Sports

Sports  BLUE RAIDERS

Anastasia Hayes

Limited Attendance Allowed During Final MTSU Basketball Games

IN FEBRUARY, MTSU basketball teams will once again have the sound of cheering fans in the stands after Director of Athletics Chris Massaro announced on Jan. 30 that doors would reopen to a limited number of fans at indoor university sporting events. The re-opening of Murphy Center for sporting events will be limited to 10 percent capacity and will initially include only season ticket holders and MTSU students.

Men’s and women’s tennis at the Adams Tennis Complex and volleyball matches at Alumni Memorial Gymnasium will also open to limited capacity.

Men’s and women’s basketball squads will each have four home games in February before their seasons end. The Murphy Center will host a game every Friday and Saturday in February.

THE WOMEN’S TEAM will enter the month at 11–4 on the season. Anastasia Hayes comes into the final month of the season leading the entire nation in scoring, averaging 28.1 points per game.

The sensational junior guard poured in a career-high 42 points as the Lady Raiders won a riveting overtime contest at University of Alabama at Birmingham on Jan. 28. In addition to the eye-popping 42 points, Hayes also had a career-high six 3-pointers (on eight attempts) and tied her career high with six steals, while also dishing out four assists and collecting three rebounds. MTSU needed every one of her points to capture the road win; the team ended up three points ahead of its opponent at the end of overtime.

“I just told our team going into overtime that we were not going to lose this game,” Hayes said.

Earlier in the month, MTSU took a seven-game winning streak into Southern Mississippi, but a Golden Eagle rally snapped the streak. The team got right back to winning, though. MTSU swept rival Western Kentucky in two games at Diddle Arena in Kentucky.

“It feels great to get out of here with two wins,” head women’s basketball coach Rick Insell said. “It’s never easy to win at Diddle Arena so to get two wins in two days is pretty special for our group.”

Contributions from Deja Cage have helped MTSU find its groove as well. As of Jan. 29, Cage had hit 35 3-point field goals on the season and had three games of at least 20 points. Cage transferred last summer to Middle Tennessee from Ole Miss, where she spent the last two seasons after beginning her college career at her hometown school, DePaul in Chicago.

In addition to bringing her sweet shooting stroke to Murfreesboro, Cage also brought her leadership qualities and coolheadedness. In the Lady Raiders’ first taste of C-USA competition this season, a backto-back against FAU, the team found itself trailing by 10 with six minutes left in the fourth quarter. After whittling the lead all the way down, MT took possession with 23 seconds remaining. Anastasia Hayes bled the clock before taking off down the lane, where she was met by a couple of defenders, leaving Cage wide open on a backdoor cut. Cage received the pass and calmly put in a layup with .9 showing on the clock, clinching a 66–64 victory. Six days later in the Blue Raiders’ first of two games at FIU, Cage hit a clutch free throw with 18 seconds left to help secure a 69–65 win.

“It’s been an exciting start to our conference season, for sure,” Cage said.

THE MEN’S TEAM was not able to find the success and consistency the women’s team did in January.

After a tough conference-opening loss to Florida International, MTSU responded in a big way in the second game of that series on Jan. 9. The Blue Raiders got out to a 22-point lead in the first 10 minutes and cruised to a 67—56 victory over FIU.

“To be able to come out of here with a good win, I was really proud of our group,” said following that contest. But the men’s team could not keep up the momentum, and dropped six consecutive games, two apiece against Southern Mississippi, Western Kentucky and UAB. In the first game against UAB, MTSU held a 10-point lead with under 10 minutes to play, but the Blazers erased the deficit and took over with a 29–8 run to close out a 70–59 road win. Still, in the midst of the losses, head coach Nick McDevitt said he was not disappointed in his team’s fight and resiliency.

PHOTO BY STEPHANIE VAN HORN

MTSU MEN’S BASKETBALL UPCOMING SCHEDULE

CHARLOTTE Friday, Feb. 5 Murfreesboro, 6 p.m.

