Author: Mike

In case you didn’t know…on Tuesday night in Waco,the Texas Tech Red Raiders ended defending champion Baylor’s 20 game winning streak with a hard fought wire to wire game.

Here’s Coach Adams at the pre-season Big 12 presser as he discusses the transition from being Chris Beard’s associate head coach for five years prior to landing the Texas Tech job.

This is a no frills interview of which only college basketball junkies might enjoy. Mark Adams looks more like a pastor than a college basketball coach, but don’t judge the cover…he can flat out coach.

Coach Adams at various college levels was a head coach for twenty-five years and won a junior college national championship along the way. He was also with Chris Beard in Little Rock before Beard made the move to Lubbock.

Coach Adams was the associate head coach at Texas Tech for the previous five years and was elevated to the head coach position when Chris Beard took the Texas job last spring.

Mark Adams is a Texas Tech alum and this is his dream job. He’s one of these guys who fly under the radar screen, but was a huge part of Texas Tech’s run to the national championship game three years ago.

Coach Adams is also known as a coach who has transformed the Big 12 into this basketball monster conference which boasts tough man to man switching defense. Coach Adams has been known as a guy who’s tweaked it to perfection in the Big 12. Kind of like Ron Adams in the NBA as far as being a defensive guru.

Interestingly, O State former head coach Sean Sutton has been on the staff with Coach Adams for several years now and stayed in Lubbock after Chris Beard departed for his alma mater in Austin.

Tonight in Lubbock…the Red Raiders host Oklahoma State in what should be a defensive grind it out type of game.

One would think if Tech wins this game coupled with its upset of Baylor–the Red Raiders will be headed up into the Top 12 or so of next week’s poll. I’m circling Texas Tech as a March Madness Cinderella possibility.

There’s a lot of great stuff going on in the NBA currently, but at the head of the class even beyond Phoenix and Golden State are Ja Morant and the streaking Memphis Grizzlies.

On Tuesday night the Grizz handled the Warriors even with Klay Thompson scoring 14 points in just over nineteen minutes while recording a team high +17 rating.

It didn’t matter what Klay did because the Grizzlies are on fire even without one of their better players Dillion Brooks out for awhile. The Grizzlies won their 10th staight game and 20th out of their last 24 games.

The Grizzlies are on the cusp of being the next young NBA team in a small market city to become a league favorite kind of like the Thunder were almost a decade ago.

I was wrong earler this season when I wrote the Thunder are a year behind Memphis in their rebuild. That was overly optimistic. Even if Oklahoma City hits the lottery and lands say a Paulo Banchero….the Thunder after two years of shamelessly tanking like they have will take at the least another two years to then integrate a winning culture and learn how win in the last four minutes of games against good teams.

Sometimes you have to lose to be winner again, but in the NBA you have to learn how to close out against good teams. You have to not only be talented, but be menatlly and with a collection of players who ply smart with an edge to their game.

Memphis has a good young coach in Taylor Jenkins and a deep team which could maybe use another veteran piece to add even more wing scoring.

But what Memphis has most of all is the next star of the league in Ja Morant who on Tuesday night did the unthinkable when in the midst of Klay Thompson’s return made the Splash Brothers the seconf tier storyline of the night.

What a gorgeous mid-January winter day in Oklahoma. Caleb Williams didn’t need move to SoCal with January winter like this in Oklahoma. This is very San Diegoesque …albeit with climate change attached. But still.

The Thunder played last night and actually found a way to extract defeat from a win over the Wizards with Bradley Beal sitting and a fistfight breaking out in the Washington locker room at halftime between KCP and Montrell H. That has to be a first for the now 13-27 shamelessly tanking Thunder with only one game left till we reach the halfway point of this season.

And to make it even more gratifying…KCP hit the game winner for the self-brawling Wizards with a 25-foot accidental bank shot just right of the arc with a couple of seconds left.

Orlando at the midway mark is the leader in the clubhouse thru 36 holes with a 7-34. Bubba Watson is till out on the course at the 17th green at 7-33. Then OKC is holding the fourth spot at 13-27.

