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Thx, Bogus Thx, Bogus Thx, Bogus Thx, Bogus Thx, Bogus Thx, Bogus Thx, Bogus

Hopefully Coach will give him enough minutes to accomplish this.

“MACK IS BACK” https://www.instagram.com/reel/C6OtO8yuSVK/?igsh=ZXQ5NTl2d2JzcWky That’s a HUGE momentum builder hopefully for the rest of this offseason!

Springmann mood:

Rev’s AC Madness was fun to watch. The players had a great time showing what they could do and interacting with the enthusiastic crowd. Carol and I could only stay for the first round. Here are a few thoughts: Mcbride was definitely the "General". He had something to do with almost every point scored by his team. He either made the basket or assisted a teammate who was either driving to the basket or in position for an open shot behind the arc. He was very jovial and talked to people in the crowd as he ran down the court. He did some really fancy dribbling while moving backwards. HCRS would not want to see that during a real game, but it was fun to watch. Kareem was a force to be reckoned with on both sides of the court. He made one of the most fantastic windmill slam dunks that I have ever seen. As he was in the air moving toward the basket, he caught the ball with outstretched arm parallel to his waist and slammed the ball so fast I didn't even see it pass through the net. Cam was crazy good. Even his teammates appeared to be shocked. He was draining threes and passing like Mid-Court Max. (Correction: Three pointers were only 2 pointers.) Here are a few photos taken on my iPhone:

In contrast, read between the lines of this tweet today from ORU reserve Braeden Moore:

This is good feedback. I'm just hopeful that our women's teams will not be forced to play against biological men. I'm thankful that ORU protects our girls, including one of mine currently attending!

Our ministry will be in Paris this summer during the Olympics doing street performances and outreach! (We've been in Europe every summer for the last 10 years except 20/21 Covid years)

South Dakota (and all Summit League teams) need to invest in the appropriate equipment to administer a D-1 baseball program. This includes a tarp big enough to cover the infield and pitcher's mound and home plate area, light standards for when the game may go long, and turf equipment to make fields playable after inclement weather. These should be minimum standards for teams to maintain their competitive levels. After all, what good is a woke school with their diversity, equality and inclusion if they aren't going to be equal in their intercollegiate athletics???

I was happy to see Fox 23 News on their 6 PM sports report mention that despite entering the Transfer Portal McBride is “staying put” at ORU.

https://www.instagram.com/p/C6F1krDuxVy/?igsh=eHBzdW4wMzJ3MmZp Elijah Lawrence (Rev) has set up “Rev’s AC Madness” at the Aerobics Center this Thursday, with four teams made up of friends of the captains and some of last year’s team members. Captains are Kareem, Elijah Lawrence, McBride, and Kai Fudge (who seems to be a manager of the MBB team or something). Ashton Smith, Jake Shannon, Cam, and Braeden Moore are all on teams. I find this whole thing a little interesting since many of these players have announced new homes, while specifically McBride has not. I wonder, does this fun, intramural, COMFORTABLE event move the needle at all for McBride?

As long as he doesn't leave for Wichita State, Tulsa....or a Summit League foe.

Trey Phipps to Northeastern State in Tahlequah, his father Conley's alma mater:

I had been following twitter pretty religiously when the portal opened. ORU probably had 20 to 30 prospects that we were in “contact” with. However, over the last three weeks or so things have gotten very, very quiet. It makes me thing that three possible things are happening, with a possible fusion option of 2 and 3 together. 1.) worst scenario- we are striking out in the portal and with the juco guys so the staff is ready for a rebuild and is looking to build with college freshman for next year. It’s harder to find info about who is recruiting high schoolers with the portal being the rage. 2.) we have slowed down reaching out to portal prospects as we are confident in our ability to sign some of the juco guys and other players we have been pursuing in the portal. 3.) many of the current players are coming back. My hope is that the truth is a fusion of options 2 and 3 . Perhaps we can get McBride and Bedford to return and combine them with a couple of strong juco’s like Hubbard, Lajae Jones, and Brody Robinson and a couple of other solid portal players to create an experienced enough team to make some noise next year. Sounds like we will know more soon.

