Jacob Priday: National Hitter of the Week.
A couple Mizzou-related blurbs in yesterday's Baseball America chat (via Corn Nation). Here's one (you'll have to read the article for the other):
Q: Andrew from Irvington, NY asks:
Aaron Crow this weekend — merely human or aberration?A: ... Aaron Fitt: As for Crow, first of all, he is human, and his incredible streak was not going to last forever. But those conditions could not have been any worse, with a 30 mph wind gusting out to center field (see Three Strikes for details), and he at least recovered after those first two innings to last five and pick up the win. One thing to keep an eye on, though, is that Texas had a great plan against Crow, taking a two-strike approach on every pitch and shortening up early in the count. We'll see if more teams start doing that against him.
So I guess the biggest news of the last 24 hours is that another damn football player was arrested. This time it was backup OL Austin Wuebbels getting caught with weed in his car. Obviously that's not as big a deal as cocking a gun (while drunk and underaged) in a late-night argument, but it's still illegal, and as you'll see in the practice reports, he probably just made things a lot worse on himself by not informing the coaches on the matter...
Football practice reports! Dave Matter, PowerMizzou, and Graham Watson all give their takes. I guess Tyler Crane, who's built like a linebacker anyway (6'3, 235), has been moved to LB. Not the most surprising move in the world.
It also sounds like tempers were flaring a bit...and that Pinkel maybe hadn't heard about Wuebbels' arrest yet. Here's Matter's take on that: "I don’t want to speculate too much on the situation, but something tells me that when a player is arrested, his coaches better hear it from the player first, not the media. What’s that they said about Watergate? The cover-up was worse than the original crime?"
And speaking of arrests, Stefhon Hannah was back in Boone County yesterday! He plead guilty to 'peace disturbance by fighting' and was given a relatively stiff penalty of 2 years probation and 20 hours of community service. Maybe that's not that stiff, I guess, but it seems a bit much for pleading down to peace disturbance.
Back to football: the Missourian takes a look at the high level of experience found on the defensive side of the ball, particularly in Lorenzo Williams' replacement in the trenches, Jaron Baston.
Finally, Steve Walentik tells K-State fans that he hopes this year's basketball season was fun.
Considering what Beasley meant to that team, leading them in scoring, rebounding, blocks, steals, and 3-point field-goal percentage and the fact that he almost single-handedly kept them close in a loss to Kansas in Lawrence and scored more than half their points in another close loss at Baylor, I can't foresee them staying in the mix for an NCAA bid next season. They were only a great rebounding team because of Beasley. Even with him, they only shot 44.3 percent from the field, and they were one of the worst defensive teams in the Big 12, yielding more than 70 points per game and allowing opponents to shoot 45 percent from the floor in conference play.
Forgive me, too, if I remain skeptical of Martin's abilities to mold a team considering he'll be in his second season as a Division I head coach and the lack of cohesion his first squad seemed to possess. Kansas State had more talent than a lot of teams last season, and yet it still lost to Texas A&M in the Big 12 Tournament and only wound up a No. 11 seed in the Big 12 Tournament.