Texas Tech basketball: Three matchups to watch vs. TCU

The Texas Tech basketball team finally gets its first look at TCU tonight and these three individual matchups will be critical.

It’s hard to fathom but on the second day of March Chris Beard’s team is about to face one of its conference opponents for the first time this season. That’s because COVID-19 and mother nature both conspired to keep Tech from facing TCU thus far this year meaning that when the two teams meet tonight in Lubbock, it will be the first time in nearly 13 months that the two rivals have squared off.

"“It seems like we’ve already played them two or three times as many times as we’ve gotten to the game-plan stage,” Beard said Monday."

But for Beard and his Red Raiders, this will be the first opportunity to actually face the Frogs, who sit in eighth place in the conference standings with a 5-8 record in league play.  And this is a game Tech can’t afford to drop.

Of course, losing tonight would not put the Red Raiders on the NCAA Tournament bubble.  But what it would do is erase the positive momentum that the program picked up by beating No. 14 Texas on Saturday.

This TCU team is not one to be taken lightly though.  Already this season, head coach Jamie Dixon’s team has taken down Oklahoma State twice (something Tech has not managed to figure out how to do this season) as well as Texas.

But when it comes to beating a Chris Beard team, the boys from Fort Worth have not had much luck.  In eight all-time matchups against a Beard-led Red Raider squad, TCU is just 2-6.  What’s more, TCU has never beaten Beard in Lubbock.

All-time, TCU is just 12-44 in Lubbock.  In fact, the last time they managed to leave the South Plains with a win was in January of 2015.

So let’s go inside this matchup between the 15-8 Red Raiders and the 12-10 Horned Frogs by examining which matchups will be most critical tonight.  And we will start with what could be a rather physical battle in the post.