The Morning Stake | 2019.08.15

Leading Off

Summerween. My son Fitsum approached me yesterday and said that he wanted to pick a day in the summer to declare it a summer kid-friendly holiday, the name of that holiday is Summerween, and is obviously akin to Halloween where you dress up and kids get candy. The third Saturday in June is, according to Fits, the date for Summerween 2020. Feel free to add to your schedule or Palm Pilot. I told him that I’d post it on Twitter and on the blog an he was very impressed and quite happy that even one person liked and/or confirmed that they would celebrate Summerween in 2020. Obviously, dressing in costumes in June may not be very practical, but we’ll work on those details. #Summerween2020

Changes to Raider Alley. Texas Tech announced changes and enhancements to Raider Alley, presented by Bud Light:

* Raider Alley festivities will begin 4 hours prior to kickoff
* Free pregame concerts featuring: Aug. 31 – Hogg Maulies; Sept. 7 – William Clark Green; Oct. 5 – Grant Gilbert
* Variety food and beverage options available
* Pregame pep rally featuring the National Champion Texas Tech Spirit Squad, Goin’ Band from Raiderland and Raider Red (approximately 45 minutes prior to kickoff)
* Family friendly tailgate games
* The best fan experience in the country

Raider Alley is free to attend, but the food and drinks are not. Getting William Clark Green is a pretty big deal. Pretty big deal.

Texas Tech Golf

Lady Raider Basketball

Texas Tech Baseball

Texas Tech Basketball

Texas Tech Falls to Bahamas Men’s National Team. Texas Tech started off their foreign tour with a 63-57 loss to the Bahamas National Team (Box ScoreΒ – PDF). I think during my lunch hour, I ran across some tweet that showed a picture of the BNT guys and the thing that struck me was that these weren’t college guys, but actual men, not college age looking kids. And I think that is true, that the Bahamas National Team is actually college graduated players and some of them are professionals, so I’d advise “grain of salt” with the results.


Click to embiggen.

Chris Clarke led all scorers with 16 points on 8 of 12 from the floor, with 13 boards, including 6 rebounds on the offensive glass. Kyler Edwards was terrible from the field, as was Moretti, Edwards was 2 of 12 and Moretti was 4 of 16, and that probably won’t happen again.

Overall, the team only shot 32% from the floor, including 16% from the three-point line. Texas Tech only shot 15 free throws compared to 27 to BNT, and had 21 turnovers to just 16 for BNT.

Texas Tech Football

Shyne Ready to Shine. A-J Media’s Don Williams writes about running back Armand Shyne how he’s feeling after being injured for part of preseason practice:

“I would say that when I’m feeling good and I’m feeling light on my toes, I feel like I can do a lot of things,” Shyne said. “I can make people miss in the field. I can run downhill, because that’s what I do. I’m going to run aggressive and hard regardless. That’s just who I am.

“When I’m feeling heavy, I’m just going to be a one-cut dude and straight up.”

At the moment, Shyne’s not feeling especially heavy. The 5-foot-11 senior arrived in Lubbock weighing 223 pounds, but between the conditioning work and the heat, he’s down to 206. Lubbock temperatures have been in the 90s to 100 this month with the Red Raiders working out in the mid-afternoon.

Patience. SportingNews’ John E. Hoover writes about how patience is what builds a winning culture in the Big 12, but it delves into how coaches could cheat to get ahead and of course, all of the coaches say that they wont take shortcuts. This could have been a good article if it focused on patience, but getting a bunch of coaches on the record say that they won’t cheat isn’t enlightening. Anyway, here’s a bit about the culture aspect of the article:

That pressure may produce an inherent temptation to win now, at all costs, rather than to just color in the lines and patiently build a foundation and an enduring winning culture.

“You hit the nail on the head right there,” new Texas Tech head coach Matt Wells said at Big 12 Media Days. “I know what I signed up for. I know exactly what I signed up for. You have to balance that.”

Wells isn’t the only one who knows that. The Big 12 has four new coaches in 2019 – 40 percent of the league’s 10 head men – and the hyper competitive nature of the industry means some of them may be tempted to cut corners or bend the rules for quicker on-field results.

Miscellaneous . . . The Ringer’s Robert Mays takes a deep dive into Kliff Kingsbury testing the NFL offensive limits . . . ESPN’s Hallie Grossman writes about how Dartmouth is using technology to prepare for games and eliminating tackling each other in practice, yet has a terrific winning percentage . . . Heartland College Sports’ Pete Mundo ranks the Big 12 receiver groups and has Texas Tech at #6 . . . DallasNews’ Brice Paterik writes about the worst case/best case scenarios and I’ve never really understood these articles because the best case is to win a lot of games and no injuries and the worst case is the opposite of that . . .

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