Pitchers And Catchers, Due To Report

Well, we've past the Valentine's Day landmark, meaning that Spring Training is about to begin! Woo-Hoo! In attempt to get all you tens of Ranger fans fired up for the 2009 season, read this article from si.com. I will now string myself upside down by my toenails.

In related Texas sporting news, Kevin Durant the absolute truth, FNL continues to impress (even though Saracen is sort of a crybaby. Man up, dude), and I hate UT's new Field Turf.

Horns and Panthers

I promised a few college basketball thoughts last time, so even though the Horns really let me down yesterday and I don't want to talk too much about it, here it goes:

• Uggghh. Fortunately for me, I was busy and missed all of the first half, and didn't tune in until there were nine minutes remaining in regulation, with Texas down 53-40. Needless to say, I was shocked at the deficit, since the Horns have been playing much better since the beatdown they got in Norman a few weeks ago. After falling down by as much as 17, UT fought back to tie the game late and go into overtime.


• At this point, I thought they had it. The Horns played the last five minutes of regulation with extremely high intensity and did almost everything right in their frantic run to close the gap, and I thought this would carry over to the extra session.


• Even though KState went up early, I thought UT had a shot until they missed the rebound with 11 seconds left after KState missed two free-throws. The Horns fouled the right guy, he predictably missed both freebies, but instead of getting the rebound and having the last possession down two points, Conner Atchley decided not to secure the ball, KState did, and subsequently made one of two free throws to essentially seal the game. While Texas did get the ball back, KState smartly fouled, (you listening, Calapari?) sending Dogus Balbay to the line where he made the first, but didn't hit rim on his intentional miss which gave the ball to the Cats, and that was pretty much all she wrote. In a game where Texas played so badly for the first 2/3 of the game, it's hard to blame on play or player for the loss, but missed free-throws in OT, not securing rebounds, and a killer three-pointer from KState (from about 30 feet with the shot clock running down, no less) won't win you close games.


• What's the deal with UT not being able to beat Kansas State? Two years in a row in football, and the past two times they've come to the Drum, the Cats have won. In fact, the last time the Horns lost there was Super Bowl weekend, 2007 to...you guessed it, the Kansas State Wildcats. Someone needs to shuffle the schedule a little bit.
  

Alright, now for the FNL recap of the week. As always, it was another great episode, with many future storylines developing. First of all, glad Smash decided to go to college-even if it is aTm-and not take the deal to become a store manager at Alamo Freeze. This actually could go under the 'unrealistic' list, if only because many people I know in his situation (former HS star, tons of scholarship offers, injury, loss of scholarship and being reduced to walking on) probably would have taken the job offer (hey, I got a company car!) and just went on with life. However, he did what will best suit him for the long-run, even if he isn't able to earn a scholarship, so that was nice to see for Smash.

I hate Team Buddy McCoy. Obviously, that's what the show wants from it's viewers, but let me tell ya, it's working. If Coach Taylor had punched out Buddy or Joe (is it Joe? I forgot) McCoy in the pool room, no one would have blamed him, and Coach is a better man than I am for walking away. I am looking forward to the where this storyline goes in the future, though. Will Coach stick with Saracen, even though he doesn't secure the ball on the goal-line on the game-winning play? Will he give in to the booster's demands to put in the freshman phenom? Will he flip the bird to the (extremely unreasonable) Dillon faithful and leave for another high school next year, or even follow one of his players-most likely Smash or Riggins-to college? I don't know the answer to any of these, but you can bet I'll stick around to find out.

A few quick things to hit on, and I'll be done. What happened to Street? He wasn't my favorite character, and his story line wasn't exactly 'neat' or 'fun to watch' even, but still, where'd he go? Did I miss something or what, because if I'm not mistaken, he was in most episodes last year, and even had a few that centered around him, but this year it's like he fell of the face of the earth. Also, fans of Dillon: y'all suck. What makes you think it's acceptable to put For Sale signs in the front yard of a coach who currently has a winning record (2-1, with two convincing wins and one last-second loss)? Is it because he won't play a 15 year old freshman at quarterback, even though he has a three-year starter who, lest we forget, won the state championship as a sophomore? Call me crazy, but I'm thinking Coach Taylor knows a little more about how to win football games than the entire Dillon population combined. Just saying, chill and let the Wonder Boy take over next year. Something tells me that won't happen; not on this show, not this season.

