Kelvin Sampson’s team got a big boost for the 2023-24 season, adding former Baylor guard L.J. Cryer to the roster through the transfer portal. | Courtesy of Kenneth Prabhakar/Baylor Lariat

Another day, another addition from the transfer portal for the Cougars as former Baylor guard L.J. Cryer announced he was transferring to Houston on Sunday.

Cryer played his first three seasons at Baylor, winning a national championship during his freshman year in 2020-21.

In 2022-23, Cryer started all 31 games in which he played and averaged 15 points on just over 45 percent shooting from the floor and 41.5 percent from 3.

The Katy native will join fellow transfer Damian Dunn, who committed Saturday morning, in helping revamp a backcourt that lost starters Tramon Mark to the portal and All-American Marcus Sasser to the NBA.

Cryer, having already played in the Big 12, says his experience in the conference will help the Cougars in their debut season in 2023-24.

“I’ve played in the Big 12 before, so I know what it takes to win,” Cryer said on Instagram Live with CBS Sports’ Jon Rothstein. “Being with Houston, I know I got dogs with me.”

With three incoming freshmen in Jospeh Tugler, Kordelius Jefferson, and Jacob McFarland as well as redshirt freshman Cedric Lath, Cryer will be one of six Cougars including Dunn who will look to make their UH debuts in 2023-24.

sports@thedailycougar.com

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“UH adds former Baylor guard L.J. Cryer in transfer portal” was originally posted on The Cougar

The season is fully underway for the University of Utah softball team, and despite the inconsistent weather, the Lady Utes find themselves second in the Pac-12.

Utah won their first three games of the season against last-place Oregon State and then had the two following games canceled due to poor weather conditions. Then the Utes headed down to sunny Tucson, Arizona in a three-game series against the University of Arizona. They split the first two games, with Utah winning the first and Arizona winning the second, but the third game in the series put the Utes on the map nationally. At the time, Arizona was ranked No. 17 in the nation and Utah was on the verge of the top 25, so already splitting the first two games was a feat in and of itself.

At the end of the fourth inning, the Wildcats led 11-5 and it seemed a miracle would be needed to come out on top with only three innings remaining. However, that is exactly what the Lady Utes did, scoring eight unanswered runs and taking the series with a 13-11 win. This prompted a ton of exposure on social media, and it wasn’t just a confidence boost for the team moving forward — it was their declaration that their team is ready to take on any team and no matter the odds, they will fight till the end.

Sadly, due to the weather, the Utes had their next four games canceled, which killed all of the hype and momentum from the comeback win. Then from March 31 to April 2, they traveled to Berkeley to face California for a three-game series in which the Utes won the first game but lost the other two. Despite all of the cancelations and lost momentum, the Lady Utes are No. 30 in the nation and sit second in the Pac-12 behind UCLA.

On the season, the Utes boast a .335 batting average, .894 OPS, and a .498 SLG% with 24 home runs and 182 RBIs. On the mound, the Utes sport a 2.55 ERA and a 1.13 WHIP with 178 strikeouts in 192.1 innings pitched so far.

Aliya Belarde leads the team with a .438 batting average and 46 hits in 105 at-bats. Ellessa Bonstrom leads the team with a 1.316 OPS and 36 RBIs while also leading the team with eight home runs, a .523 OB% and a SLG% of .793.

Overall, the Utes have five players batting above .350 and four players with a plus 1.0 SLG%. This team is well-rounded and should have no problem finding their groove again, making them a feared opponent on both sides of the ball for any team who is unlucky enough to cross paths with them.

e.murray@dailyutahchronicle.com

@_e__g__m_

UH basketball picked up former Temple guard Damian Dunn through the transfer portal on Saturday morning. | Courtesy of Robert Joseph Cruz/Temple News

UH basketball made its first move in the transfer portal on Saturday as former Temple guard Damian Dunn announced his commitment to the Cougars via social media.

Dunn began his career with the Owls in 2019-20 but was given a medical redshirt after sustaining a foot injury that only allowed him to play one game.

The redshirt junior averaged 15.3 for the Owls in the 2022-23 season in just under 33 minutes per game.

