\n Welcome to the Skull Session. <\/p>\n
\n\t2026 has belonged to The Styles Family<\/a>.\n<\/p>\n \n\t\tEddie George has added Lorenzo Styles Sr. to his Bowling Green staff as a senior analyst for the defensive line. https:\/\/t.co\/NVH3RDJxWg<\/a>\n\t<\/p>\n \t\u2014 Eleven Warriors (@11W) March 17, 2026<\/a><\/p>\n \n\tCongratulations to Lorenzo Sr. on his new gig!\n<\/p>\n \n\tHave a good Wednesday.\n<\/p>\n \n\t\u00a0THE CIRCLE OF CHAMPIONS! Two former Ohio State All-American left tackles are set to be inducted into the OHSAA Circle of Champions<\/a> on Saturday.\n<\/p>\n \n\tThe Ohio High School Athletic Association announced Tuesday that Orlando Pace and Paris Johnson Jr. are among five Ohio standouts selected for the 2026 class. They will join former Ohio State women\u2019s basketball star Frani Washington \u2014 the program\u2019s first All-American \u2014 along with former Notre Dame quarterback Brady Quinn and longtime official Dr. Dennis Morris.\n<\/p>\n \n\tHere\u2019s what the OHSAA wrote about their selections of Pace, Johnson and Washington:\n<\/p>\n \tOrlando Pace<\/p>\n \n\t\tPace was a basketball and football standout at Sandusky High School before beginning an accomplished football career as an offensive tackle at Ohio State, where he was a two-time unanimous All-American, a two-time winner of the Lombardi Award, won the Outland Trophy and finished fourth in the Heisman Trophy voting. He was named the 1996 Big Ten Player of the Year.\u00a0 The No. 1 pick in the 1997 NFL Draft, Pace played 13 years in the NFL with the Rams and Bears. He was a seven-time Pro Bowl and five-time all-Pro selection and helped the Rams win the Super Bowl after the 1999 season and make another appearance two years later. He was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 2016.\n\t<\/p>\n \tParis Johnson Jr.<\/p>\n \n\t\tJohnson Jr. is a Cincinnati native who graduated from Princeton High School in 2019 and was twice named a first team all-Ohio offensive tackle. He attended Ohio State, where he started as a freshman in the National Championship Game against Alabama in the COVID-shortened 2020 season, and then started every game as a sophomore and junior and was named All-Big Ten and was a unanimous All-American as a left tackle as a junior. Selected sixth in the first round of the NFL draft by Arizona in 2023, Johnson has started 43 games with the Cardinals, the last two years at left tackle.\n\t<\/p>\n \tFrani Washington<\/p>\n \n\t\tWashington was a pioneer in girls sports in the 1970s. A three-sport star at Toledo Woodward High School, she was first team All-Ohio in basketball as a senior and was named the Toledo City League Player-of-the-Year. As a junior, Washington competed in the first OHSAA girls state track & field tournament and was on state championship and state runner-up relay teams, and she led the Polar Bears to the first-ever OHSAA big-school girls state basketball championship in 1976. Washington went on to play basketball at Ohio State and helped the Buckeyes win the Big Ten championship in 1978 and became the school\u2019s first All-American in women\u2019s basketball a year later. She resides in her hometown of Toledo.\n\t<\/p>\n \n\tYou\u2019re telling me the OSHAA is just now placing Pace and Washington in its Circle of Champions?!\n<\/p>\n \n\tThat\u2019s insane!\n<\/p>\n \n\tNevertheless, the OHSAA will honor Pace, Johnson, Washington, Quinn and Morris at 4:15 p.m. on Saturday during the Division VII final at Dayton\u2019s UD Arena.\n<\/p>\n \n\t\u00a0THREAT LEVEL: LOW. Eleven Warriors contributor Johnny Ginter\u2019s retired Threat Level: Michigan<\/a> featured a tier titled \u201cLow: Donovan Edwards Revolutionizing the Running Back Position\u201d in 2024. If Threat Level returned in 2026, the tier would be \u201cLow: Bryce Underwood Revolutionizing the Quarterback Position.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \n\tRevolutionize is what new Michigan head coach Kyle Whittingham wants to do to Underwood this offseason. I\u2019m not convinced he will. Will he get better? Certainly. The Wolverines didn\u2019t have a quarterbacks coach last season. But will Underwood evolve into some sort of World Beater? Naaaaaahhh.\n<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cIt was very obvious that Bryce is a mega-talent,\u201d Whittingham told ESPN\u2019s Heather Dinich<\/a> this week. \u201cHe\u2019s got so much ability, but he\u2019s raw \u2014 as you would expect for an 18-year-old starting quarterback at a Power 4 school to be. He was not a completely finished product, and that\u2019s our job now to turn him into that.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \n\tWhile Underwood excelled with his legs last season \u2014 he ran for 392 yards and six scores \u2014 he struggled when teams made him\u2026 play quarterback. Underwood completed 60.3% of his passes for 2,428 yards, 11 touchdowns and nine interceptions in year one as Michigan\u2019s passing offense ranked No. 127 nationally.