Miscellaneous

This Happened Yesterday in Lubbock.

There was a sunset filling the sky leading up to Texas Tech's basketball game against TCU. pic.twitter.com/glzCMXo0qg

— Lubbock A-J Photos (@LAJ_Photo) February 24, 2016

Tennis

Red Raiders climb to No. 6 in the @ITATennis rankings this week, making it the highest in program history. #WreckEm pic.twitter.com/OsX5m7XthH

— Texas Tech Women’s Tennis (@TexasTechWTEN) February 23, 2016

Lady Raider Basketball

Lady Raiders Host Texas. The Lady Raiders will host the No. 8 Texas Longhorns tonight at 6:30 pm with the game being on FOX Southwest Plus:

“You have to do your best to keep [Texas] off the glass,” Texas Tech head coach Candi Whitaker said. “They hurt us at their place with second-chance opportunities. They’re a team good enough to score on the first shot, but how they really separate themselves is by hitting the glass and scoring on second opportunities. They have great size, so you have to be that much more aware and that much earlier on box-outs.”

Basketball

Good Decision. CBS Sports Gary Parrish writes about how when TExas Tech hired Tubby Smith, he didn’t really understand the hire:

In fairness, I’d still go with Self for Big 12 Coach of the Year, if only because he’s about to win his 12th consecutive Big 12 title, which is amazing in general, but especially when you consider Mike Krzyzewski, perhaps the best to ever do it, has never won more than five consecutive league titles at Duke, and Knight, another man on any list of best-to-ever-do-it candidates, never won more than four consecutive league titles at Indiana.

But I digress.

That’s not the point of this column, because the point of this column is this: it’s not crazy to suggest Tubby Smith should be and could be the Big 12’s Coach of the Year, and that, independent of everything else, is pretty incredible because the list of men who have failed at Texas Tech is way longer than the list of men who have succeeded.

Football

Board of Regents to Vote on Naming IPF. LAJ’s Karen Michael writes that the Texas Tech System Board of Regents will vote approve the name of the football facility and would be named the “Gary Peterson Family Indoor Football Facility, which is part of the Edward E. Whitacre Jr. Athletic Complex:

Petersen made a pledge of $7 million to Tech’s Campaign for Fearless Champions Fund for the construction of the sports performance center. The donation will be paid in $1 million increments over the next seven years. The gift exceeds the minimum 50 percent threshold requirement in the Regents’ Rules for naming consideration ofa facility or area.

Do Work.

Combat groin and hamstring injuries with Sumo deads. pic.twitter.com/Db1H9dHq5F

— Rusty (@rustywhitt) February 23, 2016

Pin front squats= speed and mobility pic.twitter.com/cqgr6rDgdk

— Rusty (@rustywhitt) February 23, 2016

More on IMG Academy. Yesterday, we discussed IMG Academy and DMN’s Michael Florek talked to the Texas High School Coaches Association president Glen West, who had even more to say about IMG Academy, the sports academy in Florida that has two Baylor commits attending. Long story short, Texas Tech coaches are not happy about IMG:

“I’ve not known of players leaving their high schools in Texas and going on to private areas to train and playing on travel teams,” West said. “I wasn’t aware our state had to do that. It certainly happened this offseason and I felt like that needs to be made aware. You’re getting ready for the next year of your season and you’ve got players on your team that are returners and all of a sudden they’re leaving and going to train somewhere else.”

IMG has had three high-profile transfers from Texas this offseason: quarterback Kellen Mond, from San Antonio Reagan, wide receiver Jhamon Ausbon from Houstin St. Thomas, and Allen freshman offensive lineman E.J. Ndoma-Ogar, who announced he would attend IMG in January.

“It’s not necessarily against IMG, it’s just for years in the state of Texas we have been the advocate for our kids, where the college coaches come through and it’s been a really good situation for hundreds of years,” West said. “The idea of athletes being raised through your program in your community, being part of your community, until later in their career (they) think they need to go to a specialist, we don’t agree with that.

Miscellaneous. B/R has a slideshow stating that Texas Tech is a sleeper for the 2016 season . . .