Where Kentucky players place in D1Baseball’s Week 12 Rankings
With just two weeks remaining in the 2025 regular reason, four Kentucky players were named in D1Baseball’s Week 12 Player Rankings. Firstly, freshman shortstop Tyler Bell was ranked the highest at his position. In his first season of college baseball in the nation’s premier conference, Bell was ranked as the 17th best overall shortstop and […]
With just two weeks remaining in the 2025 regular reason, four Kentucky players were named in D1Baseball’s Week 12 Player Rankings.
Firstly, freshman shortstop Tyler Bell was ranked the highest at his position. In his first season of college baseball in the nation’s premier conference, Bell was ranked as the 17th best overall shortstop and best freshman shortstop in the country.
Bell, who has played and started in all 45 of Kentucky’s games, is hitting for a .315 batting average with 17 doubles, seven home runs and 42 RBI. He was named SEC Freshman of the Week earlier in the season and hit the second most doubles by a freshman in the country. He made a risky decision by bypassing Major League Baseball to play two seasons at Kentucky, but he is surely making the most of it and is likely increasing his draft stock for the 2026 Draft by the game.
Next, Kentucky had two of its three starting pitchers named among the top 60 starters in the country. Sophomore left-hander Ben Cleaver was ranked at No. 32 and senior right-hander Nic McCay was ranked at No. 59. Kentucky’s Saturday and Sunday starters have excelled this season, boasting a combined 3.49 ERA in 123 2/3 innings of work this season.
Kentucky’s Nic McCay and Ben Cleaver (Photo via UK Athletics)
McCay turned in one of the best starts in Kentucky Baseball history earlier this season, as held No. 4 Tennessee to two hits and no runs with 12 strikeouts in 7 2/3 innings. He was named SEC Pitcher of the Week for his efforts, becoming just the seventh in the Mingione era to win the Award.
Cleaver was stellar this season as well, as his 3.46 ERA ranks 10th in the SEC. He took the sophomore leap in his second season of college baseball and became an extremely reliable start for his team, as the ‘Cats have won in seven of his 12 starts.
Finally, senior outfielder Cole Hage was ranked as the 40th best outfielder in all of college baseball. Although his best play may have come earlier in the season, Hage is still hitting for a .314 average with a team-leading 10 home runs and 33 RBI. Hage, who transferred from Columbia for his final season of eligibility, has been Kentucky’s most effective Transfer Portal pickup.
These four players will be back in action in a must-win series against No. 17 Oklahoma this weekend. First pitch for Friday’s series opener is scheduled for 6:30 p.m. EST at Kentucky Proud Park.
Athletes Unlimited Softball cards launch after MLB partnership
The cards feature Bri Ellis, Sam Landry and Sierra Sacco as the rookie headliners for the first official set. Sport collectors can now collect Athletes Unlimited Softball League trading cards. The cards feature rookies Bri Ellis, Sam Landry and Sierra Sacco as the headliners for the first ever official set. Each card costs $8.99 and has rare variations, […]
The cards feature Bri Ellis, Sam Landry and Sierra Sacco as the rookie headliners for the first official set.
Sport collectors can now collect Athletes Unlimited Softball League trading cards.
The cards feature rookies Bri Ellis, Sam Landry and Sierra Sacco as the headliners for the first ever official set. Each card costs $8.99 and has rare variations, including some with the players’ autographs.
They’re only available for purchase until Saturday, June 14 at 4:30 p.m. ET.
It comes after the Major League Baseball announced it’s investing in Athletes Unlimited to support its softball league that debuted last week. It’s the first comprehensive partnership with a professional women’s sports circuit.
Support includes marketing the AUSL and its athletes during MLB’s All-Star Game and throughout the postseason along with broadcasts on the MLB Network and streams on MLB.TV.
Why were these three picked? Well, Ellis has been coined the “Barry Bonds of Softball,” Sacco belted the first home run in league history, and Landry was the No. 1 overall pick in the AUSL inaugural draft, according to the MLB.
