Ryan Portenga

Husband. Father. Educator. Coach. Believer. Fortunate. #Onward!

[Ryan Portenga @RyanPortenga]

Absolute cinema. Love the emotion. 💯

[liemandt @jliemandt]

High-end private schools are lying to parents about their students’ grades.

[John Beilein @JohnBeilein]

This is so well done ! Really captures some of the exciting moments of @umichbball over the last two decades. It’s been quite a ride and I am honored that our players, staff, fans, family and university allowed me to be a part of it. #goblue # 2026 MBB National Champions

[Brandon Koretz @BrandonKoretz]

Michigan won the national title with a 37-3 record and 29 double-digit wins against the nation’s No. 1 strength of schedule.

Set the all-time record for Big Ten wins (19). First B1G team to go undefeated on the road in 50 years.

One of the best college basketball teams ever.

[Scott Bell @sbell021]

The best school in America. The best campus in America. The best collection of sports teams in America. It’s great to be a Michigan Wolverine.

[Dave Portnoy @stoolpresidente]

For the Fab 5. For Trey Burke. For John Beilein. For the Big 10. For Sweet 16 Tommy. For Willy and GBR. For Titus who doesn’t have a basketball program. For the Michigan Man way. For Jolin. For winning with class. For the Mud Bowl. For the Team The Team The Team . For Connor Stallions. For the Block M. For proving those who stay will become champions! For Dusty May. For proving you can have elite academics and athletics. For all the Walmart Wolverines. For every kid that dreamed of going to Michigan but didn’t get in and went to MSU. For greatness. For immortality. For all the Wolverines across the globe. Let’s go get this title for us! #Goblue 🇺🇸

[Scott Bell @sbell021]

Looks like the Bell family will be doing some remodeling this spring because I just ran through my living room wall after watching this.

[Dave Portnoy @stoolpresidente]

I love a coach who doesn’t make it about himself.

[OUT OF ORDER @outttoforderrr]

BRACKETS (2026)

[Dominic Schneider @DomSchneider4]

State Champions. 🏆💍

[E. King #Pistons #OnePride @EverythingxKing]

🥹 Nah man… it’s something in my eye😂 wanted him to be drafted here so bad bro smh #GoBlue

[Ryan Portenga @RyanPortenga]

Poetry.

[Colin Cowherd @colincowherd]

Sunday thoughts on Caleb Williams

[Colin Cowherd @colincowherd]

Sunday thoughts on Caleb Williams

[Ben Sasse @BenSasse]

Friends-

This is a tough note to write, but since a bunch of you have started to suspect something, I’ll cut to the chase: Last week I was diagnosed with metastasized, stage-four pancreatic cancer, and am gonna die.

Advanced pancreatic is nasty stuff; it’s a death sentence. But I already had a death sentence before last week too — we all do.

I’m blessed with amazing siblings and half-a-dozen buddies that are genuinely brothers. As one of them put it, “Sure, you’re on the clock, but we’re all on the clock.” Death is a wicked thief, and the bastard pursues us all.

Still, I’ve got less time than I’d prefer. This is hard for someone wired to work and build, but harder still as a husband and a dad. I can’t begin to describe how great my people are. During the past year, as we’d temporarily stepped back from public life and built new family rhythms, Melissa and I have grown even closer — and that on top of three decades of the best friend a man could ever have. Seven months ago, Corrie was commissioned into the Air Force and she’s off at instrument and multi-engine rounds of flight school. Last week, Alex kicked butt graduating from college a semester early even while teaching gen chem, organic, and physics (she’s a freak). This summer, 14-year-old Breck started learning to drive. (Okay, we’ve been driving off-book for six years — but now we’ve got paper to make it street-legal.) I couldn’t be more grateful to constantly get to bear-hug this motley crew of sinners and saints.

There’s not a good time to tell your peeps you’re now marching to the beat of a faster drummer — but the season of advent isn’t the worst. As a Christian, the weeks running up to Christmas are a time to orient our hearts toward the hope of what’s to come.

Not an abstract hope in fanciful human goodness; not hope in vague hallmark-sappy spirituality; not a bootstrapped hope in our own strength (what foolishness is the evaporating-muscle I once prided myself in). Nope — often we lazily say “hope” when what we mean is “optimism.” To be clear, optimism is great, and it’s absolutely necessary, but it’s insufficient. It’s not the kinda thing that holds up when you tell your daughters you’re not going to walk them down the aisle. Nor telling your mom and pops they’re gonna bury their son.

A well-lived life demands more reality — stiffer stuff. That’s why, during advent, even while still walking in darkness, we shout our hope — often properly with a gravelly voice soldiering through tears.

