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Four-letter word
"I say too many four-letter words, but there's none worse than P-I-T-T."
-- West Virginia football coach Rich Rodriquez
Ohio may be leaving MAC
ATHENS -- Changes are coming to the Mid-American Conference.
After Northern Illinois is leaving to join the Mountain West as a football-only member in 2026, Ohio University is reportedly in prelimary talks to join the Sun Belt Conference. Ohio has been a member of the MAC since its founding in 1946.
Toledo was being sought out by the Mountain West football, but the Rockets stayed in the MAC.
The Sun Belt also has been talking with Louisiana Tech and Western Kentucky, who are members of Conference USA.
All-Star Game umpires
NEW YORK (AP) -- Dan Iassogna will be the umpire crew chief and work the plate during Tuesday night's All-Star Game at Atlanta's Truist Park.
His crew will include Marvin Hudson at first, Chris Segal at second, Jansen Visconti at third, Jeremie Rehak in left and Erich Bacchus in right, Major League Baseball said Thursday.
Iassogna, 56, will work his second All-Star Game. He was at third base for the 2011 game at Arizona.
He worked his first big league game in 1999, was hired to the major league staff in 2004 and appointed a crew chief ahead of the 2020 season. Iassogna umpired the World Series in 2012, '17 and '22 along with eight League Championship Series and seven Division Series.
Segal, Visconti, Rehak and Bacchus will work their first All-Star Games and Hudson his second after being in left field in 2004 at Houston.
Tony Randazzo will be the replay umpire in New York.
Ohio State recruit goes south
UPPER ARLINGTON -- Upper Arlington senior Alex Smith, an Ohio State University men's basketball commit, announced on social media Tuesday he will play his final high school season at Prolific Prep in Florida.
Smith, a 6-foot-9 power forward, averaged averaged 19.8 points, 6.3 rebounds, 2.0 assists and 1.7 blocks as junior in leading the Golden Bears to a 14-10 record and a Division I district title.
He committed to Ohio State last August.
March Madness could expand to 76 teams
(AP) -- The committees for men's and women's Division I basketball met this week to discuss possible expansion of the March Madness tournaments, but made no immediate decisions or recommendations.
"The still viable outcomes include the tournaments remaining at 68 teams or expanding the fields to either 72 or 76 teams in advance of the 2026 or 2027 championships," Dan Gavitt, the NCAA senior vice president of basketball, said in a statement Thursday.
The idea of expanding the tournament picked up steam in the spring when NCAA President Charlie Baker said it could add value and that he'd like to see the issue resolved in the next few months.
He said the NCAA has had "good conversations" with TV partners CBS and Warner Bros., whose deal runs through 2032 at the cost of around $1.1 billion a year. Baker also mentioned increasingly difficult logistics involved with adding teams to what is now known as the "First Four" -- a series of four games played on Tuesday and Wednesday of the first week to place four teams into the 64-team bracket.
Though there has been no concrete plan for how expansion would work, speculation has centered on bringing more at-large teams, likely from major conferences, into the 64-team bracket. Such a move that would come at the expense of champions of lower-level conferences.
Currently, two of the First Four games involve 16 seeds -- teams that automatically qualify by winning lower-ranked conferences -- while two more involve at-large teams often seeded 11 or 12. For instance, in 2021, UCLA made the Final Four as an 11 seed that also played in the First Four.
"I don't accept that that model just continues in the future," Southeastern Conference commissioner Greg Sankey said at league meetings in May.
Any recommendation for expansion would have to be approved by the NCAA's Division I board, which next meets in August.
Penguins trade for Dumba
DALLAS (AP) -- The Stars traded Matt Dumba to Pittsburgh in a swap of defensemen Thursday, with Dallas getting Vladislav Kolyachonok while sending a 2028 second-round pick to the Penguins.
Dumba never had an impact after signing a $7.5 million, two-year contract in free agency last year. He was a healthy scratch for all 18 playoff games as the Stars lost in the Western Conference final for the third consecutive year.
The 30-year-old Dumba had one goal and nine assists in 63 games during the regular season. It was the fewest goals for Dumba since scoring one in 13 games as a rookie with Minnesota in 2013-14.