass. He’s a must double team guy in the paint. If Buzz Williams elects to not double Cooper, Cooper will drop 20 on them.

So, there’s the game plan. Play physically. Double in the paint. Chase Kohler and Teng off the three-point line. Pressure the ball. Tons of motion on offense.

We’ll have to watch and see just which parts of that plan can the Terps actually pull off. The Maryland “D” has to keep the game at a slower pace. They can’t run with MSU.

I’ll give you one more thing that personally I want to see. I’m hoping Solomon Washington checks Kohler, and on offense, takes him to the rack. Washington is too quick for Kohler.

A line of 18 and an over/under at 139.5 suggests the sharps are thinking something around 79-61 should happen. I think the Terps slow the pace, and keep this game closer than many would expect. I’m not sure they can win, but a loss of 75-66 could be a moral victory for the Terps.

Friday January 23, 2026

#DMD

Issue #4169

where do they go from here?

So, it's day one of the Jesse Minter era in Baltimore.

He better get some stuff done today.

I'm kidding.

But only a little bit.

Minter, in concert with Ravens general manager Eric DeCosta, will start building a staff quickly in Owings Mills.

He needs an entire staff, of course, but the main, immediate focus will center on the offensive coordinator and defensive coordinator positions in Baltimore.

And the first concept to address is whether it matters if the Ravens go "young" or "old" in their search.

By young, we're talking about guys who haven't previously been coordinators and are thought to be next up in the head coaching cycle once they cut their teeth as an Offensive or Defensive coordinator for season or two or three.

Think Mike Macdonald in Baltimore in 2022-2023 as a prime example.

His quick two-year stint with the Ravens in that capacity made him one of the league's "hot names" in the off season leading up to the 2024 season.

The Ravens -- and Minter -- could go in that direction with their Offensive and Defensive coordinator search.

You might have someone like Davis Webb, if he doesn't get hired as a head coach somewhere first, or Nathan Scheelhaase available to join MInter's staff in Baltimore. They're two of the popular "hot young names" floating around.

The same goes for defense. Chris O'Leary (former Chargers defensive backs coach) could fit that bill. And even though Dennard Wilson had one year of coordinating the Titans' defense, the former Ravens defensive backs coach is also one of the names you might hear soon as a Ravens coordinator candidate.

Then there's the "tried and true" candidate list. On the offensive side of the ball, you might be able to pick between Kliff Kingsbury or Joe Brady if neither of them gets hired to be a head coach somewhere. Defensively, there's Anthony Weaver or perhaps Baltimore native Jim Schwartz, although it's looking more like Schwartz is going to draw the short straw and earn the Browns head coaching job.

One interesting dilemma with the Ravens if they go "old" is that they'd have to potentially go back to guys like Kingsbury, Weaver and Brady -- each of whom were interviewed for Minter's job -- and ask them to join the organization in a lesser, albeit still important role.

And the other is the issue of bringing on one of the hot, young names and then potentially having him poached from you once he's successful.

The benefits of hiring someone like Webb or Scheelhaase on offense are two-fold. You're getting a new, energetic fresh mind in your organization and you're also getting someone closer to Lamar Jackson's age that perhaps he can relate to better.

There have been stories bubbling up recently about Jackson's relationship with former offensive coordinator Todd Monken and how some of their differences had nothing to do with "football" per se, but had more to do with the way Monken occasionally addressed and communicated with Lamar and other younger players on offense.

One of Jackson's only true wishes in the head coach search was that the Ravens lean strongly towards a younger coach if possible.

He quickly approved of Jesse Minter when he was able to chat with the new Ravens coach during the interview process.

If someone like Webb or Scheelhaase got the position, the Ravens would also be bringing in someone that would very likely be a "hot name" either next off-season or in 2027 if the Baltimore offense percolates and the team has playoff success.

Therein lies the rub.

How many voices do you want Lamar to be hearing throughout his career?

Greg Roman...Todd Monken...then the next guy for however long that might be...then the guy that follows him. And so on.

Kliff Kingsbury would represent a different, experienced voice. He's only 46. Once upon a time, he was the next "hot thing" before he floundered in Arizona with the Cardinals. But he's still a very well respected offensive mind who helped the Commanders reach the NFC title game in 2024 with Jayden Daniels as his quarterback.

Lamar, according to reports, is fond of Kingsbury and his offensive schemes. The guess here, given both the nature of the position and the proximity of Baltimore to DC, is that Jackson has talked with Daniels over the years about Kingsbury and the Commanders QB has "talked him up" with Lamar. Player-to-player evaluations hold a lot of water in the NFL.

So if it's Kingsbury that Lamar really wants, should he get him?

What if Minter feels, in his gut, that Davis Webb is the right guy for the offense but Lamar has Kingsbury number one on his list followed by Webb and others behind him?

Then there's the pesky little issue of Jackson's contract and the $75 million salary cap figure for 2025 and how does all of that play into this "new era" of Ravens football and the decisions facing the team relative to the offensive coordinator?

What if Lamar stands up on a table in Owings Mills and says, "I want Kliff!!"? What do you do then?

It's fair to point out, quickly, that standing up on the table and demanding things isn't really Lamar's style. He approved of every coaching candidate the Ravens put in front of him over the last couple of weeks. Jackson is a team player, generally, in that regard.

"Just tell me who the coach is and let me go play football and we're cool..."

But this is a sticky situation with Lamar's contract and you might need to do a little give-and-take with him to make sure the numbers work out and everyone's happy at the end of the day.

