TEE HIGGINS WANTS OUT?! NORSE MEN! CINCINNATI REDS GOOD NEWS BAD NEWS WEEKEND | OTB presented by UDF

Off The Bench begins with the College Basketball in Cincinnati. Cincinnati Bearcats beat West Virginia 92-56 over the weekend they will play them again in the Big 12 Tournament tomorrow to advance. If they do they play Kansas... Free agency doesn’t officially begin until weds at 4pm BUT teams can begin speaking to agents of free agent players TODAY. Things just got a whole lot more interesting in the AFC north as Russell Wilson is going to sign a one-year with the Pittsburgh Steelers. Last season, the nine-time pro bowler and super bowl champ[ion with seattle, threw for better than 3000 yards with 26 touchdowns against just 8 interceptions. He was benched for the final two games of the season. Baker Mayfield is rewarded by the team with a three-year, 100 million dollar contract with 50 million dollars guaranteed. Chiefs Defensive tackle Chris Jones isn’t going anywhere. He gets five years for 159 million dollars, 60 million guaranteed. The cap hit this year is only seven million bucks. On the business side of things, the Bears are spending 2 billion dollars to build a new, domed stadium next to Soldier Field in downtown Chicago. For Xavier, they lose on Saturday to number 8 Marquette 86-80. The Muskies play in the Big East tournament as the 9 seed against number 8 Butler, a team they split with during the regular season. That game is Wednesday at 4 o’clock. A win would mean a date with number-one seed UConn on Thursday night. Xavier has to win three games in New York this week to avoid ending a 27-season streak with a winning record…. Miami got beat by The Ohio University on Friday night. Dayton is the 3 seed in the A10 tournament in Brooklyn. The Flyers play Thursday night at 7:30. Kentucky got a huge win on Saturday at number 4 Tennessee. With that, the Cats are the two-seed in this week's SEC tournament in Nashville. They will play the winner of the Texas am/Ole Miss matchup Friday night at 7 Eastern. Northern Kentucky is looking for back-to-back trips to the big dance. Tonight the Norse play in the Horizon League semis against number 6 Milwaukee. The teams split their season series at a game apiece. A busy weekend for the Reds… Nick Lodolo made his first appearance since early last season and pitched two hitless, scoreless innings against Cleveland yesterday. Second baseman Matt McClain was in the lineup for the first time since injuring his oblique. Off the diamond, the team's number 1 Rated prospect just two years ago, Jose Barrero, was placed on waivers and was immediately swooped up by the Texas Rangers. The move was a little confusing considering the team wasn’t facing any 40-man roster issues and the kid is only 25. Of course, all of this was just white noise when compared to the news of Noelvi Marte. He’s the current number one prospect in the reds organization and was expected to be the teams opening day third baseman. Well…..we wont lay eyes on him until the end of june or early July…at least, after he was suspended for the first 80 games of the season for a banned substance. But here’s the kicker….not only does he miss the first three months of the season, if the reds make the playoffs, he can’t be on the post-season roster.