Such is the calling of the pilgrim. Those who know ourselves to need a Physician should dang well look forward to enduring beauty and eventual fulfillment. That is, we hope in a real Deliverer — a rescuing God, born at a real time, in a real place. But the eternal city — with foundations and without cancer — is not yet.

Remembering Isaiah’s prophecies of what’s to come doesn’t dull the pain of current sufferings. But it does put it in eternity’s perspective:
“When we've been there 10,000 years…We've no less days to sing God's praise.”

I’ll have more to say. I’m not going down without a fight. One sub-part of God’s grace is found in the jawdropping advances science has made the past few years in immunotherapy and more. Death and dying aren’t the same — the process of dying is still something to be lived. We’re zealously embracing a lot of gallows humor in our house, and I’ve pledged to do my part to run through the irreverent tape.

But for now, as our family faces the reality of treatments, but more importantly as we celebrate Christmas, we wish you peace: “The people walking in darkness have seen a great light; on those living in the land of deep darkness a light has dawned….For to us a son is given” (Isaiah 9).

With great gratitude, and with gravelly-but-hopeful voices,
Ben — and the Sasses

[Ryan Portenga @RyanPortenga]

European futbol is wild!

[MERICA MEMED @Mericamemed]

I am more interested in the brand of windows he has installed.

[Hoop Herald @TheHoopHerald]

Strong words from Cam Ward

“I grew up watching my Dad wake up at 4:30 for a job he didnt like, so if I can’t wake up early and work hard at a job I do like, I shouldn’t be playing Football”

[Yellowstone National Park @YellowstoneNPS]

Learn more about the Yellowstone YCC program: https://t.co/eEoFZVBj5P

[Golf Digest @GolfDigest]

Scottie Scheffler just gave one of the best (and deepest) press conference answers ever heard.

[Trevor Packer @AP_Trevor]

The 2025 AP Psychology Exam scores:
5: 15%; 4: 32%; 3: 25%; 2: 19%; 1: 9%

Multiple-Choice Questions

Students scored quite evenly and well across all topics, especially on “Cognition” (Unit 2); on those questions, 15% answered each of these items right.

Free-Response Questions

These comments will focus on the questions in Set 1, the exam version taken by most students. https://t.co/qUTujkVdWm

Both of these free-response questions were new question types, focused on something different from what the multiple-choice section measures. The multiple-choice section measures whether students have learned and retained a wide array of foundational concepts, terms, and definitions. The free-response section now measures whether, when provided with psychological research studies, students can derive such understandings for themselves, a highly relevant skill for those who will proceed to major in psychology, and for a wide range of careers.

Students scored very well on FRQ 1, the Research Analysis Question, in which they examined research on the effects of misinformation on memory. Here are the results:

23% of students earned each of the 7 points possible.

75% of students accurately identified the research method.

69% of students understood the research variable.

65% of students accurately interpreted the statistics.

86% of students identified one or more ethical guidelines the researchers applied.

78% of students explained the generalizability of the findings.

48% of students earned 2 points for argumentation by explaining how the results supported or refuted the misinformation effect, and 26% of students earned 1 point.

FRQ 2, The Evidence-Based Question, measures whether students can evaluate three different psychological research studies and draw upon evidence from those studies to develop and support an argument with psychological evidence.

The Set 1 psychological studies focused on whether the presence of others improves performance.

7% of students earned each of the 7 points possible.

94% of students proposed a specific and defensible claim based in psychological science.

86% of students were able to support that claim with evidence from one of the studies.

22% of students were able to explain very effectively the relationship between the evidence and their argument, earning 2 of the 2 reasoning points, while 34% were able to explain this somewhat effectively, earning 1 of the 2 points.

84% of students were able to support their claim with evidence from a second study.

14% of students were able to explain very effectively the relationship between the evidence and their argument, earning 2 of the 2 reasoning points, while 36% were able to explain this somewhat effectively, earning 1 of the 2 points.

AP Psychology teachers will receive on their Instructional Planning Reports a point-by-point breakdown of their students’ performance on these free-response questions, enabling them to identify ways to further support students in learning and demonstrating these skills.

AP Psychology had an Evidence-Based Standard Setting this year, utilizing more data from more college professors than ever before to identify the performance levels most fair and appropriate for receiving college credit and placement.

An overview detailing this process, with specific information about the findings for this year’s students, will be available at around 4 pm ET today at https://t.co/4Bp9YALA9V

All subjects’ AP score distributions for 2025 will be posted here when available: https://t.co/OrkaQhPZYO