- Bracket Watch. SI, ESPN, and CBS Sports all have released their current brackets. CBS has Texas Tech as an 8th seed and SI has Texas Tech as a 9th seed. Texas Tech also continued to receive votes in the AP.
- Best in Texas. Via the DMN, they rank the best teams in Texas, with Texas Tech behind SMU, Texas A&M, Baylor and Houston.
- Weber Knows Importance of Upcoming Schedule. Via the KC Star, Kansas State head coach Bruce Weber knows how important tonight’s game is as well as other games:
“I told them after West Virginia that every game was going to be the biggest game of the year,” Weber said. “When you have a league like we have, it gives you the chance to play against the top teams in the country, so every game is going to be big. Obviously, if you want to be competing for the top half of the league, you have to win home games. We already let one slip away. This is an important game, there’s no doubt about it.”
- Needs Improvement. LAJ’s Krista Pirtle writes that Texas Tech must improve free throw shooting, defensive breakdowns and rebounding. Head coach Tubby Smith says that K-State must match the Wildcat’s physicality:
“(Kansas State) is playing extremely hard and very physical,” Smith said. “They’re aggressive at both ends of the floor. We have to be ready and do a better job than we’ve done the last couple of games.”
- Report: Texas Tech Hires Patrick as Defensive Line Coach: As posted last night, it appears that Kliff Kingsbury hired defensive line coach Kevin Patrick, who was previously coaching at North Texas. I mentioned last night that I didn’t think that this was going to be the hire, I thought for sure that Gibbs and Kingsbury would go back to the well and go with Ricky Logo because it is familiar and easy.When the hire was first announced, I was pretty much in the “WTF” mode, but after looking at the type of production that he had while at South Florida was pretty impressive, but when he was let go at South Florida (we don’t know the circumstances or how late it was), he took the entire year off from coaching and then got back into coaching at North Texas. Some of the concern is if this is the best that Texas Tech can do, and there are good coaches all over the place. Just like Tommy Mainord, who I think is a good coach, took a demotion after being at Kentucky, to coach at North Texas. Stuff happens in life. In any event, if you were to just look at the production at South Florida, you’d probably be pretty excited:
Kevin Patrick served as the defensive line coach at North Texas (this was not the hire I was expecting) for the past two years and was at South Florida prior to that for a handful of years. Patrick was at South Florida from 1996 through 2012. For the past two years at North Texas, the Mean Green was 119th in rusing defense (not very good) and was 56th in 2014 (much better). At South Florida, in 2013, the Bulls were 28th in the nation, 51st in the nation in 2012, 15th in 2011, and 23rd in 2010. Those last few years are pretty productive for South Florida and to have North Texas at 56th is pretty impressive.
- Snyder to Return. Via the KC Star, Bill Snyder will return to coach 2016 for Kansas State.