Hope everybody had a nice a spring break. I realize that for some of you, your spring break might be starting this week. I know Kameron Martin told me his was starting this week. That's why he has time to come up on Tuesday and check out Wednesday's practice. So if this is your week, have a great time and enjoy the time off.
OK, so let's talk a little bracket racket with the field of 68 being released Sunday. I really love Baylor's draw and absolutely like the Bears chances of returning to the Sweet 16 at the Staples Center in Los Angeles. Obviously, the West was pretty good to Baylor last year when the Bears knocked off Nebraska and Creighton to play Anaheim. The Bears get a Georgia State which really struggles to score. Look at the score in the Sun Belt championship game on Sunday where it needed only 38 points to win. Yikes. That's not a lot of points. Frankly, I don't expect this game to be very interesting. The only way this game can be is if the Bears shoot Thursday like they did in the Big 12 semifinals last Friday against Kansas.
So let's assume the chalk holds and the Bears face No. 6 Xavier, a very proud basketball school making its 25th appearance in the tournament. It's a good but not a great Xavier team. This is a group that finished 9-9 in the Big East and had some really bad losses to DePaul, Auburn (2OT) and Creighton. What the Musketeers from Cincinnati are is balanced. Their top four scorers are between 9.6 points and 12 points per game and average 74 points per game. In some cases, they remind me of a scaled down version of Iowa State. They don't shoot the 3-ball great at 34.9 percent.
Now, that we have that settled, let's go to Los Angeles where the Bears probably are going to meet up with No. 2 seed Arizona. That's where I would be very concerned about this round. But then when you're in the Sweet 16 everybody's really good (unless you're in a bracket that completely implodes). I won't speculate that far beyond that. But I'll just say this: I watched Arizona throughout the PAC 12 tournament. While the PAC 12 didn't have a great year overall, Sean Miller (he was at Xavier before he came to Arizona) has maintained with Lute Olson started. That's a Final Four team with great balance and shot blockers. Baylor will not back off, but it's going to have to play a nearly flawless game against the Wildcats in order to advance to the Elite 8. For now, let's enjoy a long Thursday afternoon lunch on TBS.
*****
Football gets back to work Monday for the second half of the spring football. Practices are also set for Wednesday and Friday with the Friday Night Lights event. I would expect the intensity to pick up. I would expect the demands from the coaching staff to pick up. I would expect the level of execution to pick up. Look, it's really go time. And Baylor has the banner lined across the Highers Practice Field, "Be the Standard".
From now until April 2, this is Seth Russell's time to deliver and start separating himself from Jarrett Stidham as the undisputed No. 1 quarterback on this team. Art Briles isn't close to naming a starter. And he probably won't do anything until after days after the spring concludes. As you know, Briles really doesn't make public statements about things like this. They just happen. It would be unusual for him to break from the norm and say something. The money says you're going to have to check out the post spring depth chart to learn that.
The first piece of good news is that this team should see DE Shawn Oakman (wrist) out there. But he will be limited for the rest of the spring. The second piece of good news is that the weather is finally going to cooperate. Outside of some rain forecasted for the middle of the week, Monday and Friday are going to be gorgeous so these can be practices that can go all out. Obviously, it's great to get workouts done in the indoor practice facility. But there's nothing like having a practice outdoors. It's invigorating. It gives a little more spring to the step. When it's 74 and Sunny player should be in a good mood and ready to work.
*****
It is definitely combine season with the recent Nike Opening events over the weekend, the Rivals QB challenge Sunday in Austin and then the Rivals camp series March 29 in Cedar Hill. Recruiting has not only become a year round event in terms of prospects talking to coaches, getting offers and committing, but these combines proliferate the offseason. I sometimes am concerned that if a top recruit blows out a knee in one of these things, it wipes out his senior year and robs him of the experience.
Obviously, those freakish things can happen at any time (see Glasco Martin with the ankle injury playing basketball a couple of summers ago). However, it is refreshing is when you watch it live and see the competitiveness of kids shine. They really want to go after it. They welcome the opportunity. They aren't afraid to fail. This is going to continue all the way through July. What it does is give us recruiting nuts a bridge from one football season to the next.
*****
If you know me by now, I really don't start putting a list together of recruits who are coming to a Baylor event until it's pretty close to the event. My philosophy is why say a kid is coming to an event two weeks out only to find out he can't the day of it. When I write something, I always couch it by saying, "he hopes to,'' or "is planning to" attend. Usually, within 48-72 hours, these kids are going to know the reality of their chances of attending.
*****
I had an interesting conversation with Silsbee offensive line commit Patrick Hudson Sunday night. Apparently, someone on Twitter was talking down Baylor and its accomplishments against TCU, so he asked me to intercede. I normally don't like to do this (I made the mistake of getting into it with a couple of West Virginia fans after the Big 12 quarterfinal game and regretted it) but I was flattered he asked yours truly to step in. All I asked that person was to check out head to head meetings between the two schools and judge for himself. Having said that, you've probably noticed more and more people are using social media to take shots at Baylor and try to cut it down. That's fine. When you're a program that hasn't been successful for decades and are now a part of the national conversation, you've upset the norm. Plus, the people who usually are complaining are the ones who cheer for schools who have also been brutal for decades. They are probably envious because Baylor found a way to crawl out. Their school has not.
