Texas Tech basketball: An optimistic look at the loss to Baylor
Despite the frustrating feeling that the Texas Tech basketball team’s loss to Baylor left us with, there are plenty of positives to take from the first conference defeat of the year.
The season’s first Big 12 loss was a tough one to swallow. It was bad enough to drop a game at home that was there for the taking but to see the hated Baylor Bears win in Lubbock was a bitter pill to swallow.
When Texas A&M left the Big 12, there was a huge void of disdain within the Red Raider fan base that had to be filled. Sure, we still had the Longhorns to despise but what fun is life when you have only one enemy that truly enlivens your inner rancor?
Enter the Baylor Bears. Their ascension from laughing stock to legitimacy in both football and basketball matched up rather well in terms of timing with the exodus of the Aggies.
Those of us who spent our college years in the early 2000s or prior may still have a hard time wrapping our minds around the idea that Baylor is a serious Big 12 contender in both of the league’s marquee sports. When I was in school, I remember seeing a bumper sticker on a truck in Lubbock that read “I’d rather be on probation than lose to Baylor”.
That’s a huge reason that Baylor has become the most hated conference foe other than UT for Red Raider fans. It isn’t ever fun to see a team that you used to lift your hind leg on routinely come up and return the favor.
But let’s also not overlook the scandals that have turned so many people around both the nation and the conference against Baylor. They play an even larger role in everyone’s new-found disdain for the guys from Waco.
Of course, everyone still remembers the controversy that cost former BU football coach Art Briles his job. In 2016, he was fired after numerous allegations from female students that he and the football program were complicit in the cover-up of numerous sexual assault allegations made against Baylor football players.
However, the Baylor basketball program has its own embarrassing scandal over a decade earlier. In 2003, Baylor basketball player Patrick Dennehy was murdered by his teammate, Carlton Dotson.
When that tragedy brought unwanted scrutiny to the BU program in the form of investigations by both NCAA and law enforcement officials, then head coach Dave Bliss tried to cover up violations such as improper payments to players by trying to frame Denehy as a drug dealer, which he was not. Bliss eventually lost his job but the reputation of the program had taken a huge hit.
As if those national scandals aren’t enough, most Red Raider fans saw their hatred for Baylor ratchet up yet another level in 2010 because of an incident during a women’s basketball game. When Baylor’s star forward Brittney Griner punched Tech’s Jordan Barncastle during a game in Lubbock, it did nothing but give people in West Texas yet more fuel for the fire of dislike that burns towards anything to do with Baylor.
Ultimately, those feelings of hostility between fan bases are what makes college athletics so fun. But they also make losses such as we saw in Lubbock on Tuesday night all the more painful to endure.
Nothing would have been satisfying for Red Raider fans than to see the Bears’ 10-game winning streak and top 5 national ranking come crashing back to earth at the hands of the guys in Scarlet and Black but it wasn’t to be as Scott Drew’s team outplayed and physically dominated Chris Beard’s.
Fortunately, college basketball is beautiful in that it ends with a much more inclusive tournament to determine a champion than does college football. Thus, a January loss on the hardwood is far less crushing than a September or October loss on the gridiron.
Rivalries aside, all that matters for the Texas Tech basketball team happens in March and April. So with that in mind, let’s wrap up our coverage of the Baylor game by looking at some of the positives we can take away from that disappointing contest.