CHARLOTTE Saturday, Feb. 6 Murfreesboro, 4 p.m.

MARSHALL Friday, Feb. 12 Huntington, West Virginia, 5 p.m.

MARSHALL Saturday, Feb. 13 Huntington, West Virginia, 3 p.m.

LOUISIANA TECH Friday, Feb. 19 Murfreesboro, 6 p.m.

LOUISIANA TECH Saturday, Feb. 20 Murfreesboro, 4 p.m.

OLD DOMINION Friday, Feb. 26 Norfolk, Virginia, 6 p.m.

OLD DOMINION Saturday, Feb. 27 Norfolk, Virginia, 6 p.m.

MTSU WOMEN’S BASKETBALL UPCOMING SCHEDULE

CHARLOTTE Friday, Feb. 5 Charlotte, North Carolina, 2 p.m.

CHARLOTTE Saturday, Feb. 6 Charlotte, North Carolina, 1 p.m.

MARSHALL Friday, Feb. 12 Murfreesboro, 6 p.m.

MARSHALL Saturday, Feb. 13 Murfreesboro, 4 p.m.

LOUISIANA TECH Friday, Feb. 19 Ruston, Louisiana, 6:30 p.m.

LOUISIANA TECH Saturday, Feb. 20 Ruston, Louisiana, 4 p.m.

OLD DOMINION Friday, Feb. 26 Murfreesboro, 6 p.m.

OLD DOMINION Saturday, Feb. 27 Murfreesboro, 4 p.m.

TOM BRADY IS BACK IN THE SUPERBOWL

American Sports Fans Eat a Lot, and Biden Allows Student Athletes to Choose Their Gender

THE TRAIN DADDY IS BACK

with sports news, life lessons and politically incorrect talk. All aboard!

Live your life. Smile! Stop letting these “do as I say, not as I do” politicians have a say in how you live it. Screw them and their regulations! It has been a year now of COVID-this-COVID-that, and the mental health concerns of everyone far outweigh however many actual deaths we have had to date. Yeah, I said that.

Sometimes a passionate opinion just smacks! And I hope that one smacked the hell out of you, excuse my language. Many Americans believe this country should be opened now and schools all over this country need to be in class. 2021 is here and it is a chance for us all to be better. And hiding in our homes for another year isn’t the answer!

Let me rant about one more thing before I shoutout the 2020 Tennessee Titans and hit you all with some fun Super Bowl facts. First, just one more controversial topic.

A recent executive order signed by Joe Biden now gives transgender athletes across the country the ability to participate as their identifi ed gender in high school and college.

Joe Biden has now essentially guaranteed the end of fair competition in female athletics. We have gender separation in sports for a reason—that reason being men are faster and stronger than women. If we are okay with transgender athletes competing in sport opposite of their biological sex than we should all just admit the idea of gender separation in sports is pointless, right? I bet more female athletes would fi nally speak out in response to that point. Why? Because there would be little female representation in sports if we canceled gender separation!

How many feminists are too frightened to speak out right now due to cancel culture? I will say I have seen a few high-profi le women in the sports world speak out against this, but not very many. I have no doubt if we allow this to continue, the integrity of female athletics will be destroyed.

Enough of that nonsense. It’s so stupid it’s almost sickening.

This season was a strange one indeed with COVID making its mark upon football. We had games rescheduled, players testing positive and contact tracing that left many superstars sidelined. But the fact is we made it to the end despite the voices of many, pre-season, saying it was irresponsible and impossible. Yet here we are just before the Super Bowl with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers being the fi rst team in the Super Bowl era to play the big game in their home stadium. The Bucs had to win three consecutive road games to get there.

WHO WOULD HAVE THOUGHT Tom Brady, at age 43, would accomplish this? Brady is the GOAT and now the only QB to play in a Super Bowl in three different decades. I see the arguments for Aaron Rodgers or Peyton Manning as the best quarterback to play the game. Nope! Tom Brady gets the nod from me. Longevity, as he enters his tenth Super Bowl and possible seventh ring. That’s GOAT material my friends!

