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Texas Tech Sunday Morning Notes - Staying In The Game Edition

By Seth C

Double-T Nation News:

DTN reader kayakyakr pointed out yesterday morning that SAEN's Tim Griffin's comments about Coach Leach out-coaching Coach Groh were nice, but perhaps not completely accurate. To jog your memory, here's what Griffin had to say about the coaching matchup:

So much for Virginia coach Al Groh's supposed edge in game-day management and acumen over Mike Leach, who absolutely schooled him in the second half.

Leach's gutty decision to opt for an onside kick on the opening drive of the second half immediately got his team back in the game.

And his play calling on Tech's final drive help set up a makeable field goal by Robert Trlica. Most coaches would have opted to run the ball as the safer course of action. But Leach was passing on the final drive, and the result was Tech's victory.

What actually happened on that final drive is that Texas Tech ran the ball 4 out of 6 plays. Lewis ran the first 4 plays. The first attempt was for 9 yards, the second attempt was the fumble with no yards lost or gained. The third attempt was for 10 yards and the last rushing attempt was for 1 yard. It's now 2nd and 9 and Harrell drops back to pass on 2 consecutive plays. The first attempt is complete to Lewis for 10 yards and the second attempt falls incomplete, intended for Crabtree.

Leach, or rather Harrell did throw the ball, but not before he ran the ball 4 times with some success. On Virginia's last drive, with about 3 minutes left, Virginia had absolutely no success, despite getting Sewell back in the game. Virginia ran for 3 yards, Sewell threw an incomplete pass and then Sewell runs the ball again, short of the first down.

Perhaps Griffin is more-or-less trying to point out the relatively ineffective Virginia offense versus the mostly effective Texas Tech offense.

Good catch kayakyakr. Note to self: Be more careful what you read early in the morning.

Texas Tech Football:

Make sure and check out the interview of Michael Crabtree by ESPN's Desmond Howard (hat-tip to YouTube user ja860231).

Texas Tech Basketball:

The Red Raiders beat the UTEP Miners 75-68 yesterday, and if you haven't seen the video of Coach Knight during the post-game press conference, then you don't want to miss it. LAJ's Jeff Walker has a Red Raiders Basketball Notebook and the game story from yesterday's win and focuses on the late, but good play of guard Alan Voskuil. Here's Coach Knight on Voskuil:

"Voskuil has got to work a lot harder to get open," Tech head coach Bob Knight said. "One of the huge plays in the game is when (Trevor) Cook set the screen on the baseline and Voskuil got open; that really put us back in the game. I'm not sure what that made the score; in fact, I think we went ahead with that bucket ... and Voskuil had missed two or three (3-pointers) before that."

It's no secret that Voskuil has the potential to be an outside shooting force, however, it's getting Voskuil to take shots that's been difficult part. It's nice to hear Coach Knight confirm that.

I liked this final quote from Coach Knight summarizing the win:

"Three things happened for us. We stayed in the game for a long time. We're in it at the half and we got off to a bad start in the second half and overcame that and got into a seven-point deficit and overcame that to win," Knight said. "All of those things were really good for us except the bad start in the second half and the seven-point deficit, but we overcame what got us into that position. So, that's by far the best we've hung in and played so far this year."

Once again, pleas go check out the video of the Knight post game press conference as he talks about momentum and that he doesn't really believe there is such a thing as momentum outside of a particular game, which is an interesting concept.

And although I may have somewhat buried the lead here, Coach Knight did win his 899th game yesterday and his next win will be number 900. I'm not so sure he cares about this milestone, but I figure I should at least mention it.

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