WAKE UP! ON ETBLITZ | Kilgore 7-on-7 plays shortly, and we’re there; stories, photos and video all coming later; Mavs draft Flagg (I know, shocker, right?)
EDITOR’S NOTE: Hey, Wake UP! And it’s brought to you every day by Cozy Coffee Station! You’ve got plenty of time to do it! Well, um, you do as I’m writing this. I don’t know how much time you have when you’re reading it. Go by and see ‘em in Gilmer at 755 Highway 271 North, or in Kilgore at 110 Midtown Plaza, and order something great. In fact, look at the menu online first, THEN go see ‘em: Home | Cozy Coffee Station!
By the time you guys are reading this…
If everything turned out as it was supposed to, and the weather didn’t change, then Kilgore is getting prepared for pool play as a part of the Texas State 7-on-7 (football) Tournament at Veteran’s Park in College Station.
And ETBlitz.com will be in the thick of things.
I’m planning to be there, along with photographer Alex Nabor and even Joe Hale, too.
There are 32 teams in the tournament that Kilgore is in – that’s Division II, what would be 3A / 4A, in the UIL classifications, including Chapel Hill, too – and 32 in Division III, the smaller-school tournament. Both DII and DIII tournaments are going on today and Friday. Championship games for those are Friday afternoon, early evening.
The bigger Division I event, which is 64 teams, starts Friday and wraps up Saturday.
The VERY BEST thing we’ve done on 7-on-7 was probably the question-and-answer session we had in Wake Up! yesterday, and here’s a link to it: WAKE UP! ON ETB | 7-on-7 state tourney tomorrow! Here’s a Q-and-A to get you ready for Kilgore’s run. If you need to know or want to know it, it’s probably in there.
If you want to try and watch it online, you can’t, but here’s good news.
Alex is going to have TONS of photos from Kilgore’s run in the tournament that we’ll have here on ETBlitz.com, and I’ll be taking video. There’s no TELLING what Joe will write; it’ll be good. I’ll probably go LIVE on Facebook at some point, maybe a few times. We’ll do some Insta a time or two. We’ll be all over the place.
Oh, yeah, and there’s this really, super-cool Airbnb place we’re staying with these movie posters…
I won’t spoil it. You’ll see it tonight.
FYI
Then a few things to remember…
The tournament is at Veterans Park in College Station, at 3101 Harvey Road, College Station, TX, 77845.
It’s free, there’s no cost to get in.
Bring chairs, because there’s nowhere to sit, and bring water, because it gets hot. Bring concession money, just in case, and be ready to walk, in case Kilgore, or the team you follow, gets sent across the campus (there’s somewhere around 13, 14 or 15 fields at Veterans Park).
Kilgore is in Pool A with Brownwood, Bay City and Austin LBJ, and Matt Stepp of Dave Campbell’s Texas Football has made Kilgore his pick to win what he called “the Pool of Death,” if I remember correctly, as a DCTF subscriber myself.
Among Stepp’s other pool picks are Chapel Hill to win their pool in DII, and defending DII state champion Hamshire-Fannett.
Kilgore begins play today at 10:45 a.m. unless rain or storms delay or change it, and they’ll play three times, against those pool opponents. On Friday morning, bracket play starts at 8:45 a.m., and from then on, it’s single elimination. So once Friday starts, you’re only guaranteed your first game. It’s every team for themselves once the buzzer sounds.
Games are 15-minute halves with no time-outs, except for injuries. There’s no tackling: it’s touch, and You still get six points for a touchdown. But there’s no kicking, remember. So you are always going for conversions. So you get one point for a conversion from the 3-yard-line, and two points for a conversion from the 10. Now, if a defender intercepts the ball: Teams can also get two points if they can pick it off, and return that interception of the conversion attempt the opposite direction across the 45.
Again, that link above is the best thing I can send you to, to find out more about what you’ll see.
Flagg Day (and the first video on MTV!!!)
In the least surprising start to the NBA Draft since 2003, when LeBron James was selected first overall after not attending college out of St. Vincent-St. Mary High in Akron, Ohio, the Dallas Mavericks drafted 18-year-old Cooper Flagg with the No. 1 pick Wednesday night at the Barclays Center.
Getting Flagg, the face of college basketball as the star of the Duke University Blue Devils last year, was only a freshman as he guided his team through the NCAA Tournament. He won the ACC Rookie of the Year along the way, and was named the winner of the Wooden Award as the nation’s best collegiate basketball player.
Oh, by the way: as he was doing all of that, he averaged 19.2 points, 7.5 rebounds, 4.2 assists, 1.4 steals and 1.4 blocks a game.
He’s the second No. 1 overall pick in the history of the Mavericks. The first? Not Luka Doncic, whom they just lost in a controversial trade to the L.A. Lakers last season. In fact, they didn’t even draft Luka; they traded for him. And not Dirk Nowitzki, who once helped the team upset LeBron to win the NBA Finals.
No, that No. 1 pick would be Mark Aguirre, from DePaul, back in 1981.
That same year, MTV was born.
And this was the very first video on the network.