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The popular refrain is that Oklahoma has nothing to play for after losing two of its first three games.Sooners coach Bob Stoops isnt the least bit interested in advancing that theory.Stoops feels winning the Big 12 title would rate as a big accomplishment and Oklahoma begins its hunt for the conference crown when it visits No. 21 TCU on Saturday (5 p.m. ET, FOX) at Fort Worth, Texas.Weve won a lot of championships around here with a couple losses, said Stoops, who has won or shared nine conference titles since becoming coach in 1999. Keep fighting, keep improving. The better teams improve through the year and thats what we have to do. We have to keep improving this week to next week.The Horned Frogs (2-1, 1-0) also find themselves in must-win mode if they want to have a chance at becoming part of the College Football Playoff discussion.TCU suffered a home loss to Arkansas earlier this season and there isnt any remaining wiggle room.Horned Frogs coach Gary Patterson has been selling his team on the importance of the Big 12 title since the nonconference loss to the Razorbacks and his message only increased this week.There is also the matter of starting a new home venue winning streak. TCU had won 14 straight at home prior to the Arkansas loss.One of the things you cant take for granted, the home crowd can give you emotion, but it cant be your emotion, Patterson said. Thats one thing as a young football team youve got to learn. You can feed off of it, but you already have to have it.The Horned Frogs certainly are proficient on offense again this season -- averaging 42.8 points per game -- and junior quarterback Kenny Hill has led the way.The Texas A&M transfer has been a solid passer by completing 66.1 percent of his throws for 1,487 yards and six touchdowns. He has topped 400 yards passing in two of his four games for TCU.Hill also has been a potent force in the running game with 166 yards and six touchdowns. His rushing yards are second behind junior Kyle Hicks (314).Another SEC transfer, junior John Diarse, has also made an impact. The former LSU wideout caught six passes for a career-high 139 yards in last Fridays victory over SMU, including a 75-yard catch-and-run touchdown.He has caught 16 passes already this season after totaling 28 in two seasons at LSU.Diarse has been in big ballgames at LSU, and he transferred here because he wanted to catch more balls, Patterson said. The bottom line is hes done a great job.The Sooners have also been productive offensively while averaging 35.3 points. Junior quarterback Baker Mayfield has passed for 793 yards and seven touchdowns against two interceptions.Mayfield sees the potential to do more individually. Hes also got the same view as Stoops when hearing all the naysayers pontificating about how Oklahoma has nothing to play for.I mean, we can still end up playing in a New Years Day bowl in one of the big-time bowl games, Mayfield said. Its not discouraging at all. If you can go end up and play in something like the Rose Bowl or the Orange Bowl again -- I mean, I know the playoffs are in Atlanta and Arizona -- but other than that, yeah, one of the other big-time bowl games is obviously a big accomplishment that we can go do.The Sooners have been suspect on defense and are one of seven teams nationally without an interception. Oklahoma is allowing 31.7 points and was drilled for 33 and 45 points in losses to Houston and Ohio State, respectively.TCUs defense just got its first two interceptions of the campaign in the 33-3 rout of SMU. The Horned Frogs have allowed just 23 points over their last two games and getting torched for 82 over their first two.Sophomore outside linebacker Ty Summers leads TCU with 39 tackles after recording a combined 29 over the past two games.Oklahoma leads the series 10-5 and has won five of the six previous matchups in Fort Worth.The Sooners won 30-29 at home last season and led by 17 points in the fourth quarter before the Horned Frogs staged a rally. Air Max 97 Plus Pas Cher . A forerunning sled crashed into the worker Thursday at the Sanki Sliding Center. The unidentified worker broke both legs and was airlifted to a nearby hospital. Site Chaussure Pas Cher . The person spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because the Lions have not announced the hiring, which was first reported by ESPN. Lombardi, the grandson of former Green Bay Hall of Fame coach Vince Lombardi, has been an offensive assistant on Sean Paytons New Orleans staff since 2007. http://www.chaussurepascherchine.fr/grossiste-air-max-90/nike-90-noir-solde.html . The Nashville Predators were glad their captain was still on their side. Weber had a goal and two assists, and Roman Josi scored the shootout winner to lift the Predators to a 4-3 win over the Flyers on Thursday night. Air Max 270 Grossiste . Hargreaves began his career in 2008 with the Winnipeg Blue Bombers and has played with the Edmonton Eskimos and last season with the Saskatchewan Roughriders. Balenciaga Fausse Pas Cher . After a first half in which he thought "the lid was on the basket," the Toronto Raptors coach watched his squad mount a second half surge to defeat the Cleveland Cavaliers 98-91. The July issue of Wisden Asia Cricket was a celebration of modern cricket writing, with 15 of the best writers in the game selecting their favourite piece of cricket writing by a modern cricket writer. BC Pires, the West Indian journalist, picked