Texas Tech basketball: The all-time Dallas/Fort Worth Red Raider team

Power Forward: Norense Odiase

Every team needs a leader and Fort Worth native Norense Odiase would be able to fill that role on this team.  That’s because the 6-foot-8 forward was more than willing to sacrifice personal glory for the good of the team during his Red Raider career (2014-19).  On such a star-studded team like this one, Odiase would be the muscle and the grit that cleaned up all the garbage and let the stars shine.

Of course, his stats don’t do him justice.  For his career, he averaged just 5.4 points and 4.6 rebounds per game.  But all of us who watched him play on a game-by-game basis understand just what he brought to the court.

After arriving in Lubbock as a 300-plus pound freshman, he worked tirelessly on his body and got down to 250 pounds of sheer muscle.  That allowed him to be an almost immoveable force down low, something that helped him guard much taller players as he simply would not let them get post position close to the basket.

Odiase was also a team leader off the court.  When he spoke, his teammates listened.  That’s somewhat unusual for a player who never made an All-Big 12 team and who was never a statistical leader for the Red Raiders.

But on this team, stats wouldn’t be the question.  Just about every other player would be more than capable of going off for 20 points in any given night.

What this team might be a bit short on would be the street-dog mentality that Chris Beard speaks of so often.  That’s why players like Odiase and Gotcher would be so invaluable to this roster.