/cloudfront-us-east-1.images.arcpublishing.com/dmn/LWUT6WFG7FG3VDEQJKVV674QVI.jpg?ssl=1 "Plan to link Texas ERCOT electric grid to southeastern U.S. states is in the works")
Since forever, Texans have proudly proclaimed that our state electricity grid run by ERCOT did not need or want to connect to the national grids. We don’t want no stinkin’ federal regulators putting their noses into our business.
Quietly, though, behind the scenes, state regulators have worked for more than a decade with Pattern Energy, a private company, to create the “Southern Spirit Transmission.”
The goal is a 400-mile transmission line from the Texas/Louisiana border, through Louisiana and into Mississippi to connect with grids in the southeastern United States.
Power could flow into or out of Texas, depending on the need.
Federal regulators would have no jurisdiction over the project because of the way it’s set up. Also, the electricity flow would be direct current, not the usual alternating current.
In a local angle, Garland Power & Light is part of the plan because the lines would connect to Texas in a partnership with Garland. Garland announced its participation back in 2011. The utility would operate a substation on the Texas border and 30 miles of transmission lines leading to it.
Your cost? Consumers would not – repeat, not – pay for this $2.6 billion project.
A projected schedule shows construction could start in 2026 and end by 2029. Right-of-way work is being done now.
This project, a groundbreaking one if pieces fall into place, has received little public attention. The Watchdog learned about it after Watchdog Nation member Bill Loftin of Plano noticed its mention in a Louisiana parish newsletter he subscribes to.
According to the latest issue of the Red River Parish Journal, leaders in the northwest Louisiana community heard from a representative of Pattern asking for public support of 21 miles of transmission lines across the parish.
Residents asked about environmental impact and the effect on farmers, wildlife and others. At one point, the Pattern official threatened the use of eminent domain to seize needed land.
Residents also criticized the project for its lack of local benefits. No power would be used in Louisiana.
“There is no person in Louisiana to call if someone has a problem,” someone said. “There is no entity in Louisiana that has jurisdiction over this company.”
Others complained about the huge transmission towers, which plans show could go as high as 450 feet.
The parish postponed a decision.
Participating communities will benefit from creation of 3,000 construction jobs and millions of dollars in local impact, including property tax revenue, according to the company.
Pattern says its goal is to increase the diversity of its power sources “to help drive down rates for electricity customers, especially in times of high energy demand.”
Direct current, as opposed to alternating current, is more efficient, leaves a smaller footprint and involves fewer wires to transmit the same amount of power, the company states on its website.
In the meantime, Pattern is trying to build goodwill in pass-through communities. Headlines on its website announce “Southern Spirit is Supporting Local Food Bank” and “Giving Back is a Year-Long Commitment.”
Applications have been submitted to Louisiana and Mississippi regulators. The Texas Public Utility Commission has ordered ERCOT to present updates every six months.
Texas already has several small direct current connections with Mexico and the western and eastern U.S. grids, but nothing like this planned project.
The ERCOT grid is called an “electrical island” because of its independence from other grids. Since we don’t cross state lines, Texas utilities aren’t forced to deal with the feds.
In this case, federal involvement is limited because the company was able to “thread the needle of the federal requirements,” Pattern lobbyist Michael Jewell told Houston TV station KHOU in 2021.
Even with the Southern Spirit in operation, it would not have provided enough power to prevent blackouts during the 2021 ice storm catastrophe. But it would have provided power for a few hundred thousand homes.
In a November filing before the PUC, Pattern states that once the project comes online, total import capacity “would still be less than 4% of ERCOT’s current peak resource needs.”
ERCOT and the PUC have details to iron out. Approval is needed in Louisiana and Mississippi.
And then there are those communities that must be swayed. They don’t want no stinkin’ out-of-towners putting ugly towers across their land.
Who can blame them?
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From the 64 teams selected to compete in the NCAA DI women’s volleyball tournament, just No. 1 Kentucky and No. 3 Texas A&M remain. Reaching the national championship is no small feat, from Dec. 4 all the way to Dec. 18, these two programs have battled to etch their names into history.
