Administrative
Texas Tech Athletics announced that they will host a virtual event on Wednesday featuring AD Kirby Hocutt, head football coach Joey McGuire, and Regent Cody Campbell to address the following:
The 45-minute event dubbed “Opportunity Amid Chaos” intends to educate supporters on Texas Tech’s fundraising priorities pertaining to both the Red Raider Club and Matador Club, while also highlighting the recent opening of the Dustin R. Womble Football Center. The program will air live via Texas Tech Athletics’ X and Facebook pages as well as its YouTube channel and on TexasTech+.
Interviews with host Robert Giovannetti will take place around the $242 million Womble Football Center, which opened in December as Texas Tech’s final project of its historic Campaign for Fearless Champions. Hocutt and Campbell will describe Texas Tech’s recent fundraising success pertaining to facilities as well as Name-Image-Likeness support and detail the steps ahead as the athletics department enters the revenue share era of college athletics at the highest levels.
I think this is good, but this is also really interesting.
On the Court
ESPN’s Joe Lundardi writes about the inclusion of North Carolina and Texas (and Oklahoma if you ask me) should not have been included in the NCAA Tournament:
You want to include Texas and its seven Quad 1 wins? I can absolutely live with that despite the 15 losses, the 6-12 league record and the No. 287 nonconference schedule.
But then you simply cannot include North Carolina as well. The Tar Heels are the opposite of the Longhorns. The No. 5 nonconference schedule produced exactly one Quad 1 win in a whopping 13 attempts. That is disqualifying to me in an era that has correctly prioritized winning the highest-level games.
I suspect we’ll hear a lot about the two teams’ combined records in Quad 1 and Quad 2, which are indeed similar. But that seems a little too much like a convenient answer searching for what is ultimately the wrong question.
Yes, North Carolina and Texas each have 10 combined Q1/Q2 wins. Was that really what got them in over the likes of West Virginia, Indiana, Ohio State and Boise State? West Virginia also had 10 combined Q1/Q2 wins; Indiana and Ohio State both had nine; and Boise had eight. Not enough of a difference from my seat.
The question should always be: What message is being sent to schools for future tournaments? Does it matter if a team equals the record of most losses for an at-large team as long as it wins big games (Texas)? Or do teams not even need to worry about winning games if the schedule is hard enough (UNC)?
CBS Sports’ Cameron Salerno and Fox Sports’ Michael Cohen have previews of Texas Tech’s West Region.
The Athletic’s Brian Hamilton on the 13 most intriguing players in the NCAA Tournament, including JT Toppin:
Mountain West rookie of the year as a freshman at New Mexico and then Big 12 Player of the Year as a sophomore in Lubbock. Fourth in the KenPom.com national player of the year standings heading into the Big 12 tournament. If someone is just verifiably good, is it all that intriguing? Maybe not. But how good Toppin can be, and how much that carries him into national visibility, is the variable. Back-to-back thunderclap games in mid-February — 41 points against Arizona State, 32 against Oklahoma State — suggested the 6-9 forward can get on a heater that changes an entire weekend. Then he finished the regular season with 21 points against Kansas, 30 against Colorado and 25 against Arizona State, confirming the theory. Despite all that production, Toppin isn’t a widely known commodity like All-America-level big men such as Broome and Dickinson and Flagg. Looking for a breakout star from this event? Don’t look much further.
Head coach Grant McCasland with the CBS crew: