Baseball
Think good thoughts for former Red Raider baseballer Chad Bettis, who has been diagnosed with testicular cancer and underwent surgery to remove one of his testicles in November.
“I was completely caught off-guard by my diagnosis but have subsequently found that the vast majority of cases occur in men 20 to 40 years of age and that the survival rate is 99 percent when contained and caught early. This only reinforces my belief that each of us needs to be totally in tune with our own physical health, and that taking action sooner than later when we feel like something is off can sometimes literally be the difference between life and death.”
Make sure and get your annual check-up.
Lady Raider Basketball
Do it for the children.
Bring a new, unwrapped toy to United Supermarkets Arena on Wednesday and receive 2⃣ FREE Tickets. 🎟 #WreckEm pic.twitter.com/rwiSOASfVc
— Lady Raider WBB (@LadyRaiderWBB) December 13, 2016
Red Raider Basketball
LAJ’s Krista Pirtle writes about Texas Tech’s 8-1 start on the year and head coach Chris Beard confirms the injury situation:’
“Zach continues to be day-to-day,” Beard said. “We hope he will play on Wednesday. Norense’s rehab is going great. We’re hopeful he can get back on the practice court before Big 12 play. Ross has done a really good job with rehab. He’s practicing lightly right now, about 25 to 30 percent with no contact. We hope to get Ross in games before Big 12.”
LAJ’s Nicholas Talbot writes about former Texas Tech basketballer Luke Adams, and his new volunteer assistant coaching gig at South Plains, and head coach at South Plains head coach Steve Green talked about Adams:
“He wants to be a ball coach and despite everything that he’s overcome in his own right he never looks at anything like that as any kind of setback,” Green said. “I give him more credit than he probably actually wants himself for what he’s done.”
Football
KLTV in Tyler confirmed that he is recovering from writst surgery, something that we’ve discussed in the comments some time and he hurt that wrist against the Sooners.
Via FootballScoop, it appears that Phil Longo may be taking an offensive coordinator job, possibly at Ole Miss, which means that he most likely won’t be the offensive coordinator for Texas Tech.
RRS’s Drew Kohnle talked with LB Tony Jones about why he committed to Texas Tech from Butler C.C. and what he intends on doing for Texas Tech:
“Coach Spavital, and I sat down and we watched a lot of film. I could say that how they want to use me is very similar to how I was used at Butler, so I feel like I could go in there and pick up the scheme very quick.”
“They see me at the WILL and SAM linebacker positions. They mostly want me blitzing off of the edge a lot as well as playing some WILL. Their SAM position is their rush end position, and they really want me to play there. They said they can honestly see me filling in at any of the linebacker positions. I love rushing off of the edge, though, but I will play sideline-to-sideline.”
Abilene running back Abram Smith (6-0/196) visited Texas Tech this past weekend, is currently a Tulsa commit:
📸 I had to do it to y’all! 📸📽😈 #GunsUp pic.twitter.com/fmWr1bfwft
— HollyWood (@abramsmith_28) December 13, 2016
Sports Business Daily’s John Ourand has a bunch of things that he think will happen in 2017a nd this stood out:
The bad news: ESPN will continue losing subscribers. ESPN lost more than 3 million subscribers in 2016, its sixth straight year of subscriber losses, according to Nielsen estimates. 2017 will push that streak to seven. ESPN is in 88.401 million homes. Expect it to lose another 3 million to finish 2017 at 85 million, which still will be one of the biggest distribution numbers in the business. There will be good news for ESPN on the distribution front, though. Its streaming deals with Hulu, DirecTV Now and, soon, YouTube will start to bring in a lot more subscribers in 2017, but not enough to offset the cable and satellite losses.
Ourand also has some news on the Big Ten and if it’s not clear, the landscape is changing incredibly quickly.