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Texas Tech Friday Morning Notes - Playing Loose Edition

By Seth C

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Double-T Nation News:

I took last night off. I promised my wife that I'd hang out with her for a while, so I didn't even go into the office.

I'll have a preview of tomorrow's game against Nebraska in the morning. I'm helping with a golf benefit tournament for a friend who has a brain tumor all day tomorrow, but I should be back around here by 4:00 p.m.

In no particular order, DTN's Top Five:

  1. I don't do Facebook, but CBS is going to have a March Madness Facebook application. Might be fun for some of you crazy kids.
  2. So, Major Applewhite cost UT Darrell Scott? "Call or text me, man. It's Colt."
  3. Buff.tv answers the DMN's allegations that Darrell Scott's mother was offered a job in Boulder.
  4. You may not believe me, but all-world reciever DeAndre Brown committed to University of Southern Mississippi. An excellent breakdown from SMQ as to why.
  5. If I see anyone wearing one of these next year at a game, I'm walking the other way.

Texas Tech Basketball:

LAJ's Jeff Walker takes another look at the Baylor game and had this from Pat Knight:

"We were playing loose, hitting shots and taking good shots," Pat Knight said about his team's start. "I really got on them about fundamentals because even if you've got an open shot, if you're leaning back or leaning to the side it's still not a good shot. I just told them to shoot it if you're open. I'm not asking them to pass it four times, but make sure it's a good shot and make sure you shoot it correctly."

I also really appreciated Jeff's thoughts about freshman forward Mike Singletary:

Mike Singletary led all scorers with 20 points. For the second consecutive game, he was aggressive at driving to the basket and that led him to the free-throw line. The 6-foot-5 freshman made 10 of 13 free throws against the Bears, and in his last two games he's shooting 78 percent (18 of 23). In his previous 17 games, Singletary attempted 43 free throws and made 33 (77 percent). While the Tech offense has struggled at times this season, if Singletary remains consistent - he's scored in double figures in his last three games - he provides another weapon to go with leading scorer Martin Zeno, freshman John Roberson and outside-shooting threat Alan Voskuil.

Make sure and check out LAJ's Big 12 Extra (here's the link to the pdf).

FWST's Mike Jones has his Big 12 Basketball Insider and talks about how Nebraska decided to redshirt all 4 members of their #25 ranked recruiting class. Interesting thought for sure.

Texas Tech Football:

Texas Tech will now play Eastern Washington State in their home opener on August 30, 2008. Yawn.

You can also watch the Mike Leach press conference (click on the middle link and it's IE only). Ruffin McNeill, McKinner Dixon and Seth Doege also make appearances at the end of the presser.

Disclosure: I've said it before and I'll say it again, I'm a glass half full type of guy. Whether it be recruiting or coaches or players, I tend to look at things from a positive perspective regarding most things in life because I'm a glass half empty type of guy at work. It's a good balance for me. Thus, if I'm trying to put a positive spin on a recruiting class, it's because it's how I'm wired, not because I'm trying to be a shill for all things Texas Tech. Being positive about my school makes me happy.

That being said, I get that this year's recruiting class may not have been what we had hoped, especially with some late defections of Cooper and Christian. I know that ESPN gave this class a D+, but I'd love to know what their criteria is. As we talked about the other day, I'm sure that part of the equation is volume and that makes sense. We're talking about high school kids and the more kids you have the more likely you are to make stars out of a few of them. So it makes sense that Rivals or Scout ranks recruiting classes higher with high volume classes. However, Leach mentioned in his press conference that the scholarships were limited and I've heard the number 18, plus or minus 1, is the number of scholarships they had available. The staff went after a couple of guys where it didn't work out, but it's kind of like asking out a pretty girl, they aren't going to say yes all of the time, but the one time that a pretty girl does, it's a happy day. Wednesday, they didn't say yes.

Regardless of the defections, this class only had 2 2-star commitments, one of them being Danny Carona, who gets a pass because he's a kicker. The 2005 class had 21 total commitments and 8 2-star commits. The 2006 class had 34 total commitments and 8 2-star commits. The 2007 class had 26 total commitments and 8 2-star commits. I'd say that's an improvement.

The staff didn't just hand out scholarships to guys who didn't deserve them and I suppose that they could have given some scholarships to some more 2-star or 1-star guys, but to me, that's not what this is about. It's about getting the most talent in the program and it's been a long time since the 2-star player wasn't as prevalent at Texas Tech. Just for grins and giggles, go to the commitment page for Texas Tech at Rivals and click on the drop-down menu for the various years. I think that Texas Tech is going after better quality players, but I also think this transition takes time.

I've often said that I haven't reached my tipping point with Mike Leach and this football program. I completely understand if some of you feel differently. It is really a difference of opinion. I still believe that Leach & Co. is still moving this program in an upward direction. Some of you might think that Leach has leveled out and I understand where you're coming from, I'm just not there with you.

I'm really not trying to disparage any DTN Readers, but rather I think we might just have to agree to disagree for the time being (this is, by the way, what makes sports so great, being able to have great discussions about something where there's really not an answer, at least not yet). I realize that if we're having to argue about the quality of a recruiting class or I'm trying to convince some of you that it's not all that bad then there's a pretty good chance that it wasn't as good as it could have been. Point acknowledged, but I also think that these commits aren't chicken feed either.

I missed the Chron's coverage of Texas Tech's 2008 recruiting class yesterday, including a nice article on McKinner Dixon.

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