Mississippi Today
Can State make a run in the NCAA Tournament? Yes, but the Bulldogs must hit their freebies
The Answer Man returns with all the answers to questions readers are asking about March Madness.
Q. What do you think about Mississippi State's chances in the NCAA Tournament?
A. The Bulldogs could make a run, and I say this for a couple reasons. In the NCAA Tournament, every game is on the road and defense travels. Under Chris Jans, State plays excellent defense. The Bulldogs guard. They protect the rim. That will serve them well. The Bulldogs led the SEC in steals. They were third in defensive field goal percentage. They were first in three-point defense. Those are all reasons why they were 8-1 in neutral site games this season. Secondly, basketball's postseason is all about playing your best in March – peaking, as the announcers put it. State played really well in the SEC Tournament, beating LSU and and fifth-ranked Tennessee both by double digits before losing a close one in the semifinals to No. 12 Auburn.
Q. What about the first round matchup with Michigan State?
A. As with most 8 and 9-seed games, it's a virtual toss-up. Michigan State is a slight favorite, but I think State should be favored. Michigan State lost four of its last five regular season games and split two games in the Big 10 Tournament at Minneapolis. Give Michigan State a huge edge in NCAA Tournament familiarity. Under Tom Izzo, the Spartans are March Madness regulars. Michigan State has played in 26 consecutive NCAA Tournaments, the nation's longest active streak and the third longest in history. That's probably why the Spartans are favored.
Q. If I am a State fan, what should I worry about most?
A. That's an easy one: free throw shooting. In the Big Dance, free throws often decide the outcome. And, for State, free throws have been anything but free. State was last in the SEC, and it wasn't close with the Bulldogs hitting only 67%. That won't cut it in the mid-to-late March. If you are into worrying, here's a bigger reason to fret: Should No. 1 seed North Carolina advance, as expected, that's the next opponent for the Mississippi State-Michigan State winner. In Charlotte, that would be almost like a home game for the Tar Heels.
Q. Should I be worried about 19-year-old freshman Josh Hubbard, State's leading scorer and recent winner of the Howell Trophy, playing for the first time under the bright lights of the NCAA Tournament?
A. Honestly, that would be the least of my worries. From what I can tell, Josh Hubbard is fearless. He can't wait.
Q. It has been 28 years since Mississippi State became the only Magnolia State team to make it to the Final Four of the men's tournament. Could it happen again?
A. The odds are definitely against it. In '96, from mid-February forward, Richard Williams' Bulldogs were as consistently as good as anyone in the country, including eventual national champion Kentucky. This State teams has not been nearly as consistent in February and March. As good as these Bulldogs are defensively, they do not have the inside defensive force that Erick Dampier provided 28 years ago. Plus, the free throw thing is really worrisome. It's possible, not likely. The Vegas odds are 150 to 1 against State winning it all 33 to 1 against State making The Final Four.
Q. Let's switch to the women. Ole Miss and Jackson State are both dancing. What are their chances?
A. The Women's NCAA Tournament is so much more top-heavy than the men. In reality, there are probably 20 men's teams that could get hot at the right time and win it all. In the women's tournament, I would take South Carolina, LSU and UConn, give you the rest of the field and give you odds. South Carolina is far and away the betting favorite and should be. Jackson State is a 33.5-point underdog to UConn in the first round. Coach Tomekia Reed's team has little chance at all to advance, especially since it's a home game for UConn. This should not take away from what Reed's team has achieved, which is much. The Tigers went 18-0 (9-0 on the road) in the SWAC. They were perfect. That's a heckuva feat.
Q. What about Iowa and Caitlin Clark?
A. Win or lose, Clark will surely make the NCAA Women's Tournament TV ratings the highest in history. She has elevated the sport. All eyes are on Clark, but Iowa's team just isn't as athletic as the teams it must eventually beat to win it all. I'm talking about South Carolina, LSU and UConn, South Carolina especially.
Q. So, who you got to win the titles?
A. The UConn men and the South Carolina women. Yes, both are the betting favorites. There's good reason for that. But if you're looking for a darkhorse, take the Auburn men. The championship odds are 18-to-1 against the Tigers who have won six straight, seven of eight and 11 of their last 14. They are blistering hot at the right time.
This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
Mississippi Today
Medical residents are increasingly avoiding states with abortion restrictions
Isabella Rosario Blum was wrapping up medical school and considering residency programs to become a family practice physician when she got some frank advice: If she wanted to be trained to provide abortions, she shouldn't stay in Arizona.
