ODDS AND ENDS | As noted in this FanShot, former Red Raider Wes Welker has finally pulled the trigger and is engaged to a former Miss Hooters', Anna Burns. I'm thinking that Wes and RdrPwr can maybe collaborate on colors, tuxedos, etc. Have you ever heard someone on the television talk about the "route tree"? Well, National Football Post's Matt Bowen has a nice breakdown of what that is . . . Totally Texas Tech's TTURed has some fantastic pictures of campus construction. And before you click on the link, know that there are some photos of the Hance Chapel, so if you don't want to see it then don't click, but I do appreciate TTURed taking pictures of all of the construction projects. This isn't about agreeing or disagreeing with the concept, this is TTURed documenting what is happening with the construction on the campus, good, bad or indifferent. I've previously referred to TTURed as a modern-day Winston Reeves. If you don't know who that is, then click the link and take a look at some of the photos that he took and is a part of Texas Tech history. I don't know if anyone else is documenting this sort of thing on campus on a regular basis and at some point, TTURed's work will be included in a collection for Texas Tech, I'm almost positive of that . . . per SB Nation's Grant Brisbee, if you haven't seen the Marlins' home run feature, well, it's sorta spectacular . . . the LAJ's Brittany Hoover has her story on the Leach offer and Texas Tech's declination of the offer and maybe its because I'm reading it early, but I think it's pretty even-handed . . .

CONFERENCE REALIGNMENT | The WV Gazette has some pretty awesome quotes from interim commissioner, Chuck Neinas. Here's Neinas on Missouri:

"The one thing that gets lost is we're in this predicament because the SEC invited Missouri," Neinas said. "But the SEC was willing to play with 13 [rather than 14] next season. We made an offer to Missouri that was financially beneficial to stay for another year. Missouri made the decision not to accept.

"We had a teleconference call with those in the SEC, Big East, ACC, Mountain West and Conference USA. We all agreed we could save money and avoid litigation if all held serve for 2012-13. All agreed. But Missouri made a very selfish decision. It's been very disruptive. Missouri gave us notice in November [of 2011] and it's pretty difficult to move forward then."

LADY RAIDER BASKETBALL | DT's Mike Gutierrez writes that the ladies hope to stop the losing streak and will host Texas on Saturday. Here's head coach Kristy Curry:

"Texas has been very similar to us," she said. "They’ve lost a couple of close ones. They’ve shot poorly, and usually when you shoot poorly you lose. They’ve been in the same situation as our team. They’ve got three wins and we have two (in Big 12 play). It’s a great opportunity for us to come out and get that third win and defend our home court."

LAJ's David Just has a brief notebook, including a bit about how G Monique Smalls is playing well.

TEXAS TECH BASEBALL | The official site has the run-down on the players receiving pre-season accolades.

RED RAIDER BASKETBALL | LAJ's Nick Kosmider names a player of the week, which is F Jordan Tolbert and Kosmider also has a notebook including some of the problems plaguing this team.

TEXAS TECH FOOTBALL | I picked this up on the Twitter, K/P Keegan Carter tweeted that he was offered preferred walk-on at Texas Tech. I found this profile on Cater with some video of him kicking and he went to Oklahoma Christian high school.

I thought this was entertaining, SB Nation's Spencer Hall continues his National Signing Day how-to and has gems like this:

Statement: "I'm sure he's going to be the next in our long line of awesome [position goes here]."

Translation: "My expectations for him are already wildly unrealistic, and this recruit is already a disappointment. Should he fail to be anything but a freak in his first year, I will demand his immediate transfer, and question his character in no uncertain terms. I'm not a very nice or realistic person."

Box Score | Post Game Quotes

TRYING TO FIND A BRIGHT SPOT | I was pretty sure that this was going to be the result in that KSU would hold Texas Tech to under 40% shooting and limit Texas Tech offensively. That did happen and as mentioned on the right, two of the players that should be leading this team didn't score at all and had otherwise awful nights. Nevertheless, it was so nice to see and I had no idea that what I wrote yesterday, "At this point, I don't know if it's worth to give Kevin Wagner the starting role as this team's point guard," would actually come true. It was nice to see Wagner see significant minutes and yesterday when I wrote that, my thought was, "why the hell not." Tolbert looked significantly better and that's so encouraging, if nothing for my and his psyche.

I still can't say that I understand how minutes are being distributed and why a player will get 36 minutes despite being absolutely awful, while another player rides the pine. I just don't have a good handle on why certain players play and others don't.

Jararez Willis | Willis played 36 minutes, was 0-8 from the floor, grabbed 3 boards and the official boxscore says that he only had 3 turnovers and 2 assists, but I would promise you that he had at least 5 turnovers last night. This is one of those situations where I cannot explain why he got 36 minutes, but maybe he did because there's no one else to give these minutes. I don't know. Rather than watch Willis not contribute anything, I would have rather watched Petteway.

Ty Nurse | Minimal minutes, 6 and didn't do anything. Nurse is such a liability on defense.

DeShon Minnis | Started again, was a turnover machine and couldn't hit his only shot or make either of his two free throws. Blah.

Luke Adams | Minimal minutes, but he at least made a three-point shot, but did turn the ball over twice.

Jordan Tolbert | So good to see some monster dunks, at the very least, this keeps me hopeful. Tolbert was 6 of 8 from the floor and the same from the line, scoring 18 points, grabbing 8 boards, 2 turnovers and 2 blocks. Really just glad to see him get back on track a bit.

