Texas Tech basketball: TCU game preview and broadcast info
Tonight, the Texas Tech basketball team is in Fort Worth to face TCU in an important Big 12 contest so here’s a quick game preview and the broadcast info to get you ready.
Schollmaier Arena, the home of TCU basketball is smaller than the recently demolished Lubbock Municipal Coliseum by over a thousand seats. And tonight, the 6,700 seat facility with one of the most blindingly ugly courts in the nation might feel like Lubbock East as droves of DFW Texas Tech basketball fans are expected to be on hand to watch the Red Raiders face the Horned Frogs for the first time this year.
The Red Raiders ride a 4-game winning streak over TCU into this game and they are hoping to push the program’s all-time record against the Frogs in Fort Worth to 34-30. But doing so is not going to be a given.
That’s because for all their flaws in recent years, TCU has been a respectable home team. Head coach Jamie Dixon has gone 17-12 at home in Big 12 play, a number that Tech fans won’t find impressive given that Chris Beard has lost just eight home games total in his time on the job in Lubbock.
Still, when you consider that over the last two years, the guys in purple have taken down No. 19 Iowa State, Florida, and No. 7 West Virginia while taking No. 7 Kansas to overtime in Fort Worth, it’s clear that Chris Beard had better have his team ready for another conference battle.
The last two times Tech has traveled to TCU, we’ve seen the good guys win by an average of 13.5 points. When combining that with a one-point TCU win in 2017 and a seven-point Tech triumph in 2016, Tech is 3-1 a Schollmaier with an average margin of victory of 11 points in its last four trips to Cowtown.
Part of what has made this series so lopsided for Tech, Beard is 5-1 against the Frogs with the Red Raiders, is that this has been a bad stylistic matchup for the Toads. That’s because they have morphed into a predominantly jump-shooting team in recent years, which is not the way to beat a Red Raider defense that likes to push the ball away from the basket at all times.
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Dixon hasn’t changed his approach this year either. At 9.5 made 3-pointers per game, TCU leads the Big 12 and when they shoot their second long-range bomb of the night this evening, they will once again surpass Texas, which played last night, for the most shot attempts in the Big 12 from behind the arc.
In their last game, an 83-63 loss to Oklahoma in Norman, TCU hoisted a whopping 37 shots from deep. The problem was that they made only nine which equated to a shooting percentage of just 22%. That’s not going to get it done against any Big 12 team, but especially not the Red Raiders.
These teams come into the game headed in opposite directions. While Tech has won two straight, the Frogs are on a two-game skid. And given that TCU is 0-6 all-time against ranked Texas Tech teams, most expect each of those streaks to extend to three games.
But Red Raider fans might be justified in being rather cautious about assuming that this year’s team is going to waltz into any opponent’s building and push them around. Even if that building is 35% Scarlet and Black.
This is a young team. We can’t forget that. So there’s always the chance for a hiccup and tonight might be one of those instances, especially if Tech plays with its food early.
In the end, the stats, matchups, trends, and histories all point to another Red Raider win. But in the unpredictable world that is the 2019-20 college basketball season, nothing is assured.