Hinkie=Presti needs to amp up the shameless tank death march another notch or two if he wants Paulo Banchero wearing one of those sleek new white Thunder jerseys on draft night. A white Thunder cap with that jersey would be sharp. Little Nick Gallo needs to start working on it…given he really doesn’t do anything else except embarrass sports jounalists everywhere. I think he went to Vandy…and that’s an exceptional school. He has no excuses at this point. But from I’ve read Rachel Nichols is headed to TNT…so that dream of mine is dead with her joining the Thunder.

Only forty-two games left. Get out and enjoy the weather thru Friday because then we get cold weather on Saturday to make the NFL Playoffs-Round I even better to watch.

Next up…my Top Four NFL QB Ratings heading into Round L.

Crimson Tide Nation which has given us Mo Brooks and the Love Judge to date is roiling a bit after Georgia’s fake national championship claim on Monday night from Indianapolis.

Lest it not escape any of our Trump domestic terrorists throughout the country this ‘fake’ win occurred in the state of which Mike Pence served before becoming Donald Trump’s primary Vice-Presidential target for hanging in front of our nation’s capitol.

This clearly was an act perpetrated by Mike Pence in conjunction with Stacey Abrams. According to a preliminary Sidney Powell affadavitt. Crazy Rudy Guiliani and Sidney Powell are confused as to where to file their first state appellate appeal as to nullify Georgia’s fake claim to the college football national championship. But more clarity is expected later today at a Stop the Steal presser from Tuscaloosa.

Sources say Tucker Carlson will be hitting on this story just now breaking at the crazier hard right wing news outlets.

The Stop the Steal campaign is already gaining steam in Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Oklahoma…clearly the four most ardent Trump domestic terrorists states in what formerly was known as the United States of America.

An unnamed congressman from Oklahoma was even quoted as saying 10th ranked Oklahoma should leap-frog all the way to No. 1 based on the Sooners’ 47-32 win over Oregon in the Alamo Bowl.

More details to follow as story continues to break.

And if you’re a Trump domestic terrorist Proud Boy type and you think I’m throwing a little shade your way this morning…well, then, so be it.

Just as a college football fan with no emotional ties to either team…I thought this game turned into a very interesting game in the second half.

I mean it was 26-18 with Alabama driving to tie the game and send it into overtime in the last two minutes. Considering what we got in last year’s playoff this game was the best game of the last six playoff games played in the last two years.

It had a little bit of everything. It had Stetson Bennett a preferred walk-on playing the part of of Rudy and winning a national championship over Nick Saban and his five star Heisman winner Bryce Young. Stetson Bennett still has eligibility left…it will be interesting to see what he does. I would think he has to come back and see if he can direct the Dawgs to a repeat.

A walk-on winning a national championship in the era of NIL and the transfer portal is analogous to Mitt Romney winning a GOP presidential primary over Trump in Alabama. One for the ages for Stetson Bennett.

And his offensive coordinator Todd Monken the former Oklahoma State coordinator in 2011 who himself had some redemption on Championship Monday. Monken after leaving Oklahoma State had less than stellar results at Southern Miss as a head coach. Then as the offensive coordinator with the Tampa Bay Bucs got let go when Dirk Koetter was let go. Then the same thing with the Cleveland Browns as he tried to mold Baker Mayfield as an NFL quarterback when the whole staff got let go again.

I love Todd Monken. If Coach Venables hadn’t hired Jeff Lebby…I’m that rare OU fan who would love to have Coach Monken at some point in his career running the OU offense. Stick that one in a drawer if Jeff Lebby isn’t at OU for more than two years.

Then Kirby Smart. He finally exorcised the Saban monkey off his back. Kirby Smart finally beat Nick Saban.

To Saban’s credit he’s still the best. He got his team to the national championship game missing significant pieces in his secondary. Then late in the first half he lost Jameson Williams to go along with the loss of John Metchie in the SEC Championship Game.

From that point forward the Georgia defense made the field shorter and narrower for Bryce Young. Space and time became harder for the Heisman winner on every offensive snap because in essence the Tide didn’t have a dependable long threat in the game to push the Georgia safeties back a few yards.

Williams wanted to come back in the game, but to Saban’s credit he wouldn’t allow Williams to return and possibly damage his NFL draft status for the upcoming draft.