In Temple’s win against the Cougars in late January of the 2022-23, Dunn scored 16 points and logged three assists.

The North Carolina native has two more years of eligibility with UH thanks to the extra year granted by the NCAA due to COVID-19 in 2020.

Dunn will look to fill the role of redshirt sophomore Tramon Mark, who entered the transfer portal a week ago.  So far, he is the only non-freshman that will be joining the Cougars for the 2023-24 season, as UH will have four players seeing their first college action next season.

sports@thedailycougar.com

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“Temple transfer Damian Dunn commits to UH” was originally posted on The Cougar

In Head Coach Andy Stankiewicz’s first year, he already has his squad sitting at 3rd in the PAC-12 baseball rankings. Join hosts Jack Hallinan, Leila Mackenzie and Darren Parry as they go into a baseball season review and USC recruiting, with the potential impending commitment of Bronny James.

Hosted by Darren Parry, Jack Halinan and Leila Mckenzie. Written by Thomas Johnson, Justin White and Kyle Frankel. Edited by Thomas Johnson. Produced by Grace Ingram. Talkin Troy is one of three shows on the Daily Trojan podcast network. You can find more episodes anywhere you listen to podcasts.

The post Talkin’ Troy: USC baseball breaks into top 25 rankings, while football lands another five-star appeared first on Daily Trojan.

STELLA MEHLHOFF: Hello all and welcome back to In the Know. On this podcast, we cover all things University of Minnesota. Today, we’ll be talking about food insecurity on campus, with the aim of understanding how and why it affects students, and what’s being done to combat it.

According to Student Experience in the Research University surveys, or SERU, about 37% of University of Minnesota undergraduate students reported food insecurity in 2022, a 3.5% increase since 2019. 

I speak with Abigail Oldenberg, a student at the U, who agreed to share her perspective on campus food insecurity. 

OLDENBERG: If you’re food insecure, you’re kind of always worried about, “what am I gonna have for lunch, breakfast, dinner?” It just makes the focus on day-to-day tasks real difficult.

I think it’s more an issue than people are willing to talk about, because it’s, it’s a little embarrassing. There’s stigma around it. It’s a big culture for young people to like, oh, “let’s go grab lunch, or let’s go grab dinner.” Going out for food is expensive, so a way to save money is eating at home, but with the price of groceries being high, it makes it really difficult, and it’s a big stressor not being able to, um, have a reliable way to get food that fits into your budget.

MEHLHOFF: And Oldenberg isn’t the only one who finds the stress of food insecurity difficult to deal with. According to that same SERU survey, food insecure students at the University were 20% more likely to suffer from anxiety and depression in 2021. 

OLDENBERG: And the ones that are nearby are higher priced because of the, the culture of the, the fancy grocery store. Um, Fresh Thyme, Lunds and Byerly’s, and then the Dinkytown Target are all, like, the prices are jacked up a little bit because of being in a city. 

Is the quality of food good? Yeah, of course it is, but it’s like, you know, right now I’m not in a point where I can, um, afford the perfectly non-GMO organic fruits and vegetables. It’s like, I just need food.

MEHLHOFF: In the face of these expenses, students have had to find ways to patch up the leaks. Abigail Beddow, co-president of Swipe Out Hunger, helps provide free meals to students every Thursday at Coffman Memorial Union. She tells me what a meal distribution normally looks like. 

BEDDOW: I’ll tell the people lined up what our options are. I’ll try and set them out the best I can, um, make it easier for everybody. And then I just count how many people come by, how many meals they take. I don’t ask for any personal information — that’s none of my business, none of anybody else’s business. Um, we do have an optional survey, um, just for comments.

I love it so much, and that sounds sarcastic, it wasn’t — I really do love it — I want that on the record. Just like connect, connecting with a lot of the people as well. Even like seeing the regulars that come by every week and saying “hi” to them and catching up with them and like, it’s amazing, it really is.

MEHLHOFF: Beddow estimates that between 150 and 200 students show up every Thursday. Despite the good that the meal distribution does, Beddow knows it isn’t enough.

