The March to Madness

Seton Hall's Pope Goes Below the Belt

Seton Hall's Herb Pope sends Texas Tech's Darko Cohadarevic to the floor twice with shots below the belt during Tuesday night's National Invitation Tournament game in Newark. The Red Raiders won, 87-69. On Wednesday, Seton Hall fired coach Bobby Gonzalez.

Gonzalez made more enemies than friends in four years as Pirate coach and recruited several players with questionable character. George Vecsey of the New York Times wrote of the departed coach:

"Gonzalez’s tense demeanor was not the worst thing about his tenure at Seton Hall. Ultimately, he was booted for the high-risk recruits he kept attracting. The latest disgrace was the revelation Wednesday that Robert Mitchell, a player Gonzalez tossed from the team only last weekend, had been arrested and charged in an armed robbery of eight people.

Texas Tech Player Shows Some Punch

Update: Jordan Barncastle suffered a nasal fracture as a result of the punch from Brittney Griner.

Texas Tech's Jordan Barncastle is punched in the nose by Baylor's Brittney Griner during Wednesday night's game in Lubbock. Barncastle is to be examined Thursday morning to assess the extent of her injuries.

Singletary Goes Off; Aggie Fan Drinks Vinegar

It's doubtful we will see another performance like this in March. Mike Singletary scores 29 points in a row for Texas Tech and finishes with 43 in the Red Raiders' 88-83 upset of Texas A&M in the opening round of the Big 12 tournament.

A Stormy Knight in Lubbock

Texas Tech's Pat Knight gets tossed Saturday night during his team's loss 82-69 loss to Nebraska at United Spirit Arena.

"Don't read too much into it," Knight said. "My job is to protect my players. If you all didn't see what happened, then that's your fault that you didn't see what happened. My job is to protect my players and you can only sit there and take so much, so I've got to protect my boys. That's my job."

Pat Knight Would Like to Issue an Apology

What goes around comes around. A month after his Texas Tech Red Raiders bullied East Central in a 167-115 victory, Pat Knight got to feel what it's like to be on the other end.

Stanford rolled Texas Tech, 111-66, Sunday night at Maples Pavilion, the second-worst defeat in team history, surpassed only by a 58-point rout at Kansas last March.

Knight is taking the blame for this one.

"I thought we really laid down. We didn't compete at all. … We didn’t push the ball up, we didn't guard anybody. We just didn’t show up. That’s my fault.

"Kids don’t play bad on purpose. It's my job, I have to figure out why. The game was over in the first five minutes. Stanford’s too good of a team … when you get a start like that from a team in one of these power conferences, you can’t come back like that.

"It's my fault. I have to figure out why we get off to starts like that, why we have problems on the road, why we just don’t want to guard anybody. I don’t blame the kids, per se, because it's not like they came out here and said, 'We’re just going to play bad.' It's up to me to figure things out."

Texas Tech 167, East Central 115

Pat Knight would appear to be as big of a bully as his father. Texas Tech raced to a 77-57 halftime lead, then kept its foot on the pedal in crushing its Division II opponent.

Not cool, Pat. Not cool.

The Red Raiders didn't force a complete re-write of the record book. The 52-point victory wasn't close to a 72-point blowout (107-35) of Nicholls State in 2002, so there's clearly work to be done in Lubbock.

For starters, try playing a little defense next time.

In fact, the phone at the Knight household is probably ringing as we type this. On the other end is old man Bobby, ready to give his son an earful because the Red Raiders gave up 115 points to a Division II team. Imagine what a real team like Texas will do to Knight's defenseless squad.