The Morning Stake | 2018.03.13

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Two Game Series with Louisville. As if facing a top 10 Kentucky team wasn’t enough, Texas Tech stayed on the road with a two-game series to take on Louisville. Ryan Shetter gets the start today and “A Man Has No Name” starts tomorrow.

Top 25 Update.

D1Baseball and BaseballAmerica have their top 25 lists updated, with Texas Tech dropping to #6 with D1Baseball and #8 with BaseballAmerica.

Texas Tech Basketball

Buy your very own Staking The Plains t-shirt at the Staking The Plains Threadless Shop. Click on that danged shirt (or the link).

Adams Provides Defensive Discipline. A-J Media’s Carlos Silva, Jr. writes about the defensive presence that assistant coach Mark Adams brings as the defensive coordinator for the Red Raiders:

And while the job titles, venues and towns changed throughout his more than 30-year coaching career, one thing always remained the same: a commitment to defense.

“Probably because I was such a poor offensive player in high school and junior college,” Adams, a native of Brownfield, quipped as to why he’s taken an emphasis to defense. “But, in all seriousness, I’ve always liked the defensive side of basketball because I think that’s where you can show your toughness and character. … It’s always admirable when you see guys out there that are playing hard, taking charges and doing things that are seen as sacrifices to make the team better.”

Sawmill Preview. The Sawmill’s Isaac Niedrauer will be doing a Q&A with Staking The Plains, but in the meantime, Niedrauer has a preview of Texas Tech:

Chris Beard won’t take SFA lightly because he’s been right where they are. In March of 2016, SFA was making waves with an upset of West Virginia in the Round of 64, but there were other upsets happening too. One of them was Chris Beard’s Little Rock team, that knocked off Purdue in double overtime for the Trojan’s second ever win in the NCAA Tournament.

Beard, a former graduate assistant at Incarnate Word under Lumberjacks’ great Danny Kaspar, was one of the first major hires for Little Rock athletic director Chasse Conque (son of SFA football head coach Clint Conque) back in April of 2015. In his only season with the Trojans, he led them to a 30-5 record, including 17-3 in the Sun Belt, before Texas Tech took a big gamble on hiring a man with just a single season of Division I head coaching experience.

But a couple years later, it has certainly appeared to pay off. In addition to some brilliant recruiting, Beard challenged Kansas for a Big 12 title before injuries pushed them to runner-up status.

Miscellaneous. Gary Parrish is reporting that the people he has spoken to do not expect Tubby Smith to be back at Memphis after today . . . CBS Sports writes that SportsLine’s computer simulation says that Stephen F. Austin is the upset to pick this Thursday . . .

Texas Tech Football

Nose Tackle Competition. A-J Media’s Don Williams recaps the nose tackle competition thus far in camp between Joe Wallace and Nick McCann:

Sophomores Joe Wallace and Nick McCann began spring as the front-runners, and on Sunday the Red Raiders received a commitment from Preston Gordon, a 6-foot-1, 280-pound graduate transfer who started 28 games the past three seasons at Rice. Sophomore Houston Miller, back on the field this spring after he suffered a season-ending broken fibula in 2017, also is in the pool of interior defensive linemen, and redshirt freshman Nelson Mbanasor is a wild card with the potential to play any defensive line position.

“Young guys that have a ton of upside,” Kingsbury said of his returnees. “They just have to go out there and prove it.”

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