Saturday, December 1
Miami, Fla.
1:30 p.m.
Texas Tech Athletics
vs
Memphis
PREVIEW: Memphis
November 28, 2018 | Men's Basketball
GAME NOTES Hoophall Miami InvitationalESPNURADIO: TTSNLIVE STATSPRESSER: Beard, Owens, OdiaseTICKETSFireside ChatMemphis Basketball
Red Raiders vs. Memphis | 1:30 p.m. (CT), Saturday | Miami, Florida - AmericanAirlines Arena | ESPNU | TTSN
LUBBOCK, Texas – The No. 20/19-ranked Texas Tech Red Raiders return to action at 1:30 p.m. on Saturday against Memphis at the Air Force Reserve Hoophall Miami Invitational at the AmericanAirlines Arena. The Red Raiders (6-0) and Tigers (3-3) are the second of four games being played at the Hoophall Invitational on Saturday with St. John's playing Georgia Tech, North Carolina State and Vanderbilt matching up and Miami and Yale finishing off the day for the fourth annual event.
Texas Tech, which is ranked No. 20 in the AP Poll and No. 19 in the USA TODAY Coaches Poll, is one of only 17Â teams in the nation who are still unbeaten.The team has won all six of their games by double-digits and is second in the nation by limiting opponents to 33.6 percent shooting, owns a 27.5 scoring margin advantage and ranks third by limiting opponents to only 51.0 points per game. The Red Raiders have three players averaging in double-figure scoring in Jarrett Culver (18.8), Davide Moretti (11.0) and Matt Mooney (11.0), while the team is 12th nationally with a 6.7 turnover margin advantage and lead the Big 12 with a 1.52 assist-to-turnover ratio. The Red Raiders are 6-0 for the second straight season and for the sixth time in program history. The record for wins to start a season came in 1929-30 with the team going 12-0 and most recently a nine-game winning streak to start the 2009-10 season. Texas Tech lost to Seton Hall in the seventh game of last season for its first loss.
SERIES/LOCATION: The Red Raiders and Tigers will be meeting for the seventh time when they play in Miami on Saturday. Memphis owns a 6-0 advantage in the series that began in 1954 with the Tigers winning a 75-66 game in Tennessee and most recently an 80-55 game in 1985 in Lubbock. The teams have played one previous neutral court game on Dec. 27, 1956 in Oklahoma City with the Tigers taking a 99-77 win. Texas Tech is playing in Florida for the first time since 2011 when the team had three games at the Old Spice Classic in Orlando and will be playing in Miami for only the second time ever. The last time the Red Raiders played in Miami was on Dec. 22, 1952 when they lost 79-64 to the University of Miami.
COACHING NOTES: Chris Beard won his 50th game as the head coach at Texas Tech with a 70-52 victory over No. 25 Nebraska on Nov. 20, 2018 to capture the Hall of Fame Classic Championship. He enters Saturday's game with 51 wins as the Red Raider head coach and is 147-54 in seven years as a head coach in the NCAA after last Saturday's 93-62 win over Northern Colorado. Beard matched Bob Knight for the fastest to 50 wins at Texas Tech with both head coaches reaching their 50th win in Lubbock in their 74th game leading the program. Knight won his 50th game at Tech against UTEP on Dec. 3, 2003 with Beard as an assistant coach. Beard is currently 37-4 in home games at Texas Tech, including a 23-0 record in non-conference home games. Texas Tech assistant coach Glynn Cyprien coached at Memphis from 2009-11 and was the head coach of the NBA G League's Memphis Hustle last year. Â
PLAYER NOTES: Jarrett Culver leads the Red Raiders with 18.8 points and 4.3 rebounds per game after going for 20 points and six assists in the win over Northern Colorado last Saturday. A sophomore from Lubbock, Culver has led the team in scoring in five of six games this season and has scored 20 or more in three games. He matched a career-high with 26 points in the win over Nebraska to help the Red Raiders win the Hall of Fame Classic Championship last Tuesday in Kansas City and is currently shooting 54.1 percent from the field. Culver was named to the Jerry West Award Watch List before the season and was a Big 12 Preseason Honorable Mention selection. Through 43 games in his career, Culver has scored 528 points and has 93 assists.
