Thursday thoughts: OHSAA competitive blance, first-place Flyers; Reds’ Arroyo experiment

Welcome to day two of my as-yet-unnamed daily sports column. If you have any ideas for a cool pithy name like Paul Daugherty’s “The Morning Line” at Cincinnati.com or Todd Jones’ “The Front Row” at Dispatch.com, shoot them this way at marcus.hartman@coxinc.com, on Twitter or Facebook!

In case you missed it, our Marc Pendleton had an interesting look at the potential unintended consequences of new competitive balance measures being implemented by the OHSAA this fall.

There are two takeaways for me: The new formula is very complicated, and this still all might be more trouble than it’s worth.

I also came to the second conclusion while watching previous attempts to make things more fair fail to pass.

RELATED: 7 things to know about the new competitive balance plan

For what it’s worth, I like this attempt better than the proposal that essentially punished teams for winning too much at their own level no matter how they were built and find it far superior to simply splitting up private and public schools.

In theory, evening out a playing field tilted toward private schools and curbing the trend of top players jumping from school to school with alarming frequency makes a lot of sense.

Here’s the thing, though: Life ain’t fair, and it’s hard to avoid punishing kids who change schools for legitimate non-sports reasons (parent’s job change, seeking better educational opportunities, etc.) while doing so.

And while I’m the product of a small public school and prefer to see everyone thrive from whence they came, sometimes that’s not possible. Maybe we shouldn’t be as offended as we are by the run-of-the-mill transfer to be on a better team anyway.

What do you think?…

Both Dayton Flyers basketball teams remain in first place in the Atlantic 10.

While Archie Miller's men's squad shares the top spot in the standings with VCU, Shauna Green's women's team continues to control its destiny in pursuit of a league title after beating Duquesne 66-47 last night.

The Flyer women are a game ahead of Saint Louis and George Washington with two to play. That includes a visit from the Bilikens next Wednesday in the regular season finale. Dayton is at Fordham on Sunday afternoon.

Hey, and don’t forget the Wright State women are still in first place in the Horizon League, too…

👀 That's our 11th in a row and ANOTHER 20-win season for the program! #ThatsWright pic.twitter.com/xeohhbIr2N— WSU Womens Bball (@WSUWBasketball) February 12, 2017

Spring training is underway in Arizona, and I'm among the many looking forward to seeing which young pitchers (Amir Garrett, Robert Stephenson, Cody Reed) can earn a spot in the starting rotation.

But I also can’t help but be intrigued by what Bronson Arroyo might be able to bring to the team on and off the field.

He told Mike Hartsock, "it's really a science project and we're figuring it out as we go," as far as what his surgically repaired right arm can handle.

As our man in Arizona points out: It’s not like the vet has to worry about losing velocity…

What's next for Kyle Schwarber? The Chicago Tribune reports the Middletown native has been medically cleared for catching drills during spring training with the Cubs, but he will continue to focus on playing the outfield.

If this video of Greg Maddux pranking Kris Bryant is any indication, spring training is off to a roaring start for the World Series champs.

Schwarber is the subject of a cool new bobblehead, and so is a newly minted member of the Chaminade Julienne Athletics Hall of Fame

Jeff Heuerman seems to be having a pretty good week.

The former Ohio State tight end who plays for the Denver Broncos shared a video of a helicopter ride over some beautiful scenery in Hawaii.

Doors off and chasing waterfalls for our first helicopter ride

A post shared by Jeff Heuerman (@jheuerman) on

ICYMI: Eight Buckeyes were invited to the NFL Combine.

Will the Bengals use the franchise tag to keep one of their priority free agents? My first thought would be it might not be a bad idea, but Jay Morrison has a good point about why it is probably unlikely…

And finally we have the news that Georges St.-Pierre is "on the verge of signing a new multi-fight contract" with the UFC.

While the proliferation of free fights on broadcast and cable over the last few years has been nice, a dearth of marketable stars has seemed to stall the sport’s growth recently.

Count me in when GSP makes his comeback fight.

I’d love for the sport to get its groove back, and this is a great way to start.

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