BEDDOW: We’ve noticed, especially this year, that we’ve been running out of food, um, a lot, and we’ve, like other students have like, talked to us about it and we’re like, “yeah, we, we hear the problem, we do hear the problem.” There’s, unfortunately, there’s not a lot we can do about it. Um, we, we can’t really change, we can’t really ask for more food. Again, it’s all donations. So we, we do our best. 

MEHLHOFF: Oldenberg makes use of a different popular food resource, the Nutritious U food pantry. According to their website, the pantry is open in the Union for three days in the last week of every month from 12-6 p.m.

OLDENBERG: So you just walk up to the front table that a worker is working at and they give you a, a paper bag and you can go through and they have indications on, um, each section in the food pantry of how many units you can take. So you can take two fruits, one grain, one protein. There are a couple snacks that you can grab, so it’s all laid out and it’s, you kind of walk through it like a circle and you just go quote, unquote, “shopping.” 

MEHLHOFF: Like the meal distributions, the supplemental help doesn’t quite cut it.

OLDENBERG: It is helpful, yeah, I definitely use it all. Um, it’s not enough for a whole month, of course.

If it’s gonna continue to be once a month, I believe we should be able to take more. But if we can only take a little bit amount, the food pantry should happen more frequently. 

MEHLHOFF: Besides students, I also hear from Mikaela Robertson, who works on Boynton Health’s public health team. She and her colleagues are currently working on a student basic needs strategic plan. It is a collaboration between the Office of Student Affairs and the Undergraduate Student Government to help remedy student insecurities on campus. I got to see her present the plan to a group of undergrad students. 

ROBERTSON: Think about a bathtub that has many faucets and many drains, and the faucets are the sources of funding that finance a student’s degree, like grants and scholarships if they’re able to get them, loans, personal savings, family contribution, wages. Then the drains are the necessary expenses that students just have to pay to get through school. Tuition and fees, rent, food, transportation costs, books and supplies, personal care items and services.

So over time, the drains have got, uh, gotten bigger. The tuition has gone up, the cost of housing has gone up, the cost of food has gone up, and the faucets have stayed the same or gotten smaller. And as a result, many students end up with more water flowing out than water than that flows in.

MEHLHOFF: In response to student concerns like these, the plan has a few goals. It’s still in the draft stages, but one of the current recommendations is to spread awareness of resources already available, on- and off-campus.  

ROBERTSON: One of the recommendations that we develop for this plan is to put together a single landing page, a single website where we can make sure that the resources are comprehensive and up to date, that let students know what services, programs, et cetera, are available or might be available to them.

And then we also wanna be sure to promote that to student-facing staff so that, um, staff has access to the latest information, current information about programs and services, and they can share that with the students they work with.

MEHLHOFF: She also hopes they can expand Nutritious U with a better funding plan.

ROBERSTON: At the end of the day, when we looked at where, where the University of Minnesota might be able to expand support for student basic needs, the pantry is the place where we have the most ability as the University to support a broad group of students.

MEHLHOFF: Still, Robertson would rather food insecurity be prevented than treated.

ROBERTSON: So we started thinking about how we might prevent students from needing to come to the food pantry in the first place. You know, realizing that more students at the food pantry doesn’t mean a successful food pantry, it means more students are hungry.

The University can’t do it, we can’t solve this problem alone. We need support from outside the University in order to solve this problem. 

MEHLHOFF: Beddow agrees that the blame for food insecurity can’t be put all in one place.

BEDDOW: You could, you could say the government needs to provide more funding for stuff like that, or, you know, the University should provide more resources, but I think it’s a very complex issue, that there are a lot of sides to take. 

MEHLHOFF: Although, the solutions might be collaborative.

ROBERTSON: As a University community, we can do better when we coordinate our efforts and work together. And so, if students are interested in working on this issue, they should absolutely feel free to reach out to my colleague Karin Onarheim, who oversees the Nutritious U food pantry or, um, or myself. We’re happy to meet with them and chat with them and help them, um, help support them inworking on this issue and moving things forward in a way that will, will best benefit students on campus.

