Tuesday night’s woeful showing in Manhattan, Kansas by the Texas Tech basketball team is just the latest in a string of awful Red Raider performances on the road against Kansas State across the athletic department.
There are a lot of similarities between Texas Tech and Kansas State. Both schools have become excellent institutions despite facing challenges such as geographic isolation, limited population bases and less than fair treatment from their state legislatures when compared to the schools in their state that are “The University of…”.
But though there are obvious cultural similarities between Tech and KSU, it is fair to say that the Red Raiders have come to despise going to Manhattan, Kansas. That is because the Little Apple has become a house of horrors for the Red Raiders regardless of sport.
The Red Raider football team has not won in Manhattan since a 58-28 win in 2008. And in Tech’s most recent trip, the team laid one of the biggest eggs program history.
Facing a Kansas State team that was just 4-6 entering the game, Kliff Kingsbury’s team was thoroughly dominated in a 21-6 loss that was far more lopsided that than final score suggested. After scoring on its first two drives of the game, Tech would fail to register a single point on the next nine drives.
In the worst offensive showing of the Kingsbury era and one of the worst of the “Air Raid” era, Tech managed an anemic 181 total yards (including just 31 on the ground) against a defense that allowed on average 403.4 yards per game. Tech was doubled in regards to first downs gained (22-11) and lost the time of possession battle 37:49 to 22:11.
In the last four trips to Manhattan, the Texas Tech football team has lost by an average of 21 points. Overall, they are 2-6 at Snyder Family Stadium but they are not the only Texas Tech team to struggle when visiting KSU.
The Texas Tech basketball program has found life inside Bramlage Coliseum to be less than ideal. Overall, the Red Raiders are just 4-15 as a road team against the Wildcats.
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Dating back to 2007, Tech is just 1-8 inside the Octagon of Doom and their average margin of defeat in those losses has been 17 points. Last year’s 66-47 win in Manhattan was the program’s first since 2004. And Tuesday’s loss was certainly among the worst in the series for the Red Raiders.
As for the Lady Raiders, their last win at Bramlage came in 2015. This year, they dropped a disappointing 66-62 game after entering the fourth quarter with a four-point lead.
Even the Texas Tech baseball team has not been able to solve the Manhattan mystery. Dating back to the 2001 season, Tech has gone just 11-15 on the road against the Wildcats. During that time Tech has won just three series at Tointon Family Stadium.
This year, Tim Tadlock will take his team to Manhattan for three games from March 29-31. The good news is that Tech has won its last two road series against the Wildcats.
One of the reasons that KSU has had an upper hand over Tech in most sports during the past decade is that the Wildcats have had far more stability at the head coaching positions. Bill Snyder just ended his 27-year run as head football coach and their basketball team has had just two different coaches since the 2007-08 season.
Meanwhile, their women’s basketball coach Jeff Mittie has been in place since since 2014-15. They are breaking in a new baseball coach this year in Pete Hughes but his predecessor Brad Hill led the program for the previous 15 seasons.
But now Texas Tech appears to have a nice stable of coaches in place and unless something wildly unexpected happens, the university’s four major programs look to finally have found some stability at the top. Now maybe those four coaches can get together and figure out how to begin winning in the Little Apple on a consistent basis.