So for me as an OU fan who’s been watching the transfer portal as if it were a religous ritual since Lincoln Riley’s departure…Stetson Bennett is a reminder there’s still a lot to love about college football even in the Wild West days of NIL and the transfer portal.

Look for the good in the game..it’s still there. Even with bitterness the Oklahoma State fans harbor towards OU for heading off to the SEC…you know what finally happened in Stillwater this football season? O State football finally grew up along with their coach Mike Gundy. In a season which almost paralells what Stetson Bennett just did…Oklahoma State beat OU, Texas, and Notre Dame in the same football season.

Think about that…and they did it with a junior redshirt in Spencer Sanders who’s right there at the top of Mount Redemption along with Stetson Bennett.

There’s still a lot to love about college football if you just look in the right places.

Embrace the game and hope it finds its way through NIL and the transfer portal. Hope some reasonable adults institute a twelve team playoff and include some nuanaced changes to the NIL and the portal.

But don’t just blindly hate on the game…because there’s still quite a bit to love about college football.

Todd Monken… August, 2012 Joe C… stick this in your drawer for Coach Venabales. Put this in your El Prez file. Trust me on this.

Todd Monken…January 2013 Head coach at Southern Miss. The trails coaches travel in their careers are fascinating. What they learn or absorb at every stop….how they evolve.

Depending on where you’re betting Georgia is either a 2.5 or 3 point neutral field favorite.

I find that odd for multiple reasons.

Alabama has the better coach. Alabama has the better quarterback. Alabama has the better wide receiver even with John Metchie out. Alabama has the better kicker. Alabama has a hot running back coming off a career game vs. Cincy. Alabama has the best defensive player in the country in my mind in No. 31 Anderson.

I’m not sure why Georgia is favored. Surely it can’t be because they easily beat an overhyped soft Big Ten team like Michican who’s coach was so demoralized by the defeat he might leave and take the Chicago Bears job. Kind of like soft Lincoln Riley after Bedlam heading to the PAC 12.

Georgia and Alabama both have people missing in their secondaries and I love Georgia’s tight end, but Alabama’s Billingsly is one of the most underrated tight ends in America, With Metchie out tonight …Bryce Young needs to utilize his tight end. Alabama’s ability to tun and ultilize the tight end are my two kyts circled in red tonight.

For sure if I can…I’ll take Alabama plus the three…I’m taking Alabama tonight.

Until Kirby Smart proves to me he can beat Nick Saban—I just don’t see enough from Georgia at the quarterback position to take Georgia and give points no less.

I’m pretty jacked. I love watching physical teams play. And we clearly have the two most talented, physical teams playing tonight for all the marbles.

I’m ready.

Roll, Tide.

Caleb Williams attended the LA Rams vs. 49’ers game yesterday on his visit to California. Today USC’s projected starting quarterback Jaxson Dart entered the transfer portal. I don’t think you have to be be Columbo to connect those dots.

Hope I’m wrong, but at least OU won’t have to face Caleb in Norman in 2023 when the Georgia Bulldogs come to town.

It doesn’t shock me because his father basically sent Caleb to Norman to play for Lincoln Riley without a scholarship at one point. So this won’t be a shock if this is indeed the way it goes down later this evening during the national championship game telecast.

I’m disappointed Caleb is going to play in a league which was weaker than the American Athletic Conference this past season, but it’s his decision and his future. I wish him the best.

OU is fortunate to have Dillion Gabriel to replace Caleb and my hope is the attitude with OU fans moving forward is a positive one.

To Caleb’s credit, I thought he was pretty much transparent with his comments after the Alamo Bowl and to Caleb’s further credit, unlike Lincoln Riley, he didn’t leave the OU seniors hanging for their bowl game or the Big 12 Championship Game if OU had beaten Oklahoma State in Bedlam.

We’ll never know if he would have won a Heisman at Oklahoma, but if he indeed goes to USC you would think with the absolute lack of any defense by any team in that league Caleb could put up some staggering numbers.

Caleb never lied. He was a blast to watch this season and in my mind his one season OU legacy wise will go down somewhat like Marcus Dupree’s one fabulous freshman season in Norman….except Caleb is very much in charge of his life it would appear.

