Game Info
Date: Saturday, December 16th
Time: 7:00 pm
Good Guys: Texas Tech Red Raiders (8-1, 0-0)
Bad Guys: Rice Owls (3-7, 0-0)
Location: Lubbock Municipal Coliseum | Lubbock, Texas
TV/Stream: None
Radio/Stream: 97.3 FM/104.3 FM/950 AM
Lineups
| THE STARTERS | Pts / Reb | |
|---|---|---|
| POINT GUARD | Keenan Evans (6-3/190) | 17.7 / 3.6* |
| SHOOTING GUARD | Niem Stevenson (6-6/205) | 8.4 / 3.0 |
| SMALL FORWARD | Justin Gray (6-6/210) | 5.6 / 3.7 |
| POWER FORWARD | Zach Smith (6-8/220) | 6.9 / 4.2 |
| CENTER | Norense Odiase (6-9/245) | 5.8 / 5.6 |
| THE BENCH | Pts / Reb | |
| SIXTH MAN | Zhaire Smith (6-5/195) | 9.6 / 3.8 |
| SEVENTH MAN | Jarrett Culver (6-5/190) | 10.3 / 3.6 |
| EIGHTH MAN | Brandone Francis (6-5/205) | 4.9 / 2.9 |
| NINTH MAN | Davide Moretti (6-3/165) | 5.0 / 2.1* |
| TENTH MAN | Tommy Hamilton IV (6-11/250) | 6.2 / 3.0 |
| ELEVENTH MAN | Josh Webster (6-4/175) | 1.1 / 0.9* |
| TWELFTH MAN | Malik Ondigo (6-10/210) | 1.3 / 1.0 |
| THE STARTERS | Pts / Reb | |
| POINT GUARD | Ako Adams (6-2/170) | 9.8 / 3.7* |
| SHOOTING GUARD | Miles Lester (6-0/170) | 2.8 / 1.4 |
| SMALL FORWARD | Bishop Mency (6-5/215) | 7.0 / 4.8 |
| POWER FORWARD | Connor Cashaw (6-5/200) | 16.1 / 6.7 |
| CENTER | Malik Osborne (6-8/200) | 5.3 / 5.9 |
| THE BENCH | Pts / Reb | |
| SIXTH MAN | Robert Martin (6-6/220) | 9.0 / 4.2 |
| SEVENTH MAN | Najja Hunter (6-7/230) | 3.3 / 2.3 |
| EIGHTH MAN | Austin Meyer (6-9/235) | 4.2 / 1.6 |
| NINTH MAN | Tim Harrison (6-8/220) | 2.9 / 2.0 |
* Assists.
Starting 5
1. KenPom has Rice as the 300th best team in the nation, 323rd in AdjO and 224th in AdjD. Texas Tech has moved up to 14th in the KemPom ratings, 34th in AdjO and 9th in AdjD
2. Rice is a pretty terrible team. This is not the Rice team from last year. Their best player is Cashaw, who is the most complete player on their team. In addition to the averages listed above, Cashaw also averages 2.7 assists and 1.4 steals a game. He’s really good. The other note is that A.J. Lapray is probably their next best player, but he didn’t play the last game and I’m guessing he’s injured. He’s the only other player that averages in double-figures, 11.1 per game, but don’t know if he’ll play.
3. Texas Tech is sort of rolling right now and the problem is that Texas Tech won’t really face a quality opponent until conference play starts. It is Rice, then Florida Atlantic and Abilene Christian to finish off the non-conference slate. The best thing about this game is that Texas Tech will throw it back to when they played in the Coliseum. The worst thing is that this game isn’t on television. It’s been a while since there has been zero television option. Still excited to see the uniform and hopefully we see them more than once through the year. Chris Beard said that the shorts will be short, so that will be interesting too.
4. The official site has the official preview of the game and head coach Chris Beard discusses getting the word out about tonight’s game:
“I appreciate everybody’s help in getting the word out about this game tomorrow,” Texas Tech head coach Chris Beard. “It’s been a lot of work behind the scenes to get this done. I’m so appreciative of the administration, and everybody that has made this happen. We look forward to paying respect to all of the great past players and past coaches here. It’s a special weekend. It’s a day that may be bigger than our program. With that being said, we also have a basketball game. We have to try to play 40 good minutes to win against a Rice team that we really respect.”
5. A-J Media’s Carlos Silva, Jr. previews the game and writes about how Chris Beard is excited to bring back his vision for a throwback game at the Coliseum:
“It’s been a lot of work behind the scenes to get this done,” Beard said. “I’m so appreciative of the administration, everybody that’s made this happen. We’re just looking forward to paying respect to all of the great past players and past coaches here. It’s a special weekend. … It’s a day that’s maybe bigger than our program.
“With that being said, we also have a basketball game we have to try to play 40 good minutes and win against a Rice team that we really respect. A team that’s well coached, a team that gave us all we could handle last year in Lubbock.”