Davide Moretti and Matt Mooney are averaging 11.0 points per game each for the Red Raiders, while Norense Odiase leads the team with 6.2 rebounds per game. Odiase, Moretti, Mooney, Culver and Tariq Owens have started all six games for the Red Raiders leading into the game against Memphis. Odiase had a career-high 13 rebounds in a win over Southeastern Louisiana and also had 10 against Mississippi Valley State. He's a red-shirt senior who has been with the Red Raiders for five years and has played in 95 games. Odiase has 393 rebounds in his career after having five in the win over Northern Colorado. At guard, Moretti has already recorded two games with a career-high 17 points. He had his first one in the win over MVSU where he was 6-for-9 from the field and then again against Southern Cal last week in Kansas City. A sophomore from Italy, he's also averaging 3.0 assists with a season-high six assists in the opener against UIW. Mooney is six games into his Tech career after transferring from South Dakota and is adding 4.3 rebounds, 3.8 assists and 2.2 steals per game for the Red Raiders. He scored a season-high 17 in the win over USC and followed it with 15 points against Nebraska in the HOF Classic Championship game. He also had six assists in wins over UIW and MVSU and has recorded four games with five rebounds. Owens, a graduate transfer from St. John's, leads the Big 12 with 15 blocks which also puts him 23rd nationally. An Odenton, Maryland native, Owens scored a season-high 18 points in the win over Southern Cal where he also had four rebounds after opening the season with six blocks against UIW. He also had three blocks against SLU and has had two in the past two games against Nebraska and Northern Colorado.
Kyler Edwards and Deshawn Corprew are coming off a pair of season-highs in the win over UNC, while Brandone Francis is averaging 6.0 points and 3.2 rebounds to lead the bench that outscored UNC's bench by a 51-3 margin last week. Edwards, a freshman from Arlington, was 7-for-7 from the field with four 3-pointers in a 19-point performance. He is now averaging 7.2 points per game to start his first season at Texas Tech with his other double-digit scoring performance coming in the opener when he went for 10 points against Incarnate Word. Edwards also had three assists to go along with his 19 points against the Bears. A sophomore transfer, Corprew also went for a career-high with 13 points in the win last Saturday. He was 6-for-7 from the field and would also add four rebounds. A Virginia native who started his career at South Plains College, Corprew is averaging 7.2 points and 4.2 rebounds per game to start his career at Texas Tech. His previous season-high was 11 against Mississippi Valley State in the second game of the season. Francis, a senior from the Dominican Republic, began his collegiate career at the University of Florida before transferring to Texas Tech. Francis scored 11 points and had a career-high four assists in the win over the Bears.
THE OPPONENT: Memphis comes into the Hoophall Invitational with a 3-3 record after going 1-2 last weekend in Orlando at the Advocare Invitational. The Tigers opened the three-game tournament with an 84-64 loss to Oklahoma State before earning a 71-63 win over Canisius. The team finished the tournament with a 78-75 loss to Charleston before returning to Tennessee to prepare for the Red Raiders. Memphis is averaging and giving up 78.5 and 78.8 points per game through six games on its schedule and is shooting 43.4 percent from the field. Kyvon Davenport leads the Tigers with 14.5 points and 7.3 rebounds per game, while Jeremiah Martin is scoring 14.0 points per game and has 3.3 assists per game. Davenport scored a season-high 30 points in the team's opener against Tennessee Tech and would go for 16 last Friday against Canisius. Martin has scored in double-figures in each of the first six games this season, including a season-high 20 points in a double-overtime win over Yale. Tyler Harris is adding 13.8 points per game with a season-high 25 coming in the loss to Charleston last Sunday when he went 7-for-11 on 3-pointers.
Memphis is coached by Anfernee "Penny" Hardaway who is in his first season leading the program after taking over for Tubby Smith. The Tigers were led by Smith for two seasons after he had coached at Texas Tech for the previous three seasons.
NATIONAL RANKINGS: Sometimes you just have to go out and prove yourself. After three weeks and six wins, Texas Tech is back in the national polls at No. 20 in the Associated Press Top 25 and No. 19 in the USA TODAY Coaches Poll following victories over Southern Cal, Nebraska and Northern Colorado last week. Along with the poll, Texas Tech has played itself to No. 3 in the NCAA NET Ranking. The Red Raiders make their first appearance of the season in the polls in the fourth week just like they did for the first time last year. Texas Tech entered the AP Poll and USA TODAY Coaches Poll in the fourth week of the 2017-18 season at No. 22 and would rise to No. 6 in the 16th week of the season before finishing at No. 14 in the final AP Poll of last season. TTU was in 14 AP polls during the year but would enter this season unranked through three weeks. The Red Raiders finished last season at No. 6 in the USA TODAY Coaches Poll and were in its Top-10 rankings seven times during the season. The No. 6 ranking to finish the season matched a program-best set on Feb. 12, 2018 in the USA TODAY Coaches poll and on Feb. 19, 2018 in the AP Top 25 Poll. Â
FOLLOW TEXAS TECH: All season long on a daily basis the Texas Tech Athletic Communications staff provides updated information and content to highlight the Red Raiders. Fans and media can stay connected by following the team @TexasTechMM on Twitter and Instagram and at Facebook.com/TexasTechMBB.
