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As for the episode, though, we kicked our 8th (!!!) season off with a bang by bringing on Joseph Duarte of the Houston Chronicle to talk all things Houston Cougars! We also addressed the current Cougar news of the past week or so AND gave our bold predictions for every Cougar sport for the 2022-23 season (while reviewing our 2021-22 predictions).

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In our Season 7 finale, we're back to talk the latest Cougar goings-on, with Carl Lewis being promoted to Head Coach of Cougar Track and Field, Cougar baseball seeing a trio of players drafted and confirming some exciting returnees, and Cougar softball adding a pair of intriguing transfers.

And then we took a look at each of Houston's 13 athletics programs and asked ourselves, how Big 12-ready is this program? We're breaking down who is ready to compete for a conference championship, who will find themselves in the middle of the pack, and who has the furthest to go to be competitive.

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While lesser podcasts might have taken the mid-July dead period off, Dustin and Sam return to talk with Cougar baseball assistant coach and recruiting coordinator Ross Kivett joined the Pawdcast to discuss a number of topics including, but not limited to:

• What Kivett took to UH from his time at Tennessee
• Houston Cougar baseball in the Big 12
• Everything that went into major hitting/defensive improvements in the 2022 season
• Motivation for athletes now vs 10 years ago
• Kivett's favorite Houston area restaurants

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Last week saw the bombshell annoucement that USC and UCLA were leaving the Pac-12 for the Big Ten, with the shockwaves continuing to reverberate throughout college athletics. We're piecing together what this means for your Houston Cougars, the Big 12, and college sports as a whole.

Plus, we announce the winners of the 5th annual Paw-scar Awards! Sam, Dustin, and you the Pawdcast listener put our collective heads together and recognized the best and most impressive from the 2021-22 Cougar Athletics year.

And for some added good news, Cougar baseball added a trio of intriguing transfers! Do we have a full breakdown of the new additions? I think you know that we do.

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VOTE HERE FOR THE 2021-22 PAW-SCAR AWARDS: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScyG2Is39dgdmLOyFhYDCt0FY0DgD22FpyfX2cj6hn189h6vg/viewform

In addition to revealing our award nominations, we tackled the following Houston Cougar/Cougar adjacent topics:

• The surprising, but completely understandable departure of Leroy Burrell to take over at Auburn
• 'Houston Rise' begins the task of fundraising for the Coogs' imminent Big 12 move
• A favorite emerges for Big 12 commish
• Soccer releases its full schedule and MBB's non-conference schedule takes shape
• Football recruiting picks up for 2023 & one more portal add for 2022 and beyond

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For the pawd's (semi or so ) annual off topic episode, Sam brought on long time in real life friends, and friends of the show: Bobby and Bill to discuss the following topics from Formula 1 auto racing:

• Introducing the 10 F1 teams and their respective driver pairings
• The race weekend format & Championships
• Favorite/Least Favorite Race from '22 calendar year
• Contracts & possible future driver movement
• Opening the 'time capsule' on our early season predictions
• Thoughts on the most recent season of the Netflix F1 smash hit "Drive to Survive"

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It was an exciting week in Cougar athletics, as men's track & field put together a top-20 team finish at Outdoor Nationals, and because Outdoor Nationals signified the final event of the 2021-22 Cougar athletics calendar. And since the past week also saw *official* confirmation that UH will be joining the Big 12 next summer, we are officially in our last off-season as a member of the American Athletic Conference. So we're back and we're talking track, and we're talking Big 12, and we're also talking baseball players in the transfer portal.

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You didn't think we (the royal 'we') wouldn't have an instant react on the return of Cougar men's basketball star Marcus Sasser? Then you were sadly mistaken.

Sasser wasn't the only Cougar men's hoops topic as a 2023 local recruit committed *and* the first D1 transfer of the offseason joined.

PLUS! Cougar baseball makes a run in the conference tournament (+ big picture end of season thoughts) and Cougar track & field goes to Prelims and sends athletes/relays to NCAA Outdoors.

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We're back, somewhat overdue, and boy howdy do we have a lot of Houston Cougar goings on to talk about:

- Intriguing transfer portal additions for Cougar football and women's basketball

- The latest updates on Marcus Sasser's workouts at the G League Elite Camp and NBA Combine

- Track & Field goes up 35 for AAC Outdoors in Wichita

- Softball and both Golf programs end their seasons

- Baseball finishes up an improved season on  a sour note at home

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In our second episode of the week, we're taking listener questions, and providing answers on subjects like the Robertson Stadium End Zone Facility, hypothetical lottery winnings, Star Wars, Rice sucking at baseball, and much more. What are the odds Marcus Sasser plays for UH next year? We have no idea, but we sure threw out some guesses.

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