Texas Tech Morning Links | Soccer to Start Big 12 Championship; Kithuka Wins Again; Football Links

LINKS

Lots of links this morning. Let's do this.

• Soccer | Woo, here we go. Texas Tech enters the Big 12 Championship as the #11 team in the nation and plays TCU their first game against TCU at 8:00 pm tonight. 85raider has been writing FanPosts and keeping you up to date and doing a terrific job.  You can actually watch the game on the Big 12 Digital Network, so that's pretty cool. The LAJ and DT both preview the team and the tournament. The DT also profiled midfielder Hannah Devine. Also, the Big 12 released their All-Big 12 team and Texas Tech was well represented.
• Cross Country | No big deal, just Kennedy Kithuka repeating as the Big 12 Champion for the second straight year. HE HAS NEVER LOST A RACE!
• Women's Basketball | The Lady Raiders played Angelo St and won by 20 on Monday night. and had a terrific second half and was led by G Minta Spears with 20 points. The LAJ and DT both wrapped up the game.
• Volleyball | The Red Raiders will try to get back on track against Kansas St. tonight at 6:00 pm at the United Spirit Arena.
• Men's Basketball | College Basketball Talk asks if Tubby Smith can save Texas Tech and answers that yes, he can:

  In fact, I don’t expect Tubby Smith to work miracles in Lubbock. I’ll be impressed if he gets the Red Raiders to play better than .500 ball in the rugged Big 12 by the 2016 season. But he’ll bring in good players, he’ll win a few games, and he’ll lend an invincible aura of even-handed, avuncular fairness to the proceedings. He’ll rehabilitate the Texas Tech name and prepare it to take the next step under an up-and-coming younger man; perhaps current Tech assistant coach Pooh Williamson, who played under Smith at Tulsa. Maybe someone else.

  It seems like it has been ages since we went through allegations of player mistreatment and Gillispie alleging a heart attack and just a whole mess of things. I am really glad that Smith is at Texas Tech.
  
  CBT also writes something that I've been thinking since I listened to a Pooh Williamson interview this past weekend, which is that Texas Tech sorta has their own young and up-and-coming assistant that is probably highly motivated similar to Chris Walker in Williamson. Williamson isn't as charismatic as Walker, but I really like what I hear initially from williamson.
• Football
  • Knighton with Three Degrees | The LAJ is profiling all of the 18 seniors and up first is DT Chris Knighton Who will leave Texas Tech with three degrees. Goodness, what a great guy Knighton sounds like:

    "I want to play. Everybody wants to play," said Knighton, who was a first-team all-state honoree in high school on a team that went 13-3. "But I have to accept my role, whatever role it might be on the team, and I have and I did that well. I teach the young guys and coach the young guys. It’s more than about just playing football. There’s a lot of other factors, and I just try to play my part and help the young guys."

  • Amaro to Try Biletnikoff | The LAJ also writes about how TE Jace Amaro could be on the Biletnikoff Award list even if he isn't going to be on the Mackey Award list.
  • Behind Enemy Lines | The CJOnline writes about how Bill Snyder and Kliff Kingsbury are a contrast of styles, which at the root of it isn't really all that true because they are both coaches that work really hard. I've already worked on the quotes for Thursday's Iconography, but we'll quote this twice because it's so Bill Snyder and awesome:

    "I don’t know Kliff well, just that we met the first time when they played here many, many years ago," Snyder said of the former Tech quarterback. "He seemed like a pleasant young guy, bright as a quarterback. I thought he was a good leader so if somebody said at the time he would get into coaching, that wouldn’t have surprised me."

    The Kansas City Star also writes about how Texas Tech isn't anything that the Wildcats haven't seen just yet.
  • The Numerical | Per SBN's Bill Connelly Oklahoma St. had 140 extra yards on returns against Texas Tech. /sigh/

More from Viva The Matadors:

• Possible Red Raiders: A weekly recruiting update - 11/5/13
• Texas Tech Releases 2014 Football Schedule
• Texas Tech Hoops: In-Depth Season Preview
• Pullquotes | Texas Tech's Kliff Kingsbury, DT Kerry Hyder and WR Eric Ward Talk Kansas St.
• Big 12 Roundup | Texas, OSU and K-State Win Convincingly; WVU Wins in OT

ACTION

Really terrific video about the guy that is going to be parachuting the flag in the stadium on Saturday.