the piece below, by Ian McDonald. Scroll down to the end of the article, to read Pires on his choice.One of the great writers on cricket, R.C. Robertson-Glasgow - probably only C.L.R. James and Neville Cardus are greater - wrote once about another extraordinary left-handed batsman:Frank Woolley was easy to watch, difficult to bowl to and impossible to write about. When you bowled to him there werent enough fielders; when you wrote about him, there werent enough words. In describing a great innings by Woolley, and few of them were not great in artistry, you had to be careful with your adjectives and stack them in little rows, like pats of butter or razor-blades. In the first over of his innings, perhaps, there had been an exquisite off-drive, followed by a perfect cut, then an effortless leg-glide. In the second over the same sort of thing happened; and your superlatives had already gone. The best thing to do was to presume that your readers knew how Frank Woolley batted and use no adjectives at all.I am inclined to take his advice in writing about Brian Lara. Just one adjective I am tempted to use - simple. Lara makes batting look the simplest of arts. Except for a little while on the last morning, when he was nervous after a restless night, in that record score of 375 there was no strain. It looked easy, simple, inevitable. Yes, that is how batting was meant to be before original sin came into the world.Nothing, of course, is inevitable - in life or cricket. But from early in Laras innings of 375 something special seemed likely. The commentators spoke of him being chastened by criticism that he had been responsible in the previous Test in Barbados. There he had made a quick-fire 64 and was out pulling at a ball not short enough for the purpose. To universal dismay the West Indies had been defeated at hallowed Kensington. Now West Indies had lost a quick wicket and after Lara came in another wicket went down one run later - 12 for 2 and trouble looming. That first mornings play saw a Lara in whom determination to prepare for a long, long stay could not have been made clearer. He got rid of all the swash and buckle in his batting. The back-lift was six inches shorter than normal. In defensive strokes his head was bent that much lower over the blade of his bat. In aggression he remembered the old saying by which Headley and Bradman swore that you are not likely to get out if you hit the ball along the ground. His bat did not flash, it shone with certainty. And the point he was determined to make turned into a world record.This innings was not like Laras 277 against Australia. It was not as carefree and scintillating. It had its origin in carefulness and responsibility and never lost that basic connection. As if to challenge himself in an art which is too easy for him, Lara quite often creates complications and attempts the unusual and even the flamboyant. Now in over 12 hours batting he cut nearly all of that out. He kept his brilliance sufficiently in check to ensure that his score was always moving along very satisfactorily but with no risk of losing his wicket.The concentration exercised was a monumental achievement. I made sure I watched every single ball of that immortal innings and I was constantly surprised how quickly Laras score seemed to be progressing without any extravagant effort whatsoever on his part. He was, of course, bringing to bear a gift which is only bestowed on one or two batsmen in a generation - the ability to place shots precisely where fielders are not. If you look carefully you can see how with the most subtle of grip-changes Lara can adjust the angle from which ball leaves bat and how consummately therefore he finds the open spaces. The long time he batted so chancelessly, the gaps he found so unerringly, if the outfield in Antigua had been half as fast as at Bourda or Kensington Laras score would have been 450.Well, he scored enough for glory. We older ones will have to get used to that 375. Soberss 365 stood for so long - it is part of his legend and a piece of our history. The new number will become the most important statistic in the game - though, with many more Test teams and so many more Test matches year in and year out, it is unlikely to endure as long as the astonishing 36 years which the Sobers world record lasted. Lara himself will certainly contemplate breaking the record again. Who knows, these are very early days, but young Chanderpaul who honourably partnered Lara as he gained the prize may be a contender when to his extraordinary concentration and excellent leg-side play he adds power and placing on the off-side.However, Laras 375 is not just a statistic. It will be woven into our history as a West Indian nation as was the 365 Sobers so imperiously fashioned when he was a stripling 21. It will become mythical. Stories will accumulate about how Laras score was made, how the three-day drama passed. Thousands will swear to grandchildren still unborn how they were there to see the great deed done until the Antigua Recreation Ground slowly takes on the dimensions of a giant stadium to hold all who will convincingly tell how their hearts stopped and raced a dozen times that final morning, how at last they saw Lara swivel on his toes to pull that record-breaking ball square and flourish his bat in triumph as the world title passed to him, how the police rushed to guard him like a national treasure from the enncroaching, adoring crowd, how Sobers came with dignity to