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Texas Tech Monday Morning Notes - Gator Bowl Bound Edition

By Seth C

Double-T Nation News:

Texas Tech will be facing the Virginia Cavaliers in the Gator Bowl and after I get home tonight, I plan on laying out a schedule of previews galore. I'll do my best to take a look at each and every position for every team. The downside is that I haven't seen a Virginia game all year, so I'll be basing my thoughts on Virginia on video I'm able to find and on this year's statistics. Honestly, I can't wait to see how this offensive line will adjust to Chris Long, but all in due time.

As far as the UCLA gig, this is the latest I could find this morning via FanBlogs, which is much of what I found yesterday afternoon.

Texas Tech Football:

LAJ's Don Williams is on top of Texas Tech's trip to Jacksonville and we get quotes from Graham Harrell and interim defensive coordinator Ruffin McNeill. Here's Graham on the game:

"We're excited about it,'' Tech quarterback Graham Harrell said. "A lot of people will probably get up and watch it. Everyone sits at home and watches football that day. Hopefully, it'll be a great crowd there and be a big audience back home watching. We look forward to the opportunity.''

I too like the idea of watching the game at noon, but do find the idea of waking up at noon, rolling out of bed, and then watching some football funny. Funny only because I can't sleep past 6:00 a.m. - to be a college student again.

Here is Coach Leach's very official response and I do think he got the full name of the sponsor in the quote:

"I have always believed the Konica Minolta Gator Bowl is one of the best games of the bowl season,'' Leach said. "The opportunity to play on a national stage against a great conference is one of our goals each season. The Gator Bowl is a great reward for the efforts put forth by our staff and student-athletes this season.''

Don also focuses on the matchup with Chris Long and the offensive line. Williams gives you a ton of facts about the Cavaliers so make sure and read the whole thing.

DMN's Brandon George briefly previews the Gator Bowl matchup.

Texas Tech Basketball:

It appears that the men's basketball team is picking up the pieces from Saturday's loss to Centenary. Coach Knight is apparently doing well:

"I've been getting calls all day from people asking if he's in the hospital or something," Pat Knight said on Sunday. "He just didn't feel well."

More importantly, Coach Pat Knight has this to say about Saturday's game:

"The defense was brutal," Pat Knight said. "When we're up 14, you just need to score here and there and then they're going to have to start fouling us. If you could see all the blockouts that we missed, we missed some switches (off screens). We've got to have guys step up."

Yes, the defense was not up to par on Saturday night, but it's the offense that concerns me. Statistically speaking, Centenary was one of the worst defensive teams in the country, which meant that our offense shouldn't have struggled to score against the Gents' defense. Yes, shooting 46% isn't exactly struggling, but the offense didn't look fluid and something has got to happen on both ends of the court.

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