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Oklahoma Sooners
The Oklahoma Sooners are coming off a BCS Championship loss at the hands of the Gators but Bob Stoops’ team has had a great 2008. After winning the first five games of the season, Oklahoma were ranked first in both the Associated Press Poll and USA Today Coaches’ Poll. The program’s only loss came at Texas as the Longhorns posted 15 unanswered points to come from behind and upset the Sooners. By the end of the season, a three-way tie in the Big 12 South standings eventually saw the Sooners chosen to play for the title as the highest ranked BCS side. 2009 is looking promising with the media rating Oklahoma’s defensive line as one of the leading in the country with promising linebacker Travis Lewis and a quartet of good defending ends which includes Frank Alexander and Auston English. The offensive line however lacks experience and it remains to be seen whether the only two players with starting experience, Jarvis Jones and Trent Williams, will help carry the rest of the team.
Mississippi State Bulldogs
Mississippi State University team is called Bulldogs and they are the last in 2008 standing with tally of 2-6 in the conference and overall tally of 4-8. Based in Starkville, Mississippi they have Bully as their mascot. Mississippi State University’s Bulldogs use Davis Wade Stadium for football, Humphrey Coliseum for basketball and Dudy Noble Field for baseball. Mississippi State University’s Bulldogs have an SEC record of 486-527-39 with win percent of 0.481. Mississippi state Bulldogs permanent opponents from SEC East are Kentucky Wildcats with series record of 16-20. MSU Bulldogs stores are an exciting place to shop for gears and gift. After 2008 season head coach Sylvester Croom resigned, Dan Mullen, offensive coordinator of University of Florida was made the new head coach. The new coach has to turn this team around. There is talent but his offensive side is weak. Tyler Russell the high school football hero last year has joined the team. This is going to be a testing season for the coach in a division where you have Alabama and Mississippi.
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Tennessee Volunteers
The team of University of Tennessee, Knoxville, Tennessee is known as Tennessee Volunteers. They were fifth in the SEC East Standing in 2008 with conference tally of 3-5 and an overall tally of 5-7. The home stadium is called Neyland Stadium. The team with a glorious past has won 6 national titles (last in 1998) ,16 conference titles and 7 divisional title ( last in 2007) ; their postseason bowl record is 25-22-0 and all times record of 773-327-55. Lane Kiffin is the new head coach after Phillip Fulmer resigned after 17 years at the end of 2008 season with a record of 152-52. Tennessee Volunteers store is place to find existing gear, apparels and gifts for the fans. The new coach will have to consolidate the team so that it can aim for SEC East in 2010 or 2011. Barring some unexpected offensive play at the quarterback position the team will find it difficult to improve their seven win status of 2008 season. The games to watch will be Tennessee at Florida on September 19th; it is not that Tennessee is expected to win, but the game has aroused considerable interest as the Vols coach, Lane Kiffin had accuse Gator coach Urban Meyer of cheating in February this year. The other important will be Auburn at Tennessee on October 3rd
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Arizona State
Arizona State University’s team Arizona Sun Devils is based in Tempe, Arizona. The home ground is Sun Devil Stadium at Frank Kush Field. Arizona Sun Devils is seventh in Pac-10 ranking ahead of UCLA, Washington State University and University of Washington. With a conference tally of 4-5 and overall tally of 5-7 in 2008, it lost the sixth place to Stanford whose tally is the same on points. Arizona Sun Devils stores have wide range of gears and gifts for everyone. Arizona start their 2009 season on September 5th with their first game against Idaho State. Danny Sullivan, the quarter back has to prove himself this season after a 5-7 season last year, as ASU defense is aggressive and physical. The young defense of Arizona Sun Devil is easy to spot and ready to hit but it is the offense which has many holes and hence make any prediction difficult. The team is not in 25 Top teams nationally but they have the potential to be.
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Texas Tech
Texas Tech fell to Iowa State 78-76 on March 7th to finish the regular season at 0-11 on the road.
John Roberson led Tech with 23 points, and despite his 35 point, nine three pointers game against Kansas on the 4th, Alan Voskuil was held to only 3 points.
