The Sooners begin conference play tomorrow in men's basketball with a trip to Lubbock to take on Bobby Knight and the Texas Tech Red Raiders. To help us familiarize ourselves a little more with the Red Raiders Seth from Double T Nation , the outstanding Texas Tech blog for SBN, has agreed to come aboard to play a little Fact or Fiction with us.
We haven't done Fact or Fiction in a while so just to refresh your memory I throw out a few statements about Tech and Seth will tell us why they are fact or fiction. Thanks for your time Seth!
Bobby Knight's quest to pass Dean Smith as the all-time winning coach had been a distraction to the team. Now that it's over there is a danger for the Red Raiders to have a potential let down game Saturday against Oklahoma.
Fiction, I agree that on some level, there's a potential for a let down especially because it was so emotional for Knight, but I think that Knight is incredibly hard on his teams and he won't let them forget all of their deficiencies: rebounding and perimeter defense. I think there might be a tendency to assume that if OU absolutely kills Tech on the boards and with easy inside buckets that Tech was distracted, but that was never Tech's forte anyway.
The Red Raider offense is a three headed monster between Jarrius Jackson, Martin Zeno and Charlie Burgess but if you stop Jackson you kill the monster.
Fiction, Zeno has become a wonderful player. Zeno is by far my favorite player to watch on this Tech team. Jackson can have an average day and Tech can still win, but if Zeno isn't playing up to his potential then there's no doubt in my mind that Tech loses. Zeno reminds me of a smaller version of Scottie Pippen, he has a real nice mid-range game that you really don't see in the college game any more. Jackson has been Tech's most consistent scorer. Burgess is a nice complimentary player and with him at the point, it allows Jackson to move to off-guard, but Burgess can be very inconsistent and will force shots.
The Red Raiders have no inside presence.
Fact, I can only imagine what Longar will do to Tech's frontcourt. At the beginning of the season, Knight handed the forward positions to Dora and Plefka. The both failed miserably and they couldn't grab a rebound to save their life. I think that Plefka has grabbed 22 rebounds in 140 minutes of play and this led to him not ever seeing the court in quite some time. Knight is forced to play Dora because there's no one else. Suljagic has a decent post game and Rizvic is still learning the game, he's essentially the big kid who is supposed to just get in the way.
Texas Tech fans are actually more excited about the future of the program under Pat Knight than they are about the present under Bobby Knight.
Fact, I love Pat Knight, he's learned from one of the best, but he so much more diplomatic and he understands that the press isn't out to get him. Don't get me wrong, I don't think that Bobby is going any where anytime soon, but I think that folks will be real impressed with Pat once he gets the chance. This year's recruiting class has some decent players, which is a departure from past classes, and I think that the reason for that (although I can't substantiate it, it's just pure speculation on my part) is that Pat is more involved with the kids than Bobby from a personnel level.
That's it for Fact or Fiction! Thanks again for your time Seth. You can find out more about the Red Raiders and tomorrow's game from a Tech perspective at Double T Nation .