Robert Lewandowski | Lew attempted just 1 shot, a three-point shot, had 5 rebounds and continued to throw the ball away from the high post in trying to feed Tolbert as he also had 5 turnovers. On the positive side, he did have 3 blocks.

Jaye Crockett | Crockett went from 2 minutes to 25, so that's something and he was efficient, making 3 of 4 from the floor and 3 of 5 from the line, had 5 rebounds and looked good. I still can't explain why he's not starting over Lew.

Terran Petteway | Minimal minutes.

Clark Lammert | Minimal minutes, had a foul and a turnover.

Jaron Nash | Minimal minutes and continues his assault on rims while shooting free throws.

ODDS AND ENDS | Wanted to go ahead and get this out there, Fox34 has obtained a copy of Texas Tech's rejection letter from Leach's offer to settle. Personally, I don't think that this is anything new, it's the same reasoning that Texas Tech has always had, and those reasons really don't really matter until the Texas Supreme Court rules on the sovereign immunity issue. I won't get into what the letter could have or should have said as that's seemingly a fruitless endeavor.

Remember last week that I thought that I'd be able to tell the story about changing the logo? Well, that story is going to have to wait for a while.

CONFERENCE REALIGNMENT | The Chronicle of Higher Education reported yesterday morning that the Big 12 is looking at conference expansion, although later in the day, Big 12 Commissioner Chuck Neinas said that the Big 12 wasn't considering any additional teams. I think the Big 12 will eventually get back to 12 teams, but what do I know. You can also listen to Neinas on Double T 104.3 from yesterday.

LADY RAIDER BASKETBALL | This team is reeling. A 19 point loss to Kansas (official site) is not what this team needs and add to the loss is the fact that F Kierra Mallard was left in Lubbock with an apparent injury. LAJ's David Just recaps the game:

Tech returns home for a three-game homestand beginning Saturday against Texas. A win against the Longhorns would go a long way to boost the lagging confidence.

"One of the kids spoke up and said we’ve been here before," Curry said. "We’ve had the low point before. We bounced back. We have an opportunity to go back to Lubbock and be 5-5 in three games and be right back in the thick of things."

RED RAIDER BASKETBALL | It continues to be bad for the men, a 22 point loss, 69-47 (official site). I'll have some post game thoughts later this morning. LAJ's Nick Kosmider and DT's Chois Woodman recap the game and this is from the DT article:

"When you get a layup you need to make it, either that or get two foul shots," he said. "We miss — I mean we just continue to miss layups, and I have a hard time understanding how a college basketball player can continue to miss layups. I mean we missed 13 shots within four feet of the basket."

Sigh.

TEXAS TECH FOOTBALL | LAJ's Don Williams talks with former QB Steven Sheffield who is playing arena league football. He's also still unhappy that OC Neal Brown didn't play both he and QB Taylor Potts in 2010:

"It kind of blew my mind how (offensive coordinator) Neal Brown thought the only way to win was to start one quarterback," Sheffield said. "You have two seniors that have been there for five years. Why can’t they both play?

"Even though it’s a close race, you tell the media it’s a close race and everyone knows it’s a close race, you have one guy play 90 percent of the snaps and one guy sit back and his senior season goes to waste.

"You would think, ‘Hey, I have two good quarterbacks; let’s try to use both of them. There’s things Potts is better at than Sticks (Sheffield). There’s things Sticks is better at than Potts.’ They’re on the same team. Why not use them both?"

I hate teams that play two quarterbacks. Both Leach and Brown essentially chose Potts and I still think it was the right choice in both instances. I guess I'm somewhat surprised that Sheffield still harbors those emotions, but I can't say that I know everything that went on behind the scenes.

In a couple of additional notes, per LAJ's George Watson, the NCAA has banned 7-on-7 tournaments on college campuses. They can still have the tournaments, just not on campus. TAMU held the state's biggest 7-on-7 tournament on campus and many thought it was a significant advantage for TAMU to have so many players on campus. Additionally, per the mothership, the NCAA is considering going to a 7 win threshold to make a bowl game and I would approve this measure.

Date | January 25, 2012
Time | 8:00 pm
Location | Lubbock, TX
TV | ESPNU
Radio | Affiliates

Javarez Willis (5-11/171) | 8.9 PPG | 1.8 APG
Ty Nurse (6-1/180) | 8.6 PPG | 2.0 RPG
Terran Petteway (6-6/185) | 4.4 PPG | 2.3 RPG
Jordan Tolbert (6-7/210) | 12.5 PPG | 6.2 RPG
Robert Lewandowski (6-10/256) | 7.5 PPG | 4.0 RPG

Angel Rodriguez (5-11/180) | 6.8 PPG | 2.2 APG
Will Spradling (6-2/180) | 10.8 PPG | 2.7 APG
Rodney McGruder (6-4/205) | 15.5 PPG | 5.6 RPG
Jamar Samuels (6-7/230) | 11.1 PPG | 6.8 RPG
Thomas Gipson (6-7/275) | 8.7 PPG | 5.7 RPG

Go Lady Red Raiders!!!

RAIDER !!!! POWER!!!!

Game: #21 Lady Red Raiders vs. Kansas Jayhawks

Date: Wednesday, January 25, 2012

Time: 7:00pm CST

Location: Lawrence, KS at the Allen Fieldhouse

Radio: Texas Tech Sports Network (97.3 FM Lubbock) and Jayhawk Radio Network (KLWN 1320-AM Lawrence and KUDL 1660-AM Kansas City

Gametracker: www.texastech.com/gametracker and www.kuathletics.com/gametracker

Streaming video: www.kuathletics.com