Tech put up a valiant effort. Roberson sank a trey with 33 seconds left on the clock to leave Tech behind by one, but a foul by Roberson sent Diante Garrett to the charity line. He missed one, and scored the other to take a two point lead. Roberson then took a chance from the arc but missed, giving Mike Singletary the shot right before the buzzer, but the three pointer rimmed out.
“That is kind of the way our season has been going.” Texas Tech coach Pat Knight said, “We got two open looks at the end and they didn’t fall. I thought Iowa State came out with more energy and jumped on us.”
Iowa’s Alex Thompson, Bryan Peterson, and Sean Haluska combined to score the first 12 of the Cyclones points, setting the tone for rest of the game.
“I had a lot of energy coming into the game, with the last time playing in Hilton, and for these fans. Meeting with the coaches, I felt like we were going to come out and play well. I fed off the rest of the seniors,” Thompson said.
Craig Brackens scored 21 points and 14 rebounds for his fourteenth double double, and Peterson scored a career high 20 points, including six three pointers. Diante Garret added 17 with six assists.
Iowa led by 10 points with 16:58 left on the clock in the 1st half, but Tech trimmed the deficit to only four points with 1:30 left, when Iowa went on a 17-6 entering halftime at 42-37.
Iowa lead by 10 points again in the second half with 17:18 left on the clock, and scored six straight points with 10 minutes left.
With two minutes left of play, Tech narrowed the gap to 72-70, but was unable to gain the lead for the rest of the game.
“These are two teams that are much better then their record shows. It is fitting that this game came down to the final shot. We got the look we wanted, it just didn’t go down,” Knight said.
Iowa had excellent defense and ball handling, turning over a season low of five balls, and snapped a four game loss to the Red Raiders.
“We haven’t had a lot go our way this year,” Iowa State’s head coach Greg McDermott said. “Banked three-point shots and loose balls seem to end up in our opponents’ favor. I’m really proud of my team’s effort. I’ve been saying all year long why I still enjoy coaching this team. When you have leadership like we did in this game, where guys put their team first and fight through adversity — that’s really hard to do. These three seniors (Thompson, Peterson, and Haluska) deserve to go out like this.”
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Texas A&M
The Texas A&M Aggies closed out the regular season with a victory over Missouri at home in Reed Stadium on March 7th. This marks the Aggies sixth straight win, their 16th win at home this season, and the fifth consecutive year the Aggies have had 16 or more victories.
“A lot of teams would have folded, but we didn’t,” coach Mark Turgeon said. “Our poise has gotten better during that stretch and our fight has been unbelievable. We’ve just had great fight and determination in us.”
For the Tigers, it marks a missed opportunity for a share in the Big 12 for the first time in their school’s history.
In the first half Missouri committed nine turnovers and Carroll, their leading scorer, was held to only two points. Ten minutes in the Aggies scored nine straight points on three pointers, bringing the lead to 27-14. By halftime, the Aggies led with a 22 point separation.
“Congratulations to A&M; they were the hungrier team today.” Said Missouri head coach Mike Anderson. “They made big shots and plays. First half we dug ourselves in a big hole and it is really hard to play out of those. We had a chance to come back but A&M kept making plays to keep their cushion. Our kids never did give up; we fought back but just couldn’t close it. Now we are going to focus on the Big 12 tournament. I think the first game is the most important because it sets the tone for your post season.”
Four minutes into the second half, the Aggies had widened the gap to a 26 point lead, and the next six minutes showed Missouri fighting for the win, scoring four treys and going on a 20-7 run that trimmed the deficit to 69-56.
In the end, it wasn’t enough, as fouls by Matt Lawrence and Demarre Carroll allowed the last nine aggie points to be scored from the charity line.
Donald Sloan led the Aggies with 16 points. Josh Carter and B.J. Holmes each added 13.
“This game was intense from the tipoff. We came out and made things happen. We knew what kind of team they were. They try and speed you up and trap. Everything we have worked on helped today. We really worked on being aggressive. I think we got an NCAA bid today. We are just happy we got Josh a win on his senior day. We never gave up this season.”
Demarre Carroll led Missouri with 18, cutting the lead to seven twice in the last five minutes, and Zaire Taylor added 17.
“It was a relief, now the question is, how good do we want to be? Do we want to be remembered as a pretty good team that won 23 or 24 games, or do we want to want to be remembered as a great team! That’s what it comes down for us over the next few weeks,” said Turgeon.
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