embrace him and how Lara knelt and kissed the pitch beneath his feet - I was there, I was privileged, we will say, as indeed we will have been as the years go by and Laras deed transforms reality into the greater truth of myth and legend which all can share.ddddddddddddt was perfectly fitting that Gary Sobers, the old record holder, was there to walk on the field and give Lara a hug. He was full of grace and graciousness as he lost his record. He must have felt some small pang at least of regret and mortality - how time passes, how the wind blows away the deepest footprints in the sand. But he was all grace and consideration in the others hour. I thought of the wonderful story told about Sobers by Trevor Bailey:It is easy to give ones wicket away but it takes an artist to do this as well as Gary did for me in a Benefit game in the 1960s. He decided he had provided sufficient entertainment and had scored enough runs, so he got out. Nothing unusual about that. It was the way he did it which typified both the man and his craft. He waited until I sent down a ball of good length which pitched on his leg stump and hit the middle as he played a full forward defensive stroke, deliberately and fractionally down the wrong line. He made it look a very good delivery - it wasnt a bad one! But he played his shot so well that the wicket-keeper and first slip - though both county professionals - came up to congratulate me. I knew instinctively what Gary had done. But no spectator realised it was an act of charity; only Gary and myself.There will never be a greater cricketer than Sobers. As a batsman on the offside he cleaved the field as now Lara cleaves it and on the onside he pulled as lethally as now Lara pulls. He had the ability, which Lara has, of converting a defensive stance within a split-second into perfectly timed and placed aggression. Even looking at the slow replays I cannot quite analyse how this happens - something to do with extraordinary reflexes and wrists that turn from parry to cuff in half an instant. Now, after he had congratulated Lara, Sobers was interviewed and said the best thing about Laras batting anyone said all week: If you watch him bat you never see him use his pads. He hits the ball with the bat and that is how the game should be played. Strong, forthright, clear, convincing words about what the best batting means. It is how Sobers used to bat, it is how Lara bats now - with only one thing perhaps to add: how there are days when such men as these play with so fine a fettle and pitch that neither would need bats, but a stump, a walking stick, a wand would do and still leave the pads unmarked all day.In the play Amadeus there is a scene where the highly talented and very hard-working court composer, Salieri, is shown to have produced a piece of music after considerable labour. His young assistant, Mozart, comes into the room and Salieri plays the piece of music proudly for him. Mozart smiles and praises it but then wonders whether it might be improved by just a few modifications. Mozart goes to the piano, plays the piece, tries this and that, then says What about this? And he plays the piece changed forever by his genius. Salieris hard-won composition has been transformed into one of the worlds great melodies. Most Test batsmen, even the best, are Salieris. And then a Sobers, a Lara, comes along and says What about this.This article was first published in Guyanas Stabroek News in April 1994. Ian McDonald was educated at Queens Royal College, Port-of-Spain, and Cambridge University. He captained the West Indies in Davis Cup tennis and played at Wimbledon. He was awarded the Guyana Prize for Literature in 1992 and an Honorary Doctorate of Letters in 1997 by the University of the West Indies. McDonald has published short stories, four poetry collections, and a play, The Tramping Man. His award-winning novel The Humming Bird Tree was first published in I969; in 1992 it was made into a BBC film. He has written a weekly column for Stabroek News since 1986. He is currently CEO of the Sugar Association of the Caribbean.BC Pires on Ian McDonaldIn the tiny West Indian territories you often find a critical social function being provided in unusual ways or by unorthodox agents. For example, in Trinidad and Tobago, panyards - the open areas where steelpans are stored - became community entertainment centres because it was easier to move the people to the pans than vice versa. Similarly, the best West Indian journalism has served the function performed by fiction elsewhere: to describe anew the already known; to reveal, wondrously, the nearly-seen; to uncover, startlingly, the completely hidden; and always, always, to be readable.Ian McDonalds journalism is amongst the best the region has produced. It is deeply informed and influenced by his gift for fiction, so a McDonald column is always a short story. The purity and brevity of his analysis makes it difficult for the best editor to cut a single word without radically altering the meaning, so his columns are always also poems.I read every piece I see of McDonalds from beginning to end; often twice. I come away from every essay by him touching West Indian cricket with a clearer understanding of the whole and my own responsibility to the same. The piece he wrote on Brian Laras 375 combines all his writing strengths with his great, obvious love for cricket and the West Indies.BC Pires is a cricket writer based in London and Trinidad.(Back to article). ' ' '