Texas Tech basketball: My favorite in-person memories as a Red Raider

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The Texas Tech Red Raiders reveal new banners for their 2018-2019 Big 12 Championship and the 2019 Final Four before (Photo by John E. Moore III/Getty Images) /

Raising the Final Four Banner in 2019

Prior to this season, the thought of a season-opener against Eastern Illinois would not have moved the needle much. In fact, now living several hours from Lubbock, I likely would have given my tickets to such a game to some friends as driving that far to watch Tech pluck the wings off of some low-major team would not have been worth the drive and the overnight stay.

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But that’s exactly what I did on November 5th of last year. Why? Because I had to see for myself the 2019 Final Four banner unfurled inside the U.S.A.

It was a sight that I never thought I’d see and one that I wouldn’t have missed for almost anything. And in a way, it provided closure after an offseason spent lamenting the National Title Game loss.

Dropping the banner in a pregame ceremony that Included a moving video montage of the previous season, the Texas Tech basketball program provided everyone in attendance that night with an unforgettable moment. Also on display that evening was the program’s first-ever Big 12 championship banner.

Watching that ceremony, I couldn’t help but reflect on just how far the program had come in the Chris Beard era. In fact it wasn’t lost on me that just over a half a decade earlier Texas tech basketball had been as irrelevant as any program from a high-major conference can be.

During the wasteland that was the Pat Knight-Billy Gillespie-Chris Walker era the Final Four felt as unreachable as placing a human colony on one of the moons of Saturn. That’s why this was a can’t-miss moment for so many Red Raider fans.

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It was a confirmation of Tech’s ascension to the highest ranks of the sport and a reminder that from here, it really is possible. The Matador Song tells us to “bear our banners far and wide” and never have we been more proud to do just that than when we showed the world our first Final Four banner.

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