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Perhaps the Texas Tech, Texas divorce is for the best | Giese
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- Perhaps the Texas Tech, Texas divorce is for the best | Giese
The harsh reality for Texas Tech athletics is that as much as Texas is its biggest rival , the Longhorns just don't view the Red Raiders in the same light.
Dylan Disu and Chendell Weaver admitted as much after Tuesday night's game against the Texas Tech basketball team in United Supermarkets Arena. Disu and Weaver seemed unfazed by the thrown beers and water bottles, the fight that broke out in the Texas Tech student section . Weaver actually quite enjoyed it.
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"It was crazy," Weaver said. "I've never witnessed anything like that. It was fun though."
It was far less fun for the Texas Tech administrators and security that tried to settle things down. Cunningham's tackle of Darrion Williams into the fans set things off in the second half, but the scene had been festering for a couple of hours to that point.
Red Raider fans wanted the win. Needed it. They're fueled by oxygen, Coors Light and seeing the Longhorns lose at anything — basketball, ping pong, Connect Four. When it became obvious that wasn't going to happen, it was only a matter of time before something lit the fuse.
Grant McCasland said after the game the loss hurt him too, not just because it happened but how it happened. How the Longhorns dominated the Red Raiders from the opening tip, asserted their will every step of the way. And by the time Texas Tech finally got some momentum, it was far too late to make any real impact on the final outcome.
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More: Grant McCasland takes the blame for Texas Tech basketball getting 'embarrassed' by Texas
Joey McGuire can relate to this feeling. Texas Tech's final football game against Texas in Austin during Thanksgiving weekend was an embarrassment across the board. Getting clubbed 57-7 was not how McGuire wanted things to turn out.
Longhorn fans loved every second of that drubbing, but their joy was mainly fueled by McGuire's "Everything runs through Lubbock" comment from the previous season and Big 12 Commissioner Brett Yormark telling the Red Raiders to "take care of business" against the Horns before the season.
Both comments were, and still are, majorly blown out of proportion. But for Texas, it was exactly what they thrive on. Being the most hated team everywhere they go not because they're always the best team — sometimes they are, but in more recent years it's been very infrequent — but because they act like they're the best whether it's true or not.
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"We expect nothing less from any crowd that we go to," Disu said. "They hate us. We've learned to embrace that hate."
Without outside motivating factors, Texas simply doesn't put the same level of thought into Texas Tech that Tech puts into Texas. As my world-class colleague Don Williams wrote plenty about the impending end of the rivalry on the gridiron, there were two schools of thought.
Texas Tech's guard Chance McMillian (0) shoves Texas' forward Brock Cunningham (30) during the Big 12 basketball game, Tuesday, Feb. 27, 2024, at United Supermarkets Arena.
On one side there was Texas Tech, who felt their recent successes against the Longhorns made UT decide not to risk losing those games that after July it won't be forced to play. That they had won a few times in Lubbock made Texas Tech the burgeoning giant ready to pounce and Texas didn't want to be a part of that anymore.
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Then on the Texas side, the death of the rivalry has been met with a collective yawn. The Longhorns already have a biggest rival, Oklahoma, and the Sooners are joining them in the SEC, so that will remain alive. They consider Baylor, Texas A&M and, to a certain extent, TCU as bigger counterparts. Plus they're trying to keep pace with the Alabamas of the football world and the Kentuckys of the hoops scene. Texas Tech is an afterthought.
This can be pointed out by the scenes at both home venues in Texas Tech's two games against Texas. In Austin, the Moody Center — where the concourse looks more like an up-scale wine and cheese bar than a basketball venue — holds 10,763. Playing each other in the first Big 12 game of the season — Tech's last visit to Austin until who knows when — wasn't a sellout. UT fans barely made a peep as the Red Raiders ran away with the win.
In Lubbock, students camped out for days to sell out the USA looking for one last chance to throw the Horns Down hand signal in front of the people who get so offended by it. And when things didn't work, a few in the crowd decided to add to Texas' "You'll always be the little brother" mentality by acting just like a little brother: throwing stuff and starting fights, wanting mom and dad to do something about the injustice.
More: Grant McCasland, Rodney Terry comment on Texas Tech basketball fan-throwing incidents
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It's not fair. You're cheating.
The relationship between Texas Tech and Texas sports can be summed up by the one meme from "Mad Men" anybody on the internet knows.
Texas Tech: I feel bad for you.
Texas: I don't think about you at all.
Maybe it's best for these two athletic programs to go their separate ways for a while. There are plenty of other fish (potential conference rivals) in the sea.
A Texas Tech fan is carried out of United Supermarkets Arena during the Big 12 basketball game against Texas, Tuesday, Feb. 27, 2024, at United Supermarkets Arena.
This article originally appeared on Lubbock Avalanche-Journal: Perhaps the Texas Tech, Texas divorce is for the best
