Monthly Archives: February 2021

🏀 Final weekend schedule set 🏀

BIRMINGHAM, Alabama (February 25, 2021) – The Southeastern Conference announced today the men’s basketball matchups for the final weekend of league play. Six games will be played on Saturday, March 6, and one on Sunday, March 7. When the conference schedule was announced, the weekend of March 6 was left open to allow a window for makeup games.

Five of the games are rescheduled games that were postponed during the course of the season. Two are new games that mirror the site of previous matchups to help balance team’s home and away schedules.

The Alabama at Georgia game on Saturday, March 6, will be at 2:00 p.m. ET and available on CBS. Start times and network designations of all other games that weekend will be announced at a later date.

Saturday, March 6
Alabama at Georgia | CBS | 2:00 pm ET
LSU at Missouri – originally scheduled for January 9 
Mississippi State at Auburn – originally scheduled for February 16
Texas A&M at Arkansas – originally scheduled for February 6
South Carolina at Kentucky – originally scheduled for December 29
Vanderbilt at Ole Miss

Sunday, March 7
Florida at Tennessee – originally scheduled for February 10

Volleyball sweeps Lady Vols !

UF’s balanced offensive attack led to the victory in straight sets

The No. 8 Florida volleyball team won its seventh straight contest after defeating the Tennessee Lady Vols in three sets on Friday afternoon in Thompson-Boling Arena.

The Gators improve to 12-2 in the 2020-21 campaign, while Tennessee falls to 6-6 on the year.

Florida took a tight first set 25-23, then battled in extras to grab the second set 29-27. The Gators held all the momentum in the final set, winning 25-16 to secure the sweep.

UF had an incredibly balanced offensive attack on Friday afternoon, with T’ara Ceasar (12) and Thayer Hall (11) combining for 23 kills.

Lauren Forte posted eight kills of her own on 15 swings, tying her season-best mark. Marlie Monserez followed with a seven-kill performance, a career-high for the junior setter.

Monserez dished out 36 assists as well, averaging 12.00 per set.

The Gators held Tennessee to a .157 clip in the match, notching 11.0 blocks at the net. Lauren Dooley and Holly Carlton led the way with five blocks apiece, while Hall pitched in two.

Freshman libero Elli McKissock led the Gators in the backcourt, registering 19 digs in the match. Monserez followed with 12, while Ceasar added 10 – both securing their fifth double-double of the season.

As a squad, Florida finished with five service aces, including two apiece from Ceasar and Hall.

The Gators return to Exactech Arena for a two-match series with Arkansas beginning on March 5. Both matches will be streamed on the SEC Network +.

Criminalizing Legal Gun Owners

A gun-rights organization said that President Joe Biden’s gun control proposal would potentially make about 105 million law-abiding gun owners into criminals.
“While we can agree that there are several ‘common sense’ and long overdue changes needed to our nation’s gun laws, we firmly believe that the path forward should be focused on supporting and protecting responsible, law-abiding Americans—not criminalizing and punishing them,” the U.S. Concealed Carry Association said in a letter to Biden this week.
The group—which, according to the group’s website, has about 556,000 members—said the president’s push for gun control on the anniversary of the Parkland, Florida mass shooting was needless.
“The U.S. Concealed Carry Association exists to help responsible Americans avoid danger, save lives, and keep their families safe, and we believe that our elected leaders in Washington have an incredible obligation to pursue these same goals,” the group added.
The group noted that in 2020, a significant number of people purchased firearms in the midst of historic riots and the COVID-19 pandemic.
The FBI stated last month that it processed a record 39.7 million firearm background checks in 2020, which bested the previous high of 10 million. Reports said that as many as 8.5 million purchased their first firearm in 2020, according to the National Shooting Sports Foundation. Meanwhile, a number of gun and ammunition manufacturers reported shortages amid the surge in demand.
Biden earlier this month said that he would push Congress to enact more gun control measures, including allowing gun manufacturers to face lawsuits, banning “assault weapons,” and placing bans on high-capacity magazines. His pick for Attorney General, Merrick Garland, told lawmakers on Monday that he would support the White House’s stance on gun control.
“This Administration will not wait for the next mass shooting to heed that call. We will take action to end our epidemic of gun violence and make our schools and communities safer. Today, I am calling on Congress to enact commonsense gun law reforms, including requiring background checks on all gun sales, banning assault weapons and high-capacity magazines, and eliminating immunity for gun manufacturers who knowingly put weapons of war on our streets,” Biden said earlier this month.
Pro-Second Amendment groups have noted that the term “assault weapon” has a nebulous meaning, with some saying that it is a made-up term that was invented by the anti-gun lobby in the 1980s. “Assault rifle” is a term sometimes used by the military to define a rifle that has select-fire capabilities, or the ability to switch between semi-automatic or fully automatic. For example, the much-derided AR-15 doesn’t have select-fire capability and only operates as a semi-automatic rifle.
The U.S. Concealed Carry Association further added that “record numbers of Americans have been purchasing firearms to keep themselves and their loved ones safe,” adding that “women and minorities are now leading the way as the fastest-growing groups of concealed carry permit holders in the country.”
White House officials, furthermore, have said Biden would take on the largest gun-rights group, the National Rifle Association (NRA).
“But I will say that the president is somebody, throughout his career, who has advocated for smart gun, smart gun safety measures,” press secretary Jen Psaki said earlier this month. “He is not afraid of standing up to the NRA – he has done it multiple times.”

