40 Acres Sports

Love and sports don’t mix. It takes a special woman to let their man attend a sporting event on Valentine’s Day and contrary to my fond memories of my college years I guess there aren’t too many special women in Austin these days.

Attendance at last night’s Texas versus Baylor basketball game was abysmal as the Erwin Center was about half full to watch the Bears get pasted. The Horns jumped out fast and dominated inside as LaMarcus Aldridge scored 23 points and grabbed 12 rebounds, P.J. Tucker added 21 and 6, and Brad Buckman had 12 points and 11 boards. Most of the Texas starters were able to spend most of the second half sitting next to Rick Barnes and Todd Wright.

I was actually contemplating watching the game, but was saved from that risky decision by the Horns 20 – 3 run to open the game. Horns got an easy win and my relationship survived another day, so everyone’s a winner.

Moving from A&M to Missouri isn’t job hopping, it’s called climbing the ladder.

Can’t overcome the fielding woes and lack of hitting two nights in a row.

Man, is there a huge gap between #2 and #3.

Longhorns blow a lead but freshman [tag]Kyle Russell[/tag] comes up with his first collegiate hit at just the right time. With two outs in the bottom of the ninth Russell drove a fastball into Minute Maid Field’s Crawford Boxes for a walk-off, 2-run home run and the win. (Video of the homer is below.) Big time hit in an important situation for Russell, who has big time potential. Though the offense came alive a little this weekend, hopefully Russell will get a few more at bats and an opportunity to prove what he can do.

Kyle McCulloch pitched seven strong innings but Kenn Kasparek’s wildness and poor defense let Rice tie things up in the eighth inning. Kasparek definitely has the stuff to be a closer, but he’ll have to grow into the role as the year goes on. Longhorn pitchers struck out fourteen batters during the game. Left handed freshman Kyle Walker came in the 8th, got the win, and looked very good doing it. He got all four outs via strikeout, didn’t give up a hit, and had unhittable stuff.

The offense didn’t exactly light up the scoreboard but some of the newcomers like Preston Clark and Brett Lewis have started to produce. Drew Stubbs is going to have to hit in the middle of the lineup for this team to make a run in Omaha, but right now he’s scuffling. He has to learn to lay off the curveball in the dirt.

The team has already come a long way in two weeks.

Sure am glad I didn’t actually try to watch this whole thing. Longhorns were only on for about a minute, but still some good PR for the Horns with the female/unemployed market segment. A little bit of video of Matthew McConaughey and the team before the Rose Bowl and celebrating the win, and then some short stuff from Mack Brown, Rashad Bobino, and Limas Sweed. Bobino seems like a fun kid.

Video including Craig Way saying “the Texas Longhorns are college football’s national champions” in front of ten million television viewers is below.

Video removed by YouTube. The DMCA is dumb.

Close game at the half but fifteen point run midway through second half puts the game away.

Alaniz throws 7 strong innings in win over UH.

Texans exercise David Carr’s $8 million option.

The Statesman has illustrations of the proposed changes to DKR – Texas Memorial Stadium. The $150 million in additions will include closing the North end zone with seating and a new veterans memorial plaza. It’s also going to make it really rectangular. The new end zone seats will be pretty close and should be a pretty decent view.

The changes should be completed by the 2008 season.