Tyrese Haliburton reveals the wild, life-altering bet he made with high school coaches before getting college offers

A college Haliburton didn’t attend saved him from playing football.

Listed as 6-foot-5, Indiana Pacers guard Tyrese Haliburton has the size of an NFL quarterback, or even a really tall wide receiver. Now established as one of the promising young talents in the NBA, we’ll never find out how good he could’ve been at football. But it was a path he nearly explored as a result of a bet that could have dramatically shifted the trajectory of his life.

Luckily for Haliburton, he won.

“My freshman or sophomore year of high school, I hadn’t got a Division I offer yet, I hadn’t got a scholarship offer yet. And everybody was just sweating me to play football, along with our football coach at the time,” Haliburton told For The Win in an interview about his partnership with Cheribundi. “So I made a bet with him that if I didn’t have a scholarship offer in the next two months that I would go play football — and I did not want to play football at all. I really didn’t know if I was going to get a scholarship offer, and then I got one.”

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That first offer, Haliburton said, was from IUPUI—a school located just down the road from his NBA team’s facilities. As we know now, he finished his high school career at Oshkosh North in Wisconsin as a three-star recruit with several more schools chasing him. He chose Iowa State, where he played two years before the Sacramento Kings drafted him 12th overall in 2020.

It’s probably safe to say that push for him to play football wouldn’t have existed if everyone could see what was in his future. Haliburton called it “maybe the most confident bet that I ever made.”

“So it just I guess shows the confidence that I had at the time that I’d get an offer, and then it actually ends up working out,” Haliburton said. “But man, if I had to play football – because I did it in front of the whole football team, whole basketball team. ‘Coach, if I don’t get an offer, I will play.’ – I did not want to do that. So I’m really glad that I didn’t have to do that.”

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Oklahoma earns No. 4 seed, set to host first two NCAA Tournament rounds

The Oklahoma women’s basketball team is staying home to start the NCAA Tournament.

After topping Kansas on Friday, 80-68, and then falling to Baylor on Saturday, 91-76, the Oklahoma women’s basketball team was waiting to find out its NCAA Tournament fate following the Phillips 66 Big 12 Women’s Basketball Championship.

What the Sooners found out was fantastic news. Oklahoma (24-8, 12-6 Big 12) is the No. 4 seed in the Bridgeport region of the women’s NCAA Tournament and will meet 13th-seeded IUPUI on Saturday. That means the Sooners open in Norman versus IUPUI and potentially against the winner of the matchup between No. 5 seed Notre Dame and No. 12 seed Massachusetts.

The top seed in the Bridgeport region is North Carolina State. Oklahoma and N.C. State are joined by No. 2 seed Connecticut and No. 3 seed Indiana. Fellow Big 12 foe Kansas State is also the No. 9 seed in the Sooners’ region. The Wildcats open against eighth-seeded Washington State.

“The feeling you get when your name comes up on that screen. Other than when Ayoka Lee’s name came up against us, other than that, it felt really good to be able to just see our name and to be able to get a bracket and, you know, everyone taking pictures of the brackets and all that kind of stuff. It just never gets old and it gets better every time,” Oklahoma head women’s basketball coach Jennie Baranczyk said.

Other Big 12 teams that made the field include No. 2 seed Baylor in the Wichita region, No. 2 seed Texas and No. 8 seed Kansas in the Spokane region and No. 3 seed Iowa State in the Greensboro region. In addition to N.C. State, the other No. 1 seeds in the field are South Carolina in the Greensboro region, Stanford in the Spokane region and Louisville in the Wichita region.

It is Oklahoma’s first appearance back in the NCAA Tournament since 2018. OU is seeking its first NCAA Tournament win since 2017 when the sixth-seeded Sooners beat 11th-seeded Gonzaga in Oklahoma City, 75-62.

OU’s leading scorers entering the NCAA Tournament include Madi Williams at 18.2 points per game, Taylor Robertson at 17.0 points per game and Skylar Vann at 11.8 points per game.

