Texas Tech Baseball

Congrats to Tanner Gardner who signed with the Texas Rangers yesterday.

Also signing was the 9th rounder OF Tanner Gardner from Frisco, TX and Texas Tech. All 8 assigned to Arizona Rangers

— John Blake (@RangerBlake) June 20, 2017

Also, via a Dispatch, Steven Gingery will pitch for USA Baseball’s collegiate team this summer and play Chinese Taipei, Cuba and Japan.

Texas Tech Basketball

ItalHoop’s Riccardo De Angelis writes about the role that Davide Moretti hopes to have with Texas Tech and even go so far as to link to Staking The Plains. I think we’ve had our very first international link-back, so that’s a pretty proud moment. This is translated from Italian and I think it loses a bit in translation:

Just the arc conclusions will be a central resource that the Italian could and should add. Last season, the Red Raiders had pulled with a decent 36.7% but with relatively few attempts and a marked number of conclusions that placed them third from bottom of the Big 12. Given the loss of Livingston (39.9%, the roster player who pulled more often from the arc), a possible change of trend will, however, depend only on Moretti, but also from other incoming external: during the last year of junior college, Edwards pulled with 36% three, Webster only with 31%.

The major question related to the impact of Moretti in the two halves field is tied to the skill in dealing with a physical and athletic level from high majors, considerably higher than that of A2 Series. Body and athleticism in the standard for the role, the Moor has shown very good ability in attracting and absorbing the contact but will be completely re-occur in the Big 12.

Texas Tech Football

Congratulations to our week 1 lifters of the week! #WreckEm #GunsBlazin18 pic.twitter.com/Jb8JBk1iGC

— Red Raider FB (@RedRaider_FB) June 20, 2017

2014 ⏩ 2017

This week’s #TransformationTuesday is Cameron Batson.

➡️ https://t.co/IXVOTwNLGk #WreckEm pic.twitter.com/Ip94Gm043o

— Texas Tech Football (@TexasTechFB) June 20, 2017

ESPN’s Adam Teicher writes about what the Kansas City Chiefs got right this offseaon in drafting Patrick Mahomes:

Move I liked: The Chiefs have played with castoffs from other teams at quarterback for too many years and many times they were at a huge disadvantage compared to their opponents at the game’s most important position. The Chiefs made the attempt to fix this problem by trading up to draft quarterback Mahomes in the first round. Mahomes, who played exclusively in the spread offense at Texas Tech, has much to learn before he’s ready to become the starter, but the Chiefs can afford to wait. Alex Smith has two seasons left on his contract. The Chiefs deserve credit for trying to find a long-term solution at quarterback.

The LAJ talked with Jace Amaro, who had an injury plagued two years with the NY Jets, is now with the Titans and looking to rebound:

A year later, the Jets waived him. He was picked up by the Tennessee Titans a few days later, but didn’t see a ton of action. On Sept. 25, he caught three passes for 59 yards in a 17-10 loss to the Oakland Raiders. Those were the only passes he caught all season as he mostly watched Tennessee finish 9-7 last season and miss a wild card spot by one game.

But despite the lack of playing time in his first season with Tennessee, Amaro is buoyed by the Titans prospects this season and the growth of starting quarterback Marcus Mariota.

“Marcus is obviously one of the top guys and not just on our team but around the league,” Amaro said. “I think we as a team are really excited and I think we have a good shot at being really good this year.”

 SportingNews’ Alex Marvez writes about how Davis Webb is essentially starting from scratch in some aspects of calling an NFL game:

“He’d come from a program that concentrated on certain aspects of the game,” said Zorn, who began mentoring Webb prior to the latter’s standout January appearance in the Reese’s Senior Bowl. “In the NFL, you have to have other knowledge as well. You have to have a great understanding what defenses are showing you and how to change (blocking) protections to get yourself protected or at least know where your trouble is (coming from).”

Zorn then chuckled.

“In those two aspects, he honestly was starting very raw, very early in a knowledge base. Trying to take that to a working knowledge and being able to verbalize it, draw it, be on the field and understand what he saw, we started at square one.”

Zorn isn’t exaggerating.

“Davis had never called a play even on the line of scrimmage,” Zorn said. “He might have audibled or said a word here and there. But to call a formation, a motion, a shift, the play, the protection, the snap count and then remember that count when you’re walking up to the line of scrimmage — that is terror for young QBs.”

Miscellaneous . . . Texas Tech commit Corey Fulcher spoke with Scout’s Greg Powers about his game . . .