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On the Road to Sochi
Current Bowling Green hockey skater Ralfs Freibergs will travel to the 2014 Winter Olympics as a member of the Latvian squad. The nation will bring 42 men to Sochi, Russia, on its roster for the games which begin next month. The left-handed sophomore defensemen from Riga, Latvia, leads the BGSU back line in points with 16 (one goal, 15 assists) this season, in 24 appearances.
This isn't the first time Freiburgs has received the international call up. This past year he participated in the 2013 International Ice Hockey Federation World Championships, where Latvia went 2-4-1. He played in each of Latvia's games, and had an assist with three shoots on target.
Hello, Cyclones
Toledo running backs coach Louis Ayeni has left the Rockets for Iowa State, where he will have the same job. In all four seasons with Toledo, Ayeni had a running back rush for 1,000 years, most recently David Fluellen. He is the third coach to leave the Rockets this postseason, with defensive coordinator Tom Matukewizc becoming the head coach at Southeast Missouri State and taking Bryce Saia, the safeties coach, with him. Ayeni was also the associate head coach.
Now What?
While the rest of the big-time college football juggernauts parade around rejoicing in the demise of the Bowl Championship Series (BCS), the Mid-American Conference might be a little worried. Sure, everyone wanted to see the top two teams in the country battle it out, and if that means a four-team playoff will be more accurate, so be it. But for teams like Northern Illinois, Boise State and Texas Christian (TCU), opportunities to play some of the best teams in the country are disappearing.
The MAC should thank the BCS system, for putting its golden boys (NIU) in the 2012 Orange Bowl. The real "David and Goliath" match ups will no longer be there when the postseason rolls around in late 2014, early 2015. And if they somehow are, they won't be in high stakes BCS bowl games. Sayonara future games that have the same "mismatch" as Boise State-Oklahoma for the 2007 Fiesta Bowl, or the 2011 Rose Bowl with TCU and Wisconsin.
Brainiacs
Miami might not have excelled on the playing field this season, but it did in the classroom. The university's athletic department announced Monday that their student-athletes tied for their highest cumulative GPA ever: 3.23. The mark matches their overall GPA during the spring semester in 2013. This was the seventh-straight semester of academic improvement, beginning in the fall of 2010.
Of the 522 student-athletes, 345 had GPAs above the 3.0 line, including 33 with a 4.0. Women's cross-country runners were the smartest RedHawks, finishing the semester with an average of 3.66. If the football team is doing well in class, maybe that makes up for being voted the worst program in the country?
