Double-T Nation Daily Diatribe | 2011-02-16

LAJ's Don Williams writes that Athletic Director Gerald Myers says that the teams that Texas Tech is slated to play in 2011 is set, but the order in which Texas Tech plays those teams is still apparently being debated. 

"They’re trying to work with everybody to produce a schedule everybody can feel comfortable with, and at the same time provide our television partners with some attractive games," he said.

Tech is awaiting the conference schedule being finalized before it can release season-ticket information.

"We know the games we’re going to have at home and the ones on the road," Myers said. "I guess we could send out something and say, ‘These are our home games. We just don’t know when they’re going to be.’ But we haven’t done that."

I don't have much to add to this, except that spring practice starts February 20th.  Woot!

Boxscore | Post Game Quotes

Seems like we've seen this movie before.  And it seems like I've written this 1,000 times this year.  Texas Tech played close, but ended up losing in a relatively close game.  Although the game was close, Missouri was terrific shooting the ball last night, shooting 58% for the game.  Of course, this also speaks to the Texas Tech defense, or the lack thereof, and that's been the problem pretty much since the beginning of Pat Knight's tenure at Texas Tech. 

And before we get into the game, I'd like to make a quick comment about commentator Doug Gottlieb and him going to the production truck to act as the director for the game.  In fact, I even got an email from an ESPN representative letting me know that Dougy would be really stretching his wings and rather than tell a national audience that the United Spirit Arena is too big for Lubbock (I just can't believe this and I do believe that an arena that seats 15,020 is just about right for Lubbock) was a complete failure.  Sometimes, it's good to just to stick what you're supposed to do.

In trying to enjoy watching game, I did enjoy watching SF Jaye Crockett, he scored 11 points, grabbed 9 rebounds and the boxscore says he only turned the ball over twice, but it seemed like more as he was a bit wild.  I was also surprised that PG Javarez Willis played 28 minutes, scored 9 points, had 3 assists and 5 turnovers.  He was a bit wild on the court at times, but it was nice to see him get some playing time as he will be the starting point guard next year (assuming there is not a JUCO signed).  The disturbing thing about Willis is that he was touted as a guy that could shoot lights out and Willis has a hitch in his shot that looks really uncomfortable and he's only making 40.5% of his shots from the floor and only 17% of his 3-pointers.  

It wasn't a surprise, at least to me, in that SF Mike Singletary tried to play last night, but only lasted 9 minutes.  On Monday during Pat Knight's press conference, he said that the training staff checked out Singletary and they couldn't find anything wrong with his leg as he sat almost the entire TAMU game.  Again, Singletary didn't start, played 7 minutes in the first half and only 2 minutes in the second half.  Singletary was injured (again?) in the second half. 

So what seemed like a bad situation has become worse in that it seems like PK and the program has players quitting on this team and that's incredibly disturbing.  I hate throwing this allegation out there, but there seems to be a disconnect between what PK thinks is wrong with Singletary (i.e., nothing) and Singletary saying he's hurt (i.e., is he?).  My opinion . . . Singletary just doesn't want to play.  I mentioned yesterday that Mizzou shooting guard Marcus Denmon busted up his nose and face this past weekend and all he did was playing and leading Missouri with 20 points. 

And after the game, when PK says that he's proud of the way that his team fought, I'm right there with him. 

"I was proud of the way my guys competed. They didn't give up - they didn't give up at all. It's a tough place to play just from an atmosphere standpoint, and their style of play, so I was proud of my guys. They never got down even when Missouri got the lead a few times on us, so I was really proud of the way they fought and battled through to the end."

The guys on the floor didn't give up.  The problem is that it's not just the players on the floor that I'm worried about.

The LAJ and DMN's Mike Graham both have post-game articles from last night. 

Big 12 Hoops has their weekly Power Rankings and at least Texas Tech isn't last . . . Rush The Court's Owen Kemp also checks in on the Big 12 (it's a couple of days old) and just like Big 12 Hoops, at least Texas Tech isn't last . . .

The Big 12 released the 2011 Big 12 Conference Preseason Coaches' Poll and the coaches have picked Texas Tech to finish 7th in the Big 12.  There's not much to add here, and this is expected as there's a ton of uncertainty as far as Texas Tech's pitching staff.  In fact, if you take a look at the scheduled pitchers for this weekend's opening series, Daniel Coulombe, Robbie Kilcrease, Jamen Parten and Ben Flora are getting the starts.  Coulombe and Parten are transfers and we know nothing about them other than they played in a community college last year, that's about it.  Actually, I take that back, Texas Tech did profiles on all of these guys way back in 2010:  Coulombe, Kilcrease, Parten and Flora.