Washington visits Texas, but is it big?

LUBBOCK, TEXAS - The last time Texas Tech played on its home court, the Red Raiders' cheerleaders had something better to do.

So did the band.

That better thing, not too surprisingly, was football. While the Tech basketball team was pounding Samford at home, the football team was beating Baylor 330 miles away at Cowboys Stadium as cheerleaders leapt and the band played.

That Lone Star state of priorities took some getting used to for basketball coach Pat Knight, who grew up in Indiana, where basketball reigns.

“Being in a football state, it’s funny: Some nights you have good crowds and some nights you don’t,” Knight said this week. “I don’t even worry about it. We’ve gotten our kids focused on generating their own excitement. Last game, we didn’t even have our own cheerleaders or band here because they were all over in Dallas for the football game. And it didn’t affect my kids at all. I realize basketball isn’t the primary sport in this state.”

Today, the Washington Huskies will play their first road game of the season, representing the Pacific-10 Conference at United Spirit Arena as part of the Big 12/Pac-10 Hardwood Series.

This is a battle of unbeatens. Washington is 5-0, ranked 12th in The Associated Press poll and 10th in the USA Today coaches poll. Texas Tech is 7-0 and receiving votes in both polls.

But Knight, the son of coaching legend Bobby Knight and therefore raised a Hoosier, said he has no sense of whether his campus and Buddy Holly’s hometown are excited about the pairing.

“You never know,” he said. “This not being a basketball state, against a ranked team you’re hoping you’ll get a crowd. Back in Indiana, I could tell you we’d have a really good crowd, for sure.”

Knight said he is certain that his players are excited. They’ve already beaten one Pac-10 school this season: Stanford, 64-60. But UW is Tech’s first ranked opponent.

Last season – Knight’s first full season as head coach after succeeding his father – the Red Raiders went 14-19.

Pat Knight says this version is new and improved.

“We’ve just totally revamped everything,” he said. “We’re more athletic, we’ve got more talent, we can defend this year. We got beat a lot last year. We weren’t very good. I thought we did the most we could last year, but we’re totally different.”

The Red Raiders are led by 6-foot-5 junior Mike Singletary, who in one game last season scored 29 consecutive points for his team.

Knight says Singletary is capable of taking over games. But now he has more talent around him, with five other Raiders averaging eight or more points.

The system remains largely what Bob Knight put into place: motion offense and man-to-man defense.

But Washington coach Lorenzo Romar sees differences, too.

“They’re probably more athletic than Coach (Bob) Knight’s teams at Indiana,” Romar said. “But when he was coaching at Texas Tech I think they got more athletic. They’re sound offensively. They are disciplined offensively. They’re going to pressure you. They’re going to bother you. They’re tenacious defensively. There are some similar characteristics there.”

The game is a homecoming of sorts for UW sophomore Elston Turner, who played his senior high school season across the state in the Houston suburb of Missouri City. Turner said a sprinkling of family and friends might attend – it’s a big state to cross.

“It’s like a 10-hour drive from Houston,” he said. “There’s a couple of people from Houston going up there. My mom and my sister might.”

This will be this season’s Huskies’ first experience going into another school’s gym carrying the kind of ranking that focuses opponents and – on most campuses, at least – draws crowds.

Romar was asked if that’s something his team must learn to deal with.

“You’re assuming we’re going to maintain that ranking – I like your thinking there,” he said. “But if we’re fortunate enough to continue to be successful, that is something we’re going to have to get used to.”

UW MEN’S BASKETBALL GAMEDAY

NO. 12 WASHINGTON (5-0) AT TEXAS TECH (7-0)

Tipoff: 4 p.m., United Spirit Arena, Lubbock, Texas.

TV: ESPN2. Radio: 950-AM.

Series: UW leads 5-2 in a series that began in 1967. Two of the seven games have gone into double-overtime. The Huskies have won each of the past two meetings by the score of 59-57. The most recent came on Dec. 29, 1990.

Statistical leaders: For UW – F Quincy Pondexter and G Isaiah Thomas, 20.6 ppg; Pondexter, 11 rpg; G Venoy Overton, 3.8 apg. For Tech – F Mike Singletary, 13.6 ppg; F D’walyn Roberts, 6.3 rpg; G John Roberson, 4.9 apg.

Scouting report: This is Washington’s first road game. It also is UW’s first game of this season’s Big 12/Pac-10 Hardwood Series. The Huskies play two such games, the other coming Dec. 22, when Texas A&M visits Seattle. … Texas Tech received votes in the most recent AP and coaches’ Top 25 polls. … Tech has defeated one Pacific-10 Conference team already this season, beating Stanford, 64-60, in Lubbock. … The Red Raiders are 25-26 under coach Pat Knight, who is beginning his second full season at Tech. They had a .627 winning percentage the previous six-plus seasons under his father, Bob Knight. The Raiders went 14-19 last season. … Before flying to Texas, UW coach Lorenzo Romar said he had not settled on a starting lineup.

Next: 7 p.m. Sunday, vs. Cal State Northridge, Hec Edmundson Pavilion.

Don Ruiz, The News Tribune