247Sports Embed Resource
Texas Tech has been tabbed a three seed in the West regional and will face North Carolina-Wilmington on Thursday, March 20 at 9:10 p.m. in Wichita, Kansas. There is nothing remotely surprising in this NCAA tournament configuration for the Red Raiders. It fell pretty much as the bracketologists predicted. Indeed, with the full disclosure of the NCAA tournament plotting methodology, the controversies these days are minimal and confined pretty much to the final two or three teams to make the field and the final two or three that didn't. Thirty or more years ago, Selection Sunday was the shootout at the OK Corral. Now it's an octogenarian muttering under her breath because Walgreens didn't carry her favorite brand of digestive biscuit.
That's progress, I suppose.
One thing that has not changed, however, is the invariable death march that is the path to the Final Four. Even in supposedly weak regionals, the road to college basketball's holy grail has been arduous and tortuous, and that certainly holds true for Texas Tech as it seeks to traverse the West regional to San Antonio and the Final Four.
The No. 1 seed in the regional is Florida. Supposedly, the Gators are the least of the No. 1 seeds. Ha! The way I see it, Florida is the best team in the country as of this moment, while Auburn, the tournament's number one overall seed, is the least likely of the lot to reach San Antonio.
Florida is playing perfect basketball. There is not a defense in the college game that can slow them down, and they are knit together tighter than any shawl grandma Clampett ever whomped up. The NCAA tournament introduces deranged convolutions into the best laid plans of coaches and teams, but unless that happens, rocket ship Florida appears headed toward a natty.
Number two seed St. John's, however, might just be the team to send the Gators into deep space with no means of return. The Johnnies are not a poetic and elegant team like Florida. On the contrary, they're two pounds of ground mutton, a platter of boiled eggs, and a pitcher of Malt Duck. In other words, they're a classic throwback Big East team that looks like it was blasted out of a mold in 1985. And that makes sense because head coach Rick Pitino cut his teeth coaching in the Big East in the late 80s.
If St. John's meets up with Florida, they could beat the Gators by mussing their hair making them feel sheepish about their puny biceps. Done into plain English, the Johnnies could win by making the game dirty and disjointed, fouling often and hard, and reducing the game to a halfcourt grinder. St. John's doesn't have Florida's skill, but they've got a coach who knows every trick in the book and a bunch of eastern ballers who could get into the head of Aristotle. And that might be enough for the upset.
Of course, for St. John's to get to Florida, they might have to go through Texas Tech. And the Red Raiders will have to defeat UNC-Wilmington and either Drake or Missouri. Without doing a preview of the Red Raiders and the Seahawks, a healthy Texas Tech should be too much for the team from the Coastal Athletic Association. UNC-Wilmington is designed much like Arizona in that they score inside the paint and at the free throw line, and crash the boards, but doing that against a Big XII team is a much taller order than doing it against the Blue Hens.
Drake and Missouri would obviously present a stiffer challenge.
The Bulldogs are 30-3, and that is extremely impressive regardless of the competition. And speaking of the competition, Drake has beaten Kansas State and Vanderbilt. They're also coached by the great Ben McCollum, a friend of Grant McCasland's, and feature Bennett Stirtz, possibly the best guard in the country nobody has heard of.
The Missouri Tigers, a Big XII foe for several years, went 10-8 in the SEC, which is supposedly a much tougher outfit than the Warsaw Pact ever was. Mizzou does own wins over Florida, Alabama and Kansas, although those were earlier in the season. The Tigers have lost five of their last seven, but are still a very dangerous club. The Drake-Missouri clash figures to be a war, and the survivor might be softened up for Texas Tech, assuming the Red Raiders get past UNC-Wilmington.
No matter how you slice and dice it, this is a mighty tough row to hoe. But the No. 3 seed Red Raiders of 2019 had to go through Northern Kentucky, Buffalo, Michigan and Gonzaga to reach their Final Four. The 2025 Red Raiders are faced with a similar ordeal. It looks mighty brutal, but it can be done.