Five February Texas Tech basketball games that the Red Raiders must win

A loss at UCF would be bad for Texas Tech's NET ranking

Texas Tech hasn't been great on the road this season. In fact, going just 2-3 on the season in other team's arenas, that's an area the Red Raiders need to improve before Selection Sunday given that the committee often takes road records into account when seeding teams with similar resumes.

This year, Central Florida is no slouch at home. They have taken out Kansas and West Virginia in Orlando but they did drop games to BYU and Baylor.

One factor that might work in Tech's favor in Orlando on February 24, is that by then the Knights could be so far out of Big 12 and NCAA Tournament contention that they or their home crowd might have thrown in the towel.

Between now and when Tech visits UCF, the Knights have a three-game stretch against Oklahoma, Tech, and BYU with the last two of those games on the road. If they drop all of those games, they would be looking at a five-game losing streak and that would take a lot of vigor out of their fan base, and maybe their players as well.

Currently, UCF is No. 72 in the NET rankings meaning that a win in Orlando would be a Quad-1 win at this moment. But it is likely that the Knights will be lower than that by the last week of the month so dropping that game would be a bad look for the Red Raiders. Of course, that's a game that Tech can't take for granted, especially if the Knights are motivated and playing hard even if they don't have much to play for.