Here is the second instalment of the Aggie Roundtable that will includes fellow Ag bloggers (The 12th Manchild, Off Tackle, and Texas A&M & Baseball) answering a common set of questions.

I am a few days late, sorry.

1. New uniforms have been unveiled. What are your favorite & least favorite thing about them (and any other comments you might have)?

When I was five, Santa Claus brought me a Tony Dorsett Cowboys uniform. It had a helmet, shoulder pads, jersey, and pants. I was one bad bad man in that get up. The gift remains in my top 10 all-time best gifts (the cherry red Mongoose GT trick bike 9th birthday gift tops the list). Why do you care? Our new uniforms look EXACTLY like that uniform if you swapped the blue and silver for maroon and white. That is both my favorite and least favorite thing about the new uniforms.

2. Do you have plans to make any away games this season? If so, which one(s), why that game....and can I come too?

[Clarification: I live in Washington DC. For me, they are all away games]

YES! Two games. I am going to the Texas game (I have a lifetime plan of always making the Texas game when it is in College Station [I went to a game in Austin once, not that fun] and so far I am 2 for 2) and the Louisiana-Monroe (wtf?) game. The second one is pretty random, but my company is sending me to the TAMU career fair so I am getting there a week early and watching the game. That reminds me. I need to tell Josh I am crashing at his place that weekend. I wounder if Josh reads my blog.

3. Favorite Aggie players past & present -- name'em (and if you have a good story feel free to share it)

No contest, Jason Carter. He is my BOY. I also don't think Bucky Richardson is a valid answer. Bucky Richardson should be every Aggie's favorite player, but that is too easy. You should assume that when asked this question, the person asking you really means, "who is your favorite player after Bucky." I might change my answer to Ray Childress, but only because of the Clobber Line.

I do have a good Jason Carter story. I sat next to Jason Carter at a number of Melvin Watkins coached basketball games. Those were the days when only 50 students showed up to non-Bobby Knight/non-Texas games. As I understand it, Jason was a major baller in Caldwell. I believe it.

My favorite Jason Carter moment was went he, as the 3rd string QB, dove over the line in the Texas game to be the only TAMU player to get in the end zone. It was the fourth quarter, the game was over, dude didn't care. SOMEONE needed to get in that end zone. How can he not be your favorite player?

4. Pre-season magazines have recently hit the stands. Do you get into them? If so how many do you buy and which is your favorite.

Those are WAY too much reading. You would need some sort of intestinal parasite to actually get thorough one of those.

5. How closely do you follow recruiting? Are you:
a) Recruiting guru....."OMG! Have you seen the 2009 recruiting rankings yet?";
b) Casual follower....."Awesome! I just read that we inked a 5* tailback!;
c) Couldn't care less....just suit'em up and we'll see how we do in the fall.

It depends. If we are signing 5* tailbacks then I am a B. If we have a really bad recruiting class then I act like C.

6. What do you think are our most overrated & underrated strengths for this upcoming season?

Underrated QB. I don't do much deep reading, but I hear no love for Steven.
Overrated RB. Our running backs are pretty much all I hear about.

I must admit that I almost put RB as underrated because I think Goodson should be WAY more hyped, but I have to put someone as overrated.

Can I put our whole team as underrated?

Good-ish news for Antanas Kavaliauskas. The Rockets picked AK up for their summer league team.

Found it. Looks like the issue was not a coordinated campaign, it was the anomaly I threw out in my previous analysis. The claim is that "a thorough review of the tape" from the Texas games shows 11 assists, not 15.

Was this a known issue? Am I the only person following basketball that did not hear about this back in February?

I recently learned of a conspiracy that claims Acie Law's home court assist numbers are padded. According the theorist, he was given assists when he was "no where near the play." I had never heard this before, so I decide to do a bit of investigating.

Before getting into a more formal analysis, a brief glance at the raw stats make it obvious both total assists, and average assists per game would be skewed by two home games, vs Grambling and vs Texas. In those two games, Acie racked up 14 and 15 assists, respectively. Each of those games are 5 to 6 over his next best performance, and almost 5 times his season average. Both of these games were high-scoring blowouts (Grambling 101-27, Texas 100-82) where Acie played at least 30 min. There is no reason to believe that Acie could not have had this many assists. Total assists would also be skewed by the fact that we played 10 more home games.

The formal analysis strategy I decided on was a comparison of assists credited against those opponents whom we played both as hosts and as visitors (other Big-12 south teams). Here is a graph of the results:

Again, the home Texas game is anomalous, so I will throw it out. In the remaining games, the gap between home assists and away assists is never more than 3, and is cumulatively 4 (+3 Baylor, 0 OU, -2 OSU, +3 TT). I find it hard to believe that 4 assists is the result of a coordinated effort to boost Acie's NBA-draft prospects.

I consider that myth busted.

There was a comment asking why I docked Acie 2 points on his duds. Well, it is hard to say. In the great tradition of NBA-draft wear Acie simply came up short. No bowler hat. No turquoise suits. No Dr. Evil suits.
If you want to know what it takes to get a 10 out of 10, then look no further than Steve Nash...

Found a picture of Acie at the draft. Got to love the Gig'em.

Also came across this video...

Acie went 11 to the Hawks. I give him 8 out of 10 on the suit.

Acie got a bit of ink in one of my favorite blogs, the DC Sports Bog. Apparently his NBA draft night outfit is "a 10 out of 10." No further explanation on how he managed to earn all available style points, we will "see it tomorrow."

Alabama announced a home-and-home series with our men's basketball team that will being this year. The first game will be in College Station. Last season Alabama finished 9th in the SEC and was bounced from the NIT in the first round by UMass. This would have been much more interesting if it was a football announcement.

Spoiler Alert (maybe).

The athletic department's apparel sponsor has switched from Nike to Adidas, and with that come new uniforms. A few days ago an insider who has "seen the uniforms" used a Adidas's web uniform configuration tool to create uniforms that match the new ones.

Is anyone else disappointed? Our uniforms are the product of some crappy web tool.

I would also like to know how Adidas feels about texags.com claiming copyrights to that image.