\n<\/p>\n \n\tWhittingham said offensive coordinator Jason Beck and quarterbacks coach Koy Detmer Jr. will improve those numbers.\n<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cIt\u2019s kind of a tag team approach with those two,\u201d Whittingham said. \u201cIt\u2019s just polishing up some things with Bryce, footwork things, some throwing motion nuances, and obviously teaching the scheme\u2026\u201d\n<\/p>\n \n\tYou know, basic quarterback stuff.\n<\/p>\n \n\t\u201c… Fortunately \u2014 and it\u2019s one of the things that makes Jason such an outstanding coordinator, particularly in this day and age \u2014 he\u2019s got a very user-friendly offense with not a steep learning curve\u2026\u201d\n<\/p>\n \n\tThat will certainly work against Matt Patricia!\n<\/p>\n \n\t**blows raspberry**\n<\/p>\n \n\tOn Underwood, Whittingham added, \u201cHe\u2019s got the right mentality, the right work ethic. He\u2019s willing, he\u2019s hungry \u2014 as is the whole team. That was one of the things that was really positive when I got there \u2014 the willingness of this team and the hunger they had for structure and discipline and being pushed hard. We pushed it pretty hard this winter conditioning, and they answered the bell to everything we threw at them.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \n\tBut will they answer the bell on Nov. 28 in Columbus?\n<\/p>\n \n\tI don\u2019t think so!\n<\/p>\n \n\t\u00a0MOTHER OF PEARL. How do Eleven Warriors readers feel about Bruce Pearl? I\u2019ll assume the answer is not kind to the 65-year-old. Though, as The Athletic\u2019s Will Leitch<\/a> will explain, it shouldn\u2019t be.\n<\/p>\n \n\tLeitch penned a column this week targeted at Pearl, who Leitch \u2014 and many others, including me \u2014 believes ruined most of the NCAA Selection Show as he shilled for 17-16 Auburn to make the NCAA Tournament over 31-1 Miami (OH).\n<\/p>\n \n\tBut let\u2019s rewind a moment.\n<\/p>\n \n\tIn February, Pearl told the best outlet in the business, Barstool Sports, that the RedHawks didn\u2019t belong in the NCAA Tournament field because \u201cthey\u2019re not built for the grind of a Big Ten or even a Big East.\u201d He claimed Miami would finish near the bottom of the Big East, alongside Marquette and Chris Holtmann\u2019s DePaul (which actually finished sixth in the conference; credit to Holtmann).\n<\/p>\n \n\tLater, Pearl told The Athletic that he believed Miami deserved a bid as a one-loss team, though he did not view the Redhawks as one of the 37 best teams up for an at-large bid.\n<\/p>\n \n\tNow, let\u2019s return to Leitch\u2019s article, which informed me \u2014 someone who knows Pearl from his time at Tennessee and Auburn more than his stints at Stanford (assistant), Iowa (assistant), Southern Indiana and Milwaukee \u2014 that Pearl has never been a stand-up coach or individual.\n<\/p>\n \n\t\tWho should be in the tournament [over Miami]? Could Pearl possibly interest you in Auburn? That\u2019s the school he not only coached for a decade but also set up for his son to coach when he left. He is still getting paid by Auburn while offering his takes. The number of conflicts of interest for Pearl here bends toward the infinite. It would have been a disaster for the overall health of the sport if a 17-16 Auburn had gotten in over a one-loss (or zero losses, which is how many the RedHawks had when Pearl made his comments) Miami. But if we know anything about Pearl, we know that his concern is never an \u201coverall\u201d anything: His concern is always Bruce Pearl getting what Bruce Pearl wants. It is, in fact, his signature trait.\n\t<\/p>\n \n\t\tAs someone who grew up an Illinois basketball fan in the 1990s, I\u2019ve been trying to solve the Pearl riddle for most of my life, from all the way back when he was an assistant coach for Iowa, where, frustrated that he was unable to land prized recruit Deon Thomas (who is now 55 years old), he doctored allegations in such a venal, chaotic way that it ruined several people\u2019s lives and careers for decades, including his own. (The definitive account of the Bruce Pearl-Deon Thomas fiasco was reported by Daniel Libit at Deadspin more than a decade ago; the scandal led to Pearl being cast out of the sport for nearly a decade before clawing his way back from Southern Indiana and Wisconsin-Milwaukee to Tennessee and ultimately Auburn.)\n\t<\/p>\n \n\t\tWhat I couldn\u2019t understand about Pearl, for years, was how cheerfully shameless he was. No matter what happened to him, no matter what he was caught doing, Pearl always, always doubled down. He always assumed it would all work out for him.\n\t<\/p>\n \n\t\t…\n\t<\/p>\n \n\t\tPearl knew that he didn\u2019t need to hide his deeds from the world. He just needed the world to catch up with him \u2014 to realize that pretending there was some sort of society that held us all together was a chump\u2019s game. Pearl broke every rule. But he was smart enough to realize the world was starting, it turned out, not to care about rules anymore. Nobody checks for speeding anymore. Nobody cares!