40 Acres Sports

The Big 12 is going to televise games nationally on VERSUS. I believe they’ll still be available on FSN in local areas. (via)

Michael Demperio and Josh Prince to transfer. Prince likely would have been next year’s starting shortstop.

The Seattle Times reports that at the NBA pre-draft camp Kevin Durant was the only player who could not bench 185 pounds at least once. And some morons strangely seem to think this is somehow important to where he might go in the NBA Draft.

How much does a basketball weigh? He seems to handle putting it in the basket pretty well. I can throw 185 up ten times pretty easy, maybe the Sonics will draft me. Oh wait, I suck at basketball. For a kid his age and with his height and wingspan, the bench press couldn’t be less important.

Kevin is still very much a kid who is growing into his body. Greg Oden is 35 or 40 years old and is probably near his ceiling physically (though not as a basketball player). The sky is the limit for Durant both from a physical and a basketball standpoint. If any team or scout (other than Portland) who even remotely considers passing on [tag]Kevin Durant[/tag] is an idiot.

SI’s ten worst college football uniforms. Number one is easy, but I don’t agree about ND’s green jerseys or Clemson.

Athlon Sports has Longhorns as preseason #2. Hope they’re right about breakout year for Charles.

Texas won Game 5 (link to full game report on my site) and was playing UC-Irvine in Game 6 when play was suspended due to bad weather. I sat up in the “Home Run Porch” area of the Dell Diamond for much of the evening game and enjoyed watching the lightening storm for a couple of hours before the game was called. Play resumes today at 1 pm with Texas trailing 5-6 in the bottom of the 7th. If (ahem…when) the Horns prevail, that will force a 7th game which will start approximately 50 minutes after the conclusion of Game 6.

I’m sorry I haven’t been able to post more but the long days are wearing me out. By the time I get home, I just want to sleep! And, yesterday? Geesh. It was 100 degrees (or hotter) in the sun during the afternoon game. And, we were all pretty much stuck in the sun. When the thunderstorms rolled in, it actually got rather cold. And, since we’d all been out in the 100-degree weather, we weren’t really prepared for such. It was a long day.

Texas lost to UC-Irvine this evening 1-3. There were two main factors in the loss: (1) the Horns ran up against a pitcher (Scott Gorgen) who threw a whale of a game and (2) the UCI center fielder (Ollie Linton) made two amazing catches that took extra-base hits away from the Horns (both plays, by sad coincidence, robbed Russell Moldenhauer of hits). Looking at the boxscore, you might think errors played a part in the loss as well. But, they really didn’t. Only one of the errors led to a run. Nope. The main problem was that pitcher and the fact that Texas could not string two hits together to save their lives. The only inning in which the Horns did get more than one hit was the 6th. It started off when Chance Wheeless flew out to lf. Bradley Suttle followed that up with a single. Then, Russell Moldenhauer flew out to the lf/cf gap. That was one of those hits stolen by the center fielder. Suttle would’ve definitely ended up at 3b on the play…he might well have scored. And, Moldenhauer would’ve been standing on 2b with 1 out. Instead, Suttle was still at 1b with 2 outs. Nick Peoples then singled through the left side. If runners had been standing on 2b and 3b, at least one of them would’ve scored on that single. But that’s not what happened. And, Chais Fuller followed that up with a ground out to 3b. Which should’ve been the 2nd out of the inning. But, Linton made that catch. And, Texas did not score.

Adrian Alaniz got the start and took the loss. He did not pitch one of his “wow” games but he was not bad. He went 6.2 innings and gave up 3 runs (1 unearned) on 6 hits with 2 walks, 1 hit batter, and 7 (!) strikeouts. Normally, that would be more than good enough for Texas to win a game. But not today.

So, now what? Wake Forest beat Brown 4-2 in the early game today so now Texas will face Wake Forest in an elimination game at noon tomorrow. If (ahem…when) they win that, they’ll have to turn around and beat UCI at 6. And, then they’ll have to beat UCI again at 1 o’clock on Monday afternoon.

Texas was in the same position in 2005. After losing the 2nd game of the Austin Regional that year, they turned around and won three games. They then lost the first game of the Super Regional in Oxford, Mississippi, before going on to win the Super Regional to move on to the College World Series. And, then they…you know…won the College World Series. So, it can be done. The Longhorns have done it. Here’s hoping they can do it again!

Texas beat Brown 8-2 last night. Brown put up a heck of a fight and the Bears had the lead going into the bottom of the 6th. But, they couldn’t hold the Horns’ offense off. James Russell started for the Horns but struggled so was replaced by Joseph Krebs who got the win, improving his record to 9-1. Randy Boone threw the final 1.2 innings to get his 14th save of the year. Normally, when you see a score like that (8-2) you don’t see someone get a save. But, the Horns were only up 4-2 when Boone entered the game. Kyle Russell and Chais Fuller hit home runs last night and Travis Tucker went 4-for-4 with a double and a run scored.

As usual, see my page for a full game report.

By the way, UC-Irvine jumped all over Wake Forest in the first game of the day, winning 13-0. So, Wake Forest and Brown play the early game at noon. Texas faces UC-Irvine in the winner’s bracket at 6.

Four Longhorns on first Rivals100 for 2008. Unfortunately there’s also three Sooners on the list. Horns need DE Chancey Aghayere.

Who is Daniel Gibson? Great article. Gibson has been fantastic for the Cavs this postseason.