Longhorn Basketball 2009, And Other Stuffs

It's a big weekend in the LBK, as I'll be attending my first Gay wedding Saturday, and have a lot of peeps coming in for it. I do, however have a couple articles to link y'all up to. The first should get any Texas Longhorn basketball fan (I'm looking at you, Halbert) extremely fired up for the 2009-10 basketball season-major props to Rick Barnes and his recruting prowess. The second is a mailbag from one of my favorite writers, SI.com's Stewart Mandel. He's great at what he does, but his answer to the first question in the column is a bit disconcerting if you love UT football.

A preview of UT basketball next year.

Mandel breaks it down.

Hate Me For All The Things I Didn't Do For You

This post goes out to Joseph Halbert, Bill Simmons, ESPN, and everyone else who's hated on Rick Barnes...
WTF? Seriously, where's all the hate coming from? With the exception of a few bloggers on Burnt Orange Nation, I haven't heard anyone write anything positive about what Barnes has done for the University of Texas basketball program. I'll be the first to admit that he's not the greatest coach of all time, or that he's even that great of a gameplanner (not sure if 'gameplanner' is a word, but if you watched yesterday's no-show by UT, you know what I mean) but really, what else does the guy have to do to get some love in this world? Texas has been to the Big Dance each of the last 10 years, a school record, and in the past seven years, Barnes has led Texas to five Sweet Sixteens (UT is one of only three schools to accomplish this feat. Kansas and Duke are the others-you may have heard of them), two Elight Eights and one Final Four. Also, everyone forgets this, but one of those Elight Eights should have been another Final Four. In 2006, Texas lost in OT to LSU, after the Horns converted only half of their free-throws down the stretch. They make those freebies, they win in regulation and advance. (And yes, maybe I'm still bitter becuase I picked Ty Thomas in the first and last annual Strip Final Four, and ended up sitting on the couch naked and mad at life, but that's another story for another blog.) Also, this year he led his team to victories at UCLA, against Tennessee at a neutral site, and Kansas at home (That's two number one seeds and one number two, for those keeping score at home) On top of that, he won the Big XII regular season title only one season removed from losing the best player to ever wear the burnt orange. Anywho, that list in itself is a pretty good indicator of what Barnes has done for the program in his decade at the 40 Acres. Take into account that the last two overall #2 picks in the NBA draft were former Horns, and that the amount of Horns in the League has grown dramatically since Barnes has been at the helm and will continue to do so, it's pretty obvious that Barnes and his staff are fairly good at player development. Add into all of this the fantastic quotes he gives to the media ("Pooooooooorr Aggie"-Directed at Acie Law losing to KD for all of the POY awards last year, "If y'all don't treat us right, we'll just buy you out and go back to Texas. We're rich, you know."-Spoken, tounge-in-cheek, to the Arkansas media two weeks ago at the beginning of Madness, and "I told John that we were just giving them free-throw practice, since that's what they need to work on."-Said after yesterday's game, when Texas went into foul mode with five minutes left in the game, in hopes of closing the gap. Memphis, of course, went something like 30-34 from the line, rendering the strategy moot.) and Barnes becomes not only the most successful coach in UT history, but is also the most entertaining.
A few weeks ago on Burnt Orange Nation-a blog I highly suggest for Longhorn fans-there was a debate on who you'd rather have, Mack Brown, or Rick Barnes. Now I understand the hate that each of these two get from both Longhorn fans as well as the rest of the country, and in all honesty, I think that most of it, especially the hate directed toward Mack, is deserved. However, just the fact that a UT-athletics website would even consider preffering the basketball coach over the football coach is, until Barnes came to town, unthinkable. Again, I'm not saying that he's the best coach ever, just the best coach ever at UT. Just a quick look at where the program was ten years ago to where it is now, and I don't see how anyone can claim that Barnes sucks or isn't a good basketball coach.

-Twig