For the first time in nearly a year, Isaiah Taylor's quickness & pinpoint accuracy were on full display. He flew through opponents, dispatching them with the ease of an assassin. Waves upon waves of would-be killers fell at his feet as he ran through clubs, warehouses, and steam baths trying to get vengeance for his stolen car & dead puppy. Zay was death incarnate, slaughtering bad guys by the dozen like only he can.
Oh wait, that was John Wick. I was watching John Wick last night because Longhorn Network decided it would be a better idea to run month-old 'All-Access' reruns than to air a live scrimmage. I guess it makes sense, I mean you can't expect a television network to be able to pack up all their gear and relocate to a high school gym in Virginia at the drop of a hat.
*background whispers*
Wait, the game was on campus? Oh, well, it's not like there's room to run a live broadcast from Gregory.
*more whispers*
They broadcast volleyball matches from there regularly? Seriously? Then there must not have been much fan interest, or else oh god what now
Thousands outside Gregory Gym for @TexasMBB scrimmage an hour and a half before tip. #hookem #ReportingSport pic.twitter.com/kOPKnBIQES
— Kevin Robbins (@kdrobbins) October 21, 2015
Huh.
There are many times in which I love LHN; they have some wonderful programs, like the all-22 film breakdown sessions and the aforementioned 'All-Access' shows which provide insight that would be missing without a channel devoted to all things Longhorn. I'm a big enough fan of LHN that when I shop for cable/satellite providers my choice in providers is largely dictated by whether they carry the channel. Sometimes though, the channel's decisions mystify me. If this were Rick Barnes' 18th season and the scrimmage was being played at the Drum in front of a couple hundred people, I'd get forgoing a live feed of the game because fan interest would be near-zero. But that's not the situation; Texas has a new coach that everybody is excited about and the athletic department even had the rare foresight to play the game on campus at Gregory Gym to help stoke student/fan interest. This scrimmage was such a low-effort/high-reward situation that LHN even had 2 announcers that could've been deployed for it; Craig Sunderland - who knows how to get to the gym because he calls volleyball games there regularly - could've called it a preseason game correctly for the first time ever, and if he was busy they could have sat Lowell Galindo down in front of the mic and let him do his patented 'drunken rambling on a porch with buddies' style of play-by-play and it actually would've fit the situation. TJ Ford was coaching one of the squads, they couldn't have put a mic on him as he paced the sidelines? Drew Gressett can sell Hat Creek burgers from the courtside booth for all I care, at least there would've been a game on the TV. Instead, I'm having to troll the Internet in the hopes that an enterprising college kid is Periscoping the scrimmage from the upper deck.
We know they're capable of broadcasting a scrimmage; they do it every spring for football & they've broadcast the baseball alumni game before. Instead, we were treated to the 148th recounting of a QB controversy that was decided over a month ago. This is a station that spends months out of the year starved for original content & they bypassed a relatively easy way to fill out a couple weeks of programming, not to mention bump up interest in a squad they'll be broadcasting 9 times this season. On Longhorn Extra, there was as much coverage of the scrimmage as there was of Tristan Thompson signing his NBA contract. It doesn't make any sense to me.
So yea, here's your recap in the only form available to people outside of Austin.
Box score from tonight's #HookEm scrimmage. pic.twitter.com/HNKIy4mA4E
— Dustin McComas (@DMcComasOB) October 22, 2015
Scintillating.