Texas Tech basketball: Fans need better non-conference home schedule

With all but one non-conference game remaining this season, it is clear that Texas Tech basketball fans need a better non-conference slate next season.

Theses days, the only man in Lubbock that receives less criticism than Texas Tech basketball head coach Chris Beard is the guy from Bethlehem who recently celebrated a birthday. Certainly, the work Beard has done in building the Red Raiders into a national contender is worthy of all the praise he’s received.

But if there is one aspect of the Texas Tech basketball program that could be improved upon next season it would be the home slate of non-conference games. This year, with only one game remaining outside of Big 12 play (January 26th against Arkansas) it has become glaringly obvious that the program needs to bring better non-conference opponents to Lubbock if it hopes for greater fan engagement during the pre-Christmas potion of the season.

For the purposes of this discussion, we will not include next month’s game against the 9-3 Razorbacks in our analysis because this is not a game Tech actively went out and scheduled. The annual Big 12 / SEC challenge is organized primarily by ESPN to boost ratings at a time when college football is over with and the NFL playoffs are nearing their conclusion meaning college hoops fills more television slots.

As a result, Tech is guaranteed to host an SEC opponent every-other year. But the remainder of the non-conference opponents Tech brought to Lubbock were a collection of mid to low-major teams that were lucky to have a pulse much less having any shot at giving Tech a completive game.

The eight teams to have played in Lubbock this season have a combined record of just 42-59 (a .415 winning percentage. Their average record is 5.2-7.3. What’s more, the average attendance for those games is 9,916 which is 35% below the United Supermarkets Arena’s capacity.

The only teams visiting that Texas Tech fans have seen in person with a winning record thus far have been 6-5 Northern Colorado, 10-2 Abilene Christian and 8-7 UT-Rio Grande Valley. And if Red Raider season ticket holders wanted to see the game against Abilene Christian (the best team to visit Lubbock thus far), they would have had to buy an extra ticket on top of their season ticket package because that game was played at the Lubbock Coliseum.

Since his arrival, Beard has made filling the arena a top priority. To engage fans he has been particularly active and engaging on social media including this year’s weekly “fireside chats”. He’s also offered to buy tickets for fans, because he knows the value of a full arena.

https://twitter.com/TexasTechMBB/status/1078455490517053440

But what the program needs to do in order to get more people to games in November and December is bring better opponents to town. This year, Tech is one of only three Big 12 teams that has yet to host a Power 5 opponent.

Oklahoma State gets a pass because they hosted one of the top teams in the nation in undefeated Houston with is ranked No. 22 in this week’s polls. And the other team with that distinction, TCU, has played a much more intriguing home schedule with its opponents’ combined record being 54-32.

Last season, Tech did not host a Power 5 team but did host a 7-1 Nevada team that was ranked No. 22 at the time and wound up making a run to the Elite 8. That overtime comeback win proved to be one of the signature games of the season and helped the home fans realize how exciting Texas Tech basketball had become.

But this season’s home slate has been devoid of any intrigue. Tech’s average margin of victory has been 30.5 points per game. The only fans who have been excited about the final ten minutes of any home contest thus far have been the relatives of the walk-ons.

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The reality that Beard and the basketball program must face is that West Texas will likely never be as rabid a basketball fan base as those at blue-blood programs like Kansas, Kentucky or North Carolina. That means the best way to get fans to fill the arena is to bring in teams that the common fan has heard of.

No one is suggesting Tech schedule eight non-conference Power 5 opponents to come to Lubbock every year. But Tech should bring in at least one intriguing mid-major team such as Virginia Commonwealth, George Mason or Tulsa (all of which played at other Big 12 schools this season).

It would also be great to see the Red Raiders host some schools from Group of 6 conferences such as New Mexico, Fresno or San Diego State for example. Just like the football team should stop scheduling a yearly home game against FCS weaklings, the basketball team needs to cut down on its number of games against teams that have a direction or a hyphen in their name.

Fortunately, the Big 12 and Big East have announced plans for a four-year annual challenge that will bring two major opponents to Lubbock during that span. Hopefully, Tech can work it out so that they host Big East teams on the years that they must travel to an SEC school for the Big 12 / SEC challenge.

In fairness, Beard has hinted that Tech’s recent improvement has made it difficult to find major teams willing to schedule a home-and-home with the Red Raiders. That is one reason that the four marquee games thus far this season (USC, Nebraska, Memphis and Duke) were all played at neutral sites.

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Still, if Chris Beard wants to see a full arena every night, he is going to have to make a concerted effort to bring better teams to town outside of the Big 12. Doing so will not only help his team better prepare for league play, it will help build early-season excitement for a fan base that is yet to fully come to grips with basketball, not football, being Texas Tech’s identity.

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