Double-T Nation Daily Diatribe | 2011-03-22

With everything that's been going on, I've temporarily forgotten about some things, including the football post season awards and as I had one emailer ask me yesterday, what about baseball.  This is more or less about me having enough time and if I miss a story, it's either unintentional or I have just run out of time.  And this reminds me that I have a baseball post coming up later today, we'll have the special teams review on Thursday or Friday and a reprise of the football awards after the spring game.

And don't forget to check out Totally Texas Tech's TTURed new spring pictures.

I haven't had the time or the energy to take a look at the recent Forbes' Kristi Dosh article (hat-tip ESPN's David Ubben) about the Big 12 football finances and who is making money and who isn't.  Apparently, the football program makes a profit of about $11 million and the athletic program makes a profit of about $5 million.  I think you'll be interested in some of the other numbers, so please feel free to have fun in the comments.

Although it's not official, Texas Tech's newest head coach, Billy Clyde Gillispie, has been on a media blitz.  Yesterday, he was on the radio with the Williams and Hyatt Show, The Ticket (could not find the audio, but I've linked to a transcript), Galloway & Co. and 105.3 the Fan.  Since I'm not into transcribing audio, here's a bit from The Ticket transcript:

On if there were other job offers in the past two years:  I had a couple of opportunities, but I was going to be very picky. I've been fortunate to be able to be kind of picky, and I'm always appreciative of anyone giving me an opportunity. But I really wanted to be at a place that really cared about basketball, and if I did my job, where it was going to be really important in the community, as far as fan following and those kind of things. Texas Tech University is located in a great town, it's a great college town, and they love their sports, and they just need a reason to get excited, and I think we're going to provide that reason for them.

And I'm sure that he was on Tech Talk and maybe some Houston area radio shows, but this is all I could find. I also want to point out KAMC's interview with former Red Raider Gionet Cooper, who was coached by Gillispie when Cooper was in high school Killeen Ellison High School.  Gillispie had a pretty big impact on Cooper and in the 2 minutes for the story, it's easy to see why his players play hard for him.

And if you have time to listen to some of the audio, you can tell that Gillispie feels that he's incredibly lucky to be doing what he's doing and he's ready to get started at Texas Tech.  That's inspiring for me personally and I'm excited.

LAJ's Courtney Linehan writes that Gillispie wants NBA players, and he mentions this a couple of times on the radio:

"The biggest secret on turnarounds is having great players," Gillispie said. "We’re going to have NBA players, guys that are going to get drafted, guys that are going to represent this school well and graduate from it."

FWST's Jennifer Floyd Engel writes that Texas Tech's new athletic director now has her attention because he hired Gillispie:

He had been wooing Gillispie since before he officially became AD. He pursued and cajoled and, most important, finished. He had Gillispie excited about Tech, and thereby has Tech fans excited in a way we have not seen since The Pirate Ship was rocking after Michael Crabtree found his way into that end zone.

Of course, then-AD Gerald Myers (and I remember his name because he was a colossal idiot), current Chancellor Kent Hance and Little Pony Express screwed that up by conspiring via e-mail to fire Leach, then actually doing it for silliness.

Although these are a day old (and thank you DTN readers for linking to it in the comments yesterday) The Chron's Richard Justice:

I heard from a stream of them—and from Billy Clyde himself—when UH was searching for a basketball coach. They convinced me hiring Billy would be a really smart thing to do, that he really had changed, that he would be beyond thankful to the school willing to take a chance on him.

Texas Tech has made a potentially great hire. Billy Clyde will get players and he'll do the right thing by those players and he'll put a great product on the floor.

I don't know if Texas Tech now has the Big 12's best coach, but Billy Gillispie takes a backseat to no one. All he needs to do is manage himself a bit better. If he hasn't taken a long look at himself after two years away, he probably never will.

And the AAS's Kirk Bohls:

Texas Tech basketball just became relevant. The hiring of Billy Gillispie puts the Red Raiders on the map, although his five-year contract had better include specific language about a high buyout if he gets early wanderlust, and job termination in the event of a DUI conviction. A Gillispie friend told me the new Tech coach already has lined up commitments from six players. The Big 12 just got a lot tougher.

And we found out yesterday that Gillispie is searching for a coaching staff, talking to one of the best high school basketball coaches, but was turned down, and according to RRS.com's Chris Level, he's talking to some former Red Raiders:

Gillispie telling @BrandonRaweKLBK and I that he has exchanged text messages with Darvin Ham and Jason Sasser in last 48 hours. #TexasTech

I really like this move.  Ham is currently the head coach for the Albuquerque Thunderbirds, an NBA D-League team, and I'm guessing that Sasser is still trying to play basketball, but maybe he's ready to do something else.

I've had something come up and I'm not going to be able to go to the spring game.  I know, this makes me an awful human being, but this is where I need your help.  This will hopefully be about what DTN can do as a community.  First and foremost, I understand that the game is broadcast on local television and I was curious if anyone would be willing and or able to tape the game and send a DVD or VHS.  I know, this is asking a ton and I'd be more than happy to pay for the mailing.

Second, we, the DTN community needs people to cover the game.  Here's my idea and you can let me know if this is bullsh or if this would work.  I was thinking that we could have everyone take a position.  First come, first serve.  For example, we could have someone who is going to the game to watch the secondary and be able to comment on specific players in the secondary.  Or if someone wants to take the quarterbacks, then they report on the QB's.  After the game, you could each email me your thoughts and we could have our very own DTN community review of the spring game. 

Back to the field stuff, the official site has a preview of the spring game, but it's more or less about all of the other athletic events going on around campus.  There were two other bits of information picked up yesterday, which is that N. Carolina signee DT Delvon Simmons is still waiting on an official release and ESPN's Ivan Maisal writes about how Texas Tech has had their spring practice split up with spring break.