\n\t<\/p>\n \n\t\tAnd it worked. It all worked. We spent two weeks having exhausting debates about Miami vs. Auburn, the RedHawks ended up (absurdly) being almost the last team in the tournament and, most importantly, we were all talking about Pearl. And there he was again, the main character on the studio show, the biggest moment in college basketball. How Pearl would react to Auburn not making the tournament became the primary storyline of the show, to the point that Clark Kellogg, Seth Davis and Adam Zucker referenced it throughout the broadcast, culminating in Pearl, in a moment that was indeed ripe with potential tension, at last breaking down the bubble that had just popped for his son\u2019s (and his) team.\n\t<\/p>\n \n\t\tPearl played the magnanimous card, defending the Tigers\u2019 resume but laying off the RedHawks and playing the disappointed dad. He will remain at the center of the conversation and the sport. The man who was kicked out of his sport for lying to the NCAA, who was banished to the Division II wilderness for setting up an 18-year-old kid because he lost a recruiting battle, who was fired from one SEC job for breaking rules just to hop to another one when they decided all they cared about was winning, is now the face of the college basketball.\n\t<\/p>\n \n\t\tIt has been quite the journey. For Pearl, and for all of us.\n\t<\/p>\n \n\tLeitch\u2019s column title? On Selection Sunday\u2019s biggest stage, Bruce Pearl loses and college basketball wins.\n<\/p>\n \n\tThat\u2019s cold.\n<\/p>\n \n\tGet this man off the same screen as Clark Kellogg and give me back Jay Wright!\n<\/p>\n \n\t\u00a0A MUCH BETTER BRUCE. I don\u2019t think we talked enough about Bruce Thornton\u2019s reaction to Ohio State being selected as a No. 8 seed in the NCAA Tournament. The video the Buckeyes\u2019 X account posted on Sunday was so good.\n<\/p>\n \n\t\tGREENVILLE BOUND. Lets get it. #GoBucks<\/a> | #FightToTheEnd<\/a> pic.twitter.com\/k1xXufrvZ7<\/a>\n\t<\/p>\n \t\u2014 Ohio State Hoops (@OhioStateHoops) March 15, 2026<\/a><\/p>\n \n\tAlso on Sunday, CBS Sports\u2019 Mackenzie Brooks <\/a>called Ohio State her \u201cCinderella\u201d pick in the East Region.\n<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cThis is a team with a really high ceiling but a really low floor,\u201d Brooks said. \u201cThey could be out of there in the Round of 32, but again, they do have a chance to make it to the Elite Eight, give the matchups they have.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \n\tThose matchups include No. 9 seed TCU, No. 1 seed Duke and either No. 4 seed Kansas or No. 5 seed St. John\u2019s.\n<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cDuke is a really vulnerable team right now,\u201d Brooks said. \u201cIt is not impossible to think that (Ohio State could beat Duke), and we have (the Buckeyes) favored against St. John\u2019s, so take that for what you will.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \n\tAccording to CBS Sports, Ohio State has an 11% chance to reach the Elite Eight this year. According to me, that 11% depends entirely on which version of Thornton shows up in Greenville, South Carolina, this weekend.\n<\/p>\n \n\t\u00a0MASH MADNESS.\u00a0You could watch Ohio State\u00a0play TCU\u00a0at High Bank Distillery during the Mash Madness: Barrel Room Bash<\/a>.\n<\/p>\n \n\tFor $35 per day or $60 for both days, you\u2019ll get wall-to-wall basketball, an all-you-can-eat game-day feast and access to one of the best atmospheres in Columbus to sweat out every buzzer-beater. We\u2019re turning the barrel room into the ultimate hangout \u2014 massive screens, nonstop action from the first tip to the final buzzer and the kind of electric energy that only March can bring.\n<\/p>\n \n\tCome hungry and stay all day. High Bank is serving up a full spread of nachos, wings, hot dogs, salads and more \u2014 the comfort food you need to power through overtime thrillers and bracket chaos (drinks sold separately). Sip your way through the madness with craft cocktails, whiskey pours, buckets of beer and more available at the bar, and don\u2019t miss the limited-release Mash Madness Cigar Cask Blend while you\u2019re there.\n<\/p>\n \n\tWe\u2019ll also have raffle items and prizes throughout the event benefiting the Mid-Ohio Food Collective<\/a>, so you can enjoy the games while supporting a great cause in the community. Bring your crew. Rep your team. Cheer loud!\n<\/p>\n \n\t\u00a0SONG OF THE DAY.\u00a0“Mariner Boy” – Amble.\n<\/p>\n \n\t\u00a0CUT TO THE CHASE.\u00a0Venezuela stuns the field, upsets U.S. for its first WBC Championship<\/a>…\u00a0What if the bar came to you on St. Patrick\u2019s Day? These mini Irish pubs made it a reality<\/a>…\u00a0Live Nation ticketing worker regrets calling customers stupid, he says at antitrust trial<\/a>…\u00a0CBS Sports and TNT Sports deliver the most-watched NCAA men’s basketball selection show in 12 years<\/a>…\u00a0Charles Barkley, Dick Vitale give the NCAA Tournament First Four some needed star power<\/a>.\n<\/p>\n