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Ohio State basketball vs. IUPUI: How to watch and listen to the game Tuesday

Ohio State will host 1-14 IUPUI in a late addition to the schedule. Here’s how to find the game.

After having several cancellations due to COVID, the Ohio State basketball team was able to get a late addition to the schedule. The Buckeyes have invited IUPUI from the Horizon League to Value City Arena for a non-conference matchup.

This was a quick turnaround as the game was just announced on January 10. The Jaguars are struggling this season with a 1-14 record to date, with the lone win coming against NCAA DIII opponent, Spaulding University.

This one could get ugly real fast, and we’ve got all the details you need to find the game.

NEXT … Television, streaming, and radio information

Ohio State basketball adds January 18 home game against IUPUI

We’ve got another game on Ohio State basketball’s schedule. #GoBucks

The Ohio State basketball team has added a game home game to the schedule to partially make up for three games that were canceled during its three-week COVID-19 pause. The game will be held on Tuesday, January 18, at 7 p.m. EST against IUPUI. It will be telecast by the Big Ten Network.

The Buckeyes had to shelve three games because of an increase in COVID-19 cases within the program in December. In addition to the game against Kentucky in the CBS Sports Classic, OSU also had to cancel home games against UT Martin and New Orleans. Holtmann had recently stated that the program was working on trying to schedule another home game to try and make up for the lost game action.

It’ll be a busy week next week with the addition of the extra game. Ohio State will host Penn State on Sunday, observe Martin Luther King, Jr. Day on Monday, then host IUPUI Tuesday, before playing Nebraska at home on Saturday the 22.

Getting this extra game could be important for Ohio State as it continues to not only improve but maybe even get some guys back that have been recovering from injury.

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Notre Dame’s Maddy Westbeld Named ACC Rookie of the Week

Notre Dame freshman Maddy Westbeld is off to a nice start in her collegiate career.

Notre Dame freshman Maddy Westbeld is off to a nice start in her collegiate career. The ACC can see that after naming her the conference Rookie of the Week. It’s a bright spot for an Irish team off to a 2-2 start.

In the Irish’s most recent games against Michigan and IUPUI, Westbeld averaged 20 points, 6.5 rebounds, 3.5 assists and two steals. She also was 55.2 percent from the field on 16-of-29 shooting. In the fourth quarter of the Irish’s loss to the Wolverines, she scored 12 of her team’s 20 points.

Westbeld is the ACC freshman scoring leader at 17.5 points a game. That’s also good enough to lead the Irish by 3.2 points. Nationally, she is one of three freshmen with over 15 points, 6 rebounds and 3 assists a game. In fact, her 6.8 rebounding average also leads Notre Dame.

The Irish already have wrapped up their nonconference schedule. They have a week off between games before tipping off ACC play Dec. 13 against Georgia Tech.

Notre Dame women’s basketball back to .500 after Sunday victory

Notre Dame’s women’s basketball team moved to 2-2 on Sunday after beating IUPUI in a tough out-of-conference contest.

The Notre Dame women’s basketball team moved to 2-2 after winning their final non-conference of the season, a Sunday affair against IUPUI at Purcell Pavillion.

It didn’t come easily by any means for Notre Dame as the guest Jaguars jumped out to a 33-25 halftime lead behind 13 points from Sydney Roule while dominating the Irish on the boards, 22-7.

Notre Dame responded quickly in the second half though, going on a 14-5 run over the first 5:42 of the third quarter and keeping IUPUI off the scoreboard for a five-minute stretch of the quarter.

After falling behind by three early in the fourth, Notre Dame went on an 80 run to take a 58-53 lead before IUPUI made their last push to again draw even at 58.

Maddy Westbeld led the Irish with 22 points as she came up big down the stretch, hitting a three to go up 61-58 and the Irish wouldn’t allow another point on the afternoon, winning 65-58.

Anaya Peoples added 14 points for the victorious Fighting Irish who move to 2-2 on the season and now get set to open their ACC schedule next Sunday by playing host to Georgia Tech.