The Morning Stake: May 20th

Photo via Kimberly Vardeman @ Flickr

Tennis

Track & Field

Men’s Basketball

Clergeot Opening Up Recruiting. This is the ugly side of a coaching change as I am guessing that head coach Chris Beard let Keon Clergeot go from his letter of intent. That opens up another scholarship spot and Beard is very busy in terms of shaping this roster.

Baseball

Tadlock Signed Through 2022. Something tells me that between Kirby Hocutt and Tim Tadlock, this took about five minutes.

Texas Tech Takes Game One. This was delivered before the game:

And then the team went out and won game one, 2-1, behind yet another strong pitching performance by Davis Martin, some terrific defense and timely hitting. Make sure and check out the highlights.

Football

Big 12 Special Team Rankings. ESPN’s Max Olson has the special team rankings for the Big 12:

8. Texas Tech (8): Kicker Clayton Hatfield and punter Michael Barden are both sophomores but should be solid this season. Nobody can replace Jakeem Grant, but Cameron Batson and a few others will try. Tech did add one of the nation’s top special-teams coaches, Joe Robinson, to make sure this unit keeps improving.

Vote for Jack. Yea, go to the DMN and go vote for Jack Anderson.

Pac 12 Finances. The Mercury News’ John Wilner summarizes the finances of the Pac 12, which has maybe leveled out:

The SEC Network is printing money — the conference’s $527 million in revenue included nine months of the network — and that will only increase as it matures.

The Big Ten just signed a Tier 1 deal with Fox that’s worth as much ($250 million annually) as the Pac-12 deal with Fox and ESPN — and it’s only for half the Big Ten football and basketball inventory.

In other words: The revenue streams for the SEC and Big Ten are growing at a much faster rate than those of the Pac-12.

Sure, a deal with DirecTV would help, but it wouldn’t come close to eliminating the gap.

Really, the league’s best hope is to renegotiate its Tier 1 deal and hope changes in technology and consumer behavior allow it to reap the rewards of 100% ownership in the Pac12Nets. But that’s eight years away.

What the Hell Baylor, Part II.

Now, there are people calling for Art Briles to resign. I get the feeling that Briles isn’t going to do anything and neither is Baylor. The wall is up at Baylor and I don’t think they will want to to have it come crashing down. I get teh feeling that the thought process with Baylor is that they can’t afford to do anything with conference realignment, they’ll wait it out.

  • SI’s Andy Staples writes that the bottom line will affect the decision to retain Briles:

    This is what the regents must consider as they deliberate. How thoroughly do these incidents damage the brand of a Baptist university that sells a more wholesome college experience than the ones available at secular and state schools. How much might inaction cost? If the regents determine the brand isn’t significantly damaged, they may get away with doing nothing. If the regents determine the cost to the school, in dollars and esteem, is high enough, they might just force out Briles, McCaw and president Ken Starr, who this time may find himself on the business end of a high-profile investigation into sexual impropriety. (If any regents have a political beef with Starr, don’t be shocked if they try to take advantage of the situation.)

  • FWST’s mac Engel simply calls for the firing of Briles:

    Specifics aside, Baylor is now just like any another big-time college football team over run by a collection of young boneheads who are empowered to do as they please and enabled by a coach whose real priority is to win 10 games.

    Baylor started winning on a national level because Art Briles is a brilliant head coach. Baylor also started winning because he willingly recruited, and kept on his team, a collection of bad guys who repeatedly crossed the line with virtually no consequences.

  • CBS Sports’ Jon Solomon writes that of all the universities, Baylor should do better:

    Accountability is what’s needed at Baylor. No one expects a university to bring a bunch of young people onto campus and have no crimes or behavioral issues. What’s expected is that adults — those charged with teaching these young people, setting examples for them and protecting them — do the right thing and hold the responsible students accountable for their behavior. The more we hear about Baylor and the number of allegations by women that were met with inaction, the clearer it’s becoming that did not happen.

    The culture in sports today is to buy silence for sexual assaults. For all we know, that silence may be getting bought by Baylor as we speak.

  • Deadspin’s Diana Moskovitz breaks down the ESPN article that broke the most recent Baylor news in a pretty concise fashion.
  • The WacoTribune notes that Baylor is going to have to release some of the information because of a new law and an Attorney General’s opinion. This could be interesting.

Meanwhile, Art Briles (or whoever runs his Twitter account) appears to be the most tone-deaf coach in the country. #TruthDontLie and #BeCourageous  are two of the more ironic hashtags for Baylor football.

Miscellaneous. SBN’s Bill Connelly breaks down the Texas Longhorns . . .

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