Catching Up

Hey everyone!

I've been SUPER busy the last few months with the newspaper and school and haven't been able to write in here much, but I figured I would post this to catch up a bit.

This will probably be a pretty long and not too detailed post just because there will be a lot of information and opinions in it, but I'll probably expand on some of these later!

Here we go:

The Dallas Mavericks
I came into this year knowing what it would hold. The Mavs would have a so-so year, probably get to the playoffs but not make much noise.

So far that's exactly what has happened.

The reason? Mark Cuban had to piece together some kind of roster for this year to get him to the HEAVY 2012 free agent class. Obviously, the blueprint is to sign Dallas-native PG Deron Williams and C Dwight Howard.

In my opinion, Howard is the big one here. Last year, the Mavericks signed a franchise center in Tyson Chandler, and I'd say 2011 went pretty well for them considering they hoisted the O'Brien Trophy. Dwight Howard is Chandler with an offensive game, and is extremely diverse with his favorite play being the pick-and-roll.

Deron Williams is also intriguing, as there have been many reports of the two wanting to play together next year. If the Mavs can land one of them, it will be huge, but Cuban will try and make both of them work, but it probably won't happen without both accepting contracts that aren't max (Kind of like LeBron and Chris Bosh did in Miami). If he gets Howard but not Williams, I wouldn't be surprised to see Steve Nash back in Dallas. If he gets Williams and not Howard, Marcus Camby or Jermaine O'Neal could be in play, as well as forward Michael Beasley.


The next step for the Dallas Cowboys: The off=season
After another sub-par year, Jerry Jones is left looking surprised because of his team's underachieving... Or maybe that's just the botox, who knows. But I know I'm surprised.

Now that the off-season is here and free agency is set to explode later this week, here is what I think the 'boys need to do to make themselves a legitimate playoff threat in 2012:

Defense: CLEAN HOUSE in the secondary. Don't even let Terrence Newman come to the facility again, just mail his stuff to him with a card that says "Good riddance." The only guys I would keep here are CB Mike Jenkins, who's young and had the injury bug last year but will benefit from a solid, non-lockout off-season, and Safety Abe Elam, who's a veteran player and a leader in the secondary.

Solution: Make a run at Kansas City Chiefs CB Brandon Carr, who has developed into a great player. I'd even love to see Jerry take a long shot and offer to Houston Texans DE Mario Williams. I'd also like to see a safety taken in the first round to play opposite of Elam.



Oklahoma State football
Right now, the talk of the town is the quarterback situation.

Clint Chelf, J.W. Walsh and freshman Wes Lunt are set to battle it out for the job beginning next Monday.

My pick here is J.W. Walsh. I think he's not only more than capable of slinging the ball all over the field like Brandon Weeden did the last two years, but he can also pull it down IF NEEDED, but is not a run-first guy like Zac Robinson sometimes was.

I also love the leadership quality in Walsh. I mean, he had 2 teammates from Denton Guyer follow him to OSU (Josh Stewart and Jimmy Bean, who both had tons of offers from other big-time schools), and has another coming in 2012 (ESPNU 150 prospect Dominic Ramacher).

I don't understand how you can't love what you get with this guy.


Oklahoma State basketball
The Pokes are gearing up for the Big 12 Tournament in Kansas City, which tips off tomorrow at 8:30pm with a matchup against Texas Tech.

The team is without five players. Two transfers (Fred Gulley, Reger Dowell) and three season-ending injuries (JP Olukemi(ACL), Le'Bryan Nash (hand), Phil Jurick (Achilles)) and are down to about 5 legitimate rotational players.

Their starting lineup will most likely look like this: Cezar Guerrero, Keiton Page, Markel Brown, Brian Williams and Michael Cobbins, with the Czech Prodigy (er... Something like that) Marek Soucek coming off of the bench. Past that? Mason Cox and Christian Sager, who were playing at the Colvin Center when the season began.

Every OSU fan would hope that the Pokes can pull it off against Texas Tech, who has one win in Big 12 play this year against Oklahoma. If they do that, they'll face Missouri in the second round, and would likely end their year there.

However, the future looks promising for the team. They have five-star guard prospect Marcus Smart coming in from Flower Mound, TX, and he's bringing three-star guard Phil Forte with him. Combine that with the other players coming back from injuries and maybe another key pickup and the Pokes should be a legitimate competitor when 2012-13 tips off.

That's all I've got for this one, I'll try and keep up with this more often. Thanks for reading!