Let’s take a look on how the Wildcats and the Aggies punched their tickets to the national final.
| No. 1 Kentucky | ROUND | NO. 3 TEXAS A&M |
|---|---|---|
| Def. Wofford, 3-0 | First | Def. Campbell, 3-0 |
| Def. UCLA, 3-1 | Second | Def. No. 6 TCU, 3-0 |
| Def. Cal Poly, 3-0 | Regional semifinals | Def. No. 2 Louisville, 3-2 |
| Def. No. 3 Creighton, 3-0 | Regional finals | Def. No. 1 Nebraska, 3-2 |
| Def. No. 3 Wisconsin, 3-2 | National semifinals | Def. No. 1 Pitt, 3-0 |
👉 Check out the full schedule, scores from the 2025 women’s volleyball tournament
Big Blue fought for a dramatic five-setter victory over No. 3 Wisconsin to earn its second ever national championship appearance and first since their 2021 national title. The Badgers seemed to have all control after a Set 1 25-12 victory, but Kentucky wouldn’t be denied. Eva Hudson was on fire, accruing 29 kills on .455 hitting, while Molly Tuozzo’s back-court defense—with 17 critical digs—fought off a career night from Mimi Colyer.
The Aggies knocked off No. 1 Pitt in three straight sets, continuing their historic season by earning the program’s first-ever national championship appearance. Kyndal Stowers powered the Maroon and White with 16 kills on .433 hitting while setter Maddie Waak orchestrated her balanced offense to an impressive .382 clip, with four different Aggies earning at least eight put-aways.
Both programs are heating up at just the right time, priming Sunday’s matchup to be an intense face-off between SEC foes. Make sure to follow the action here on NCAA.com at 3:30 p.m. ET.
Date 12/20 || Time 8:00 || Venue Madison Square Garden || Video ESPN
With the exception of Michigan on February 21st, Duke will finish off non-conference play on Saturday with Texas Tech in Madison Square Garden.
Why the Garden? Well, first because Duke has a lot of alum in the area. They call it Cameron North for a reason. And second, playing in MSG always draws a lot of attention. Duke could play in United Center – and in fact did, facing off against Arkansas there on November 27th – and it doesn’t draw the sort of attention that MSG does.
Years ago, Texas Tech was an afterthought. Then Chris Beard made the Red Raiders a major power and now Grant McCasland has done very well there too. He has an interesting history.
Other than two-year stints at Northeastern JUCO as an assistant and Arkansas State as a head coach, McCasland’s career has been entirely in the Lone Star state. He’s also been at Midland College, Midwestern State, Baylor as an assistant, North Texas and now Texas Tech.
And he’s won everywhere. And this is really important to understand: it’s really hard to win at places like Midland, Midwestern State, Arkansas State and North Texas. His NCAA record is 263-109 (.707) and 142-32 (.816).
For perspective, Mike Krzyzewski’s career winning percentage at Duke is .766. We’re the last people to take anything from Coach K, but even he’d probably admit it’s easier to succeed at Duke than it is at the places McCasland has coached.
Texas Tech finished 28-9 last season (McCasland’s Texas Tech record: 55-21. Winning percentage .724) and so far this season, is 8-3. The losses have come against Illinois (81-77), Purdue (86-56) and Arkansas (93-86).
Arkansas is the only common opponent but Texas Tech also played Wake Forest, so presumably that video will be a two-for-one for scouting purposes.
Impressively, he’s not coaching the same way at Texas Tech as he did at North Texas. With the Mean Green, with less talent, he played a more deliberate style. In Lubbock, he’s opened things up a bit. His offense is a little freer or maybe less structured is a better way to put it, or maybe less deliberate. He has more room for error with Texas Tech.
The unquestioned star for Texas Tech is JT Toppin, a 6-9/230 lb. junior who is a legitimate Player of the Year candidate. Toppin is putting up 21.9 ppg, 10.6 rebounds and 2.0 assists. He’s got a 7-0+ wingspan and is also an excellent defender. He needs to work on his outside game but is widely seen as a future pro. He’ll almost certainly guard Duke’s star Cameron Boozer.
McCaslin also has a solid backcourt with Chris Anderson and Donovan Atwell. Anderson, a 6-3 sophomore from Atlanta, is getting 19.3 ppg, 3.5 apg and an impressive 7.5 assists.
Atwell, a 6-5 senior, is putting up 11.3 ppg, 3 rebounds, a half an assist and 1.3 steals.
LeJuan Watts, a 6-6 junior, averages 14 ppg, 5.9 rebounds and 2.6 assists.