It will be interesting to see if his high school buddy Jahil enters the portal later today or tomorrow. Hope not. But we’ll have to sit back and see.

Otherwise…OU’s team is coming around fairly nicely, especially at the tight end and linebacker positions. The Sooners picked up several players last week and that’s the way moving forward for OU at this point in this crazy football season. Plus…they picked up a D lineman from Hawaii.

So it will end just like the final scene from On Any Given Sunday with Al Pacino taking his quarterback with him to head out West unless Georgia or Texas A&M make Caleb an offer he can’t monetarily refuse.

I wouldn’t at all compare this to Kevin Durant leaving to go play with Steph and Klay for two reasons..1 USC currently sucks, and 2 Caleb was basically up front about what he wanted to explore in regards to his college football future.

I’ll be back on here ASAP if he announces someone other than USC.

So when all is said and done so far…Caleb plus Mario Williams to date are the only OU players on the cusp of joining Lincoln Riley at USC.

Willie Beamon heading West. No real shock.

What a Sunday night of NBA basketball. I watched about ten minutes of the Thunder’s predictable loss to the injury decimated Denver Nuggets. This was prime time tanking at its best. In fact I would almost call this point shaving in the last two minutes.

With the Thunder very much in position to actually win this game… for some reason Jeremiah Robinson-Earl threw up two widly errant threes and then Shai Gilgeous-Alexander missed badly on an uncontested layup.

Of all the Thunder endings I’ve forced myself to watch this season…this might have been the most eggrious ninety seconds to date. I don’t even at this point know why Vegas would even carry betting lines on Thunder games after last night.

And those fans….bless their Donald Trump-Proud Boy loving hearts. They actually stood up in unison cheering those last two minutes as if the Thunder were going to win this game.

No, no, no. What the Thunder are getting ready to do in this second half of the season is potentially play some of the worst NBA basketball in memory in the quest to somehow land Paulo Banchero and by the NBA’s collective baraginning agreement force him to play in Oklahoma City for the subsequent eight or nine years.

The Thunder have now lost four games in a row and stand at 13-26 as the No. 14 seed in the West. But more importantly from my vantage…it doesn’t appear Shai is all that fired up about playing as of late.

Then there was Klay’s return on the Bay. The building was full forty-five minutes in advance of tip to honor Klay Thompson. Golden State fans are different than OKC fans…they actually cheer their iconic stars rather than boo them for basiclly fulfilling their contractual obligation, helping the city, and taking them on a decade long fantasy dream ride.

This isn’t me being snarky on my blog. This is me telling these Thunder fans who still boo Durant how they’re viewed by the rest of the league.

Klay played twenty minutes and actually looked better than I thought he would as far as mobility and lateral movement. His line was impressive considering how long its been since he’s played an NBA game.

17 points, 3 rebounds, 2 assists, 1 block shot, and 1 deflection, -2….plus a snarl that I don’t remember him showing as much in the past.

I was impressed. I wasn’t even sure Klay would be a contributor this season, but if they just ride the throttle slowly on his return…I could easily after last night see Klay being a 25 minute a game type of guy with Steve Kerr monitoring his minutes in a very smart fashion.

The Splash Brothers are back and if Klay can just ease into this then I would say the Phoenix Suns have another issue on their plate come playoff time.

I was interested watching Steve Kerr hand out minutes with Klay back and Draymond Green out. Steve Kerr sat both his rookies in Johnny Kuminga and Moses Moody and then everybody else played their minutes for the most part.

I would guess Kerr is going to sit Klay on back to backs and on other schedule stress points in the season…so I think the very deep Warriors will be able to rest not only Klay, but Steph as this season winds into mid March.

Think about this though…Golden State is probably going to be the No. 1 seed in the West without basically playing James Wiseman, Johnny Kuminga, and Moses Moody. That’s scary for the rest of the league looking into the future.

Plus…if the Warriors have to face LeBron..they’d have twelve quality fouls between Iggy and Johnny Kuminga to throw at LeBron’s aging body.

It was basically a tale of two cities last night in Oklahoma City and San Francisco and how each have evolved since Game 6 of the 2016 Western Conference Finals.

So much history attached to that epic Game 6 loss by the Thunder. The franchise has never been the same, yet the Golden State Warriors minus Kevin are back atop the West with a magnificent rebuild job by GM Bob Myer.

