Running back Darrin Smith, who’s rated one of the top-100 high school football players for the 2018 season in the Dallas metroplex area by the Dallas Morning News, signed a National Letter-of-Intent to enroll at San Jose State University for the upcoming fall semester.
The 5-foot-10, 196-lb running back from Lone Star High in Frisco, Texas, was rated No. 38 overall and No. 2 among running backs in the Morning News’ February 6, 2019 rankings of the Top-100 area high school players. Smith also was listed by the Waco Tribune Herald’s Top-100 high school players for 2018.
Smith played four seasons of varsity football for Lone Star High. The Rangers posted a 46-9 win-loss record, a 27-2 mark in league action, and played for the 2015 5A-D2 state championship. He rushed for 2,520 yards on 437 carries and scored 34 touchdowns. He also caught 51 passes for 604 yards and returned 13 kickoffs for 273 yards and a touchdown during his high school career.
Smith was the 2017 District 13-5A Special Teams Most Valuable Player and the district’s 2016 Co-Offensive Newcomer of the Year. He concluded his high school football career playing for USA Football’s Under-19 national team in the 2019 International Bowl.
#1 The Stanford Cardinal (9-8) got a win over Washington State (8-8) at Pullman on Thursday night 79-70.
#2 The Cardinal’s Dorian Pickens led the Cardinal with 28 points and Pickens got a three-pointerat 1:16 left to help the Cardinal in their nine-point win.
#3 KZ Okpala scored 21 points and Daejon Davis scored 6-7 field goals and 15 points.
#4 WSU’s Malachi Flynn led the Cougars with 24 points and had seven three-pointers.
#5 The Cardinal play at Oregon this Sunday at 5 pm.
#1 The Indiana Pacers (36-19) got a 119-92 win past the LA Clippers (30-26). Bojan Bogdanovic led the Pacers with 29 points.
#2 The Orlando Magic (23-32) got a win over the Minnesota Timberwolves (25-29) 122-112. The Magic’s Terrence Ross got 32 points.
#3 The Toronto Raptors (40-16) over the Atlanta Hawks (18-36). The Raptors Pascal Siakam got 33 points to lead all scorers.
#4 The LA Lakers (28-27) got a 129-128 win over the Boston Celtics (35-20). It was just like an old rivalry between these two NBA teams. The Lakers’ LeBron James led with 28 points and the Celtics’ Kyrie Irving had 24.
#1 The San Jose Sharks (32-16-11) have found their swing to the back of the nets with a great 5-2 win over the Calgary Flames (34-15-1). Sharks goals by Tomas Hertl (23 & 24), Evander Kane (22 & 23), and Brett Burns (11).
#2 The Carolina Hurricanes (27-21-6) got a narrow win over the Buffalo Sabres. The Hurricanes got three goals in the third period to hang on.
#3 The Florida Panthers got by the Pittsburgh Penguins 3-2. The Panthers got an OT goal by Mike Matheson for his fifth game and fifth goal of the year.
#4 The New York Islanders (31-16-6) got goals in the first period and in OT to beat the New Jersey Devils (20-25-8).
#5 The LA Kings got a one-goal win, scoring goals in each of the first and second periods, respectively. For the Kings, Austin (5) and Adrian Kempe (9) in the 3-2 win over the Philadelphia Flyers.
San Jose State men’s basketball returns to the road and will take on Boise State Saturday inside the Taco Bell Arena at 11 am PT. Justin Allegri will have the Spartans radio call on the TuneIn app.
Here’s what you need to know about Saturday’s game:
Game No. 22
San Jose State (3-18, 0-9) at Boise State (10-13, 5-5)
Saturday, Feb. 9, 11:00 am PT
Taco Bell Arena
Boise, Idaho
Live Stats
Fans can view live stats of all SJSU men’s basketball games, home and away, by accessing the “Live Stats” feature at www.sjsuspartans.com. Click on the link on the men’s basketball schedule page to follow the action.
Tune In
Check out the video below for a quick tutorial on how to access the Spartans radio call via the TuneIn app.
What Would a Win Mean?
The Spartans would snap a 12-game losing skid and pick up their first conference win of the season.
New Newcomers
The Spartans have played nine first-year players this season, including regular starters Michael Steadman, Zach Chappell, Craig LeCesne and Brae Ivey. The newcomers are accounting for 67.8% of the Spartans’ offense.
Steadman alone is accounting for about 20% of the team’s offense with 272 points (19.8%).
Baumann the Boss
Sophomore Noah Baumann is shooting lights out from beyond the arc this season, so good in fact that he leads the Mountain West in 3-point percentage at 48.6%. Baumann also ranks in the top-10 in the MW in 3-pointers per game (2.4).
