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Texas Tech Friday Morning Notes - We Like Pirates Edition

By Seth C

Double T Nation News:

I still have my tickets, 2 to be accurate. The face value was $65, but I'd be willing to take $50 or so just to get rid or them. They are in section 102, row 39 and I think they are pretty good seats. If you can pay via PayPal, I'll send you the tickets by email. It's going to be a long day for me and I'll try to respond to any emails during lunch. Also of note, you can buy metal bleacher seats for $65 or you can buy two seats in the stands for $50.

What the hell, Arizona beat Oregon last night, which opens the door for Oklahoma to now be part of the national championship game. I wonder who could ruin those chances? Opportunity, meet the Red Raiders.

Texas Tech Football:

LAJ's Don Williams feature this morning concerns Texas Tech's chance to play in the Gator Bowl on New Year's Day. Williams talks with Gator Bowl president, Rick Catlett who said that the Red Raiders' chances are good:

"As a bowl volunteer, you like to get teams that are excited and have won some games at the end or have played some competitive games at the end,'' Catlett said. "Playing Oklahoma close would be a plus for Texas Tech. It would be even a bigger plus if they won, but we understand the level of play of Oklahoma is pretty high.''

Sounds like to me that Texas Tech is high on their list and who couldn't have a good time in Jacksonville in January? It also sounds like that they aren't the least bit concerned selling out any bowl game:

"We'll go into the mid-60s (in ticket sales),'' he said. "Then you just hope the matchup's good enough to convince a few more people in Jacksonville to buy tickets and you get to the 70,000 number, which is what we shoot for every year. Texas Tech is known for their wide-open offense, and that could certainly be marketed.''

Texas Tech's other option is the Alamo Bowl (which is a more viable option for me personally). Alamo Bowl VP of marketing, Rick Hill had this to say:

"We like pirates,'' Hill said, playing on a Leach theme. "One of my kids' favorite books is 'Pirates Don't Change Diapers.' I was thinking the other night, 'I think Leach would have a good time signing this.' ''

The Alamo Bowl's Big 10 team figures to come from a group of No. 20 Illinois, No. 23 Michigan, No. 24 Wisconsin and Penn State, all of whom are 8-3.

"That's about as attractive a position as we've ever been in,'' Hill said.

Texas Tech Basketball:

LAJ's Jeff Walker writes this morning that the loss to Sam Houston State provides the Red Raiders to learn from their mistakes. Coach Knight discussed why non-conference games are so important:

"The reason that we scheduled this game was because we knew it would be a really tough game and we got that," Knight said. "It's not the easiest thing in the world to lose a non-conference game because that is a tough thing when you get down to the end of the season. We took an opportunity to play somebody that we knew was going to be good, somebody that we knew would play hard and, hopefully, that will help us down the road a little bit.

"... The whole non-conference thing is to prepare for the conference and, hopefully, this will show us a thing or two."

Walker astutely points out that the offense is the one big concern and I mentioned last night that it appeared that these guys were just waiting for Zeno to do something rather than be more assertive on their own and that's got to stop. Someone has to step up.

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