*****
So let's talk about this baseball team. At 6-12 and 0-3 to start the Big 12, that's not what you're looking for. The problems from last year are re-surfacing. This team can't hit. Going into the TCU series, the team batting average was .261 and the slugging and on-base percentages were awful.
The history of baseball shows that when any team at any level that goes through a losing streak like this (now at 10) it will not recover from it and is destined to have a rough year. I love baseball because it's the most fair game that's played. Over the course of several months, weaknesses and strengths are exposed and rarely change.
I do not see this team reaching 25 wins. And the Bears are going to have to find some magic over the next two months just to make the Big 12 tournament. If those two scenarios play out, then Ian McCaw has some hard thinking to do if he hasn't already started to do it.
Steve Smith has been a great ambassador for the university. His program was good when not much else was. But now he's on the other side and the program is looking at its third consecutive year of missing the NCAA tournament.
Baylor's next two Big 12 series are at Baylor Ballpark against West Virginia this weekend and Oklahoma March 27-29. It's critical this team win those series. Before that happens, everybody has to treat Sam Houston State Tuesday and Wednesday like the College World Series. That's the kind of urgency required.
*****
The women's tournament selection show is set for tonight at 7:00 p.m. on ESPN. We'll find out who is coming to Waco. I still expect the Lady Bears to get a No. 2 seed behind UConn, Maryland, Notre Dame and South Carolina.
*****
As for a couple of other sports….
>After a 2-4 showing in Fullerton, CA last week, the No. 15 softball team swept through the San Diego Classic II at 5-0 to improve to 19-6.
>The Baylor men's golf team claimed its third tournament title of the 2014-15 season by winning the Border Olympics at Laredo Country Club. The Bears entered Saturday's final round tied for the lead and shot 3-under-par 285 to finish at 15-under 849, three strokes in front of Houston (-12) in second place.
>The eighth-ranked Baylor women's tennis team completed its two-match Big 12 road trip with a 4-0 shutout victory over No. 23 Oklahoma Sunday at the Headington Family Tennis Center in Norman, OK. Earlier in the week, playing its first match as the No. 2 team in the country, Baylor men's tennis recorded a 4-1 triumph over 13th-ranked Ole Miss Tuesday at the Gillom Sports Center.
We'll keep you posted as recruits firm up their plans for coming to Waco.
In the meantime, the random juke box returns. In honoring the NCAA tournament, I take you back to the original theme that CBS used in the early 1990s. It's still the best.
This post was edited on 3/16 10:28 AM by K Lonnquist
OK, so let's talk a little bracket racket with the field of 68 being released Sunday. I really love Baylor's draw and absolutely like the Bears chances of returning to the Sweet 16 at the Staples Center in Los Angeles. Obviously, the West was pretty good to Baylor last year when the Bears knocked off Nebraska and Creighton to play Anaheim. The Bears get a Georgia State which really struggles to score. Look at the score in the Sun Belt championship game on Sunday where it needed only 38 points to win. Yikes. That's not a lot of points. Frankly, I don't expect this game to be very interesting. The only way this game can be is if the Bears shoot Thursday like they did in the Big 12 semifinals last Friday against Kansas.
So let's assume the chalk holds and the Bears face No. 6 Xavier, a very proud basketball school making its 25th appearance in the tournament. It's a good but not a great Xavier team. This is a group that finished 9-9 in the Big East and had some really bad losses to DePaul, Auburn (2OT) and Creighton. What the Musketeers from Cincinnati are is balanced. Their top four scorers are between 9.6 points and 12 points per game and average 74 points per game. In some cases, they remind me of a scaled down version of Iowa State. They don't shoot the 3-ball great at 34.9 percent.
Now, that we have that settled, let's go to Los Angeles where the Bears probably are going to meet up with No. 2 seed Arizona. That's where I would be very concerned about this round. But then when you're in the Sweet 16 everybody's really good (unless you're in a bracket that completely implodes). I won't speculate that far beyond that. But I'll just say this: I watched Arizona throughout the PAC 12 tournament. While the PAC 12 didn't have a great year overall, Sean Miller (he was at Xavier before he came to Arizona) has maintained with Lute Olson started. That's a Final Four team with great balance and shot blockers. Baylor will not back off, but it's going to have to play a nearly flawless game against the Wildcats in order to advance to the Elite 8. For now, let's enjoy a long Thursday afternoon lunch on TBS.
*****
Football gets back to work Monday for the second half of the spring football. Practices are also set for Wednesday and Friday with the Friday Night Lights event. I would expect the intensity to pick up. I would expect the demands from the coaching staff to pick up. I would expect the level of execution to pick up. Look, it's really go time. And Baylor has the banner lined across the Highers Practice Field, "Be the Standard".
From now until April 2, this is Seth Russell's time to deliver and start separating himself from Jarrett Stidham as the undisputed No. 1 quarterback on this team. Art Briles isn't close to naming a starter. And he probably won't do anything until after days after the spring concludes. As you know, Briles really doesn't make public statements about things like this. They just happen. It would be unusual for him to break from the norm and say something. The money says you're going to have to check out the post spring depth chart to learn that.
