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The Morning Stake | 2019.03.21

The Morning Stake
Seth C

The Morning Stake | 2019.03.21

Leading Off

Bracket Update. 1) I added some more entries this morning when I got up and I’m done. We’re probably close to 100+ of people entered in the bracket. 2) I don’t want to oversell this, but there may be prizes, some good prizes. Still working out details, but there’s a pretty good chance that there will be prizes and they won’t be terrible. Since you’re already entered, there’s nothing that you have to do. And if it doesn’t work out, then you’ve got nothing to worry about.

Texas Tech Track and Field

Texas Tech Tennis

Texas Tech Softball

Texas Tech Baseball

Five Games. This is a very unusual five-game series, three games with Michigan starting today through Saturday and two games with Stetson starting Sunday through Monday. I think it took 2 hours to put together the stats that I always put together for the preview and series thread, the HTML stuff is incredibly time-consuming. Regardless, this should be fun. And the team will be wearing throwbacks tonight.

Texas Tech Basketball

Arrival in Tulsa.

Team. Does anyone know if #12 in the first photo is the new signee Andrei Savrasov?

Wallpaper. This is a thread of wallpaper of all of the players and Beard. Go change the background on your phone.

Haxton in Tulsa. Tulsa World’s Bill Haisten writes about play-by-play man for Texas Tech, Geoff Haxton, who is originally from Tulsa and called Tulsa home:

Immediately after the Texas Tech-to-Tulsa announcement was made, Haxton was inundated on Twitter with requests for restaurant recommendations.

“I’ve become a tour guide for the whole Texas Tech fan base,” he said. “It’s like, ‘We know you’re from Tulsa. Now tell us where to go eat.’ It feels like a big responsibility.”

Odiase’s Grief. Star-Telegram’s Drew Davison writes about Ft. Worth native Norense Odiase, who overcame the tragedy of losing family members to motivate him:

Esosa Oyemwense and Osaretin Igbinedion died in an automobile accident last month in Lubbock, and it’s been a trying time for the 23-year-old out of North Crowley High School.

“It’s hard to channel it at this time,” Odiase said last week at the Big 12 basketball tournament in Kansas City, Mo. “I still think about it every day. I still battle, but just playing for these guys is pushing me every day.”

Odiase has been using basketball as an escape from the tragic realities over the past month.

Losing Early. SI’s Eric Single writes that Texas Tech could be prone to an early loss:

The Red Raiders would be a bad matchup for Michigan in Anaheim, but they have to make it there first. If seeds hold, a second-round matchup with Buffalo, which deploys multiple senior scorers and plays the shortest offensive possessions of any tournament team, could bring Texas Tech out of its rhythm, especially if threes aren’t falling the way they began to down the stretch in Lubbock. And if you want to get really pessimistic, No. 14 seed Northern Kentucky has on its résumé two admirable 13-point road losses to AAC teams (UCF and Cincy) with top-40 kenpom defenses, so it’s not as if the Red Raiders will be the first rough-and-tumble team the Norse have ever seen. Texas Tech may not see an elite offense before it would face Gonzaga in the Elite Eight, but if no one steps up around do-it-all sophomore Jarrett Culver, Tech has bigger problems than the Zags.

Texas Tech Football

Food. So yesterday in the post about the suspension of Fields, Wallace, Ward, and Fulcher and there were comments made by Lonzell Gilmore about how the food is more healthy, lots of baked chicken. Anyway, there were a few folks that were calling BS on the comments and that Gilmore’s comments were throwing the former staff under the bus. I don’t know where to begin on this, but just because Kingsbury didn’t make the team eat healthy means that he’s a bad coach. Conversely, just because Matt Wells has the team eating healthy does this mean he’s a hall-of-famer.

I had a player parent email me about a month ago. The staff can confirm this because I shared it with them. Anyway, the parent was just telling me that there are now no longer any unhealthy options available for the team unless that player eats on their own. I think that previously, there were healthy and unhealthy options and there were no limits to the food that you could eat. Now, I think this has changed a bit, the team only has healthy food options, the smaller but more frequent meals is the direction that the strength and conditioning staff is wanting the players to go.

Do I think this is a big deal? No. Do I think it’s a shock for the players? Yes. Should you believe me? I don’t know, but I wouldn’t be putting it out there if I didn’t get the email from the parent. I think that this is just what Wells and Scholz do from a strength and conditioning aspect. I mean, this is pretty normal stuff if you’re looking to be an athlete, even at a low level. I eat pretty danged healthy because I was training for an ultra marathon, lots of fruit, vegetables, lean meat, etc. It’s hard to run quickly if you’re carrying around a lot of extra weight. None of this should be shocking, that the players are being asked to do this. And none of this should be shocking that Kingsbury didn’t have a really strict diet plan. Again, I think that Kingsbury allowed more options for players, that’s neither a positive or a negative for me. These are college kids that can probably consume whatever the heck that they want. EDIT: I wanted to add here that I’m also thinking that Wells thinks that he can make his team that much better if they eat more healthy. Again, not rocket science here, pretty logical. Any competitive advantage you can gain is a net positive. Time will tell if this is beneficial (players could transfer because they don’t like the lack of options or it could attract more players knowing that there’s a real emphasis on nutrition).

I am surprised at the level of discussion about this.

Former Players. If we’re following along, I think that Chris Beard has done the same thing, bend over backwards to get the former players back on campus.

That’s a Nice Play.

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