Undefeated Red Raiders stroll into town for showdown tonight
By Danny Gillham
Sports Editor

Getting lost in the shuffle of tonight’s game against Texas Tech and head coach Bob Knight is one thing.

There is actually a game, and the Red Raiders are a very talented team.

While most of the talk seems to be focused on Knight, and the sellout of the game, Texas Tech comes in undefeated on the short season with some impressive numbers.

The Red Raiders return four starters from a 23-9 squad that was a No. 6 seed in the NCAA tournament. They are allowing 65.0 points a game, while averaging 81.7. The average only 11.7 turnovers a game, and shoot almost 50 percent from the field.

Head coach Neil Dougherty said it will take the Frogs’ best game to beat the disciplined and fundamentally sound Red Raiders.

“We’re going to have to play the most complete game we’ve played all year,” Dougherty said. “That means 40 minutes of good execution of both ends on the floor, especially on defense. We can’t get impatient and gamble for steals, and cannot lose our focus.

“We told our guys basically if this is a 70 to 80 possession game, we have a 70-80 round fight, 35 second rounds a piece, and we be willing to stand in there and fight.”

One thing that could help in the Frogs’ favor is two of the team’s players have connections to Texas Tech.

Junior guard Ron Hobbs transferred to TCU after his sophomore year. He appeared in 42 games, starting 16 of them in his time there.

Junior guard Marcus Shropshire is redshirting this season after transferring from Tech. He played one year in Knight’s system, and started 10 of the 51 games he played in for the Red Raiders.

Hobbs said it helps to know the tendencies of some of his former teammates, and Shropshire has helped in preparing for Knight’s system.

“He tells exactly what they’re doing,” Hobbs said. “When we see their plays on tape, we don’t know what they call. Shropshire tells us when they say this, they are running that.”

Dougherty said it would be nice to think Shropshire and Hobbs are helping in preparing for Texas Tech, but he is not sure how much it really matters.

“You would like to think it does but to be honest I’ve seen his teams enough before to understand what they do,” Dougherty said. “I think what they you can do you can easily see. They’re easy to prepare for, but hard to play against.”

With the sellout crowd expected, senior forward Bingo Merriex said the team can take the opportunity to show everyone the team’s improvement against a quality team.

“It will be a new experience for the guys on the team, I think it will be fun for the guys that haven’t played in this situation yet,” Merriex said. “It’s going to be very exciting.”

Danny Gillham