Not the case in Oklahoma City as one might think an All-Star team from the Big 12 vs. the current Thunder without Shai would provide more competitive drama than we see on most nights inside Pay.Com Arena.

Sam Presti and I clearly use different dictionaries as far as when using the noun ‘sustainability’.

The Thunder have not sustained from that historic night when Klay drained eleven threes to in essence end the Kevin Durant Era in Oklahoma City. The Thunder since Durant’s exit have never won a first round series and are now mired in the slog of two year tanking death march.

I wanted to actually ask Josh Giddey a couple of questions last night when I saw him at the OU-Iowa State thriller, but I held back because I know him getting to see two real basketball teams trying to win a game has been a rare occurrence for him in OKC since his arrival from Australia.

I could tell though…just like Steven Adams–he’s a very cool kid. Maybe later …when OU hosts Kansas or at Bedlam…. I’ll run into him again and we’ll chat.

Klay’s return is set tonight versus Cleveland on the NBA Network. The Thunder host Denver….I’ll try and catch ten minutes or so of that undercard developmental game and then get myself situated for Klay’s Return.

This was only a matter of time as far as true freshman Bijuan Cortez. This was his moment to show the college basketball world he is capabale of playing in a Power 5 league like the Big 12.

The long hair, the still true freshman body which hasn’t been sculpted in the weight room, the fact he played his high school ball in sleepy Kingfisher, Oklahoma… weren’t hiding what Porter Moser knew was coming at some point for his basketball team.

That being, the moment in this OU basketball season when Bijuan Cortez would have to start playing meaningful minutes for the Sooners because he has the best vision coupled with the best innate passing ability on the team.

Call it fatedom if you will this happened on the same evening with Thunder nineteen year-old Josh Giddey in the building, but what this was in fact was a coming out party for Bijuan Cortez and how Porter Moser will delegate minutes moving forward at the point guard position between Bijuan and senior Duke transfer Jordan Goldwire moving forward.

In this game it was the freshman from Kingfisher and not the senior from Duke who put the Sooners’ season on a firmer trajectory.

In this game Jordan logged 24 minutes and struggled only scoring 4 points and going a team worse -10. Converserly…Bijuan changed the entire flow and pace of the game in the second half. Bijuan played 16 minutes. His line was 4 points, 3 rebounds and 5 assists with a team best +20.

I still see Jordan Goldwire as the starting point guard, but what Bijuan did in this game was what OU didn’t do in the close losses to Utah State and Butler…he finished for the Sooners. He drove the Sooners home in the last ten minutes of this game and Porter Moser went stayed with him because he knew for his team to stay on a course to make it to the Big Dance… Bijuan Cortez may in fact have to be his closer.

So what I would see on the horizon is pretty much minutes wise based on this game would be Jordan getting more minutes overall, but Bijuan being there at the ready to come into the game and play regular rotational minutes.

This was a must win for the Sooners since they travel to Austin to play the Longhorns next. The key for OU in my mind in Big 12 play is to avoid two game losing streaks in the most loaded basketball conference in America. Win the home games, and slug out a couple of road wins if they can.

OU is built to be a tournament team . They shoot well from both the field and the line. They have enough punch from beyond the arc. They play tenacious defense. The bench is coming along. They have an inside-outside big man in Tanner Groves. The last piece is bringiing down the turnovers and finishing in the last six minutes of one or two possession games.

Scoring wise Moj Gibson led the Sooners with 20 points with Tanner Groves adding 16 points.

EJ Harkless and Jalen Hill didn’t have spectacular games stat wise, but make no mistake those two are the two guys who do all the blue collar work which gives this team a chance every game.

Next up… Chris Beard and his Longhorns in Austin on Tuesday night.

In closing, one other thing.. in this Big 12 Conference you have two coaches in Bill Self and Scott Drew who have won national championships. You have Chris Beard at Texas and Bruce Weber when he was at Illinois who have taken a team to the national championship game. And then you have Bob Huggins with two Final Four appearances and Porter Moser who took Loyola of Chicago to a Final Four.

There is not an off night in the Big 12.

It’s not just good players in the Big 12…it’s elite coaches as well.