MEHLHOFF: With around 30,000 undergraduate students on the Twin Cities campus, Oldenberg reminds us that the scope of the issue is anything but small.

OLDENBERG: I think it’s really important to get this story out there because I, there is some stigma around being food insecure. Everybody probably knows someone who is going through food insecurity, but probably knows about four or five more people who are dealing with it silently. 

MEHLHOFF: For those struggling with food insecurity, existing resources can be found at boynton.umn.edu/food-pantry. For those who wish to help Swipe Out Hunger, potential volunteers can contact them through their Instagram, @swipes.umn. 

This episode was written by me, Stella Mehlhoff, and produced by Alberto Gomez and Abby Machtig. As always, we really appreciate you listening in. Please feel free to email us at podcasting@mndaily.com with comments or questions. I’m Stella Mehlhoff, and this is In the Know. 

The Jewish community of Colorado State University, Fort Collins and Northern Colorado came together for Passover Seder, which was held 7 p.m. April 5 at the Lory Student Center.

Held by Chabad of Northern Colorado, with co-sponsors the Associated Students of CSU, the Residence Hall Association and Hillel of Colorado, Passover Seder brought large numbers of Jewish community members in for a night that reached “deep into the human psyche in every way possible and all at once,” according to “The Seder Guide” program booklet at the event.

Members of Chabad started the night off with a story and explanation of the importance of Passover through the first question from the “Ma Nishtana”: “Why is this night different from all other nights?”

“We reflect upon our history,” said Lauren Maskus, a member of Chabad and Jewish sorority Sigma Alpha Epsilon Pi. “Let us also reflect on upon our lives as Jews right now and Jewish allies. With a rise of antisemitic attacks against Jews, it is up to us to stand together and fight and resist against hate.”

Adam Fox, director of Jewish student life at Hillel of Colorado, shared his thoughts on the personal importance he finds in Passover Seder, noting the importance of the concept of “transition” that comes with the holiday, engaging in self-growth, from the historical transition from slavery to freedom for Jews in the past, to personal growth with insight in one’s life.

“We have this physical and spiritual freedom,” Fox said. “It’s important that we as people have both. … Sometimes it’s a struggle that we go through life and feel like we’re stuck in something. To me, the message of Passover is, ‘Don’t feel like you’re stuck.’ … By doing that, you will achieve that part of freedom, and you’ll be fulfilling that idea of Passover that we are free people.”

Alongside members of Chabad and the Jewish community, Rabbi Yerachmiel Gorelik was also present at Passover Seder, giving his own speeches about the importance of the holiday as well as leading songs throughout the night.

“Judaism recognized that once a year you go through a self-help process … to break out of whatever it is that’s holding you back from reaching your full potential and being as happy as you could possibly be,” Gorelik said.

Chabad at CSU’s Passover Seder is a 15-step dinner, with each step, Gorelik said, providing psychological, emotional and spiritual insight on how one can move forward and asking questions about life in order to move ahead being improved for the future.

The four questions of Passover Seder, or the “Ma Nishtana,” ask about the importance of each step in the night with answers detailing why. The four questions are as follows, according to the Chabad of Northern Colorado website:

1. On all nights we need not dip even once, on this night we do so twice?
2. On all nights we eat chametz or matzah, and on this night only matzah?
3. On all nights we eat any kind of vegetables, and on this night maror?
4. On all nights we eat sitting upright or reclining, and on this night we all recline?

Throughout the night, the 15 steps were carried out by members present at the dinner, each step corresponding to a certain food or beverage being eaten or drank, according to the “The Seder Guide.”

Examples in the booklet were carried out through the night. These included making a blessing over a cup of wine or grape juice, or the first step, Kadesh, which is meant to “separate ourselves from the mundane past that enslaves us.” Matzah, the eighth step in Seder, involves blessing and eating bread of the same name, calling it the “bread of faith,” for the first night of Seder.

The fifth step of Seder, known as Maggid, details the asking of the four questions, its significance being the “freedom to ask questions,” according to the booklet.

“Not only are we free to ask, we must ask,” the booklet read. “Healthy questions are an expression of the search and striving for something higher, reaching out for a place that is beyond us.”