COVERING THE RED RAIDERS: Texas Tech and Memphis will be broadcasted nationally on ESPNU on Saturday with Rich Hollenberg and Mark Adams on the call. On the radio, Geoff Haxton and Chris Level will team up for the first time this season to call the action on Texas Tech Sports Network's flagship station Double T 97.3 in Lubbock. Fans can interact with the broadcast by following @GunsUpRadio on Twitter.
UP NEXT: Texas Tech will return to Lubbock to start a three-game home stand starting with Arkansas-Pine Bluff on Wednesday, Dec. 5 at the United Supermarkets Arena followed by Northwestern State on Wednesday, Dec. 12. The Red Raiders are currently on a 42-game non-conference home winning streak and will also host Abilene Christian on Saturday, Dec. 15. The game against ACU will be played at the Lubbock Municipal Coliseum in a "Throwback Game" that will be the final basketball game ever in the arena. The three home games will lead into the Red Raiders traveling to New York to play No. 3 Duke on Thursday, Dec. 20 at Madison Square Garden.
NET RANKINGS: The NCAA developed NET to replace the RPI as the primary sorting tool for evaluating teams during the Division I men's basketball season. The new ranking system was approved in late July after months of consultation with the Division I Men's Basketball Committee, the National Association of Basketball Coaches, top basketball analytics experts and Google Cloud Professional Services. The NCAA Evaluation Tool, which will be known as the NET, relies on game results, strength of schedule, game location, scoring margin, net offensive and defensive efficiency, and the quality of wins and losses. To make sense of team performance data, late-season games (including from the NCAA tournament) were used as test sets to develop a ranking model leveraging machine learning techniques. The model, which used team performance data to predict the outcome of games in test sets, was optimized until it was as accurate as possible. The resulting model is the one that will be used as the NET going forward.
TICKETS:Â The Texas Tech Athletics Ticket Office is selling season tickets for as low as $135 online at www.TexasTech.com. Fans also can purchase season tickets in person at the Texas Tech Athletics Ticket Office located on the East Side of Jones AT&T Stadium or over the phone at (806) 742-8324 (TECH).
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Texas Tech, which is ranked No. 20 in the AP Poll and No. 19 in the USA TODAY Coaches Poll, is one of only 17Â teams in the nation who are still unbeaten.The team has won all six of their games by double-digits and is second in the nation by limiting opponents to 33.6 percent shooting, owns a 27.5 scoring margin advantage and ranks third by limiting opponents to only 51.0 points per game. The Red Raiders have three players averaging in double-figure scoring in Jarrett Culver (18.8), Davide Moretti (11.0) and Matt Mooney (11.0), while the team is 12th nationally with a 6.7 turnover margin advantage and lead the Big 12 with a 1.52 assist-to-turnover ratio. The Red Raiders are 6-0 for the second straight season and for the sixth time in program history. The record for wins to start a season came in 1929-30 with the team going 12-0 and most recently a nine-game winning streak to start the 2009-10 season. Texas Tech lost to Seton Hall in the seventh game of last season for its first loss.
SERIES/LOCATION: The Red Raiders and Tigers will be meeting for the seventh time when they play in Miami on Saturday. Memphis owns a 6-0 advantage in the series that began in 1954 with the Tigers winning a 75-66 game in Tennessee and most recently an 80-55 game in 1985 in Lubbock. The teams have played one previous neutral court game on Dec. 27, 1956 in Oklahoma City with the Tigers taking a 99-77 win. Texas Tech is playing in Florida for the first time since 2011 when the team had three games at the Old Spice Classic in Orlando and will be playing in Miami for only the second time ever. The last time the Red Raiders played in Miami was on Dec. 22, 1952 when they lost 79-64 to the University of Miami.