Jaylen Petty is a 6-1 freshman who is getting 26 mpg, so obviously McCaslin trusts him. He’s putting up 7.4 points, 3.2 rebounds and 1.9 assists.
Tyeree Bryan is a 6-5 senior who is getting 5.6 ppg and 3.4 rebounds.
The last guy in the rotation, Luke Bamgboye, is 6-11/220 but he is injured and most likely won’t play Saturday.
McCaslin, clearly, is a brilliant coach, but he has had some issues this year, not least of all defense.
Texas Tech has struggled on the defensive end, which is one thing against Purdue or Illinois, but it was a problem against Northern Colorado (the Rockies UNC), where the Bears scored 90 points on the Red Raiders, shooting 44% on threes and 56% overall.
The Lubbock Avalanche-Journal said this about the game against Northern Colorado: “McCasland hasn’t gotten what he needs defensively from, really, anybody else on the team. He pointed to the team’s lack of ability to guard 1-on-1, in the post, covering switches and working through screens. After a solid defensive showing against LSU and a close game against Arkansas, McCasland said the team took ‘a big step back’ on the defensive end.”
That’s a tough assessment from the hometown paper.
Our guess though is that McCasland will figure out some of his issues between Tuesday’s win over the Bears and Saturday’s trip to New York.
And if Duke plays as poorly as it did in the first half against Lipscomb, Texas Tech won’t have to play great defense. They’ll just pick off balls like the Bisons did with Duke’s 16 first-half turnovers.
Part of that is down to exam/holidays and a lack of continuity, and indeed, that could be the case for Texas Tech’s tough game against Northern Colorado (by the way, we forgot to mention that the Bears were missing their best player, Quinn Denker).
Duke has tended to start slow this year and make it up in the second half and at times they may have been to reliant on Cam Boozer.
But we’ve seen signs of change.
Caleb Foster is turning into a solid presence and a guy who can do things when they need to be done. He’s reliable, in other words. Isaiah Evans hasn’t been shooting that well, but he’s due for a big game that might come in New York. And if not, he’s defending well, rebounding well and even blocking shots. He’s been terrific.
So has Patrick Ngongba, who has sort of snuck up on people. Last year he became a reliable presence off the bench but this year, he looks much more like a warrior. He’s really come on. Then there’s Nik Khamenia, who is as tough a player as we’ve seen in Duke blue for a while.
Maliq Brown is, well, Maliq Brown. He’s just a great asset, especially on defense. We’d like to see Dame Sarr take a step up, along with Darren Harris and Cayden Boozer. All three are very capable of playing better and Duke will go up a level when they do.
New York is a funny place to play. The Garden has such an aura that it can intimidate some players. There are other players who thrive there under the bright lights. It’ll be interesting to see who does this time.
The first year selling trees didn’t go as planned for one North Texas man.
Tim Miller, co-owner of Hidden Honey Farm in Midlothian, still had more than half of his inventory earlier this week. But he made the best of a tough situation.
One after another, families kept Miller busy picking, preparing and packing up trees— just in time for Christmas.
All of a sudden, trees were flying off the lot. But that wasn’t the case just days before.
With more than 100 Douglas firs still standing, Miller said sales had come to a grinding halt.
“Four days straight with no one,” Miller said.
With Christmas quickly approaching, he had a decision to make.
“We have two options: We’re going to have to dispose of 100 plus trees, or I can give them away and somebody will get some use out of them, so that’s what we decided to do,” he said.
On Tuesday, Miller posted on Facebook: “Our first year of selling Christmas trees didn’t go as well as we had hoped for… If anyone doesn’t have a tree, or knows of someone who needs a tree, they are free for the taking.”
Families who otherwise couldn’t afford a tree began showing up—and word spread quickly.
“I thought, ‘Hey, I wanted to get a Christmas tree for our house anyway. Let’s go get one!’” said Miriam Beachy, holding her 1-year-old son Jeremiah.
Miller said the response was overwhelming, with donations pouring in from across the country.
“All over! Illinois, Missouri, North Carolina, California, somehow or another, people have seen our post and said, you know, we’d like to help,” he said. “I had no idea we would get the results that we have.”
In just two days, all 120 trees found their “fir”-ever homes.
“It really felt like a gift,” Beachy said.
“The appreciation that they have, and I know there’s results I’ll never know of,” Miller added.
He’s still deciding whether to sell trees again next Christmas, but said after the feedback and support he’s received, he’s leaning toward it.
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