We consider the effect of all of the early commits for Texas Tech and Kliff Kingsbury and Tubby Smith talks about the shortened shot clock.

Photo via Charles Henry @ Flickr.

Basketball

Tubby Makes Jokes. With the new shot-clock going from 35 seconds to 30, the Big 12 basketball coaches joined a teleconference with WVU head coach Bob Huggins being the guy that didn’t like the rule. Texas Tech head coach Tubby Smith was good with it because, well, good players win games no matter what:

Tubby Smith, Texas Tech: “There are 351 Division 1 teams and a lot of them have to play different ways to be successful. I think the players and coaches will adapt. People talked how we tried to slow the game down to grow our program, to compete with the better teams. We had to play a certain way. We’d much rather play up and down. The teams with the best players are gonna win, no matter what.”

Texas Tech Offers Hamm. This is not the son of Davin Ham, notice there’s only one “m” there, but via Wreck’Em 24/7’s Phil Arabome, unrated 2017 power forward Royce Hamm has been offered by Texas Tech.

Baseball

Fowler Plays in All-Star Game. One player that wasn’t drafted was Cleburne’s Tyler Fowler, an infielder who has been committed to Texas Tech for a good while, played in the 2015 Texas High School Baseball Coaches Association All-Star Game. Fowler was one of 40 players picked and a pretty good little season, pretty good little season:

In the regular season, Fowler led Cleburne in all major offensive categories as he boasted a .529 batting average, a .943 slugging percentage and a .598 on-base percentage. He had 32 RBIs and drew 13 walks with four home runs, 11 doubles and three triples. On the mound, he went 5-1 with 40 strikeouts and nine walks in 35.1 innings pitched for a 1.98 ERA.

Football

Early Commits. ESPN’s Jake Trotter answered some Twitter questions, one of them being the quick start that Texas Tech is out to in recruiting:

Such a fast start could also create the perception of momentum with prospective blue-chippers, which is an underrated attribute to have in recruiting. One thing is for sure, Tech won’t have to worry about scrambling to fill out its class at the end, which is something that plagues various school in the days leading up to signing day. It will be very interesting to see how our ESPN scouts view this class come February.

I actually mentioned this to my brother-in-law the other day (I had not seen this article even though it’s been out for 4 days) and I think this is a pretty good thought. I know that there are lots of snickers, not the kind you like to eat, about Texas Tech’s recruiting class and that it lacks star power. Well, Texas Tech very much went for star power and that crunch at the end of the year ended up being very real for Texas Tech. I think I like this philosophy better. Plus, I like to think that the coaches have evaluated players and spent hours in the film room finding guys that they want.

Debating Freshman Eligibility. LAJ’s Don Williams talked with athletic director Kirby Hocutt and head coach Kliff Kingsbury stand on freshmen eligibility, both gentlemen not really being in favor of it. As you might recall, Big Ten commish Jim Delany proposed the idea and this idea hasn’t really received any traction.

Miscellaneous. ESPN’s Max Olson updates you on the Big 12 recruiting things . . .