The second night of Passover Seder was held April 6, the following night.

Reach DJ Vicente at life@collegian.com or on Twitter @DeejMako.

The Natural History Museum of Utah‘s “Angkor: Empire of Cambodia” is a magnificent exhibit with dozens of authentic artifacts and interactive stations that will capture the interest of people of all ages. Visitors can examine exceptionally intricate statues, pillars, pieces of jewelry and pottery or they can rebuild models of Angkor Wat or use the sliding information screen to understand the stories depicted in the densely arranged high-relief walls of the temple. 

Rain noises mimic the sounds of the rainforests as guests walk through statues arranged to simulate entering the inner sanctums of the ancient temple. Buddhist and Hindu influences converge in animated artwork of monkeys, snakes, humans and gods. The exhibit is as mesmerizing as it is informative. 

Don’t Ask Where We Got All This Stuff

Though museums can be an incredible way to teach youth and adults alike about history, archeology, science and culture, museums in the Western world have come to symbolize some of the most flagrant disrespect of Indigenous cultures by colonialist powers. The British Museum has become a meme because of just how much of its contents were stolen from other cultures. In the U.S., the artwork and even human remains of Native American tribes are displayed in museums, portrayed as something ancient that white men discovered, as if the tribes the objects belong to aren’t actively demanding their heritage be returned to them.

Museums need to reimagine the ways they obtain and exhibit objects of cultural value, ensuring artifacts are obtained ethically and displayed in a way that neither obscures nor fetishizes living cultures.

Ethical Exhibitions

This is why exhibits like “Angkor” are so important. Not only did NHMU partner with the National Museum of Cambodia to borrow the artifacts on display, but the information provided with each piece allows Cambodian archaeologists, rather than the French or any other colonial power, to share their heritage with us on their own terms.

Distributed throughout the exhibit are plaques explaining the stealing and looting that scattered Angkor’s history across the globe. Looting from non-European cultures was hardly looked down upon at the time. One plaque tells how André Malraux, a French looter who was arrested for stealing from a Cambodian temple, later became the minister of cultural affairs for France.

“Angkor” goes beyond simply respecting the culture it represents, it insists viewers understand how important ethical exhibitions are. Many stolen objects are mistreated, forcing art historians to reconstruct artifacts once they are returned. One of the interactives for “Angkor” asks guests to “return the stolen statues” by placing figurines of wrestlers back in their proper position, transforming visitors’ experience from simply passively viewing another culture to actively working towards cultural autonomy. 

Visit Angkor

I highly recommend making the trek up to NHMU to see “Angkor: Empire of Cambodia” before it leaves on April 23. If you miss it, be sure to look through NMHU’s Instagram for some enlightening information on the history of Angkor, the creation of this exhibit and the black market of antiquities.

e.raines@dailyutahchronicle.com 

@ed_edd_n_edie

Many editor teams have managing editors. Only one of them (ours) has Leyda. When the team first met Leyda, we noticed she was more of an introvert than anything else, but being an introvert has its perks. First of all, you can decide  how much to open up, and if you’re resilient enough, your privacy will be thoroughly protected. Second, your sudden “friendly” workplace bullying of a certain section editor will carry four times more weight than if anybody else on the staff said it.

Leyda has a tendency to draw on the whiteboard and there are two things you can conclude upon seeing her results: she’s a talented artist, and she’s definitely popped a Grateful Dead teddy bear sticker on her tongue before. Although the latter is allegedly false, you can understand why I think otherwise. I have a right to keep my suspicions.

Gallery|1 Photos

“Resurrection” by Leyda RosarioRivera.
SEE? I’m not crazy, right? Seal didn’t make “Kiss from a Rose” sober. There has to be some sort of 70s behavior awry from her.

Do not let Leyda’s professional behavior and eloquent speaking fool you. She is very much aware of what is going on around the room. Yes, even when her eyes are locked in on a rough draft article like a praying mantis locked in on its next meal. How do I know? There is no humanly way you can deduce what type of work I’m doing at four in the morning based on whatever caffeine substance I was consuming at the time. Pair that with the audacity she has to say something akin to, “It’s elementary.” The end result? Insult to injury by implying you’re as predictable as a frat bro with an unattended case of White Claws.

