Since I’ve chosen so many deceased alumni (which I know is not the point of scattershooting) I figured why stop here when I can highlight the career of one Wayman Tisdale. Tisdale was born in Ft. Worth, but his father was a famous pastor in Tulsa, the former Osage Expressway was named after his father, L.L. Tisdale. Tisdale loved music and played the bass guitar growing up in addition to basketball. Tisdale was a star at Oklahoma, playing for Billy Tubbs, the U.S. Olympic team coached by Bobby Knight, and was the 2nd overall pick in the 1985 NBA Draft. In 2007 Tisdale was treated for cancer in his knee, eventually having his leg amputated, eventually passing away in 2009.

These moves would have absolutely translated to the NBA today.

And I’d be remiss if I didn’t post a video of some of his music as well.

Oklahoma Things. Like a lot of teams that struggle for consistency, which includes teams like Texas Tech and Oklahoma, you can look at the road/home splits and figure it out. The Sooners average nearly 38 points a game on offene at home and just 24 on the road, while the defense is giving up 25 at home and 30 on the road. For Texas Tech, those splits are even more exaggerated, scoring 40 points at home and just 22 on the road while the defense gives up 26 points at home and 30 on the road. I think this bodes well for Texas Tech . . . the Sooners I think have had real issues with offensive coordinator Jeff Lebby, one of the Baylor/Briles guys and they just haven’t been as dominant as they have in prior years (they also lost a ton of transfers and probably need to re-load). Maybe that starts up front, but Bill Bedenbaugh is still there and he didn’t change as a coach. That’s not to say that the defense doesn’t have issues, but that’s basically your head coach running things . . . Oklahoma opened as 1.5 favorites and it has moved to 1.0. And It should be mentioned that Texas Tech defensive end Tyree Wilson has a broken foot that he’ll need to repair and he’s declaring and getting ready for the NFL Draft. Congrats to Tyree and go chase those dreams!

🖤❤️ pic.twitter.com/J98SMpyf7R

— Tyree Wilson (@tyreewilson77) November 21, 2022

Up & Down in the Big 12. Sort of have to lead with TCU and Baylor, where TCU was down in the 4th quarter and the Horned Frogs kicked a field goal with no time left on the clock to win the game by 1. TCU missed an extra point maybe and the 2-point conversion that would have helped tremendously. Regardless, TCU continues to remain unbeaten, while there are 4 teams that are 4-4 in conference, Baylor, Oklahoma, and Texas Tech . . . Kansas State whipped West Virginia in Morgantown, 48-31, possibly setting up the Horned Frogs and Wildcats for the Big 12 Championship. Kansas State scored 41 points in the first half . . . I am shocked as to the downfall of the Oklahoma State Cowboys. I thought they would be better than what they are and the were handily defeated by Oklahoma 28-13, who scored all 28 points in the first quarter. I think that Gundy will replace whoever is at offensive coordinator. The Sooners are sitting at 3-5 in conference, which is shocking in a way . . . Texas manhandled Kansas, 55-14, in Lawrence, avenging last year’s loss in Austin. Bijan Robinson is an absolute stud and rushed for 243 yards and 4 touchdowns . . .

Baylor travels to Austin to take on Texas with the Longhorns favored by 7.0 and Baylor has questions at quarterback . . . West Virginia limps to the end of the season to face Oklahoma State in Stillwater with the Cowboys favored by 8.5 . . . Iowa State is the last Big 12 team with the shot to upset the Horned Frogs, in Ft. Worth, TCU is favored by 10.5 . . . the Sunflower Showdown is set as Kansas attempts to take on Kansas State and I’m a bit surprised that the Wildcats are favored by 12.5 . . .

Internet Things. This is fun. This is the moment that these two gentlemen realize that a bird called the “auwo”, thought to be extinct since 1882, was seen by a game camera in Papua New Guinea.

Here’s the video of the bird in question.

I am super excited to share the first video of the Black-naped pheasant-pigeon, a species from Papua New Guinea lost to science for 140 years! @ABCbirds @rewild @Jordan_Boersma @johnmittermeier pic.twitter.com/QplRA36Xr0

— Jason Gregg (@JasonJGregg) November 17, 2022

I can’t imagine the joy of finding something that you’ve thought was lost or gone forever. I can misplace my keys, but to find a bird was thought-to-be-gone from this earth 140 years ago is pretty great. That is pure joy and happiness and I’m going to celebrate those sorts of things.

Other Observations. We’re sort of almost there, the end of the football season and I really thought that it would take longer, but this fall season blinked by and this is the last one of these that I’m going to do, at least for this year and as soon as the clock hits 0:00 the renovations will begin for the south end zone. Just so much happening that it is awesome and fun. And I’ve had a ton of fun this season and I think that the winter signing periods are going to be so much fun, even more fun than last year. I’ve been hopeful all year and I’ve had fun. I’ve maintained a sense of hope all year and that’s been fun for me personally. I do know that it is easy to get wrapped up in what doesn’t happen or what goes wrong, but I feel like this staff has done a pretty good job of getting things right. Maybe not the next week, but things do get corrected or there is improvement I think. That’s not to say there weren’t rough patches, but considering that all 3 quarterbacks have been injured and there’s been issues along the offensive line and all of the great linebackers from last year had to be replaced and there were questions about if the secondary could cover anyone, it would have been real easy to not know where things would be headed. I think things are headed in the right direction and finishing this out is going to be fun. As an aside, the photo in the header is from the London School of Economics library and the caption reads as, “Black Jack. From ‘Street Life in London’, 1877, by John Thomson and Adolphe Smith.” It arrived in the search when looking for “wagon” for the Boomer Schooner.