Texas Tech basketball: The best moments of Davide Moretti’s Red Raider career

Moretti is surprised by his family prior to Tech’s Sweet 16 matchup with Michigan

Perhaps the most endearing of Davide Moretti’s moments as a Red Raider came away from the court.  Prior to his team’s 2019 Sweet 16 game with Michigan, he was surprised in a team meeting when his family showed up, all the way from Italy.

After a pre-game film session the night before the Red Raiders 63-44 win,  Beard delivered one of his patented speeches about playing for something and someone. He then told Moretti to stand in front of his teammates and discuss who he was playing for.

https://twitter.com/marchmadness/status/1111273634016956416?s=20

Almost sheepishly, the then-sophomore said that he was playing for his teammates and his family.  However, he had no clue that his family had snuck into the room as Beard was speaking.

When Moretti spotted his mother, father, and younger brother at the back of the room, he broke into tears as the rest of the team began to applaud.  It was a touching moment and he would later share that his mother and brother had not been able to see him play in person during his collegiate career.

Seeing how important his family is to him, one has to believe that those bonds were a factor in his decision to return to his native country to play professionally.  One also has to wonder how the current global pandemic changed the perspective for a young man who was fortunate to get back home to his coronavirus-wrecked homeland just before the COVID-19 outbreak reached its peak.

This will always be a special video for Red Raider fans.  So too will the game against Michigan that Moretti had the next night as he scored 15 points and made Tech’s first five shots from the floor.  Perhaps Tech should have tried to have Moretti’s family at every game for the last three years.