Blum turned to programs mostly in states where abortion access — and, by extension, abortion training — is likely to remain protected, like California, Colorado, and New Mexico. Arizona has enacted a law banning most abortions after 15 weeks.
“I would really like to have all the training possible,” she said, “so of course that would have still been a limitation.”
In June, she will start her residency at Swedish Cherry Hill hospital in Seattle.
According to new statistics from the Association of American Medical Colleges, for the second year in a row, students graduating from U.S. medical schools were less likely to apply this year for residency positions in states with abortion bans and other significant abortion restrictions.
Since the Supreme Court in 2022 overturned the constitutional right to an abortion, state fights over abortion access have created plenty of uncertainty for pregnant patients and their doctors. But that uncertainty has also bled into the world of medical education, forcing some new doctors to factor state abortion laws into their decisions about where to begin their careers.
Fourteen states, primarily in the Midwest and South, have banned nearly all abortions. The new analysis by the AAMC — a preliminary copy of which was exclusively reviewed by KFF Health News before its public release — found that the number of applicants to residency programs in states with near-total abortion bans declined by 4.2%, compared with a 0.6% drop in states where abortion remains legal.
Notably, the AAMC's findings illuminate the broader problems abortion bans can create for a state's medical community, particularly in an era of provider shortages: The organization tracked a larger decrease in interest in residencies in states with abortion restrictions not only among those in specialties most likely to treat pregnant patients, like OB-GYNs and emergency room doctors, but also among aspiring doctors in other specialties.
“It should be concerning for states with severe restrictions on reproductive rights that so many new physicians — across specialties — are choosing to apply to other states for training instead,” wrote Atul Grover, executive director of the AAMC's Research and Action Institute.
The AAMC analysis found the number of applicants to OB-GYN residency programs in abortion ban states dropped by 6.7%, compared with a 0.4% increase in states where abortion remains legal. For internal medicine, the drop observed in abortion ban states was over five times as much as in states where abortion is legal.
In its analysis, the AAMC said an ongoing decline in interest in ban states among new doctors ultimately “may negatively affect access to care in those states.”
Jack Resneck Jr., immediate past president of the American Medical Association, said the data demonstrates yet another consequence of the post-Roe v. Wade era.
The AAMC analysis notes that even in states with abortion bans, residency programs are filling their positions — mostly because there are more graduating medical students in the U.S. and abroad than there are residency slots.
Still, Resneck said, “we're extraordinarily worried.” For example, physicians without adequate abortion training may not be able to manage miscarriages, ectopic pregnancies, or potential complications such as infection or hemorrhaging that could stem from pregnancy loss.
Those who work with students and residents say their observations support the AAMC's findings. “People don't want to go to a place where evidence-based practice and human rights in general are curtailed,” said Beverly Gray, an associate professor of obstetrics and gynecology at Duke University School of Medicine.
Abortion in North Carolina is banned in nearly all cases after 12 weeks. Women who experience unexpected complications or discover their baby has potentially fatal birth defects later in pregnancy may not be able to receive care there.
Gray said she worries that even though Duke is a highly sought training destination for medical residents, the abortion ban “impacts whether we have the best and brightest coming to North Carolina.”
Rohini Kousalya Siva will start her obstetrics and gynecology residency at MedStar Washington Hospital Center in Washington, D.C., this year. She said she did not consider programs in states that have banned or severely restricted abortion, applying instead to programs in Maryland, New Hampshire, New York, and Washington, D.C.
“We're physicians,” said Kousalya Siva, who attended medical school in Virginia and was previously president of the American Medical Student Association. “We're supposed to be giving the best evidence-based care to our patients, and we can't do that if we haven't been given abortion training.”
Another consideration: Most graduating medical students are in their 20s, “the age when people are starting to think about putting down roots and starting families,” said Gray, who added that she is noticing many more students ask about politics during their residency interviews.
And because most young doctors make their careers in the state where they do their residencies, “people don't feel safe potentially having their own pregnancies living in those states” with severe restrictions, said Debra Stulberg, chair of the Department of Family Medicine at the University of Chicago.
Stulberg and others worry that this self-selection away from states with abortion restrictions will exacerbate the shortages of physicians in rural and underserved areas.
“The geographic misalignment between where the needs are and where people are choosing to go is really problematic,” she said. “We don't need people further concentrating in urban areas where there's already good access.”
