Happy Hump Day, friends and fans!

Today is a pretty big day for the Big 12, as the conference has furthered its comprehensive rights agreement with ESPN. One thing this means is that the Big 12 Championship Game will have a guaranteed home through the 2024 season.

This also means Big 12 schools will begin to have tier 3 games streamed exclusively on ESPN+ as early as this season. As Jake Trotter notes, Baylor, Kansas, Kansas State and Oklahoma State will be the first programs to do so in 2019, with Iowa State, TCU, Texas Tech and West Virginia following suit in 2020. However, this will not impact the OU or Texas T3 situation any time soon, so this doesn’t impact the OU fan’s viewing experience on quite the same scale.

Speaking of which, the Oklahoma Sooners are still keeping their PPV game for now, and because of its previously existing deal with Fox, OU’s home events won’t be streamed on ESPN+ (at least not any time soon). However, the school will still earn its own share of the profit along with the rest of the league’s members.

While there won’t be any Sooner football on the streaming service any time soon, OU baseball and softball road games are expected to be streamed on ESPN+. Of course, home games will still be shown on SoonerSports.tv or FSOK. Basically, if you want all access to Oklahoma athletics (or close to it), it would be ideal to lock down a subscription.

From the announcement, OU Athletic Director Joe Castiglione is all for this partnership, saying “Today’s announcement further enhances the Big 12 brand and favorably positions the Conference for years to come”. This can largely be chalked up to PR speak, but this kind of thing does appear to give the league a bit more stability in the short term.

Now onto today’s Hot Links! Wednesday Sooner Baseball has been canceled, Nick Basquine is back, Magic Johnson steps down as Lakers exec and more!

OU Links

• In a perfect world, these kinds of videos would continue during the season before each game. It’s fun to see the personalities of the players in a loosely scripted manner. First things first, Creed Humphrey must have trimmed down a lot because I definitely did not see him behind that goalpost. Also, Grant Calcaterra has an Uncle Rico stache and I’m so here for it.

• The biggest news of Tuesday was the schedule changing of OU’s Spring Game. In case you missed it, due to expected bad weather, the game has been moved up from Saturday afternoon to Friday evening. Check here for full details on the changes.
• For those of you who will not be able to make the trip to catch the Spring Game in person, you should still be able to watch the game on Fox Sports Oklahoma Plus on the FoxSportsGo App or as a premium option on SoonerSports.tv.

• It’s confirmed. Kyler Murray, Marquise Brown and Cody Ford will be in Nashville for the NFL Draft later this month. Get those suits ready!

• Marquise Brown was in Indianapolis today for an NFL Combine re-check, and reports about his foot surgery’s recovery are positive. He’s also been out of a boot for weeks.

• OU Baseball took down Texas Southern 10-2 on Tuesday night after a slow start at the plate turned into a strong finish.

• Speaking of baseball, today’s game against Texas Southern has been canceled due to unfavorable wind conditions. It’s a bit unfortunate, too, because the Sooners won’t return to L. Dale Mitchell Park for the next 11 games.

• Jalen Hurts, like Baker Mayfield and Kyler Murray, arrived to Oklahoma as a transfer of sorts. Unlike Hurts’ counterparts, he comes to Norman as the guy with all the attention and expectations. Though unprecedented, his natural born leadership makes this unique situation work. ESPN’s Jake Trotter has more.
• Senior Brenna Dowell is having one heck of a curtain call season with the Oklahoma women’s gymnastics team, and recently she was named the South Central Region’s Gymnast of the Year! Boomer!

• In case you missed it, wide receiver Nick Basquine has been granted a sixth year of eligibility. If you recall, the Norman native ruptured his Achilles tendon before the 2017 season, forcing him to sit out until the following spring. His bad luck turned worse when he suffered the same injury yet again, causing him to have little-to-no role on the field in 2018. This is great news for the former walk-on who has worked extremely hard to return to form.
• Also in case you missed it, men’s basketball assistant Kevin Kruger is leaving OU for an assistant position at UNLV, where he played as a grad transfer for his father Lon.

Around the Sports World

• In the regular season home finale, Paul George completed the comeback in epic fashion after sinking this three-pointer in the final seconds, lifting the Oklahoma City Thunder over the Houston Rockets.

• Magic Johnson has stepped down as the Los Angeles Lakers President of Basketball Operations, and there were six major stepping points that led to this justified move.
• Want to make a prop bet on Tiger Woods for this year’s Masters? Here is a comprehensive list on all the Tiger-related things you can place a wager on before the festivities get started at Augusta.
• The college game has heavily influenced the NFL on offense for years, but there are some defensive trends that are making their jump to the league as well. When it comes to linebackers, Devin White and Devin Bush are two pass rushing examples of how the pro game is mimicking its collegiate counterpart.
• I think Marcell Ozuna was going for the catch of the century by jumping off the wall and catching the ball in the middle of the warning track, but he flubbed it so badly that all you can do is wonder what the hell he was thinking.

Stick to Sports!

• The collaboration of the Event Horizon Telescope and the National Science Foundation has led to the first observable image of a black hole. With so many science fiction movies involving this incredible phenomenon, it’s actually amazing that we’ve only just now captured a photo of one. I’m geeking out, man.

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