Courtesy of the Baton Rouge Advocate, create a caption for this strange meeting of Snoop Dogg and Les Miles.

 [UPDATE] The offseason is slow. Vote for a winner.

As broken (not really) by BON earlier last week, the athletic department announced plans last week to retire Vince Young's 30-2-record-as-a-starter #10 jersey. If you're like us and no longer live in Austin, attending VY's jersey retirement ceremony game should be a priority. There hasn't yet been (to our knowledge) an announcement of when #10 will be retired, but looking at the available dates allows us to speculate on the obvious answer. This is just speculation, but it's the freaking offseason so what else are we gonna do?

Looking at the schedule, the Longhorns have 7 home games to retire VY's jersey (produced below). During those dates, the Titans play on either the following or the same day as the Longhorns on all but one occasion. The only exception is the home opener against Florida Atlantic.

• 8/30  Texas vs. Florida Atlantic -- 8/28 Titans @ Green Bay
• 9/13  Texas vs. Arkansas -- 9/14 Titans @ Cincinatti
• 9/20   Texas vs. Rice -- 9/21 Titans vs. Houston (in Nashville)
• 10/18 Texas vs. Mizzou -- 10/19 Titans @ Kansas City
• 10/25 Texas vs. Okie State -- 10/26 Titans vs. Indy
• 11/8   Texas vs. Baylor -- 11/9 Titans @ Chicago
• 11/27 Texas vs. Aggy -- 11/27 Titans @ Detroit

Didn't see this posted anywhere and not really front page material, but former Longhorn Taylor Teagarden went yard for his MLB hit in the Rangers 1-0 win on Sunday.

Taylor Teagarden made his first major league hit count.

 

The rookie broke up Scott Baker's perfect-game bid with a sixth-inning home run and caught Vicente Padilla's gem Sunday as the Texas Rangers beat the Minnesota Twins 1-0.

http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/recap?gameId=280720109

Next up for Taylor: the Beijing Olympics.

Kenn Kasparek officially signed  with the Seattle Mariners, ending any chance for a return to the 40 Acres. Kyle Walker and Casey Whitmer have also apparently signed, none of which should come as a surprise to Longhorn fans. It is only a matter of time before Kyle Russell and Jordan Danks are also signed.

The MLB draft is over and it contained very good news for Texas baseball. Six Longhorns and five recruits were drafted by major league teams. They were:

• Kyle Russell, 3rd Round, LA Dodgers
• Jordan Danks, 7th Round, Chicago White Sox
• Kyle Walker, 11th Round, Colorado Rockies
• Kenn Kasparek, 12th Round, Seattle Mariners
• Casey Whitmer, 30th Round, Washington Nationals
• Riley Boening, 42nd Round, Minnesota Twins
• Robbie Grossman, 6th Round, Pittsburgh Pirates
• Taylor Jungmann, 24th Round, Anaheim Angels
• Hunter Cervenka, 27th Round,  Boston Red Sox
• Brandon Loy, 32nd Round, Baltimore Orioles
• Sam Stafford, 40th Round, Boston Red Sox

From this list, Russell is definitely gone, and Danks, Walker and Kasparek should be gone. Grossman has said he'll be a Longhorn and suggested Jungmann is coming along too. With Preston Clark avoiding the draft bug, Texas baseball should be stacked for a championship run in 2009.

We're 74 picks into the MLB draft, and no Longhorns or (to our knowledge) Longhorn prospects have been picked. We'll try to update this thread once the first day is complete if any Horns have been picked, but considering the fact that we're expecting big things from next year's squad, a few good breaks for us fans on draft day wouldn't be a bad thing.

[Note by 40AS,  06/05/08 10:56 PM CDT ]  Kyle Russell was drafted #93 by the Dodgers.  We can't think of any way that Russell returns to campus, and his statement to the press pretty much confirms it. Russell said "I'm very thankful for the coaches, teammates and fans for the support they've given me. Without them, I wouldn't be where I'm at today. Coming to UT was one of the greatest experiences and it's something I'll always come back to. Hopefully I touched the hearts of a lot of people and I thank them for everything. I'm looking forward to what the future holds." No other Longhorn (to our knowledge) was drafted on day one, expect several to be drafted on day two.

The baseball version of the Big Dance begins today, and you can discuss all the action with your fellow BONers right here. NCAA Sports has your live scoreboard for every game. Texas and St. John's have their first pitch at 2 PM CDT. Other notable start times are Mizzou playing Ole Miss at 11 AM CDT, Dallas Baptist against Houston at 12:30 PM, Eastern Illinois against Nebraska at 1:05, National No. 1 Seed Miami against Bethune-Cookman at 3:00, OU against Vanderbilt at 4:00, Sam Houston against Rice at 6:00, UIC against A&M at 6:30, and Western Kentucky against Okie State at 7:00.