Working alongside Leyda for practically a whole year has included the following:

Deep sighs and shrugs when you do something out of left field. Usually comparable to that of an aunt seeing her nephew experience a dumb fall that rides on the line between America’s funniest home videos and the six o’clock news. 

“I can’t wait to see what ungodly time you post the article for edits.” For the record, it was indeed past two in the morning.

“Due to my psych class”

An uncanny knowledge on medieval weaponry, warfare, and torture.

A fight or flight response to the mention of Artificial Intelligence Art (it’s always fight, run.) You can counteract this by triggering her flight response with country music (use the blandest, boom-boom-clap beat-iest, most forced and fakest southern accent country possible).

“I don’t vibe with tambourines.”

I don’t really know what else to put in here besides that she’s perceptive and she’ll probably complain about my writing on this like usual since it’s technically not originally written in AP Style.

That’s it. That’s Leyda in a nutshell except the nutshell isn’t really a nutshell but an empanada I didn’t properly close or bake…

There is no nutshell.

During the most recent Utah state legislative session, the University of Utah was granted $100 million to relocate the army reserves at Fort Douglas to Camp Williams, a National Guard training site located in Bluffdale.

Talk of relocating Fort Douglas has been taking place for some time, and the U has been working with the National Guard to find a suitable area in Utah where the army reserves could be moved, said Jason Perry, vice president for government relations and director of the Hinckley Institute of Politics at the U.

“The connection [with Fort Douglas] goes back to about 1850,” Perry said. “We have some two-star commands here. Fort Douglas is a very important military presence and it’s a military presence that the state wants to keep in Utah.”

Once the army reserves at Fort Douglas have left, the land they once resided on will be reverted to the U’s care, giving them around 50 extra acres to use for university needs, according to Perry.

“This is one of those rare moments where it’s a true win for everyone involved, for them to be able to preserve those commands in the state right next to Camp Williams, but also for the University of Utah to get the remaining acres of where [Fort] Douglas is,” Perry said. “For a landlocked university, it is an amazing opportunity and it will be significant for all future growth for the university.”

Having this extra land as property of the U will be significant for student growth and growth of programs and services, according to Perry, and the U will soon start creating a master plan of operations to utilize this land.

“We’ve had tremendous growth on our campus in terms of our student population, in terms of the research that is happening,” Perry said. “Our health science system is growing in size, but also reputation and for the long-term success of the university. This will aid in a significant way.”

Fort Douglas is the home of many historical sites, and as a plan for the land develops, the U will be working to preserve these sites and make sure they are taken care of, said Perry.

“There are some very important buildings on that site, several of which are historical, and we’ll work with the State Historic Preservation Office on those,” Perry said. “There’s still a lot of planning to do.”

While the relocation has been approved, it may take several years before any progress is seen because of the size of the project and the components involved in creating a new home for the army reserves, said Lieutenant Colonel Chris Kroeber, the public affairs officer for the Utah National Guard.

“Anytime a military project is built, it’s pretty long term, so pretty long duration,” Kroeber said. “It usually takes a couple of years, one to two years at least, to design a project.”

According to Perry, before starting the relocation, there needs to be facilities built on the land purchased for the army reserves, and once this process begins others will quickly follow.

“The first big step is helping to build the facilities that will be necessary for them to move into,” Perry said. “While that is occurring, we’ll start doing the master plan for [Fort] Douglas here for what would be the best.”

While the Utah National Guard’s involvement in the relocation is minimal, they are excited to be able to work with the army reserves from Fort Douglas and help make the relocation process easier, said Kroeber.

“We would be ecstatic to have the Army Reserves share the same space with us,” Kroeber said. “I think it’s mutually beneficial to both organizations to be able to share training spaces that we have at Camp Williams. They would contribute to some of our range stuff as well as we can contribute to some of the training.”

s.shaughnessey@dailyutahchronicle.com

@steviechrony

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