COACHING NOTES: Chris Beard won his 50th game as the head coach at Texas Tech with a 70-52 victory over No. 25 Nebraska on Nov. 20, 2018 to capture the Hall of Fame Classic Championship. He enters Saturday's game with 51 wins as the Red Raider head coach and is 147-54 in seven years as a head coach in the NCAA after last Saturday's 93-62 win over Northern Colorado. Beard matched Bob Knight for the fastest to 50 wins at Texas Tech with both head coaches reaching their 50th win in Lubbock in their 74th game leading the program. Knight won his 50th game at Tech against UTEP on Dec. 3, 2003 with Beard as an assistant coach. Beard is currently 37-4 in home games at Texas Tech, including a 23-0 record in non-conference home games. Texas Tech assistant coach Glynn Cyprien coached at Memphis from 2009-11 and was the head coach of the NBA G League's Memphis Hustle last year. Â
PLAYER NOTES: Jarrett Culver leads the Red Raiders with 18.8 points and 4.3 rebounds per game after going for 20 points and six assists in the win over Northern Colorado last Saturday. A sophomore from Lubbock, Culver has led the team in scoring in five of six games this season and has scored 20 or more in three games. He matched a career-high with 26 points in the win over Nebraska to help the Red Raiders win the Hall of Fame Classic Championship last Tuesday in Kansas City and is currently shooting 54.1 percent from the field. Culver was named to the Jerry West Award Watch List before the season and was a Big 12 Preseason Honorable Mention selection. Through 43 games in his career, Culver has scored 528 points and has 93 assists.
Davide Moretti and Matt Mooney are averaging 11.0 points per game each for the Red Raiders, while Norense Odiase leads the team with 6.2 rebounds per game. Odiase, Moretti, Mooney, Culver and Tariq Owens have started all six games for the Red Raiders leading into the game against Memphis. Odiase had a career-high 13 rebounds in a win over Southeastern Louisiana and also had 10 against Mississippi Valley State. He's a red-shirt senior who has been with the Red Raiders for five years and has played in 95 games. Odiase has 393 rebounds in his career after having five in the win over Northern Colorado. At guard, Moretti has already recorded two games with a career-high 17 points. He had his first one in the win over MVSU where he was 6-for-9 from the field and then again against Southern Cal last week in Kansas City. A sophomore from Italy, he's also averaging 3.0 assists with a season-high six assists in the opener against UIW. Mooney is six games into his Tech career after transferring from South Dakota and is adding 4.3 rebounds, 3.8 assists and 2.2 steals per game for the Red Raiders. He scored a season-high 17 in the win over USC and followed it with 15 points against Nebraska in the HOF Classic Championship game. He also had six assists in wins over UIW and MVSU and has recorded four games with five rebounds. Owens, a graduate transfer from St. John's, leads the Big 12 with 15 blocks which also puts him 23rd nationally. An Odenton, Maryland native, Owens scored a season-high 18 points in the win over Southern Cal where he also had four rebounds after opening the season with six blocks against UIW. He also had three blocks against SLU and has had two in the past two games against Nebraska and Northern Colorado.
Kyler Edwards and Deshawn Corprew are coming off a pair of season-highs in the win over UNC, while Brandone Francis is averaging 6.0 points and 3.2 rebounds to lead the bench that outscored UNC's bench by a 51-3 margin last week. Edwards, a freshman from Arlington, was 7-for-7 from the field with four 3-pointers in a 19-point performance. He is now averaging 7.2 points per game to start his first season at Texas Tech with his other double-digit scoring performance coming in the opener when he went for 10 points against Incarnate Word. Edwards also had three assists to go along with his 19 points against the Bears. A sophomore transfer, Corprew also went for a career-high with 13 points in the win last Saturday. He was 6-for-7 from the field and would also add four rebounds. A Virginia native who started his career at South Plains College, Corprew is averaging 7.2 points and 4.2 rebounds per game to start his career at Texas Tech. His previous season-high was 11 against Mississippi Valley State in the second game of the season. Francis, a senior from the Dominican Republic, began his collegiate career at the University of Florida before transferring to Texas Tech. Francis scored 11 points and had a career-high four assists in the win over the Bears.