https://godrakebulldogs.com/sports/mens-basketball/roster/carlos-rosario/9442 Averaged 8 minutes per game, 2.3 ppg, 1.4 rpg, 51.1% from the field, 44% from 3-point (4 - 9, or 20% of his shots were 3-pt attempts). He's not a Tucker DeVries, but he is a small forward type that could contribute greatly next season. https://godrakebulldogs.com/sports/mens-basketball/roster/carlos-rosario/9442 Averaged 8 minutes per game, 2.3 ppg, 1.4 rpg, 51.1% from the field, 44% from 3-point (4 - 9, or 20% of his shots were 3-pt attempts). He's not a Tucker DeVries, but he is a small forward type that could contribute greatly next season. https://godrakebulldogs.com/sports/mens-basketball/roster/carlos-rosario/9442 Averaged 8 minutes per game, 2.3 ppg, 1.4 rpg, 51.1% from the field, 44% from 3-point (4 - 9, or 20% of his shots were 3-pt attempts). He's not a Tucker DeVries, but he is a small forward type that could contribute greatly next season. https://godrakebulldogs.com/sports/mens-basketball/roster/carlos-rosario/9442 Averaged 8 minutes per game, 2.3 ppg, 1.4 rpg, 51.1% from the field, 44% from 3-point (4 - 9, or 20% of his shots were 3-pt attempts). He's not a Tucker DeVries, but he is a small forward type that could contribute greatly next season. https://godrakebulldogs.com/sports/mens-basketball/roster/carlos-rosario/9442 Averaged 8 minutes per game, 2.3 ppg, 1.4 rpg, 51.1% from the field, 44% from 3-point (4 - 9, or 20% of his shots were 3-pt attempts). He's not a Tucker DeVries, but he is a small forward type that could contribute greatly next season. https://godrakebulldogs.com/sports/mens-basketball/roster/carlos-rosario/9442 Averaged 8 minutes per game, 2.3 ppg, 1.4 rpg, 51.1% from the field, 44% from 3-point (4 - 9, or 20% of his shots were 3-pt attempts). He's not a Tucker DeVries, but he is a small forward type that could contribute greatly next season. https://godrakebulldogs.com/sports/mens-basketball/roster/carlos-rosario/9442 Averaged 8 minutes per game, 2.3 ppg, 1.4 rpg, 51.1% from the field, 44% from 3-point (4 - 9, or 20% of his shots were 3-pt attempts). He's not a Tucker DeVries, but he is a small forward type that could contribute greatly next season. Just goes to show you that you hit "submit" on a different page and you find out that each one of them saved and appended to the last page.

This is wonderful news! My hunch is HCRS will add some more keys pieces and we will have a really good cohesive team next year. Gotta keep using the intangibles like HCRS and Kelsi Musick seem good at doing.

That is SUCH good news. What a great ambassador for ORU Athletics!

He was at the baseball game with friends Tuesday night; he sure acts like a guy who is sticking around, or at least NOT like a guy who is out the door.

Every day that passes, the odds that Issac will stay in an ORU uniform for next season increase by a small %… I would love to see him stay, but won’t be disappointed in him if he leaves for (what he believes to be) greener pastures. I’m just ready for the unknown to become known.

Trey Phipps announces on Twitter he's headed to Northeastern State in Tahlequah, where his father Conley finished his career as well.

This team manages to collapse over and over. Just such a head-scratcher.

HUGE 7-to-10 days upcoming for ORU recruiting, starting this weekend. Several prospects visiting campus, featuring JUCO and portal guys. And the jury is still out on McBride staying or going. Meanwhile, wondering what to make of the likes of Phipps and Bedford not yet announcing new homes. Could they come full circle back to 81st & Lewis?

I think our frontcourt is decent. Jones can hopefully make a sophomore leap, Herron and Moore are both pretty reliable IMO, and Gray has the potential to be very good. As for the guards, hopefully McBride comes back. Pair him with Miller in the backcourt and it should be decent. Miller is one of my favorite players on the team. The 3 spot is where there isn’t anyone from last year, or who’s currently committed, to replace Kareem. Obviously, we need more guys. But I don’t hate the makeup of the group that is on the roster right now. They all seem to be high character guys who are all in on ORU.

During my 2 years in Grand Forks and 14 years in Minot, my wife and kids came to love the warmth, friendliness, and heartiness of the people. However, we experienced snow at least once in every month except in July. When out-of-state friends came to visit, we knew they wanted to see us. When we lived in Florida 30 minutes from Disney World, we suddenly had lots of "friends" wanting to come and stay with us a few days. Now, when asked about life in the Dakotas, I reply with a modified cliche: "It's a great place to live, but you wouldn't want to visit there."

Time to add a few names: 8. Isaac McBride - Graduate 9. Carlos Rosairo - Junior (He played the Covid season, so should have two more years left). Carlos was a guy that ORU went after in the transfer portal last year and made his final 3 list before going to Drake.

ORU doesn’t have a PG at all. McBride was extremely limited on ball last season. Really wish Amboree was sticking around so McBride could play the 2.

I saw on Twitter that the field was unplayable which I assumed was the case 250-275 days a year.

Good news to hear!

These are the most likely scenarios: UNC Goes 6-6 and ORU doesn’t go at least 8-4 UNC Goes 5-7 and ORU doesn’t go at least 7-5 UNC Goes 4-8 and ORU doesn’t go at least 6-6 We need to be better than .500 for the rest of the season to have a chance and help from UNC.