The set also includes special parallel cards, autographs and a card with Jessica Mendoza, Jennie Finch and Natasha Watley with former Miami Marlins general manager and MLB senior vice president Kim Ng.
The AUSL started a four-team league June 7 with the Bandits and Talons opening with a three-game series in Rosemont, Illinois, and the Blaze and Volts a three-game set at Wichita, Kansas. The four teams will play 24 games each, touring to 12 cities, and the top two teams will compete in the best-of-three AUSL Championship from July 26-28 in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. A 21-game AUSL All-Star Cup will follow in August.
A traditional city-based league will start in 2026, when the AUSL plans to expand to six teams, according to AU co-founder Jon Patricof.
MLB already supports several women’s softball and baseball initiatives, including a partnership with USA Softball and operation of the MLB Develops girls baseball pipeline. It is not involved with the Women’s Professional Baseball League, which plans to launch in 2026 as the first pro baseball league for women since the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League — of “A League of Their Own” fame — folded in 1954.
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House v. NCAA settlement reached, revenue sharing arrives in college athletics
Five years after former Arizona State University swimmer Grant House filed a class-action antitrust lawsuit against the NCAA, a settlement has been agreed to, opening up the door for revenue sharing in college sports as they continue to stray further and further away from amateurism. The NCAA and Power Five conferences will also have to […]
Five years after former Arizona State University swimmer Grant House filed a class-action antitrust lawsuit against the NCAA, a settlement has been agreed to, opening up the door for revenue sharing in college sports as they continue to stray further and further away from amateurism.
The NCAA and Power Five conferences will also have to pay close to $2.8 billion in damages to athletes who were unable to receive Name, Image and Likeness deals dating back to 2016. The NCAA is expected to pay this amount over the next 10 years to those who opted into the settlement, with the majority of the funds expected to be distributed to former football and men’s basketball players.
Since NIL became a part of college athletics, athletes needed to go through donors and companies to get paid, but now, schools can pay athletes directly as they see fit.
Of course, schools can’t go around paying every athlete as much as they want. Similar to a salary cap in professional sports, schools can spend approximately $20.5 million across their athletic department, with approximately 90% of it expected to go to football (75%) and men’s basketball (15%), limiting a number of other sports.
The $20.5 million cap shouldn’t affect a lot of schools, as they don’t expect to reach those heights. But, for the power conference schools, more specifically the Big 10 and Southeastern Conference, they will have to divvy up their money a little more carefully.
Overseeing all of this will be the newly founded College Sports Commission. Their goal is to facilitate revenue sharing in college athletics and to make sure all NIL deals made between athletes and third parties align with the current rules, according to their website.
The CSC will be operated by the conferences instead of the NCAA, reducing much of the NCAA’s hold on college sports and shifting it over to the power conferences.
“This is an exciting moment for everyone involved in college sports,” NCAA President Charlie Baker said in a statement. “As the defendant conferences now own several facets of rulemaking and enforcement related to specific settlement areas, the NCAA will be able to move away from certain enforcement activity that, despite the best efforts of many, wasn’t working well. Rather, we will focus on further enhancing what is working: elevating the student-athlete experience and maintaining fair playing rules and eligibility and academic standards.”
Big 12 Commissioner Brett Yormark was excited about this next step in college athletics.
“We’ve been waiting. It’s been a waiting game for us for a long time ,” Yormark said on The Triple Option podcast. “We’re in a better place today as an industry than we’ve been in a long time, and there are guardrails, there are rules of engagement, there’s a new model, and as I often say to my board, my (athletic directors) and anyone that’ll listen, it’s progress over perfection.”
Yormark understands that this new era will come with hiccups along the road, but believes that college sports will be in a better spot than it was before this settlement was reached.
For the Sun Devils, Athletic Director Graham Rossini also seemed prepared and excited for the new athletic environment.
