Double-T Nation News:
The men's basketball team has to move onward from yesterday's loss as the Aggies come to town on Wednesday. I posted my thoughts on the game last night and I think ultimately, the success or failure of this team will depend on the ability of this team to score. Defensively, they are fine, sans a 4 minute stretch where they just let things get out of hand, but for the most part this year, Texas Tech has been more than good defensively.
Texas Tech Basketball:
LAJ's Jeff Walker has his game story, which was updated at 4:25 a.m. this morning. We also have FWST's Dwain Price, who by the way is the only other Texas reporter who has a game story, has his game story. I was hoping for a quote or two from Coach Knight on exactly why, but all I'm finding is this quote, which was taken from Price's story:
Coach Knight also made a point to mention Martin Zeno's play, which can be a thing of beauty at times, but also incredibly maddening at others:
"He just doesn't have a good feel for what he's doing. He's been a real disappointment."
I don't know what it is about Zeno, he's just got to slow down. And yes, those 5 turnovers in the first half were killers, it makes coming back from that 9 point deficit much easier.
Of course, I haven't even touched on the idea of Coach Knight calling out Zeno and whether or not this is an appropriate. On one hand, Coach Barnes called out his entire team yesterday, the difference of course is that he didn't single out any one player publicly. Believe it or not, I'm on the fence on this one. I'm pretty sure that I've seen Coach Leach publicly admonish players (Woods) and I didn't have a problem with that, so I guess I would be a hypocrite if I were to criticize Knight for the very same thing.
What do you guys think? Who is right and who is wrong here?
Texas Tech Football:
LAJ's Don Williams talked with Texas Tech AD Gerald Myers and he confirmed that he is expecting Tulsa to fulfill the contract and play on August 30th. Tulsa AD Bubba Cunningham (emphasis mine) was not available for comment. More interestingly, I think the mind games have begun, where Williams reported yesterday that there was a $150,000 buyout for the University of Tulsa to drop the game, if Texas Tech would have any recourse:
"I'm not sure. I guess that's to be determined,'' Gleason said.
Asked twice whether Tech has any recourse, Myers didn't answer directly.
"Being only eight months, or a little over eight months, until the game, we intend for them to fulfill the contract,'' Myers said. "That's the way we feel about it - that it's just bad faith on their part as far as them breaking the contract, and we expect them to play.''
That's right, let the lawyers handle this, but for those of you who don't know, Tulsa has a ridiculously large endowment of $1.3 billion with only 4,000 students (compared with Texas Tech's $540 million endowment and 28,000 students) so paying a $150,000 buyout penalty will mean nothing. If Tulsa drops, I don't think Texas Tech will go away quietly.