Allison's Sports Corner

With the continuation of March Madness and nearing the end of the NHL and NBA seasons- there seems to be a lull in sports dramatics. Taking that as a note, I have decided that I am going to talk about the Steiner Symposium that took place at the Charley Steiner School of Sports Communications and the panel on NIL and the transfer portal. Since I have been talking a lot about NCAA basketball and the growth of the portal- I felt this would be interesting and tie into my earlier posts.  CHANGING SPORTS LANDSCAPE Panelists: Janna Blais, Dr. Kenon Brown, Dr. Joshua Dickhaus, Dr. Paul Gullifor Moderator: Dr. Sitong Guo  This panel talked about the overarching themes of NIL (Name, Image, and Likeness) and the transfer portal. Janna Blais, who is the Deputy Director of Athletics and Senior Woman Administrator at Northwestern, talked in depth about how the ruling in NCAA v. Alston has taken away the student in student-athlete. There was much discussion on how there needs to be regulat...

With the upcoming March Madness about to begin, I want to dive into the tournament field tell you my personal picks, the biggest snubs, and the teams with the best chances of winning the entire time. Obviously all of my words mean nothing at the end of the day because March is pure Madness.  MARCH MADNESS The first thing that I would love to point out is how 3 out of the 4 number one seeds did not win their tournament. Purdue, who was looking to be a lock at the number one seed, potentially overall, lost to No. 5 Wisconsin in the semifinals of the Big 10 tournament. Houston, who was ranked No. 1 & 2 a majority of the season lost to Iowa State in the Big 12 Championship game and is still ranked No. 1. North Carolina took the No. 1 seed after losing to NC State in the ACC championship game and reaching the No. 3 spot at times during the season. UCONN, who is the reigning champions, outright won the Atlantic 10 and was given the No. 1 seed. For me, I just don't understand how if ...

A rather slow week in the sporting community, so I thought I would take this opportunity to highlight the success of the Missouri Valley Conference men's basketball this season. In addition, highlighting the conference tournaments that took place for men's and women's NCAA around the nation.  MISSOURI VALLEY CONFERENCE To start, this was a fun season of basketball to watch. I had the opportunity to attend and work every single home Bradley Men's Basketball game and night in and night out, there was always a competitive game from the Valley teams. Seeing players who are ranked among the best in the nation every night was very special.  This season the MVC as a whole jumped from the 15th best conference in the nation to 9th best (based on NET ranking). And for the first time 2021, there should be two teams from the Valley selected on Selection Sunday to dance.  This season in Arch Madness, we saw an upset in the final game for the second year in a row with the Drake Bulld...

 This was a huge weekend for college sports, with the ending of the NCAA basketball regular season and the shift into the conference tournaments, March Madness hopes are as alive as ever. Oklahoma softball losing to Louisiana (Ragin Cagun) softball to snapped a 71-game win streak. Not to be left out, but Caitlin Clark becomes the leading scorer in NCAA history (men's and women's). All of these sum up the crazy world of sports.  OKLAHOMA SOFTBALL STREAK SNAPPED The Oklahoma Sooners softball program is one of the most prolific and winningest teams in the 21st century. The Sooners have won three back-to-back-to-back national championships, while maintaining a 71-game win streak, which was broken  against Louisiana. The Sooners committed a season-high three errors in the 7-5 loss to the Ragin Cajun. The Sooners stuck to their roots on offense and outhit Louisiana 11-10. Oklahoma snaps their 71-game win streak, which was highlighted by 46 wins against PowerFive opponents, 40 ...