DTN Daily Diatribe | Texas Tech News, Notes and Links | 2012-01-16

I'm short on time today, so you get a shortened version of the DTN DD.

ODDS AND ENDS | There was a letter from the editor in the LAJ on Sunday where he explained why the LAJ was a few weeks late on the parking garage story. The main reason cited was that they had not hired a higher education reporter (it's now Brittany Hoover and she did a good job with her story), but that excuse is really just sad. It makes it sound like there are no other capable reporters of at least acknowledging the issue. Overall, the letter says that the LAJ is to cover Texas Tech, not to overly praise or to make the institution angry. There is a sentence at the end of the letter:

Next week, more on how we cover Tech — this time focusing on Tech football.

I don't know what that means, but I've got my popcorn ready.

LADY RAIDER BASKETBALL | LAJ's David Just writes that the Lady Raiders are playing like a top 10 team in spurts, but not consistently and the Lady Raiders have lost two straight and will take on Baylor on Wednesday. Head coach Kristy Curry said that the team just needs to get to work:

"You can talk about top 10, but it doesn’t really mean anything and it didn’t mean anything at the time other than to compliment these kids on their hard work," Tech coach Kristy Curry said. "Let’s understand that we’re continuing to just try and get better every day and that’s all we’re trying to do. We’ll continue to get better, we’ll weather this and we’ve got 14 games to go. As disappointing as it is and as much as it hurts we just got to roll up our sleeves and stay at it."

Just also writes that there will be no television for the Baylor game and has some miscellaneous notes.

RED RAIDER BASKETBALL | LAJ's Nick Kosmider writes that SF Jaye Crockett is stepping up his play in the Big 12 (and he's the only one that has):

Though this is his third season at Tech, Crockett is still, in many ways, learning on the fly like the team’s newcomers. He redshirted during his first season in Lubbock, then averaged a little more than 13 minutes per game as a freshmen, scoring 4.8 points per game. Still, Crockett knows that as one of few players with experience, he needs to continue carrying a large load as the team attempts to find its offensive identity.

"I knew I had to step it up coming into Big 12 play," Crockett said last week. "As one of the returning players, I knew it was going to be tough for some of the freshman and the new players we have."