Tech Preview

On Wednesday night the Aggies will travel to the high plains of the Texas panhandle and attempt to deny Bob Knight his 900th win. As we all know, way too well, strange things can happen in Lubbock after the sun goes down, and as I woke up this morning I have a less than enthusiastic opinion about tonight’s game. Last year, the Raiders managed to beat A&M in both meetings and handed the Aggies two of their 7 losses on the year.

The biggest thing that worries me, aside from our friends in Lubbock getting extra rowdy whenever the Aggies come to town, is that Turgeon’s bunch has only played one true road game this season, way back on December 2nd when they lost at Arizona 67-78. I will be curious to see how they respond to the hostile environment at the United Spirit Arena tonight.

The game is going to be telecast nationally on ESPN2, and the Aggies are coming in ranked #10 in the AP poll and #9 in the coach’s poll and playing some pretty good basketball. Nationally, the Aggies rank 3rd in Field Goal Percentage where they make 51.8% of their shots and 7th in Field Goal Percentage Defense where they are holding opponents to only 36.6% shooting. When you rank in the top-10 nationally in both FG% offense and defense, it should be no surprise that the Aggies also rank 5th nationally in Scoring Margin where they are outpacing their opponents by 20.7 points per game on average.

Texas Tech, who is coming into the game with a 9-6 record overall, is led by Senior Martin Zeno who is averaging 16.1 points and 4.9 rebounds per game. The other couple of guys to keep an eye on are 6’3” junior guard Alan Voskuil (12.7 points / 3.8 rebounds), 5’11” freshman guard John Roberson (12 points / 3.1 assists) and 6’5” freshman forward Mike Singletary (6.7 points / 2.7 rebounds).

Bobby Knight has 9 guys on the roster who average double-digit minutes, and in their 55-74 loss at Oklahoma State on Saturday he managed to get 12 guys into the game, 11 of whom played 6 minutes or more.

Vegas has inserted the Aggies as 4 point favorites for tonight’s game, and I am quite conflicted trying to decide to go with my gut feeling or go with what my head is telling me.

What the heck, let’s do the proper thing and get on board with the good guys.

The Aggie Hoops Report’s Final Score Prediction:

Texas A&M 75
Texas Tech 68