So if Lamar winks and says, "Sure would like to work with Kliff..." you might have to give him Kliff.

But what if Kingsbury somehow isn't available? Then you have guys like Webb and Scheelhaase to look at, but what if, somehow, they're also not available for whatever reason?

That's why Minter and the Ravens have to act quickly, or at the very least, act quickly once the rules allow for it.

One very interesting name could be a familiar one in Baltimore. And it starts with "H". And, well, it's pretty familiar around these parts.

Jim Harbaugh's son, Jay, is the current special teams coach for the Seahawks. With Minter's departure, the Chargers will need a defensive coordinator. There are some suggestions in L.A. that Jim wouldn't want Jay with him just because of the "too close" angle of that situation, but that Jay Harbaugh, who coached at Oregon State and Michigan before joining Mike Macdonald in Seattle, could be one of the next "up and comer" defensive coordinator candidates in the NFL.

It's a complex scenario, obviously.

Another Harbaugh in Baltimore?

Would Jim be OK with Jay, his son, furthering his career in Baltimore after they summarily dismissed his brother in January?

And would John be OK with "helping the Ravens" by approving of Jay going to the Ravens to work on Jesse Minter's staff?

Someone whispered Jay Harbaugh's name to me in the early days of the coaching search two weeks ago and said, "His name will probably surface...at some point...start learning more about him."

How wild would that be?

Jim Harbaugh played for the Ravens.

John Harbaugh then coached the Ravens.

And then Jay Harbaugh comes in after Harbaugh leaves and there's another Harbaugh with a parking spot at the facility.

I'm not saying it's happening.

That said, a friend of mine back in August told me he thought Indiana was a sleeper team to win the Big Ten and that he thought "they could make some noise in the playoffs" and I said, "Not happening, Mark."

I never discount anything any longer.

As I wrote here earlier in the week, I'm good with the Jesse Minter hire. It's certainly not a surprise, as he was always one of the favorites to get the job. But I also have faith in the process the Ravens have perfected over the years.

Did it hamstring the Ravens a little bit that both the Rams (Shula, Scheelhaase), Seahawks (Kubiak) and Broncos (Webb, Joseph) were all still playing this week and those candidates couldn't be interviewed again? Maybe. But in the end, the Ravens already knew enough about those five guys to know if they were possibly better fits in Baltimore than Minter.

If Minter was always their guy, someone was -- to borrow a boxing phrase -- going to have to knock him out to steal the job from him.

As I wrote last night on Twitter, nearly each of the 20 candidates the Ravens interviewed had some sort of flaw or blemish.

Stefanski had some trailing issues from his days in Cleveland; McDaniel is a mercurial personality far more suited to being a coordinator than a head coach; Saleh was not well prepared for his interview and believed his record should speak for itself.

Those are just three names. Other candidates were interesting to the Ravens as well, but all of them had nicks and small bruises.

But I really didn't hear or read or learn about any flaw or blemish on Jesse Minter.

I'll stop short of calling him "perfect". There was the Michigan sign-stealing scandal when he was on Jim Harbaugh's staff that he was "part of", if you choose to call him "part of" it.

Breaking news: No one cares about that. Sign stealing in football is like sign stealing in baseball. If you're not doing it, you're in the minority.

But in terms of things people in the NFL care about when it comes to coaching and schemes and the potential for being a great, long term coach, Minter has no warts.

And I know the Ravens turned over every stone in the hiring process to determine that Minter was the guy for the job.

There are some people in town who bristle at the idea that it was a "fair and even process" because Minter has a history with the Ravens organization and was always the favorite to land the job.

That might be true.

But if it's true, it's because Minter impressed people when he worked in Baltimore previously and was always considered a "down the road" possibility for the day when John Harbaugh's tenure ended with the Ravens.

I have no idea if Jesse Minter will be a great NFL coach but I'd say all of the applicable signs point to him being successful.

And with that, I'll say the same thing about the offensive and defensive coordinator under Minter.

The Ravens will get those two right as well.

Lamar will help them figure out who is best on the offensive side of the ball and Kyle Hamilton (who, like Lamar, was allowed to give his input on the hiring of Minter and the other coaching candidates) will help them figure out who is best on the defensive side of the ball.

No, Lamar and Hamilton aren't going to "pick" the coordinators. Jesse Minter and Eric DeCosta are ultimately going to do that. But DeCosta (and now Minter) knows the value of player input.

And in the end, whether it's Kingsbury or Webb or Weaver or Wilson -- or any other name -- I'm going to lean in the direction of "The Ravens got this one right."

Once those hirings happen, we'll just wait around until September to see if I'm right.......about the Ravens being right.

faith in sports

This week's edition of "Faith in Sports" centers on a very interesting topic. What happens when you're hesitant to talk about Jesus and share your faith with others?

Two NHL hockey players, Kent Johnson and Owen Power talk about that with former Bears running back Matt Forte in an awesome 6 minute video that you can find below.

This is a short one, but still a very powerful message nonetheless. If you're a believer who is still somewhat hesitant about talking openly about your faith, watch the Johnson/Power video below and rest easy from there.

Thanks, as always, to our friends at Freestate Electrical for their continued support of #DMD and our Friday "Faith in Sports" segment.

SCOREBOARD
Thursday, February 3
AT CAPITALS 4	PREDATORS 2
CAPS GOALS: Wilson (23), Luc-Dubois (1), Chychrun 2 (20, 21) GOALTENDER: Thompson RECORD: 29-23-7 NEXT GAME: Feb. 25 vs. Philadelphia

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