DTN Daily Diatribe | Texas Tech News, Notes and Links | 2012-02-14

LADY RAIDER BASKETBALL | This is from ESPN and I think this accurately describes the Lady Raiders' current tournament situation:

Texas Tech: The Lady Raiders were fading and about to play themselves out of the field. The only wins they've managed since Jan. 7 were over lowly Missouri and even faster-fading Texas. Tech couldn't let Iowa State get of Lubbock with a win. It didn't, even on a day when the ball and the basket did not meet very often. Chynna Brown scored 19 points in her first start of the season and Texas Tech used defense and second-chance points to win 51-41. Nothing about the game looks that impressive, except the Lady Raiders had to have it. Why? Four of Tech's final six games are on the road and all except a visit from Texas on Wednesday are against teams ahead of Tech in the standings. The Lady Raiders survived as a winner this Sunday but might need to win on a few more Sundays before this race is over.

I get the feeling that they need to do more.

Per LAJ's David Just and DT's Chois Woodman, the United Spirit Arena will be hosting first and second round games in 2013. This is obviously fantastic for Lubbock and hopefully Texas Tech will be hosting this program.

RED RAIDER SOFTBALL | DT's Matt Villanueva details the 4 game losing streak with the softball team and will be traveling to Las Vegas for a weekend tournament.

RED RAIDER BASEBALL | Per the official site, CF Barrett Barnes and RHP John Neely are earning some All-American recognition without having played a game. Neely was named 2nd team All-American and Barnes was named honorable mention for College Baseball Insider. You can also check out CBI's Big 12 preview, which I found interesting that new assistant coach Tim Tadlock was named assistant coach that was most ready for a head coaching job.

RED RAIDER BASKETBALL | I've got a Texas A&M and Texas Tech preview coming up later this morning as well as links to this morning's articles. I did want to point out that per Ridiculous Upside, Andre Emmett will sign to play with the New Jersey Nets. Congrats to Andre!

TEXAS TECH FOOTBALL | DTN is your home for finding out about preferred walk-ons via Twitter. Searching again this morning, I ran across a tweet from Israel Iheanacho, a 5-11/212 athlete that was previously attending City College of San Francisco, but attended high school at Alief Taylor in Houston (Rivals and ESPN), where he said that he would be transferring to Texas Tech.

Dave Campbell's Texas Football had a bit on WR Reginald Davis and named him the offensive player of the year for 1A:

If you go back and read the liveblog from the Class 1A Division II state championship game between Tenaha and Munday, you’ll read how I feel about Tenaha’s Davis. He was, quite simply, the most breathtaking player I saw this season, and his speed is something to behold. His top-line speed helped him run for 1,915 yards and 36 touchdowns…and his savvy passing game led him to 2,015 yards and 26 touchdowns through the air. Davis was simply sublime, and with all due respect to players like Mason RB David Mora and Stamford QB Hagen Hutchinson, I think the TWSA nailed it. It’s also why we made Davis our 1A Player of the Year.

Per Scout's Greg Powers, Texas Tech now has two commitments for the 2013 class, DB Tavares Garner (Rivals | YouTube) and WR Devin Lauderdale (Rivals | YouTube). Lauderdale is already rated as a 4-star receiver while Garner doesn't have a rating just yet. The staff is getting off to a quick start and more than likely, I am going to wait on doing some profiles on any commits until there's a bit more data, although I will start converting the sidebar to the 2013 class.

I don't know why (maybe I shouldn't care) but LAJ's Don Williams has an article with former Red Raider Ryan Aycock.

Per the official site, Chris Thomsen was officially named the offensive line coach.