“Never underestimate the NCAA’s capacity to do something stupid. If they did this, it would be profoundly stupid" -- ESPN’s Jay Bilas, on potential expansion of the NCAA Tournament ("College GameDay," ESPN, 2/24).
"I think this will be one more brick in the wall that is the end of the NCAA" -- College athletics attorney Tom Mars, on a Friday ruling by a federal judge in Tennessee that prohibits the NCAA from enforcing its NIL rules. Mars worked with Univ. of Tennessee collective Spyre Sports Group on the case (ESPN.com, 2/23).
“There’s more pressure on all of us. Look at me. I mean, look at the bags under my eyes. There’s pressure on all of us, man. We’re feeling it, and that’s a good thing. We deserve to feel it. That’s going to make us stronger this year" -- Yankees owner Hal Steinbrenner, on the pressure facing the team this season (N.Y. DAILY NEWS, 2/23).
“Just trying to get my way off the court, and you know, you’ve got these crazy college students just doing whatever they want. It’s got to be a little more protective when things like that happen" -- Duke C Kyle Filipowski, on colliding with a Wake Forest fan rushing the court after the team beat Duke on Saturday. Duke coach Jon Scheyer also questioned the future of court storming: "When are we going to ban court-storming? Like, when are we going to ban that? How many times does a player have to get into something where they get punched or they get pushed or they get taunted right in their face? It’s a dangerous thing" (AP, 2/24).
"Our mission was to unify women's hockey. Bottom line is, we couldn't pull it off ... we did not succeed in healing that division, so we made the very difficult decision last summer to sell the league to a group of owners who brought with them, not only the next tier of capital, but they brought with them the ability to unite women's hockey" -- John Boynton, who was the chair of the now defunct Premier Hockey Federation, on the unity of women's hockey under the PWHL (THE HOCKEY NEWS, 2/23).