The power grab………..no dissent is allowed?

Federal Communications Commissioner Brendan Carr called an effort by House Democrats to pressure cable providers into removing Fox News and other conservative networks a “chilling transgression” of free speech, and asked his colleagues on the commission to denounce the lawmakers.

“By writing letters to the cable providers and other regulated entities that carry these news media outlets, the Democrats are sending a message that is as clear as it is troubling — these regulated entities will pay a price if the targeted newsrooms do not conform to Democrats’ preferred political narratives,” Carr said in a Monday statement. “This is a chilling transgression of the free speech rights that every media outlet in this country enjoys.”

In a Monday letter, California Reps. Anna Eshoo (D) and Jerry McNerney (D) demanded that television providers including AT&T, Verizon, Comcast, Apple, and Amazon say whether they planned to continue providing Fox News on their platforms, in addition to Newsmax and One America News.

“Debate on matters of public interest should be robust, uninhibited and wide open,” Carr said. “More speech is better than less. Yet the concerted effort by Democrats to drive political dissent from the public square represents a marked departure from these First Amendment norms. A newsroom’s decision about what stories to cover and how to frame them should be beyond the reach of any government official, not targeted by them.

“To the House Democrats that used their official letterhead to launch this inquiry, I would say this: Your demand to know the ‘moral principles’ that guide a private entity’s decision about what news to carry cannot be reconciled with bedrock principles of free speech and journalistic freedom,” he added. “I call on my FCC colleagues to join me in publicly denouncing this attempt to stifle political speech and independent news judgment.”

President Joe Biden hasn’t said whether he will appoint Rosenworcel as the agency’s permanent chair, and he has yet to name a commissioner to fill a fifth seat left vacant by former Chairman Ajit Pai’s January departure

🏀 March Madness Update 🏀

This article was originally published by the Indianapolis Star and has been republished in its entirety below. 

The NCAA announced changes to its traditional March Madness schedule and manic Mondays and Tuesdays have been added to the list of must-see TV days to circle on your calendar.

The tournament will begin with the First Four on Thursday, March 18, according to the dates released Tuesday. That allows the NCAA added time for team intake and testing for COVID-19 before games begin.

The first and second rounds will be played on a Friday-Monday schedule, rather than Thursday-Sunday. The Sweet 16 and the Elite Eight will be pushed back two days, to a Saturday-Tuesday window.

But the start and end will remain the same. Selection Sunday is March 14, and the national title will be awarded April 5 at Lucas Oil Stadium.

Eulogy for Rush by Andrew McCarthy

Rush Limbaugh was a warm, wonderful man. I was privileged to call him my friend.

Rush is and will remain an iconic, irreplaceable figure in the conservative movement. He was a great American patriot . . . and, as he would be the first to tell you in his inimitable way, his life was a uniquely American story. As is well known, he revered Bill Buckley and was a great friend of National Review. But I will most remember, and keep in the front of my mind, countless kindnesses great and small, as well as hundreds of conversations over the last 17 years, in which his smarts, humor, and love of our country always overflowed.

It has been awful these last months, knowing he was suffering but trying to carry on, and not being able to do a thing to help him. He was never anything but gracious, though. He never complained even though this awful disease was ravaging him, and he stayed relentlessly upbeat and determined to do the job he so loved. As heartbreaking as today is, I am so thankful for that. Prayers for Kathryn and the Limbaugh family, particularly my friend David, Rush’s beloved brother. Rest in peace.

Malzahn going to UCF?

UCF has offered Gus Malzahn its vacant head football coach position, a source confirmed to Matt Murschel and Mike Bianchi of the Orlando Sentinelon Sunday.

Malzahn spent the past eight seasons as the head coach at Auburn and led the Tigers to a 68-35 overall record during his tenure, highlighted by a BCS national championship game appearance in 2013 and culminating with a 12-2 record on the season. Malzahn was named AP Coach of the Year for his effort.

The Tigers fired the 55-year-old on Dec. 13 after finishing third in the SEC West with a 6-4 record.

Baseball Inaugural Games

The inaugural game at Florida Ballpark at Alfred A. McKethan Field will be telecast live via SEC Network, with the first pitch of No. 1 Florida’s season-opening game against No. 21 Miami set for 3 p.m., Friday, Feb. 19.

First pitch for the Saturday and Sunday games will both be 1 p.m., with live streaming available via SECNetwork + and the ESPN app. All three games will also feature radio broadcasts via ESPN 98.1FM/850AM WRUF.