The first piece of good news is that this team should see DE Shawn Oakman (wrist) out there. But he will be limited for the rest of the spring. The second piece of good news is that the weather is finally going to cooperate. Outside of some rain forecasted for the middle of the week, Monday and Friday are going to be gorgeous so these can be practices that can go all out. Obviously, it's great to get workouts done in the indoor practice facility. But there's nothing like having a practice outdoors. It's invigorating. It gives a little more spring to the step. When it's 74 and Sunny player should be in a good mood and ready to work.
*****
It is definitely combine season with the recent Nike Opening events over the weekend, the Rivals QB challenge Sunday in Austin and then the Rivals camp series March 29 in Cedar Hill. Recruiting has not only become a year round event in terms of prospects talking to coaches, getting offers and committing, but these combines proliferate the offseason. I sometimes am concerned that if a top recruit blows out a knee in one of these things, it wipes out his senior year and robs him of the experience.
Obviously, those freakish things can happen at any time (see Glasco Martin with the ankle injury playing basketball a couple of summers ago). However, it is refreshing is when you watch it live and see the competitiveness of kids shine. They really want to go after it. They welcome the opportunity. They aren't afraid to fail. This is going to continue all the way through July. What it does is give us recruiting nuts a bridge from one football season to the next.
*****
If you know me by now, I really don't start putting a list together of recruits who are coming to a Baylor event until it's pretty close to the event. My philosophy is why say a kid is coming to an event two weeks out only to find out he can't the day of it. When I write something, I always couch it by saying, "he hopes to,'' or "is planning to" attend. Usually, within 48-72 hours, these kids are going to know the reality of their chances of attending.
*****
I had an interesting conversation with Silsbee offensive line commit Patrick Hudson Sunday night. Apparently, someone on Twitter was talking down Baylor and its accomplishments against TCU, so he asked me to intercede. I normally don't like to do this (I made the mistake of getting into it with a couple of West Virginia fans after the Big 12 quarterfinal game and regretted it) but I was flattered he asked yours truly to step in. All I asked that person was to check out head to head meetings between the two schools and judge for himself. Having said that, you've probably noticed more and more people are using social media to take shots at Baylor and try to cut it down. That's fine. When you're a program that hasn't been successful for decades and are now a part of the national conversation, you've upset the norm. Plus, the people who usually are complaining are the ones who cheer for schools who have also been brutal for decades. They are probably envious because Baylor found a way to crawl out. Their school has not.
*****
So let's talk about this baseball team. At 6-12 and 0-3 to start the Big 12, that's not what you're looking for. The problems from last year are re-surfacing. This team can't hit. Going into the TCU series, the team batting average was .261 and the slugging and on-base percentages were awful.
The history of baseball shows that when any team at any level that goes through a losing streak like this (now at 10) it will not recover from it and is destined to have a rough year. I love baseball because it's the most fair game that's played. Over the course of several months, weaknesses and strengths are exposed and rarely change.
I do not see this team reaching 25 wins. And the Bears are going to have to find some magic over the next two months just to make the Big 12 tournament. If those two scenarios play out, then Ian McCaw has some hard thinking to do if he hasn't already started to do it.
Steve Smith has been a great ambassador for the university. His program was good when not much else was. But now he's on the other side and the program is looking at its third consecutive year of missing the NCAA tournament.
Baylor's next two Big 12 series are at Baylor Ballpark against West Virginia this weekend and Oklahoma March 27-29. It's critical this team win those series. Before that happens, everybody has to treat Sam Houston State Tuesday and Wednesday like the College World Series. That's the kind of urgency required.
*****
The women's tournament selection show is set for tonight at 7:00 p.m. on ESPN. We'll find out who is coming to Waco. I still expect the Lady Bears to get a No. 2 seed behind UConn, Maryland, Notre Dame and South Carolina.
*****
As for a couple of other sports….
>After a 2-4 showing in Fullerton, CA last week, the No. 15 softball team swept through the San Diego Classic II at 5-0 to improve to 19-6.
>The Baylor men's golf team claimed its third tournament title of the 2014-15 season by winning the Border Olympics at Laredo Country Club. The Bears entered Saturday's final round tied for the lead and shot 3-under-par 285 to finish at 15-under 849, three strokes in front of Houston (-12) in second place.
>The eighth-ranked Baylor women's tennis team completed its two-match Big 12 road trip with a 4-0 shutout victory over No. 23 Oklahoma Sunday at the Headington Family Tennis Center in Norman, OK. Earlier in the week, playing its first match as the No. 2 team in the country, Baylor men's tennis recorded a 4-1 triumph over 13th-ranked Ole Miss Tuesday at the Gillom Sports Center.
We'll keep you posted as recruits firm up their plans for coming to Waco.
In the meantime, the random juke box returns. In honoring the NCAA tournament, I take you back to the original theme that CBS used in the early 1990s. It's still the best.
This post was edited on 3/16 10:28 AM by K Lonnquist