(OT's post) That is a WHOLE NEW Coach Springmann!

Starting to feel bad for Paul Mills, as this is the 4th former player to be recruited by Wichita State that has said no thanks. Abmas, Thompson, Mwamba and McBride.

I wonder how many of these players will wind up hopping from job to job once their playing days are over. Will they take a job, stay a year, get bored, move on, and lather-rinse-repeat? We've seen what's been happening in the service industry. Every time you go to a restaurant or other store, the people who wait on you are completely different--and they don't seem to get much training. Or they don't bother to learn, because they figure they'll be quitting soon anyway.

Wouldn't it be great if McBride would use this event to announce that he is retuning to ORU this fall? He put Kareem on the spot last year about returning to ORU when he spoke to the crowd during the dedication of the Mike Carter Center.

The Summit League transfers are making a big splash in the portal. William Kyle to UCLA, Zeke Mayo to Kansas, Frank Fiddler to Michigan State, BJ Omot to Cal, and the NDSU big man (forgot the name) to Nebraska. Sounds like a who's who that is picking guys from the Summit.

That's how we got the Earth, Wind and Fire tickets!!

OSU finishes the sweep, 12-4. All the scoring was done in the first 4-1/2 innings - all zeros after that. We outhit OSU 11-9, but gave up 10 walks and a HBP, which produced 20 baserunners. As I always told the kids I coached, you can never defend a walk, so don't give 'em up!!!

If McBride is graduating with an ORU degree then it would be surprising if he came back for another season.....but who knows perhaps he is just comfortable at 7777 So. Lewis....I know he said when he came to ORU that this was the place he should have been all along and that God had brought him to Tulsa....TheEagleman would expect him to move on for another opportunity and NIL $$$ but ya never know......we would surely welcome the guy back....I guess the question is....Does HCRS want McBride back??

School is about to end and graduation is coming up, so maybe they are just having a little fun before summer begins. It was an interesting post, ORob2.

This has been an issue ALL season long, with SO many wasted at-bats. Pop-ups, swinging at pitches outside of the zone on a three-ball count, failure to get a successful bunt down, not able to advance a runner from second to third with a productive out, and an inability to bring in a runner from third with a sac fly, to name a few. Obviously, no team is going to be perfect, but the one that performs better on these fundamental “little things” will win games that they normally wouldn’t. And a team that performs as poorly as ORU has in these situations will lose a lot of very winnable games, as proven so far this season.

Yep just a really disappointing ending to what could have been the week the turnaround started. Instead it is just more of the same.

Wear some ORU logo wear so that Frank can recognize the "friendlies"!

Any info you can share on who is coming to campus?