In the loss to Utah State, Baumann had one of the most impressive performances of his career as he scored a career-high 29 points and tied the school record with seven 3-pointers (7-of-10). He also set career highs in 3-point attempts and field goal attempts.
Baumann holds the first and third highest-scoring performances by a Spartan this season with 29 vs. USU and 23 vs. Northern Arizona. The sophomore is averaging 10.4 points in conference play, second-most on the team (Steadman).
Baumann has hit at least one 3-point basket in 19 straight games this season, which is the second longest streak in school history with a 3-pointer made and longest since Robert Owens closed out 2009-10 on a 21-game streak.
Last season as a freshmen, Baumann finished the year 40-for-87 (.460) from the 3-point range. He has already eclipsed those numbers with nine regular season games to go (51-105, .486).
Chastain in Charge
Junior Ashtin Chastain has been filling in the gap in the starting lineup with senior Oumar Barry sidelined by injury. Chastain has started the last four games in his stead and is averaging 6.6 points and 6.0 rebounds in those starts.
Chastain scored seven points in the first start at Wyoming and followed up with with a career-high 13 rebounds in a season-high 39 minutes vs. Air Force. He tallied a season-high eight points in the loss at USU.
Ch-Ch-Changes
Spartans head coach Jean Prioleau made some changes to his staff in the offseason. He brought in former NC State All-American Julius Hodge as an assistant coach and promoted director of operations Ryan Cooper to assistant coach.
Steady Steadman
JUCO transfer Michael Steadman has made a big impact this season as a leader on and off the court. The 6’10″ forward is averaging a team-high 13.0 points per game and ranks sixth in the MW with 8.6 rebounds per game. He has seven double-doubles on the season, ranking third in the conference and has scored in double figures in 16-of-21 games. He also has 10 games with double-digit rebounds.
Steadman leads the team with three games with at least 20 points, including back-to-back efforts vs. AF and USU. He put up a career-high 24 points and pulled down 12 rebounds in the loss to AF. He followed up with 20 points at USU.
Last Time Vs. Boise State
The Spartans dropped the first of two games vs. Boise State this season on Jan. 12 by a final of 87-64. SJSU trailed by just three at the half, however the Broncos scored 50 second half points to pull away. Zach Chappell had a season-best 12 points while Brae Ivey chipped in 11 more. Oumar Barry led the way with 16 points.
Shake It Up
Prioleau has used 10 different lineups throughout the season with no one player starting each time out. Barry had started the first 17 games before an injury kept him out of the lineup the last four games. Seven newcomers have made starts, including freshmen Seneca Knight, Zach Chappell, Trey Smith, and Christian Anigwe.
Still on Top
The Spartans are one of two teams that rank in the top four in both offensive and defensive rebounds per game in conference play. SJSU ranks third in offensive with 10.4 per game and fourth in defensive with 25.8 per game. USU’s the other team.
Few Fouls
SJSU has committed the fewest fouls in the MW this season with 17.0 per game.
Series History With Boise State
Boise State holds a 32-3 lead in the all-time series. SJSU’s three wins all came at home: February 2, 2002 (62-51), January 14, 2010 (76-74), and March 5, 2016 (68-63).
Boise State currently leads the MW with a 2-0 record in league play and are 7-8 overall. The Broncos began conference play with wins at Wyoming (69-55) and vs. San Diego State (88-64). Three players are averaging more than 10 points per game led by RJ Williams (13.3).
The Broncos are led by head coach Leon Rice, who’s in his ninth season.
In case you missed it, Stanford Cardinal men’s basketball throttled the Oregon State Beavers 83-60 for its third win in a row. Oscar da Silva matched his career-high with 23 points in the throttle. da Silva also recorded nine rebounds and a career-high seven assists.
da Silva told the media: “I tried to be aggressive right from the get-go. I tried to take it at their bigs, get into their zone from the high post, and that worked really well.”
Aside from da Silva, the Cardinal’s leading scorers featured the likes of Josh Sharma, who had 20 points and eight rebounds, and Daejon Davis, who added 11 points on three three-pointers. The Cardinal (12-10, 5-5 Pac-12) have won four of their last five games. The Ducks (14-9, 5-5 Pac-12) are just one step ahead of the Cardinal in the Pac-12 conference, but they’re carrying one win to the home court inside the Matthew Knight Arena, so the Cardinal should prepare for the conference matchup if they haven’t already done so.
The Ducks’ last win came at home versus the California Golden Bears, a rival of the Cardinal, on Wednesday, February 6 by a final score of 73-62.
