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Texas Tech basketball: Analyzing the Red Raiders 2023-24 non-conference schedule

By Matthew Conner

Feb 25, 2023; Lubbock, Texas, USA; A general view of the Texas Tech Double T on the court before the game between the TCU Horned Frogs and the Texas Tech Red Raiders at United Supermarkets Arena. Mandatory Credit: Michael C. Johnson-USA TODAY Sports
Feb 25, 2023; Lubbock, Texas, USA; A general view of the Texas Tech Double T on the court before the game between the TCU Horned Frogs and the Texas Tech Red Raiders at United Supermarkets Arena. Mandatory Credit: Michael C. Johnson-USA TODAY Sports /
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Texas Tech’s head men’s basketball coach Grant McCasland attends the Matadors’ playoff game against San Antonio Corinthians, Tuesday, July 11, 2023, at Lubbock-Cooper High School in Woodrow.
Texas Tech’s head men’s basketball coach Grant McCasland attends the Matadors’ playoff game against San Antonio Corinthians, Tuesday, July 11, 2023, at Lubbock-Cooper High School in Woodrow. /

Though the focus of almost every Texas Tech fan is on the new football season, basketball is always on the minds of most Red Raiders as well.  On Tuesday, the Texas Tech basketball program revealed its full non-conference schedule giving us more clarity about what the upcoming season will hold.

A month ago, the Big 12 released the conference opponents each team will play both at home and away.  However, we are still waiting to know the order of those contests.

Now, we at least know what awaits the Red Raiders in the non-conference portion of the season, which begins on November 8th and concludes on New Year’s Day.

Keep in mind that the Big 12/SEC Challenge is now defunct taking one meaningful non-conference opportunity away from the Red Raiders. In recent seasons, that event provided Tech with resume-building opportunities against Kentucky, LSU, South Carolina, and Arkansas among others.  Now, the Red Raiders will have to replace that annual game against a major-conference opponent on its own.

https://twitter.com/TexasTechMBB/status/1699170736684830841?s=20

It will be interesting to see how new head coach Grant McCasland goes about building his non-conference schedule moving forward.  Many criticized his two predecessors, Chris Beard and Mark Adams, for the way they built theirs.

Finding it difficult to get major conference teams to schedule a home-and-home series with the Red Raiders given how difficult it has become for road teams to win in Lubbock, most of the home games Tech hosted outside of Big 12 play or the Big 12/SEC Challenge during the Beard and Adams years were

against mid or low major teams.

Of course, the Big 12/Big East Battle, which began in 2019, is going to bring the opportunity for a quality non-conference game to United Supermarkets Arena every other year.  However, in the four years of that event, only one Big East team has played in Lubbock; Georgetown last season.

In 2020, when Tech was supposed to host St. John’s, the game was canceled due to COVID-19.  This year, McCasland and his team will have to travel to Indianapolis, Indiana to face Butler on November 30th.

That will be one of the highlights of Tech’s non-conference schedule and one game that Tech needs to win to boost its resume.  Let’s take a closer look at the full non-conference slate, though, because there are some interesting components of this part of the 2023-24 season.

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