Boilermusings May 27, 2021

Welcome back to Boilermusings where I take three bits of a story I can’t expand into one full length story and combine them, Vultron style, into one article for the site.

Men of Mackey

If I’m being honest the Men of Mackey TBT team last year was a bit disappointing. They weren’t men of Mackey so much as they were men adjacent to Mackey. Sure there were people like Evan Boudreaux and Isaac Haas but as it got closer to the event more and more players with Purdue connections dropped off and others took their place. Justin Dentmon from the University of Washington played a large role on the team and, no offense to him, I couldn’t pick him out of a lineup. Don’t get me wrong I still watched the games but not with the same excitement as when the original team was announced.

You may recall that PJ Thompson, Ryan Cline, and Grady Eifert were all scheduled to participate but for one reason or another all three backed out prior to opening day. So far the Men of Mackey have announced just two players but they are off to a great start. Lewis Jackson and Evan Boudreaux are the two names that have been announced as of this writing. There are rumors that some very familiar names are in the pipeline including some ^ahem^ BIG names. If you catch my meaning. We will have to wait and see if those rumors are true but for now I’m cautiously optimistic that this TBT will see more men of Mackey play for the Men of Mackey.

Robbie Hummel - Olympic Posterboy

I listen to a lot of podcasts. Like, a lot of podcasts. A lot of them are news and politics but some are comedy and sports. One I listen to is from NBC Sports and highlights stories in the runup to the Olympic games. They did it for the last Olympics and have returned for a second season this year. Recently, they discussed the new sports being added to this year’s Tokyo games. 3x3 basketball is one such sport. Sidenote, apparently they want people to pronounce the X in 3x3 so that’s weird. Anyway, when discussing 3x3 they talked to Robbie Hummel about how he got involved, how the game differs, and what to expect as they ramp up to Tokyo. It was a fascinating interview and you can listen to it here.

This is one of just three appearances in media that Hummel has had recently as the Olympics draw near. There was also an interview/story on him at the Olympics website. This comes on the heels of a story in The Guardian from last month about Hummel. With Hummel’s compelling story of the multiple injuries and coming back from retirement I wouldn’t be surprised to see NBC push this story as we get closer to the games. Hummel’s team is currently playing in a qualifying tournament today.

More NIL

The saga of if the NCAA will have a uniform NIL rule in place continues. Two Democratic Senators, well technically one independent who canvasses with the Democrats (politics is a whole thing) introduced a bill that would effectively kill the NCAA “student-athlete” model and make the universities employers with athlete employees. Senators Bernie Sanders and Chris Murphy introduced legislation today that would change the NCAA landscape forever.

This bill would allow athletes to collectively bargain. It would be a seismic shift. The hope from the NCAA and others was that there would be some sort of national legislation in place by July 1 which is when several other states have NIL laws go into effect. It seems highly unlikely that this piece of legislation, or any other federal NIL legislation, is going anywhere anytime soon. This means we are headed into a world in which the amount of money an athlete can make will vary based on the state they play in. If you like to watch experiments happen in real time you’re in for a real treat.