His opponent and the much younger superstar Patrick Mahomes is leading the Kansas City Chiefs to a possible second straight title. If Mahomes can accomplish this, the Chiefs will be the fi rst back-toback champions since Tom’s Patriots did it in 2003–04.

DID YOU KNOW PATRICK MAHOMES’  1.7 million Twitter followers make him the most followed player in this game? In comparison, Donald Trump had near 90 million Twitter followers before big tech decided it was okay to censor free speech and ban Trump.

MY SUPER BOWL PREDICTION? The Chiefs win 34–31 over the Bucs. We will see! Regarding the Super Bowl, 22,000 will be in attendance (30 percent capacity), 14,500 paid fans plus 7,500 vaccinated healthcare workers there as guests. The Weeknd will headline the halftime show. I like a few of his songs, but as far as I’m concerned, it’s a boring halftime show in comparison to past shows and possible other talent available.

Nearly 26 million Americans will legally gamble on this game. Did you know only 20 states in America allow this and, yes, Tennessee recently became one of those 20.

LET’S TALK ABOUT FOOD! The Super Bowl is the second largest food holiday in America, second only to Thanksgiving. Experts say nearly 1.4 billion chicken wings will be eaten on game day. That’s over 100 million pounds. Over half of these chicken eaters say they prefer ranch dressing to dip the tasty chicken in. Only 10 percent of Americans will use their grill in the cold month of February. I am one of those people. We use the grill three times a week every week of the year.

Fans will also consume 12 million slices of pizza and 12 million pounds of potato chips, and nearly 12 million pounds of avocados will be purchased. That goes with four million pounds of pretzels and four million pounds of popcorn. All that salty goodness creates quite a thirst, and America will guzzle close to 325 million gallons of beer on Super Bowl Sunday. That’s enough to fi ll an Olympic-sized pool almost 2,000 times. Up to 60 million cases of beer will be consumed.

By the time the game is done, the average football fan will have eaten almost 2,000 calories; the average me will have eaten nearly 10,000 calories!

A FEW MORE RANDOM FACTS ABOUT THE SUPER BOWL: The average cost of a ticket the past fi ve years has been $5,506 dollars. This will also be the fi rst year in nearly 37 years that

Budweiser won’t air an ad during the game! My brain was like “why?” Call me a cynical person but I found out it was so they could use those marketing dollars to support COVID-19 vaccine awareness! That is a crock of poo and you all know it, but hey, it’s smart PR and everyone will be talking about how Budweiser isn’t just nasty beer that causes liver damage, it’s saving lives with beer money going toward vaccine research.

THANK YOU TITANS! Let me fi nish this article by saying “thank you” to my Tennessee Titans! “All Hail the King!” Welcome to the 2K-plus rushing club, King Henry—a small group indeed. The Titans are now the only team in NFL history with two players—Chris Johnson and Derrick Henry—who have rushed over 2,000 yards in a season. I have a feeling that Henry has a great chance at reaching this milestone again. He is unique in size and speed and still young and hungry enough. Titan up!

The Titans fi nished the season 11–5, fi nally getting that AFC South title. The loss to the Ravens at home in the wildcard round hurt, but all in all, it was a season to be proud of. Let’s be honest—the defense for the 2020 Titans was historically awful. This team would have been in trouble if not for the fact that the offense was a top unit in the NFL in 2020.

As we prepare for next season, I believe we can expect the offense to look similar to how it did 2020 with some changes here and there, depending upon free agency. I really hope Coach Vrabel can get this defense turned around, because as a fan it was agonizing watching them on third downs. Like I said, we were historically awful. And the recent promotion of Shane Bowen to defensive coordinator is impossible to rationalize. He seems like the absolute wrong man for this job. But the fact is Jon Robinson and Coach Vrabel have been winning, and until that changes I will not question their decisions too much. Have faith, Tennessee fans!

So that’s it, let’s wrap this article up! Choo-choo!