The Morning Stake | 2018.12.18

Lady Raider Basketball

Texas Tech Baseball


College Baseball Newspaper has their preseason All-American teams and your guy Josh Jung is first team at third base, RHP Caleb Kilian makes the cut on the second team as does outfielder Gabe Holt. That is strong to quite strong.

Texas Tech Basketball

The AP relased their Top 25 Poll yesterday and Texas Tech fell a spot to 12th overall. I typically tell you not to worry about such things and I still believe that to be true. If you want to dig into how or why a voter voted the way that they did, then College Poll Tracker is terrific. Also, if you want to know why Texas Tech fell a spot, well, Michael LaBarre noted this on Saturday, which is that North Carolina, who was 12th in the AP poll last week beat Gonzaga, who was the 4th best team in the AP Poll. North Carolina moved up because they played and beat a tough opponent and that’s why Texas Tech dropped a spot. Beat Duke on Thursday and who knows where this goes.

Head coach Chris Beard was on the Jim Rome show yesterday, where you can listen to a part of it below and the whole thing right here (starts about the 24:30 mark on hour 2).

Chris Beard on Jarrett Culver’s talent and playing Duke from The Jim Rome Show on Vimeo.

Texas Tech Football

A-J Media’s Don Williams talked with Texas Tech head coach Matt Wells about his coaching influences, that runs from Steve Kragthorpe, to Jim Zorn to Bobby Petrino, yes, Petrino:

Zorn, once the star lefty quarterback of the Seattle Seahawks, was the Utah State offensive coordinator Wells’ first three years in the program. He became a long-time NFL coach.

Petrino was the Utah State offensive coordinator Wells’ fourth and fifth years in the program and the year after. Not a household name at that point, Petrino became well-known for his success and stumbles as head coach at Louisville, the Atlanta Falcons, Arkansas, Western Kentucky and Louisville again.

“I look back on it now as a coach,\” Wells said, \”and go, ‘Wow, that actually was pretty positive in my life, because I got to play for two of the better or best quarterback coaches in the country.’ That’s an arguable statement, but still to this day, Jim Zorn and Bobby Petrino, different guys, different personalities, different ways to coach, but there’s things they both taught me that I’ve been able to hand down to quarterbacks that I believe are time tested.

“And so I am product of that, but I’m also a product of an altered dream that became a head coach at his alma mater, and then I’m in the Big 12 now.”

A-J Media’s Williams also talked to Wells about the events, some of them recent, including the death of his father and the success of Utah State this past year, that have helped shape him as a coach.

Miscellaneous . . . remember that cornerback Brion Murray? He’s from Coffeyville C.C. and was between Texas Tech and Virginia Tech, well he cancelled his visit to Texas Tech, so you can figure that’s a done deal to Virginia Tech . . . Heartland College Sports’ Derek Duke spoke with Frisco all-purpose back Darrin Smith (5-8/183), who was projected to go to TCU is leaning towards Texas Tech, but won’t sign until February . . . another all-purpose back, Kyron Cumby (5-7/160) from Plano and a current Illinois commit took a visit to Texas Tech over the weekend. Cumby is a Texas Tech legacy (I can’t remember his parents, but I think his dad played at Texas Tech) . . . I think that there’s a pretty good chance that Culver City, California ATH Dominic Tatum (6-3/180) ends up signing with Texas Tech on Wednesday after his visit over the weekend and he ends up playing defense (he played offense and defense in high school) . . .

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