THE OPPONENT: Memphis comes into the Hoophall Invitational with a 3-3 record after going 1-2 last weekend in Orlando at the Advocare Invitational. The Tigers opened the three-game tournament with an 84-64 loss to Oklahoma State before earning a 71-63 win over Canisius. The team finished the tournament with a 78-75 loss to Charleston before returning to Tennessee to prepare for the Red Raiders. Memphis is averaging and giving up 78.5 and 78.8 points per game through six games on its schedule and is shooting 43.4 percent from the field. Kyvon Davenport leads the Tigers with 14.5 points and 7.3 rebounds per game, while Jeremiah Martin is scoring 14.0 points per game and has 3.3 assists per game. Davenport scored a season-high 30 points in the team's opener against Tennessee Tech and would go for 16 last Friday against Canisius. Martin has scored in double-figures in each of the first six games this season, including a season-high 20 points in a double-overtime win over Yale. Tyler Harris is adding 13.8 points per game with a season-high 25 coming in the loss to Charleston last Sunday when he went 7-for-11 on 3-pointers.
Memphis is coached by Anfernee "Penny" Hardaway who is in his first season leading the program after taking over for Tubby Smith. The Tigers were led by Smith for two seasons after he had coached at Texas Tech for the previous three seasons.
NATIONAL RANKINGS: Sometimes you just have to go out and prove yourself. After three weeks and six wins, Texas Tech is back in the national polls at No. 20 in the Associated Press Top 25 and No. 19 in the USA TODAY Coaches Poll following victories over Southern Cal, Nebraska and Northern Colorado last week. Along with the poll, Texas Tech has played itself to No. 3 in the NCAA NET Ranking. The Red Raiders make their first appearance of the season in the polls in the fourth week just like they did for the first time last year. Texas Tech entered the AP Poll and USA TODAY Coaches Poll in the fourth week of the 2017-18 season at No. 22 and would rise to No. 6 in the 16th week of the season before finishing at No. 14 in the final AP Poll of last season. TTU was in 14 AP polls during the year but would enter this season unranked through three weeks. The Red Raiders finished last season at No. 6 in the USA TODAY Coaches Poll and were in its Top-10 rankings seven times during the season. The No. 6 ranking to finish the season matched a program-best set on Feb. 12, 2018 in the USA TODAY Coaches poll and on Feb. 19, 2018 in the AP Top 25 Poll. Â
FOLLOW TEXAS TECH: All season long on a daily basis the Texas Tech Athletic Communications staff provides updated information and content to highlight the Red Raiders. Fans and media can stay connected by following the team @TexasTechMM on Twitter and Instagram and at Facebook.com/TexasTechMBB.
COVERING THE RED RAIDERS: Texas Tech and Memphis will be broadcasted nationally on ESPNU on Saturday with Rich Hollenberg and Mark Adams on the call. On the radio, Geoff Haxton and Chris Level will team up for the first time this season to call the action on Texas Tech Sports Network's flagship station Double T 97.3 in Lubbock. Fans can interact with the broadcast by following @GunsUpRadio on Twitter.
Gameday in the 305. Let's get it! #4To1
— Texas Tech Basketball (@TexasTechMBB) December 1, 2018
??#WreckEm?? pic.twitter.com/iga1HWFxF2
UP NEXT: Texas Tech will return to Lubbock to start a three-game home stand starting with Arkansas-Pine Bluff on Wednesday, Dec. 5 at the United Supermarkets Arena followed by Northwestern State on Wednesday, Dec. 12. The Red Raiders are currently on a 42-game non-conference home winning streak and will also host Abilene Christian on Saturday, Dec. 15. The game against ACU will be played at the Lubbock Municipal Coliseum in a "Throwback Game" that will be the final basketball game ever in the arena. The three home games will lead into the Red Raiders traveling to New York to play No. 3 Duke on Thursday, Dec. 20 at Madison Square Garden.
NET RANKINGS: The NCAA developed NET to replace the RPI as the primary sorting tool for evaluating teams during the Division I men's basketball season. The new ranking system was approved in late July after months of consultation with the Division I Men's Basketball Committee, the National Association of Basketball Coaches, top basketball analytics experts and Google Cloud Professional Services. The NCAA Evaluation Tool, which will be known as the NET, relies on game results, strength of schedule, game location, scoring margin, net offensive and defensive efficiency, and the quality of wins and losses. To make sense of team performance data, late-season games (including from the NCAA tournament) were used as test sets to develop a ranking model leveraging machine learning techniques. The model, which used team performance data to predict the outcome of games in test sets, was optimized until it was as accurate as possible. The resulting model is the one that will be used as the NET going forward.
TICKETS:Â The Texas Tech Athletics Ticket Office is selling season tickets for as low as $135 online at www.TexasTech.com. Fans also can purchase season tickets in person at the Texas Tech Athletics Ticket Office located on the East Side of Jones AT&T Stadium or over the phone at (806) 742-8324 (TECH).
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Players Mentioned
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