Briefly, around the 40 Acres: the #22 Lady Horns dropped one in Ames last night, 67-56... Losing Cat Osterman means losing lots o' respect with the media. The Horns softball team is picked to finish 5th in the preseason media vote... Men's track and field opens things up ranked #4, while the ladies begin ranked 5th... Local hoops fans can catch two former Horns in NBDL action: both Brad Buckman (6.7 points, 4.4 rebounds) and Kris Clack (8.8 points, 6.0 rebounds) play for the Austin Toros.
Double T Nation's Seth scooped me on this yesterday in a diary, but I'll point readers once more to this TrueHoop blog entry on Kevin Durant (Hat Tip as well to reader JG for emailing the link yesterday). Frankly, the post is depressing. As badly as we would love to kid to stay for more than one year, the pressure on him to move onward and upward is going to be astronomical. As I've been saying: enjoy it while you can.
Lots of Texas notes from Andy Katz of late. Most recently, a blog entry on Rick Barnes' scheduling. On Wednesday, a Texas/Big 12-heavy online chat with readers, in which Katz - asked about the nation's top freshmen - gushed, "Right now there is no second place. It's Kevin Durant by a long shot." Then, moments later, "To stay on this Texas tangent I wouldn't be surprised to see Texas be that type of team that makes a deep NCAA run. DJ Augustin and AJ Abrams have been playing very well to compliment Durant and Mason gives them another scoring threat. Defense needs to tighten up a bit but I'm not sure many teams will want to face this squad in March."
This weekend marks the last big recruiting weekend of the year for Mack Brown, as he and the staff will host a handful of undecided prospects before National Signing Day in early February. The biggest prize left on the table is Dallas Skyline safety Christian Scott.
--PB--