Take me home...West Virginia...

and one RBI apiece, with Lamb stealing two bases on the day. Sev en of the nine batters for VCU tal lied at least one hit, with two pitch ers throwing at least three scoreless innings. McCarty recorded the save while graduate pitcher Brax ton Wilks took the win.

here at VCU.

The Department of Education reported an average annual revenue of $29,635,946 for NCAA Division I-A Football programs, according to Business Insider. Men’s basketball was second on the list at $7,880,290.

The maintenance of an athletic brand is essential to the monetary success of any typical modern university. You know Miller and Arizona anticipated a solid return on a one year, $100,000 investment in Ayton. That’s how much high profile athletes make for universities.

The NCAA does not by any means wish to change this reality and stunt its own profit margins. But it seeks to punish the widespread practice of adults paying and incentivizing vulnerable kids to come play and make money for them.

That is blatant hypocrisy, and it should make us sick. Because we all know how this inevitably ends — pay the damn players. Stop treating this like it’s not well established precedent. There is a freaking purple elephant in the room and everybody is looking the other way and it is driving me crazy.

No, I don’t have a readily available solution, you can’t pay all student athletes. But the idea that a scholarship alone is enough to compensate high profile ones at major universities is sorely outdated and grossly jaded. There is no clear answer to this conundrum, and that it why it is imperative we face reality — college players are paid. We can keep it sleazy and under the table, which results in schemes involving truly illicit behavior like at Louisville, or we can address and regulate it to the best of our abilities. We cannot stop it from happening in this era of ultracommercialized and branded college sports. At least Lonzo Ball knows what’s good. Even though, of course *cough* *cough,* he says he never accepted money during his one year stint at the University of California - Los Angeles.

No, he was just grateful for all the career opportunities his education opened up for him.

“All the money they generate for programs and stuff, it’s an unfair system,” Ball said. “Everybody’s getting paid anyway. You might as well make it legal.” Cheers, ‘Zo. At least somebody is keeping it real.