Briefly

Both tennis teams are headed to the NCAA Tournament. The No. 11 ladies will be hosting the first and second round (official site). The ladies will be joined by Princeton, Illinois and Army and will play Army on May 11th at 1:00 p.m. Meanwhile, the No. 30 men will play in Los Angeles No. 41 San Diego in a four team regional with San Diego, No. 2 UCLA and Idaho (official site). First match is May 12th at 11:00 a.m.

The softball team run-ruled Abiliene Christian yesterday, 10-2, on a walk-off homerun to send everyone home (official site).

Lady Raider Basketball

Three commits in three days. Junior college guard/forward Kiara Shoals (5’10”) signed with Texas Tech yesterday, was an honorable mention All-Amerian last year, averaged 17.3 points a game and head coach Marlene Stollings is assembling some JUCO scorers very quickly (official site):

“Kiara is very athletic and brings size to the guard/forward position. She can score in a variety of ways, especially driving to the rim with authority,” Stollings said. “Her court awareness and ability to rebound are skills that I really like about her game. We are extremely happy to add her to our Lady Raider movement!”

Texas Tech Baseball

The Red Raiders notched another win in an 11-6 victory over San Diego yesterday (Recap | Box Score). A little uneven (putting this nicely), but I’ll take it. Ryan Sublette got the start and made it through 3.2 innings, allowing 2 runs on 7 hits, 3 walks and 3 strikeouts. Caleb Freeman (W, 1-0) earned the win, but he was maybe the worst of the pitchers today, going 2 innings, giving up 4 runs (none of them earned), walking 3 and striking out 3. The most interesting thing that happened during the game is that Grant Little started at shortstop and went 2-3 with 2 RBI and 2 walks. I don’t recall Little playing short this year (maybe ever in college) and maybe that’s something to look forward to next year with Michael Davis graduating. Zach Rheams went 3-5 with an RBI and Josh Jung went 2-4 with 2 RBI and 2 walks.

Up next . . . the Longhorns for the weekend.

Texas Tech Football

Really neat open letter to the undrafted players from last weekend’s NFL Draft from Danny Amendola via the Player’s Tribune. Go read the whole things, but here’s a bit:

I know this situation sucks, and your head is spinning, and you probably feel like just staying in bed for about a week. But forget about that. Trust me when I tell you there’s no time to waste feeling bad right now.

Maybe you’re still upset about sitting through seven rounds of names that weren’t yours, or maybe you were expecting to be in this position. Either way, you don’t have time to dwell on what you think you deserve because after months of going through of being stuck in this limbo that is the draft process, suddenly your entire reality has changed. You’ve been playing this game for most of your life. It’s probably the thing most people know you for, the first topic of conversation brought up by anyone you meet. And now you have no idea how close your career is to ending.

But you know what? I was right where you are, 11 years ago… and I’m still playing football.

There may be some new transfer rules afoot (ESPN) as the American Football Coaches Association trustees voted in favor of allowing athletes who sit out a year to transfer will gain that year of eligibility if they graduate from their new school:

The American Football Coaches Association’s board of trustees voted unanimously on Tuesday in favor of an idea to allow athletes who sit out a year per the current NCAA transfer rule to gain that year of eligibility back if they graduate from their new school.

This would open the door for transfers to play for five years instead of the current four and give them six total years to play for five seasons if they redshirt before transferring. The coaches will discuss it throughout their spring meetings, but it couldn’t go into effect unless approved by the Division I Council, which wouldn’t be any earlier than next spring.