As you can see from the two tweets above, da Silva’s a crucial part of the Cardinal roster. The 6’9″ German sophomore forward has room for growth, but he has been destroying it on the hardwood, like, say, at Oregon State, where he shamelessly attacked the Beavers defense along with the nation’s leading shot blocker, Kylor Kelly. Kelly had 17 points before the break.
I’d also like to note that the Cardinal went on a whopping 11-2 run that put them in the driver’s seat with a far-fetched lead 71-52 with 4:28 left in the game. That run, my friends, was capped off by a three-pointer from Marcus Sheffield, a junior guard and forward from Alpharetta, Ga.
“We’re growing up. Slowly but surely,” said Stanford head coach Jerod Haase. “Overall, we’re trending the right way. The guys are playing hard, they’re playing together, and they believe in what we’re doing.”
With that said, Stanford will stick around the Beaver State for a few more days before they travel to Eugene, Ore. to take on the Ducks, who will likely be a tough customer. But we’ll see what happens next, okay?
By Daniel Dullum
Sports Radio Service
Thursday, February 7, 2019
Thanks to a big night from Dorian Pickens, punctuated by timely shooting, Stanford traveled to Pullman, Wash., and defeated Washington State 79-70 Thursday in Pac-12 men’s basketball.
Pickens bagged a career-high 28 points, including a crucial 3-pointer with 1:16 to play in the second half. Pickens also made 7-of-10 from behind the arc.
Freshman KZ Okpala was next for Stanford with a career-high 21 points and Daejon Davis hit 6-of-7 field goals and finished with 15 points for the Cardinal (9-8 overall, 3-1 Pac-12).
Malachi Flynn led WSU (8-8, 0-4) with 24 points, including seven 3s. Milan Acquaah was next for the Cougars with 10 points, and Drick Bernstine added eight points and pulled down 12 rebounds.
Robert Franks, who came into the game leading WSU with 17.3 points per game, was held to eight points while committing six of the Cougars’ 22 turnovers.
With the Cougars leading 55-47, Washington State’s Kwinton Hinson committed a hard foul on Stanford’s Reid Travis, and the players had to be separated. From that point, the Cardinal roared to a nearly 10-minute, 21-3 run, taking a 68-58 lead with 6:26 remaining.
The Cougars pulled to within three points twice, but Pickens hit a pair of 3-pointers that helped Stanford hold on for its third straight win.
Stanford, which rallied for victories after being down 13 at UCLA and down 15 against USC, trailed Washington State 45-38 at the half.
A game official collided with a Cougars player in the second half, was injured, and had to leave the game.
The Cardinal travel to Oregon to face the Ducks on Sunday at 5:00 pm PT.
One of the great players of his generation passed away today. Robinson, the only player to win the MVP in both leagues, fell 57 hits shy of 3,000 hits and hit 586 home runs. He was also the first African-American manager in the Major Leagues. He won the Triple Crown twice, one of only two players since then, as Carl Yastremski and Miguel Cabrera won it twice in either league. He was a member of the Hall of Fame after playing baseball for 21 years.
When you watched him play, you saw a big guy with speed, power and tremendous ability. Seeing Robinson running the bases was truly a spectacle. With his long legs, he seemed to get from the plate to second with fewer strides than most other hitters of his time. To this day, I remember the trade that took him from Cincinnati to the Baltimore Orioles in 1965 for pitcher Milt Pappas. His number 20 was retired by the Orioles, Indians and Reds.
As a manager for 16 years with four different teams, we had him here as the skipper of the San Francisco Giants (more on that to follow!). He began his managerial career with the Cleveland Indians during his last two years as a player, then managed the Giants, Orioles and Montreal Expos/Washington Nationals.
I covered him during Robinson’s managing years with the Giants from 1981-1984. Those were under .500 teams most of the time. He was not an easy guy to play for. Back then, I talked to some players (who I shall not name) who told me that. He was a disciplinarian, a Billy Martin type with a lot of character and will tell if your question was a good or stupid one.
Robinson could not manage today in this “politically correct” culture because he would offend somebody. He will tell you what he thought without much hesitation and without a filter. I cannot remember the year,but it was a night game at Candlestick Park and the Giants lost (nothing rare those years) and we went down to speak to him, who was a vintage Frank Robinson. One of the reporters asked him a question and he went totally off with a bunch of expletives which nobody could run then on the air and left his office and didn’t say a word, meaning the “press conference” ended. For the younger readers, those days the manager did not speak live on television after each game, as they do today. It was a bunch of writers, radio reporters and on occasion, local television stations taping for later use. He did not enjoyed those managerial days in San Francisco. He was very frustrated in San Francisco because those teams were not winning and he demanded better play. To be fair to Robinson(and like I always say), the best jockey in the world cannot win a race if he doesn’t have a good horse.
