Next Up -Texas Tech In New York

Date 12/20 || Time 8:00 || Venue Madison Square Garden || Video ESPN

With the exception of Michigan on February 21st, Duke will finish off non-conference play on Saturday with Texas Tech in Madison Square Garden.

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Why the Garden? Well, first because Duke has a lot of alum in the area. They call it Cameron North for a reason. And second, playing in MSG always draws a lot of attention. Duke could play in United Center – and in fact did, facing off against Arkansas there on November 27th – and it doesn’t draw the sort of attention that MSG does.

Years ago, Texas Tech was an afterthought. Then Chris Beard made the Red Raiders a major power and now Grant McCasland has done very well there too. He has an interesting history.

Other than two-year stints at Northeastern JUCO as an assistant and Arkansas State as a head coach, McCasland’s career has been entirely in the Lone Star state. He’s also been at Midland College, Midwestern State, Baylor as an assistant, North Texas and now Texas Tech.

And he’s won everywhere. And this is really important to understand: it’s really hard to win at places like Midland, Midwestern State, Arkansas State and North Texas. His NCAA record is 263-109 (.707) and 142-32 (.816).

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For perspective, Mike Krzyzewski’s career winning percentage at Duke is .766. We’re the last people to take anything from Coach K, but even he’d probably admit it’s easier to succeed at Duke than it is at the places McCasland has coached.

Texas Tech finished 28-9 last season (McCasland’s Texas Tech record: 55-21. Winning percentage .724) and so far this season, is 8-3. The losses have come against Illinois (81-77), Purdue (86-56) and Arkansas (93-86).

Arkansas is the only common opponent but Texas Tech also played Wake Forest, so presumably that video will be a two-for-one for scouting purposes.

Impressively, he’s not coaching the same way at Texas Tech as he did at North Texas. With the Mean Green, with less talent, he played a more…

Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/articles/next-texas-tech-york-140500114.html

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Publish date : 2025-12-19 14:05:00

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