I have not been alone in complaining about the SLN in this forum. I finally got so fed up that I wrote the Commissioner. I am posting my email and his response below. I was impressed that he wrote me back within 24 hours. I tried not to be too snarky but I don't think I was 100% successful there but he was gracious in his response. I have a couple fo thoughts. The first, if the member institutions were all able to start their streams on time last year and now are not as successful perhaps some of this is on MidCo. Is the process to start a stream in need of some re-engineering? Secondly, I feel buried in the weeds of his response about why they went with MidCo is the Dakato schools entanglement with MidCo. That has been surmised on this board before, particularly by @Old Titan. Dang it that stinks! Anyone, since there's no baseball this afternoon some of you may want to fight through this. My Email Commissioner Fenton, I’m writing you to share my experience with the Summit League Network on the MidCo Sports Plus platform. For background, I am an Oral Roberts University alumni living in Dallas, TX. Therefore, I rely almost exclusively on the SLN to consume ORU sports. Prior to the creation of the SLN, I consumed ORU sports on the ORU Sports Network, which was free, the free streaming provided by most of our member schools and ESPN+. I subscribed to ESPN+ because many of ORU’s non-conference baseball and basketball games were carried on that platform. With the creation of the SLN all the free streaming platforms provided by member schools, including ORU, went away. To get was once mostly free, I now pay $9.99 a month plus tax. Not great but if that helps ORU and the conference maybe I can get over that additional expense. My issue is that that the fan experience has deteriorated from what I experienced in prior years. I am not always able to watch games live. I often will plan to watch a game the morning after. I don’t think there has been a single time during the basketball season, or so far in the baseball season, that replays were available on the SLN the morning after a game. Previously, when I was relying on member schools, for free I might add, replays were always available the next morning and often within 30 minutes of the conclusion of the game. On ESPN+ replays are available shortly after the conclusion of the game, by the way. Another example of the deterioration in the fan experience is with the reliability of the SLN. It is not uncommon for the broadcast to not be available when games are scheduled to start. MidCo provides a variety of “error messages” when this happens. Sometimes the message is that the event hasn’t started. I know this isn’t true because I am following the game on my phone using “live stats.” Last week, MidCo was telling users that their subscription wasn’t current, and we should check with the platform we used to subscribe. This was bogus and 16 minutes after the start of the game the stream on SLN finally started. I know from talking to other ORU fans this isn't unique to me. Reaching out to MidCo customer service in these situations is an absolute waste of time. Previously, when I was relying on member schools, for free I might add, games always started on time. In fact the streams often started 15 minutes prior to the start of the game and fans could enjoy the pre-game show. We get a very abbreviated pre-game show from MidCo if any at all. Why don’t broadcasts start earlier like they used to? I know that ORU still has pre-game shows because I hear them referred to during game broadcasts. Finally, I am baffled by the decision to use MidCo and CBS Sports. I can only assume the economics are better for the league but at what cost to the fans? As I said in my opening comments, in the past I would subscribe to ESPN+ to pick up non-conference games. If I want to do that now I am paying for two subscriptions. If the Summit League had partnered with ESPN, like virtually every other mid-major conference has done, one subscription gives fans conference and non-conference games and a better fan experience. Why is it that the partnership that works for our peer conferences wasn’t workable for the Summit League? Here’s my assessment of my experience with the Summit League Network. I am paying more and receiving less. I hear you speak a lot about how important the student athlete and the fan experience is to you. I can tell you that with the Summit League Network, you have fallen short of the standard you claim to set for the league. Sincerely, John Wright And the response from the commisioner Mr. Wright, Thank you for taking the time to craft a thoughtful email. First, let me thank you for your support of ORU Athletics and the Summit League. We appreciate the passion from our various fan bases. Second, I apologize for the experience you’ve had viewing games digitally or via television. As you noted, the experiences of our student-athletes and fans are incredibly important to the Summit League and the operations through the conference office. We understand that fans have their favorite teams/schools, but we hope to augment the experiences felt through the campus with an aggregated approach from the League. I want to take a moment to address a few points, particularly the technical ones, you noted below. Replays – Assuming the process to complete a live event and create an archive is done correctly by the home institution responsible for producing and managing the stream, the full game replay/archive will be available within an hour or so from when the process is completed. We have experienced situations where the archive creation process was not done (or not done correctly). This then leads to the replay not being available. We have reoccurring meetings with those managing at our schools to remind of this process, which included another one earlier this week. Games Not Starting On-Time/Error Messages – As noted above, each institution manages their streams. They set the start times within the technology platform and ultimately initiate the stream when ready. Schools have the flexibility to start the stream whenever they want. Some may start much earlier than the scheduled start to ensure the stream is already running when the game commences, and others may not start until closer to the starting time. We encourage our schools to start the stream early enough to make sure everything is working properly. If schools have ‘pre-game’ shows prior to the scheduled start, they have the flexibility to adjust the start time to accommodate the pre-game show and start the stream before that show begins. If a stream has not been initiated, the viewer will then see a message indicating the game has not yet begun. Third, as it relates to the League’s overall media partner strategy with the Summit League Network and national television distributor, CBS Sports Network, the decision was made after a year-long process that involved a membership committee. The process involved establishing priorities, which included 1.) Expanded National Linear TV; 2.) Increased Revenue; 3.) Brand Building & Fan Affinity; and 4.) Protecting Existing School Local/Regional Partnerships. As you can likely appreciate, the process included an exhaustive review of all options. Some of the options contained restrictions that would have impacted the membership negatively (production requirement challenges, increased costs, limited linear opportunity, impacts to existing partner agreements, and more). It is also worthwhile to note that only certain options were available as we attempted to structure a model that involved national linear TV and digital distribution. Intentionally, we put together these new relationships with a short-term agreement structure, knowing the evolution in the media rights landscape will continue to evolve. Fourth, rest assured that I will continue to communicate with our partners the constant need to improve, particularly in areas you and others have noted. We value the relationships with our partners and will continue working closely with them to make improvements for the future. Finally, I want you to know that your (and other fan’s) experience are important to the Summit League. This feedback is important and helpful. I’m hopeful that provided you information to better understand the overall structure and why specific technical challenges might be arising. Best Regards, Josh

When you move from one organization to another, you are only trading one set of problems for another set of problems - no organization/team is perfect. These student-athletes are going to find this out earlier than later in their lives if they continue to change schools every year (and probably never graduate if they change more than twice). Find a school/team that values you for the person you are and game you have. If they are developing your skills and you are getting the education that you need to make a great living (if you work hard), you have found the school for you!

Sad to see. Not all represented in those number will find "greener pastures," but players with ability will be snatched away from the programs that gave them opportunity to display their skills and that desperately need them, by promises of money, PT, and greater fame made by programs with greater prestige. Or, they may just be disgruntled, and looking for the easy way out. In either situation they may find, that that (not a typo ) grass isn't always greener.

I could see this being replicated in one of our post-game interviews.......