40 Acres Sports

While discussing upgrades to Kyle Field and Olsen Field, Aggie Athletic Director Bill Byrne let loose one of my favorite quotes of the year:

Byrne also addressed the Aggies’ move last year from Nike to adidas as the department’s apparel provider.

He said he met with a Nike representative and requested the same deal as A&M’s chief rival, Texas.

Byrne said he was offended when the rep told him, “You’re not as good as they are and you’re probably never going to be.” That statement made Byrne’s decision to switch to adidas even easier, he said, in addition to what was a more lucrative deal.

That’s right, the Nike representative put Texas A&M in their place right to their AD’s face. You will be seeing that quote in Texas fans’ signatures on forums for the next year. I’m not sure why Byrne would ever actually admit that Nike said that, all it does it brings up that a major national company thinks you’re somebody’s little brother.

As pretty much everyone, other than Aggies themselves, knows the Longhorns are a class above the Aggies. On the field and in sporting goods stores Texas outperforms Texas A&M year after year. Because of their consistent top tier performance, the Longhorns are on national television many more times per year in both football and basketball. In recent years the university has led the nation in licensing revenue and set a royalty records after the 2005 national championship season.

Bill Byrne is perfect there, only an Aggie would expect to get the same deal and be proud when it didn’t happen.

Kevin Durant scores season-high 42 points in finale. Puts up his first double-double and finishes season with 20.3 scoring average.

Royal Ivey suspended three games for punch to Bulls player’s groin. One of Royal Ivey’s best shots of the year. (video)

I’m not sure what’s wrong with Mark Jackson, Jon Barry, or Jemele Hill were doing this last basketball season, but they certainly weren’t watching games. Those were the only three ESPN “experts” to not vote for Seattle Oklahoma City Sonics guard/forward [tag]Kevin Durant[/tag] as their Rookie of the Year for the 2007-2008 season. Durant picked up 17 out of 20 votes while Al Horford received the other three. Here’s how the votes broke down:

Kevin Durant Marc Stein ESPN.com	Kevin Durant J.A. Adande ESPN.com	Kevin Durant John Hollinger ESPN.com	Kevin Durant Chris Sheridan ESPN.com
Kevin Durant Chris Broussard ESPN Mag	Kevin Durant Henry Abbott TrueHoop	Kevin Durant David Thorpe Scouts Inc.	Kevin Durant Chad Ford ESPN.com
Kevin Durant Jalen Rose ESPN	Al Horford Mark Jackson ABC	Al Horford Jon Barry ESPN	Kevin Durant Tim Legler ESPN
Al Horford Jemele Hill ESPN.com Page 2	Kevin Durant Scoop Jackson ESPN.com Page 2	Kevin Durant Chris Palmer ESPN Mag	Kevin Durant Dr. Jack Ramsay ESPN Radio
Kevin Durant Maurice Brooks ESPN.com	Kevin Durant Chris Ramsay ESPN.com	Kevin Durant Andrew Ayres ESPN.com	Kevin Durant Matt Wong ESPN.com

Kevin managed to live up to the incredible hype and only got better and better as the year went on. Definitely well deserved. He only spent one season at Texas but Kevin is proud to be a Longhorn and we’re proud of him. This is just the first of many honors he’ll pick up in the coming weeks. Congrats Kevin.

Former Horn [tag]Kevin Durant[/tag] was nails for the Sonics last night in what was likely the team’s last game in Seattle. In a two overtime win over the Denver Nuggets, Durant had 37 points, 8 rebounds, and 9 assists but played an even bigger role than his career best stat line shows. With 22 seconds left in regulation he hit a huge 3-pointer to tie the game and send it to overtime. Then, with just five seconds left in the first overtime period he drained a 30-foot bomb to again tie up the game. It was a superstar shot.

Watch the second of his big shots below:

Great game and great clutch job by Kevin. His ability and willingness to take and hit shots like that are what separates him from other players. The Sonics are terrible and he started off trying to carry the team by taking tons of threes (yet was still Rookie of the Year frontrunner even then), but once he found his groove midseason he’s been playing at a much higher level. After several months hovering around 40% shooting, Durant made 53% of his shots in February.

With five games left in the season the Sonics are likely going to end up with one of the league’s three worst records and at worst a top five pick in the 2008 draft. If the Sonics can land another big time player (hopefully Memphis point guard Derrick Rose) with that pick they’ll have an incredibly young and gifted core to build on just up the road in Oklahoma City next year.

Barnes’ rotations in Texas/Memphis game. Nice analysis of the box score from the BON diaries.

Basketball assistant Ken McDonald takes Western Kentucky head job. Chris Ogden will reportedly replace him on Barnes’ staff.

DJ Augustin wins Bob Cousy Award given to nation’s top college point guard. He’ll be presented with the award Monday in San Antonio.

Kevin Durant plans to be back in Austin to work toward his degree this summer. Nice trend to have of former athletes coming back to finish up.

This was too entertaining not to post:

At first I was sympathetic to Aggie fans, it would be tough to lose a game that way. Then they started acting like Aggies and threatening a lawsuit over the non-call. Seriously. It didn’t take long to remember there is never a good reason to take pity on them. Now I laugh and laugh and laugh at their despair. (via)