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Texas Tech basketball: The Bob Knight era all-time team

By Matthew Conner

16 November 2001: Texas Tech head coach Bobby Knight yells at his team from the bench while they play against William & Mary during the Ford Red Raider Classic at the United Spirit Arena in Lubbock, TX. The Red Raiders defeat the Tribe 75-55. DIGITAL IMAGE Mandatory Credit: Ronald Martinez/ALLSPORT Mandatory Credit: Ronald Martinez/ALLSPORT
16 November 2001: Texas Tech head coach Bobby Knight yells at his team from the bench while they play against William & Mary during the Ford Red Raider Classic at the United Spirit Arena in Lubbock, TX. The Red Raiders defeat the Tribe 75-55. DIGITAL IMAGE Mandatory Credit: Ronald Martinez/ALLSPORT Mandatory Credit: Ronald Martinez/ALLSPORT /
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Texas Tech head coach Bob Knight goes onto the floor (Photo by G. N. Lowrance/Getty Images)
Texas Tech head coach Bob Knight goes onto the floor (Photo by G. N. Lowrance/Getty Images) /

The reserve big men

Devonne Giles

Darryl Dora

Robert Tomaszek

If there was one consistent issue that Knight’s teams faced over the entirety of his time in Lubbock, it was that they often lacked elite size in the post.  That would be an issue for his all-time team as well, especially off the bench.

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6-foot-8 JUCO forward Devonne Giles would be the first big off the bench.  In 68 games, he averaged 10.1 points and 5.8 rebounds.  He also blocked 1.6 points per game, something that this team would need when Ellis was off the floor.

Of course, Red Raider fans will always have a soft spot in our hearts for Darry Dora.  Known as the “Kansas Killer” for his two legendary performances in victories over the Jayhawks (he hit the game-winning three in Tech’s double OT win over KU in Lubbock in 2005 and had 19 huge points against the Jayhawks in Tech’s 2007 home win) during his career, the 6-foot-9 Gonzalez, Texas native would have to give his team some rebounding and muscle inside, which wasn’t always his strength.

But his ability to hit shots in the mid-range would be a nice asset to have.  He averaged 5.4 points for his career and made 60 three-pointers.  However, this team wouldn’t want him to play the role of Davide Moretti and think he was a long-range assassin as the most threes he had in one season was the 19 he hit as a senior in 2006-07.  But from time to time, he could be deadly from deep and he had a knack for making big shots.  Just ask Kansas.

Providing some much-needed muscle to a group of lanky bigs would be 6-foot-9, 250-pound Robert Tomaszek who once cheated off of yours truly during a summer school final by literally using his massive arm to reach over and pull my desk closer to his at the back of the classroom after the test had begun disrupting everyone in the room but the professor (who must have been a basketball fan because she simply turned a blind eye to the scraping commotion that came from the back of the room).

When not receiving my help in class, the Polish product averaged 8.0 points and 4.8 rebounds per game in two years after coming over from the JUCO ranks.  He was a player with a decent jumper but his primary goal was to provide muscle in the paint and battle on the boards, something that this team would need from his as well.

While these three bigs were useful players, they might not be of the quality that other eras of the Texas Tech basketball program or other school’s all-time teams would be able to bring off the bench.  As was so often the case in the Knight years, whether or not this team would be able to keep pace on the glass and in the paint would be the biggest determinant as to whether this Red Raider squad would be able to beat teams made up of other greats from other eras.

Ultimately, the level of talent Knight was able to infuse into Texas Tech basketball was a massive upgrade from what we saw to end the 1990s as Tech fell on hard times after the 1996 run to the Sweet 16.  But the players that Knight was able to land were far from elite recruits.

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In fact, by the end of his career, the recruiting game was tough for Knight to play because the AAU and one-and-done scene just was not a pool he wanted to wade into, which made many Red Raider fans feel a bit disappointed in the fact that the program couldn’t fully capitalize on Knight’s name by bringing in elite recruits.   But in all honesty, elite recruits were never the foundation of his career, even in Indiana and certainly not in Lubbock. Rather, almost all of his best players were hard-nosed, blue-collar players who developed into stars under the tutelage of their head coach, which was a testament to just how great of a tactician and developer of talent The General was.

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