Texas Tech Baseball
It’s been one heck of a regional. Before yesterday, Texas Tech had made it unscathed through the Lubbock Regional. Sam Houston State walloped Arizona in the first game and then SHSU would have to play Texas Tech in the evening. Texas Tech would fall to the Bearkats 9-8 and now face Sam Houston State today at 2:00 pm. Win and advance, lose and go home. I’ll have a separate open thread for that game that goes up at noon.
Delaware was eliminated on Saturday, but before the Blue Hens left, the Delaware head coach Jim Sherman had some terrific things to say about Texas Tech and Lubbock.
Before the #BlueHens take off, coach Sherman had a special message for @TTU_Baseball and #RedRaiders fans alike. Thanks #Lubbock! pic.twitter.com/aQTmCDPJkm
— Blue Hens Baseball (@DelawareBASE) June 4, 2017
Delaware HC Jim Sherman on #TexasTech‘s fan support in elimination game against Arizona:
“Hey, west Texas, you’re my home away from home.” pic.twitter.com/JkwjkiuHt8
— Andrew Doak (@AndrewDoak_KAMC) June 4, 2017
Texas Tech Basketball
LAJ’s Carlos Silva, Jr. confirmed that Shadell Millinghaus confirmed that he is no longer with the team, which now means that the team is down to the required 13 scholarship players.
And in that same breath, also via the LAJ, Italian guard Davide Moretti (6-3) is looking for a place to sign and is visiting in Lubbock this weekend. Moretti is also visiting Indiana, Uconn and Utah. If Moretti signed with Texas Tech, then this would mean that another player would potentially leave. According to Chris Level (via the radio last week) the likely options being Brandone Francis and Niem Stevenson.
Texas Tech Football
Kansas State head coach Bill Snyder had previously decided not to release receiver Corey Sutton to any program and Snyder reversed field on Friday and decided that Sutton could go to any of the schools he had requested, which were not on any future schedule for K-State or a Big 12 opponent.
Via Land Grant Gauntlet, the Big 12 will distribute $34.8 million, which does not include third tier rights, which puts the Big 12 ahead of the Big Ten (believe it or not).
SI’s Andy Staples via Yahoo! Sports writes about why the NCAA probably won’t punish Baylor:
*The NCAA could conceivably punish Baylor for violations of recruiting or extra benefit rules. There certainly were plenty of accusations on those fronts during the Briles era, but nothing has been proven at this point. When one Baylor basketball player murdered another in 2003 and coach Dave Bliss told his players to lie about the dead player, the NCAA did punish the program. Not for the truly awful stuff, but because Bliss was paying two players—including murder victim Patrick Dennehy—to act as walk-ons to get around NCAA scholarship limits.
But the leaders of the schools chose not to give the NCAA that power. Why? Perhaps they didn’t want the NCAA’s occasionally inept enforcement department messing around in cases far more important in the grand scheme than whether a coach made too many phone calls to a recruit. Perhaps they felt the existing state and federal laws were enough. Perhaps they feared the next scandal would pop up at their school and didn’t want to give the NCAA the option to gut a cash cow football program.
I thought that there would be some sort of “lack of institutional control” but as much as I don’t like to admit it, I think Staples is probably right. And I’m not at all saying that I don’t want the NCAA to do something, but that the likelihood is that they can’t.