Ohio
Where does Ohio State basketball rank in latest March Madness bracketology?
The Ohio State men’s basketball team will host No. 8 Purdue on March 1 while fighting to keep its NCAA Tournament hopes intact.
The Buckeyes have three games left in Big Ten regular-season play and are 17-11 overall and 9-8 in the league. On Feb. 25, they lost 74-57 at Iowa, marking their second consecutive defeat and their first losing streak of the season. Afterward, the Buckeyes struggled to explain why they came apart when the Hawkeyes went on their first run of the game.
The Boilermakers 22-6 overall, 12-5 in the Big Ten and fresh off a 76-74 home loss to No. 13 Michigan State on Feb. 26.
As of Feb. 26, the Buckeyes were ranked No. 38 in the NET rankings used by the NCAA Tournament selection committee. They are also No. 46 in Wins Above Bubble, another category being utilized by the committee.
Purdue is No. 7 in the NET, making this a Quad 1 game for the Buckeyes. Ohio State is 1-10 in Quad 1.
Here is where Ohio State sits in the major NCAA Tournament projections as it prepares to host the Boilermakers at the Jerome Schottenstein Center:
Ohio State basketball standing in latest bracketology
In a bracket update published Feb. 18, USA Today projects the Buckeyes to make the NCAA Tournament and play in the First Four in Dayton. Ohio State is included as a No. 11 seed, facing fellow No. 11 seed Missouri. The winner of that game would head to Portland to face No. 6 seed Louisville.
Two weeks ago, Ohio State was a No. 10 seed and projected to avoid the First Four in Dayton. Now the Buckeyes are projected second on the list of the final four teams to make the tournament.
Ten Big Ten teams are included in the field, the second-most for any conference after the SEC (11).
In a Feb. 24 update, one day before the Buckeyes lost at Iowa, ESPN’s Joe Lunardi had Ohio State as the first team not to make the tournament. After the loss, he dropped them to the third team in the first four out.
ESPN’s Bubble Watch noted that the loss now has Ohio State’s odds of making the tournament at about 50%.
CBS has the Buckeyes fourth on its list of the first four out.
The website BracketMatrix.com, which aggregates 118 different bracket projections, has Ohio State as a potential No. 11 seed. The Buckeyes appear in 41 brackets, many of which had not been updated after the Iowa game.
Analytics site BartTorvik.com projects Ohio State as a No. 10 seed and gives the Buckeyes a 52.1% chance to make the tournament as of Feb. 27.
Ohio State men’s basketball beat writer Adam Jardy can be reached at ajardy@dispatch.com, on Bluesky at @cdadamjardy.bsky.social or on Twitter at @AdamJardy.
Out of prison, Indiana’s caviar king back on Ohio River to find fishing holes taken
David Cox, of English, Indiana, says once he began setting his nets again after a two-year prison sentence and a three-year ban on commercial fishing, all of his once-secret spots were taken.
Can you eat fish from the Ohio River?
In 1975, future presidential candidate Michael Dukakis, then governor of Massachusetts, bet 20 pounds of New England cod that the Red Sox would defeat the Reds in the World Series. If things went south for Boston, Ohio governor James Rhodes promised to send Dukakis 10 pounds of Lake Erie perch and 10 pounds of Ohio River catfish. The Reds ended up winning and the cod was sent to the Convalescent Home for Children, in Cincinnati.
At the time, people were still eating catfish from the Ohio without too much concern. The fish were also served at several restaurants along the river.
There were warnings in 1977
But two years later, in 1977, The Ohio River Valley Water Sanitation Commission released the results of a study of contaminants found in the tissues of Ohio River fish. They warned anglers in cities such as Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, Louisville, Wheeling and Gallipolis that man-made chemicals known as PCBs, or polychlorinated biphenyls, had been discovered in the river fish. Later, high concentrations of mercury were discovered in the fish, too.
Thanks to the Clean Water Act of 1972 and the environmental regulations that followed, the river is now cleaner than it was in the seventies. And it’s still teeming with a variety of fish, including catfish, striped bass, drum and black bass, among other species.
But even though PCBs were banned by the Environmental Protection Agency in 1979, they are still found in fish, since they remain in the sediment in the bottom of the river. “Organisms live in the sediment and fish feed on them,” Rich Cogen, the executive director of the Ohio River Foundation told The Enquirer. Mercury is also a big problem, according to Cogen.
So the question is: Can you eat fish caught in the Ohio River?
The short answer is yes. But it depends on what species you are eating and where along the river you caught it.
There are also very strict limitations on how frequently you should eat them, according to the web site for the Ohio Sport Fish Consumption Advisory, part of the Ohio Department of Health.
In areas of the river between the Belleville Lock, located 204 miles downstream from the river’s origins in Pittsburgh, to the Indiana border, the advisory agency currently recommends consuming Ohio River fish no more than once a month max. That area includes Adams, Brown, Clermont, Gallia, Hamilton, Lawrence, Meigs and Scioto counties.
Here’s where to check
Recommendations change throughout the year, but you can keep up by visiting the Ohio Department of Health’s Sport Fish Consumption Advisory page, which provides updated information on when certain fish, usually bottom feeders such as carp, are deemed too dangerous to eat at all.
Here’s who should take a pass on Ohio River fish
The agency also warns that people who are more likely to have health effects from eating contaminated fish, includingchildren younger than 15 years old, pregnant women and women who are planning to become pregnant to avoid Ohio River fish altogether.
Just because you have to limit the amount of fish you eat, doesn’t mean the river is a bad place for fishing, as long as you limit your intake or do catch-and-release fishing. Just make sure you have a proper fishing license before casting your line.
Have a question for Just Askin’? Email us.
The Just Askin’ series aims to answer the questions that no one seems to have an answer for, except maybe Google.
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It isn’t over until it’s over. That’s the case for both the UCLA Bruins football program recruiting and for quarterback Brady Edmunds. Edmunds is currently committed to head to Ohio State but he took a visit from UCLA offensive coordinator Dean Kennedy earlier this week.
Kennedy met Edmunds on Thursday despite the fact that the quarterback has been committed to the Buckeyes since December of 2024 but could the UCLA Bruins be making a run at flipping the quarterback?
Edmunds has only had an official visit with Ohio State but could UCLA heave a heat check on the 6’5” quarterback? New UCLA head coach Bob Chesney is off to an unbelievable start to his recruiting with the Bruins and flipping a recruit of Edmunds’ caliber would be his most impressive move yet.
247 Sports has Edmunds as the No. 16 quarterback in the class, which would give UCLA a clear predecessor for Nico Iamaleava whenever the Bruins current starting quarterback decides to head to the professional level.
It’d be a full circle moment for the Bruins, as Edmunds was originally recruited to Ohio State by former UCLA head coach Chip Kelly, who bailed on UCLA to go run the Buckeyes offense. Ohio State is a great spot for a developing quarterback, as the Buckeyes produce tons of NFL talent, especially at the wide receiver position, which would help Edmunds put up some gaudy numbers in Columbus.
Chesney and the Bruins have geography on their side, Edmunds attends Huntington Beach High School in Southern California, which could potentially become a factor if Edmunds views UCLA as a program on the rise that’d be much closer to his friends and family than out in Ohio.
Time will tell if Kennedy’s visit will make a difference but UCLA’s recruiting has made waves in the first offseason under Chesney and the new regime.
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