In this Morning’s Stake: the softball team wins their 4th series in a row to finish on a winning note; Darvin Ham is helping the Atlanta Hawks; and Kliff Kingsbury isn’t making excuses and is focused on winning.
Photo via Charles Henry @ Flickr.
Softball Beats Iowa State, Wins Fourth Straight Series. I never expected this because I had no idea what to think of this team. The softball team beat Iowa State, 6-5, on Sunday and this was the fourth straight Big 12 series win of the year. The Red Raiders finished 25-26 on the year and 9-9 in conference play. Considering this was a team that was replacing a popular head coach, I had zero expectations that this team would win many games. Glad to be wrong about that.
Ham Helps Hawks. Former Texas Tech basketballer Darvin Ham is an assistant coach with the Atlanta Hawks and has helped the Hawks advance to the second round of the NBA playoffs:
“I have a lot to learn,” he said in an article in August. “But someday I’d like to be a head coach in the NBA. That’s the path I’m on, so I ask a lot of questions and watch how coaches do things. I’m learning, but I’m not there yet.”
Tennis Players to the NCAA’s. Congrats to Kenna Kilgo and Gabriela Talaba, who have been selected as the fourth alternate to compete in the NCAA Women’s Tennis Doubles Championships in Waco on May 20-25. On the men’s side, Felipe Soares is going to the NCAA Individual Championships and Soares and Hugo Dojas will complete in doubles.
Kingsbury Focusing on Winning. FOX Sports’ Louis Ojeda, Jr. writes about how head coach Kliff Kingsbury is more concerned about winning than anything else:
“I’ve never said one time that we were down on talent or the program was in shambles, and I never would,” he said. “My job was to come here and win football games, develop young men and graduate players. That’s what I’ve been focused on from Day 1 and that’s where we’re heading.”
Kingsbury also talked about how he does think the program is headed in the right direction:
“I think we have things headed the right direction,” he said. “I think if you’re a Texas Tech fan and watch our coaches work with our young people and how they’ve progressed on and off the field, I think you’d be proud of the job we’ve done and what we’re doing every day. Our coaches are focused on the right things.”
For some reason, I find the timing of this article odd and I’m not real sure why I feel that way. The quotes really aren’t anything new, at least they don’t seem that way. Anyway, this seemed like an odd time to just an odd place in the year to talk about how Kingsbury isn’t making excuses about the talent, or lack of talent, on the team. He never has, which is great, although I think it is true to an extent.