Another player from the Bay Area, Robinson went to McClymonds High School in Oakland, which was his birthplace. I will always remember him as one of the best players I ever saw. When he went to the Orioles, he joined another Robinson (Brooks), who was one of the best third basemen ever. To see Brooks and Frank in the same lineup with the Orioles, it was truly a pleasure as a fan.
Robinson also worked for the Commissioner, he was the ultimate baseball lifer and he had quite a life, may I say.
SAN JOSE, Calif. — San Jose State football released its 2019 schedule on Monday, but Wednesday was all eyes on head coach Brent Brennan and one member (Alex Galland) of this year’s recruiting class inside the Simpkins Stadium Center. All two took questions from the local media on the first day of the traditional start to the National Letter of Intent signing period.
If you’re a San Jose State football fan, then this update was written with you in mind. Here’s my question and answer session with Brennan and company.
1. Better health is an obvious priority for the current roster. Talk about a few other solutions to continue turning potential into production. I think Josh Love demonstrated when he’s healthy, he can be a really effective quarterback. So, in terms of our offensive production, it’s important that Love has the playmakers surrounding him, but that’s more so easier said than done because we play against a lot of teams with more improved defensive and offensive lines.
2. The Spartans trailed in Rushing S&P+ and Opportunity Rate, but Tyler Nevens is a different figure as he has been leading the backfield and showing a good amount of ability to be a grinder. Do you feel like the Spartan running game has nowhere to go but up? Absolutely, and obviously, Quinn (Oseland), (Scott) Breslin and Jelani (Newman) will be guys that we hope will give us a boost. When it comes to the offensive line, we have guys who know that it all starts with them. So I’m hopeful and that was one of the reasons why we identified Quinn and we’re excited that he has seen the felt the love from California and saw the opportunities in the Silicon Valley, the Bay Area, and most of all, San Jose State as an academic institution; but he’s also here to play football and to help us grow and play better up front.
The running back thing got shot in the arm last year. There were a couple of guys we signed who just enrolled with us at the mid-year, so you’re going to see Kairee Robinson from De La Salle, a fantastic player, and also Lorenzo Birch from Carmichael Jesuit; and we really feel like those guys will give us a boost.
There are guys who weren’t on our roster last year who are going to help our running game. And, of course, we’re going to see the maturing from Tyler Nevens and DeJon Packer. We’re going to have a good mix of youth and maturity, so let’s see if we can run the football better because that’s what we need to do. 3. The Spartan offense has showed some glimpses of promise. Just how important do you think the offense will play a role in the Spartans’ success in 2019? Yes, I think the offense will play a pretty big role in the Spartans’ success. It’s also a reflection of me, the offensive coaches, and the rest of Spartan Athletics as a whole.
4. What are some things the recruits could bring to the table that fans may not know about? The track prowess of Dominic Mazotti, the fact that Jackson (Canaan) is a big-time swimmer–a totally legit swimmer, despite being a tight end, Isaiah Thomas is more of a crossover guy for us and we’re planning to make him one this coming season, and Malikhi Miller–who’s the stepson of (running backs) coach (Alonzo) Carter–but that’s a turning point as he has relationships with the other coaches and had to have a reason to join the (football) program. So that has been a positive. He’s a big 6’4″ kid, he’s got this big body and he’s going to grow into a monster wide receiver; but he’s still a little young, so he needs to grow into that big body.
Jamar Simpson…there’s a great video of him on YouTube of him and Adoree Jackson at the USC camp for their opening and they were having the fastest man competition and Adoree–who didn’t bet–but he said that this guy had it. So they were in all these camps all over Southern California and Jamar won every single one of them.
Jamar caught our eye at a USC camp and also some other catches. He had a lot of speed, so much that I wondered if his dad clocked his 40-time.
5. The mix of the younger and older players can help improve the team, just as long as they stay healthy and are willing to put in the work. Is the youth movement still important in this program? Absolutely. I think there’s a real delicate balance there, and the real balance is how we fill our roster; but the last two years, we’ve seen a lot of young players playing on a significant level, and the best thing is about freshman is that they become sophomores, sophomores become juniors, and you hope that those reps they get in the game will help them improve and stack up to round out their learning experiences because they’ll be playing at a young age, but over time, they’ll be better prepared to handle things when they’re confronted with issues.
This is the time where I’m putting in time to develop the energy that helps us all form a bond that will be unbreakable when the college football games are underway on Saturday.