“The Sun Devils are fully ready for the new NCAA landscape,” Rossini said on X, formerly known as Twitter. “There’s never been a better time to be a part of ASU – a proud member of the (Big 12 Conference) – in the heart of America’s (fastest) growing and dynamic metro area – at one of the most innovative universities in the world.”
Edited by Henry Smardo, Leah Mesquita and Ellis Preston.
Reach the reporter at jkmccar2@asu.edu and follow @jackmccarthyasu on X.
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Jack McCarthySports Editor
Jack McCarthy is a senior studying sports journalism with a minor in business. This is his third semester with The State Press. He has also worked as a sports reporter.
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Minnesota women’s coach Dawn Plitzuweit gets 2-year contract extension with raise
Associated Press MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — Minnesota women’s basketball coach Dawn Plitzuweit has received a two-year contract extension that was approved Thursday by the university’s board of regents. Plitzuweit is 47-29 over two seasons at Minnesota, including 13-23 in Big Ten play, with leading scorer Mara Braun missing much of them with foot injuries. The Gophers […]
MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — Minnesota women’s basketball coach Dawn Plitzuweit has received a two-year contract extension that was approved Thursday by the university’s board of regents.
Plitzuweit is 47-29 over two seasons at Minnesota, including 13-23 in Big Ten play, with leading scorer Mara Braun missing much of them with foot injuries. The Gophers capped Plitzuweit’s second year by winning the WBIT championship. They have not appeared in the NCAA Tournament since 2018.
The new deal, which covers the next six seasons through 2031, gives Plitzuweit a raise of roughly 7% to bring her base salary to $900,000 for 2025-26, according to the Minnesota Star Tribune, with annual increases of $30,000. That’s in the middle of the pack in the 18-team Big Ten, which sent 12 of them to the NCAA Tournament this year.
Plitzuweit was hired away from West Virginia, where she spent one season, to replace Lindsay Whalen. Plitzuweit is the 13th head coach in the program’s history.
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Urban Meyer Names College Football Teams Who Will Become A ‘Feeder System’
The House v. NCAA settlement has finally been approved by Judge Claudia Wilken, marking the start of the revenue-sharing era in college football. One of the biggest changes after the settlement was the creation of the College Sports Commission, which will be responsible for enforcement. The commission named former MLB executive Bryan Seeley as the […]
The House v. NCAA settlement has finally been approved by Judge Claudia Wilken, marking the start of the revenue-sharing era in college football. One of the biggest changes after the settlement was the creation of the College Sports Commission, which will be responsible for enforcement.
The commission named former MLB executive Bryan Seeley as the CEO after the settlement was approved. Despite the goal of this new commission, former Ohio State head coach Urban Meyer offered a bleak outlook for Group of Five programs in this new age of college football.
Meyer stated that mid-major schools would ultimately become a feeder league to the top schools in the sport, a trend we have seen since the new transfer portal rules were passed a few seasons ago.
Former Ohio State, Florida head coach Urban Meyer / Brett Davis-Imagn Images
“They become a feeder system for the big boys,” Meyer said. “It’s still beautiful football. The MAC, I coached there for two years, it’s fantastic because everybody had the same players. So it was really a coach’s league. Some leagues you have the best teams are so much better than the other teams. But what happens? The reality is you’re going to develop a player and he’s going to leave.”
As he noted, Meyer began his head coaching career at the Group of Five level with Bowling Green in 2001. He was 17-6 over his two seasons before accepting the same role at Utah, where he led the Utes to an undefeated season in 2004.
His early coaching success led to his national championship runs as the head coach at Florida and Ohio State. He finished his career with an 187-32 overall record, winning three national titles and seven conference championships. Meyer was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame in 2025.
This would be nothing new for the Group of Five programs, which lose talent each season to the transfer portal. The issue extends to the FCS level, where multiple All-American and All-Conference players transfer up to the FBS level each year.
One perfect example is former Tulane quarterback Darian Mensah, who made headlines this offseason with his transfer to Duke. He will reportedly receive $8 million over the next two seasons, which would make him the highest-paid player in college football.