After attending medical school in Tennessee, which has adopted one of the most sweeping abortion bans in the nation, Hannah Light-Olson will start her OB-GYN residency at the University of California-San Francisco this summer.
It was not an easy decision, she said. “I feel some guilt and sadness leaving a situation where I feel like I could be of some help,” she said. “I feel deeply indebted to the program that trained me, and to the patients of Tennessee.”
Light-Olson said some of her fellow students applied to programs in abortion ban states “because they think we need pro-choice providers in restrictive states now more than ever.” In fact, she said, she also applied to programs in ban states when she was confident the program had a way to provide abortion training.
“I felt like there was no perfect, 100% guarantee; we've seen how fast things can change,” she said. “I don't feel particularly confident that California and New York aren't going to be under threat, too.”
As a condition of a scholarship she received for medical school, Blum said, she will have to return to Arizona to practice, and it is unclear what abortion access will look like then. But she is worried about long-term impacts.
“Residents, if they can't get the training in the state, then they're probably less likely to settle down and work in the state as well,” she said.
KFF Health News is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues and is one of the core operating programs at KFF—an independent source of health policy research, polling, and journalism. Learn more about KFF.
This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
Mississippi Today
On this day in 1928
MAY 9, 1928
Burl Toler was born in Memphis. The first Black official in any major sport in the U.S., he defeated prejudice at each turn.
In 1951, Toler starred for the legendary undefeated University of San Francisco Dons. Prejudice kept the integrated team from playing in the Gator Bowl, but the team found success anyway. Nine players went to the NFL, three of them later inducted into the Professional Football Hall of Fame. Their best player may have been Toler, who was drafted by Cleveland but suffered a severe knee injury in a college all-star game that ended his playing days.
Toler decided to make his way into professional football through officiating. The NFL hired him in 1965 — a year before Emmett Ashford became the first Black umpire in Major League Baseball and three years before Jackie White broke the color barrier in the NBA.
He rose above the racism he encountered, working as a head linesman and field judge for a quarter-century. He officiated Super Bowl XIV, where the Pittsburgh Steelers defeated the Los Angeles Rams in 1980. Two years later, he officiated the “Freezer Bowl,” where the Cincinnati Bengals defeated the San Diego Chargers in the AFC Championship Game. The game marked the coldest temperatures of any game in NFL history — minus 59 degrees wind chill — and Toler suffered frostbite.
In addition to his NFL work, he worked as an educator, becoming the first Black secondary school principal in the San Francisco district. He died in 2009. Two area schools and a hall on the University of San Francisco campus have been renamed in his honor. On Nov. 23, 2020, Toler was remembered again when the NFL had its first all-Black officiating crew.
This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
Mississippi Today
EPA absolves MDEQ, Health Department of discrimination in funding Jackson water
About a year and half ago, on the heels of Jackson's infamous water system failure, advocates and politicians from Mississippi began publicly questioning the funding mechanisms that are supposed to support such systems.
In October 2022, U.S. Reps. Bennie Thompson and Carolyn Maloney wrote Gov. Tate Reeves, grilling him over an apparent disparity in how federal infrastructure funds were allocated to Jackson versus other parts of the state.
Then days later, the Environmental Protection Agency's civil rights office opened an investigation into two state agencies — the Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality and the Mississippi Department of Health — in response to the NAACP's claims of discrimination under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Title VI prohibits discrimination — based on race, color or national origin — in providing federal assistance.
On Monday, though, the EPA announced it had ended the probe after finding no evidence the agencies had short-changed Jackson's water system. In its investigation, the EPA looked at the funding amounts and racial demographics of cities that received water funding from MDEQ and the Health Department and determined there was no correlation between the two factors.
“The evidence overwhelmingly shows that the Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality did everything right,” MDEQ Executive Director Chris Wells said in a press release following the EPA's announcement.
The two agencies are in charge of disbursing funds from the EPA called “state revolving loan,” or SRF, funds, which are meant to help cities make infrastructure improvements. MDEQ handles SRF funds related to wastewater infrastructure, while the Health Department handles SRF funds for drinking water.
But the claims against the agencies were only part of the 2022 complaint the NAACP filed with the EPA. The federal agency did not address another complaint: The group also focused on the state Legislature, which has denied attempts in recent years by Jackson to raise money for its water system, such as creating a new 1% tax.
Click here for the EPA's full responses to MDEQ and Health Department.
This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
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