Is it already Wednesday? Time flies, man. Anyway, big day here on BON. First, some site news. Today marks day one of the presentation of the College Football Blog Awards. The festivities commence at 7:00 a.m. at Rocky Top Talk, where Joel will light the torch and hand out the first award. BON will be presenting two awards on the first day: The "Dr. Z Award for Best Analysis" (9:00 a.m.) and the "Brady Quinn Award" (2:00 p.m.) for the most attractive and tech-savvy blog.
Wednesday also means the game in Lubbock is here. Double T Nation warms us up with a game preview over on his site, while AW has posted the view from Austin since I began writing this. I keep going back and forth on how I think this one will play out, though I tend to think we match up well with the Raiders. Winning in Lubbock will NOT be easy, though. AW predicts a narrow win. . . and I agree. Texas gets a huge road win tonight.
Some delicious news on the football front, as the spring schedule has been set and presented to the public. Texas will open with two practices on Friday, February 23rd at 3:45 p.m. and Saturday, February 24th at 12:30 p.m. Both will be open to the public. The Spring Jamboree Scrimmage will kick off at noon on March 31st. So, if you're desperate like me, you can get your first football fix in just over three weeks. Should we plan a BON field trip for the Spring Game? It sounds to me like a great excuse for a BON get-together.
If you're not planning on watching the men's trip to Lubbock tomorrow night, you can always head to the Drum to cheer on the Lady Horns against OU. Important note: the game tips at 6:00 p.m., one hour earlier than the normal start time for hoops games. And as was immutably established today in one of the strangest diaries in BON history. . . there's no such thing as "too much Oklahoma hatred." (As an aside, C&CM has a picture of Miss Oklahoma up, if you're interested. Personally? I think she looks constipated. Probably something in the sewage water.)
One last note on rivals of the 'Horns: the ever-witty Jonathan Tu's got a side-splitting piece on the chaos in Fayetteville. A must read, really.
ESPN NBA Analyst Chad Ford can't decide if Kevin Durant, Greg Oden, or Joakim Noah has the most upside, but he does say about Durant that, "He's a joy to watch on the court -- to tell you the truth, my favorite college player to watch." I can't really argue with that.
Daniel Gibson started for the Cleveland Cavaliers last night, in place of the injured Eric Snow. Gibson performed well, scoring 12 points on 4-of-5 shooting from beyond the arc. During his Texas days, Gibson flashed that NBA range on occasion (the 37 point Baylor game springs to mind), but lacked consistency as a scorer and shooter. He never was -quite- right after the concussion he suffered in Austin against Tennessee last December. I'm still happy to see him off to a solid start in the Association.
Question of the day: putting on your best prognosticator's cap, speculate what it would take for Kevin Durant to return to Texas for a sophomore season. (If you can't tell, I'm full blown obsessed. And desperate for one more year. It's irrational, and stupid, and all the rest. But sports are nothing if not a series of big dreams, right?)
--PB--