The Morning Stake | 2020.11.20

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The paint is still wet for the 2020 NBA Draft, but SB Nation’s Ricky O’Donnell takes an early look at the 2021 class and Terrence Shannon appears at 23:

Texas Tech once developed Jarrett Culver and Zhaire Smith into first round picks after breakout sophomore seasons. Maybe Shannon can be next. The 6’5 guard is a wiry athlete who made opportunistic offensive plays for the Red Raiders as a freshman, showing an ability to get to the foul line (he hit 82 percent of his free throws) and finish plays around the rim. You can expect any Chris Beard-coached player to be excellent defensively and to improve their body year-over-year. Shannon has some upside as a breakout candidate coming in to the season.

I listened more than I typed when it came to baseball head coach Tim Tadlock. Tadlock sounds frustrated about the schedule and he just wants to play some baseball and not limit it to just Big 12 games. He wants a bus, some sack lunches, and to play baseball. That’s it. Below is my attempt at a non-transcript for those of you who can’t listen to the video. Also, Tadlock does not appear to really like the Zoom press conferences and more than anything, he just wants to play baseball wherever anyone will play baseball.

* Had an opportunity to get out there, and things felt back to normal a bit and were excited. Last weekend we pretty much had the whole group out there, which was a first for the whole fall.

* Just good to see the competition.

* Have not had to do a lot of Zoom’s, the 2021 class was already put together. Not sure people realize how far out recruiting happens. The 2022 class and 2023, we like the way they are coming together, the 2021 group, a dozen or so guys can really impact the game, not really that comfortable saying names even though they have signed. Really excited about that group and are fortunate the 2021 class, the fall of 2019, those guys are able to come on campus. The guys getting cheated are the 2022, 2023, and 2024 class.

* Not as cool as you would think, really proud of how he’s worked during the pandemic and how he has come out before our practice. He’s been diligent and it is cooler to me to hit fly balls or batting practice. The signing is for the kids.

* Chase Hampton, Brendon Girton, Jamie Hitt, Nick Gorby, there’s 5 guys in that freshman class that you could run to the mound and feel good about it. Levi Wells and Hayde Key would be the other two, Josh Sanders threw the ball good. We’ve never had 5 of them, we’ve had 4, these 5 guys are not as polished as Gingery and Davis, but this group is not far off. Their stuff is every bit as good.

* The one comforting is that everyone is in the same boat, I know that our program would appreciate the ability to compete in the same format we have every year in postseason. there is an argument for college baseball players and teams that they can play based on last year was taken away, really for these guys, college baseball developing is better than minor league baseball, if we play, just the fact that we’re playing would solidly that argument, and MLB wants colleges to develop players. We would be okay with saying here’s the keys to the buys, we’re not taking classes, here’s the bus and this is when the postseason starts. In some other sports they settled for Big 12 play, it needs to be about the day-to-day, getting better and growing. We’d all appreciate the ability to have some form of regular national tournament.

* Want to let coaches determine the schedule, if you want to play 10 games, then play 10, or 5. There’s a lot of ideas, like 4-game weekends. Now we’re talking about as many games as you can for the student-athletes and their development. Just need to be flexible. The Big Ten isn’t playing mid-week games. We can appreciate the patience our league in making the decision. We don’t need a charter plane, we need a bus, some sack lunches, and we want to play baseball.

* Have to earn the right to be on the field. We don’t look at last year as any motivating factor to play today. You either want to be elite, and young guys need structure to be great, and we’re trying to do what’s best for each guy each day, which is more challenging than ever. It is looking at the number of guys on your roster and the challenge of doing everything in your power to be successful, prosper and grow.

The Lady raiders held their Virtual Tip-Off from last night and it should also be noted that Bryn Gerlich, the daughter of head coach Krista Gerlich and transfer from Oklahoma State, had her waiver approved by the NCAA.

Here are some tweets.

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