Congrats!

Graduating Seniors. Congrats to the 29 graduating student-athletes who walked the stage this past weekend

Rayven Brooks (WBB)
Ryann Bowser (WBB)
Ivonne CookTaylor (WBB)
Paige Parliament (WBB)
Jamie Roe (WBB)
Micah Awe (Football)
Armani Brumfield (Football)
Jared Kaster (Football)
Benjamin Kittley (Football)
Marcus Smith (Football)
Bethany Hale (Soccer)
Brad Pearson (Football)
Davis Webb (Football)
Keenon Ward (Football)
Justis Nelson (Football)
Tyler Scalzi (Football)
Bryant Burleson (Baseball)
Zach Davis (Baseball)
Francisco Zambon (Men’s Tennis)
Katy Allen (Women’s Track and Cross Country)
Sarah Bailey (Women’s Track and Cross Country)
Haley Cook (Women’s Track)
Kelly McQuaid (Women’s Track and Cross Country)
Alexandrea Morgan (Women’s Track)
Kory Mauritsen (Men’s Track and Cross Country)
Trevorvano Mackey (Men’s Track)
Felix Ruiz (Men’s Track)
Sarah Toti (Women’s Tennis)
Alex Foster (Men’s Track and Cross Country)

Congrats to each and every one of you and Wreck’Em!

Baseball

Big 12 Championship.The baseball team will square off against Kansas State on Wednesday at 12:30 against Kansas State. The top 8 teams make the Big 12 Championship and Texas Tech is the No. 1 seed. You can check out the entire bracket and note that it’s a double-elimination bracket, so they’ll play, depending if they win or lose, Thursday at 7:00 pm if they win or at 9:00 am if they lose.

Football

Rivals’ Nick Krueger has the recruiting needs and top targers for each team in the Big 12. I’m always a bit curious as to how this works. I think the top targets are accurate, but the “what does this team need” is usually focused on who graduated and not who committed the last year. With that being said, Krueger writes that outside linebacker is the biggest need and I think long-term and short-term, it’s clearly the secondary that needs the most help. With the bevy of defenders picked up last year, I would imagine that the coaching staff would look at other positions of need and I think that’s the secondary:

Notes: Tech only returns two of its top six tacklers from last season and as a team, the Red Raiders were not a particularly successful pass-rushing defense. The dream scenario would be to find weakside linebacker that can cover as well as he pursues the quarterback… and while we’re at it, someone that is vocal and persuasive enough to lure more defensive prospects to a class whose only news to speak of so far this year has come on offense.

Baylor AD Supports Briles. Via AAS’s Susanne Halliburton, Baylor AD Ian McCaw gave his support for Baylor head coach Art Briles:

“Those of us who know him personally, know the man, see the great things he does. He transformed the program.”

That last bit, “He transformed the program,” is the entire thing wrong with Baylor right now. Yes, yes he did transform the program. In more ways than one.

Feldman on Briles. FOX Sports’ Bruce Feldman joined The Horn, a radio station in Austin, to discuss the Baylor rape situation and Art Briles and he thinks there is a 50/50 chance that Briles isn’t around for the Big 12 media days, and if Briles is there, he doesn’t see any way for Briles to avoid the questions. Feldman has no dog in the hunt, as he says, and he says that because this story has become such a national story, he doesn’t see a way out for Baylor. I still can’t bring myself to believe that Baylor would actually fire Briles. They seem too dug-in to do something like that.

Schaback on Baylor. The DMN transcribed an interview that ESPN’s Mark Schlaback did with 103.3 regarding the situation at Baylor:

Whether this is an isolated problem or not:
Schlabach: There’s problems on every campus and certainly sexual assault is not limited to Baylor and it’s not limited to Baylor and it’s not limited to college football players around the country. But I think that when you have eight instances committed by five players in the last few years it tells you that there is a problem. And it’s not that it just happened, it’s what did the school do to investigate them? What did the school do to provide the victims with counseling, academic support and things of those nature. That’s where the U.S. Department of Education and the Office of Civil Rights are going to raise big issues.

An odd story of a possible cover-up:
Schlabach: When that incident happened [a fight], during the investigation a Baylor police officer called a Waco police officer. After that conversation for whatever reason the Waco police officer asked his supervisor to remove the case from the department’s computer system so it wouldn’t be accessible by the public or other officers. The incident report was locked in the supervisor’s office. I was a beat writer for several years for major metropolitan newspapers, covered college football teams on a daily basis. One of the things you do as a beat writer is check the daily police logs to see if any players were arrested. Well, the Baylor players didn’t show up on the police log because the report was removed from the computer system. We talked to a Waco police department spokesperson and he said Baylor players weren’t given special privileges and it happens from time to time if it is a sensitive case. Certainly this was going to be a case of high profile, but it is incidents like that that make you wonder.

Schlabach is 100% correct in that first quote. Sexual assault on college campuses is a huge problem no matter the situation, it’s what’s being done after those sexual assaults happen which is the big deal.