The NCAA Baseball Tournament is a lot of fun to follow, although it takes a bit more patience than following the basketball tournament. The double-elimination format takes out some of the excitement that a "win or go home" basketball tourney brings, but baseball does not lend itself to such a system. The team with the deepest pitching staff will not necessarily win the regional/super-regional/College World Series, but it definitely has the greatest margin for error. The more solid pitchers a team has, the more opportunities it has to overcome an early loss to give itself a chance to succeed in the long slog through the losers' bracket.

In Texas' case, as Peter noted yesterday Augie Garrido has decided to start Kenn Kasparek against St. John's and save staff ace Chance Ruffin for the likely matchup with Rice on Saturday. This plan makes a lot of sense for a team like Texas, whose Achilles heel may well be its starting pitching depth. Ruffin and Big Bird have been fantastic of late, but beyond that it's a bit of a crap shoot. That means that it is absolutely vital for Texas to win its first two games--it will equalize the pitching matchup with Rice by forcing the Owls to use an extra arm in the losers' bracket game, and will give the Longhorns a coveted margin of error in having to only win one of two games to take the regional title.

By now all BONers are likely to have noticed that the Longhorns prevailed 15-7 over Kansas State on Sunday to claim the Big XII Tournament title for the first time since 2003. Many readers are also sure to have seen that, despite finishing the season very strong, Texas did not quite make the cut to host a regional next week. The NCAA press release about the host sites also makes note of the breakdown by conference: a very strong year in the ACC was rewarded with four regional sites (FSU, UNC, NC State, and probable National No. 1 Seed Miami), with the Big XII not far behind hosting three. Our congratulations to A&M, Okie State, and Nebraska for representing the conference--but it certainly makes us wonder what might have been if Texas had just managed to take two of three from the Cowboys in Austin, or at least salvaged one game to avoid the sweep. That said, we'd much rather the 'Horns be playing well as a 2-seed outside of Austin than be in the Aggies' position (i.e. playing poorly as a likely 1-seed at home).

Our postseason outlook for this team remains similar to our prognosis for most of the year: they're young, they're talented, they're well-coached, and we would not be surprised by either a sub-regional exit or a trip to Omaha. They may not play at UFCUDFF again this season, though it's possible if they manage to win their sub-regional and the 2-seed across the bracket does the same. While we would love to speculate about where the selection committee will send Texas and which sub-regional the Longhorns will be paired up with, it would be rather pointless. You can tune into ESPN at 11:30 AM CDT on Monday to see the eight national seeds and the rest of the tournament bracket revealed live. We'll have plenty of fun breaking down the Tournament once it's official.

For now, though, we have an opportunity to spend a few minutes reflecting on an impressive run to the conference championship. Over the course of the week Texas showed the kind of versatility necessary to succeed in the postseason. They won with great pitching performances, and they won without them. They won with consistently solid defense (knock on wood), great hitting with runners in scoring position, and a surprising amount of power up and down the lineup.

Chance Ruffin gave another fantastic performance in Texas' first game, but the Longhorns took a tough 3-2 loss to Missouri in extra innings. Resilience is key in tournament play, however, and Texas showed plenty of it. They bounced back to beat the Aggies on Thursday for the fourth time in a week and then beat Oklahoma on Saturday in dramatic, bottom-of-the-ninth fashion after squandering a 6-1 lead. Finally, in Sunday's title game Texas and K-State fit the conference championship game mold perfectly as each squad's pitching was depleted enough to allow a 22-run offensive explosion. The Longhorns provided a comfortable majority of those runs to take the championship.

Pitcher of the Tournament: Chance Ruffin. He is really, really good. His six-inning, two-run, three-hit performance against the Tigers was the 'Horns' best pitching job of the week despite Ruffin's no-decision and Texas' eventual loss in the game.

Hitter of the Tournament: This one is a bit tough because of Jordan Danks' fantastic clutch hitting, but we have to agree with the sportswriters and go with Tournament MVP Brandon Belt. He hit .588 on the week including two doubles and a homerun.

Kiddie Corpsman of the Tournament: Cameron Rupp has become the type of defensive leader behind the plate that a young team needs to keep it steady. He also hit .438 on the week and had a hit in all four games, including a 3-for-4 performance in the championship.

Next Up: ????

Texas vs. K-State for the conference title is underway. A win would mean big momentum heading into the NCAA Tournament. Follow the game with fellow Longhorns right here.