The Morning Stake is brought to you by DiamondStuds4Less.com. Enter promotional code RedRaider15 for 15% off your diamond jewelry purchase, including custom orders.
Texas Tech Golf
Recap | Brunt sends #TexasTech into a tie for 3️⃣rd after strong day at Briar’s Creek Invitational.
📰➡: https://t.co/Jk8PEGEHIy #WreckEm pic.twitter.com/FDDJJci7Ki
— Texas Tech W Golf (@TexasTechWGolf) March 20, 2018
Texas Tech Football
🏈🔜
Spring practice resumes tomorrow morning leading up to Saturday’s scrimmage in Midland! #WreckEm pic.twitter.com/LPf9WaSyV8
— Texas Tech Football (@TexasTechFB) March 19, 2018
Miscellaneous. SportsTreatise’s Ian Boyd breaks down Texas Tech’s recruiting class and I’ll answer a couple of questions: 1) Yes, Boyd is a UT fan and grad; 2) If you don’t like reading another person’s opinions or thoughts, then don’t click . . .
Texas Tech Basketball
This is going to be all about Texas Tech basketball today.
FanRag Sports’ Jon Rothstein had Chris Beard on his Hoops Today podcast, Beard is on around the 8:30 mark of the podcast and during that podcast Beard said he dreams about coaching on Monday night:
“I dream about Monday night,” Red Raiders head coach Chris Beard said Monday on the College Hoops Today Podcast. “I’m a dreamer. I think about One Shining Moment. I’m one of those types of people.”
Ranking the Sweet Sixteen. USA Today’s Scott Gleeson re-ranks the Sweet Sixteen teams and has Texas Tech at #8:
The Red Raiders have an active defense and two offensive weapons most teams don’t have in do-everything guard Keenan Evans and dynamic forward Zhaire Smith. Evans was clutch down the stretch against Florida, and is a game-changer with his playmaking. Protecting the paint will be a must for coach Chris Beard’s team against Purdue, as the Red Raiders coughed up 38 points near the rim against the Gators. Guarding the perimeter is a strong suit, with TTU ranking 14th nationally in field goal percentage.
Memorable Moments. NBC Sports’ Rob Dauster has the top 12 memorable moments from last weekend’s games and the Keenan Evans takeover is #12:
We’ve been trying to let you know about this guy all season long. The Texas Tech star averaged 22.5 points and 3.0 assists through the first two weekends of the event, and 33 of the 45 points that he scored came in the second half of two close wins. He hit the go-ahead three to beat Florida with just over two minutes left and made all the big plays in the come-from-behind win over Stephen F. Austin in the first round. He is a killer.
16 Things. NCAA’s Mike Lopresti has 16 things to know about the 16 teams:
High on the list of Purdue’s worst NCAA tournament moments is 2016, when the Boilermakers blew a 13-point lead in the last 3:33 of regulation and lost 85-83 in two overtimes to Little Rock in the first round. The happy Trojans coach shouted toward press row as he ran off the court, “Don’t ever count the little guys out.”
Chris Beard. Now the Texas Tech coach. It’s a pretty safe bet that Purdue’s seniors and coach Matt Painter remember that night. The problem for the Boilermakers is they’re down a 7-footer with Isaac Haas’ injury. “We also showed we’ve got a lot of pieces,” Painter said of the win over Butler Sunday without Haas. It took a late 3-pointer Dakota Mathias so save them, who was asked if it was the biggest shot of his life. “This is 1, 2 and 3,” he answered.
Miscellaneous. RedRaiderSports’ Will McKay has screenshots from a writer from the Boston Globe, Jerry Sullivan, that almost makes me think it was written as a parody or just to throw out as many hot taeks as possible, but it’s probably real. I spent some time looking for the article but couldn’t find it (I didn’t look that hard) and it’s more funny how wrong it is than anything else . . . GoldAndBlack.com’s Kyle Charters has an early look at Texas Tech . . . via Purdue Exponent’s Atreya Verma writes that Purdue center Isaac Haas wants to play on Friday night, he has a fractured elbow, but Haas has to find an acceptable brace and manage the pain, which he may not be able to do as his head coach doesn’t think he will play . . . via The Athletic, the voice behind the @UMBCAthletics twitter account, Zach Seidel (they went from 5,000 twitter follows to over 100,000 in a weekend) . . . CBS Sports had Keenan Evans on to talk about his connection with Zhaire Smith . . .