Lady Riaders Defeat Grambling State. The Lady Raiders had way too tight of a game against Grambling State, winning 70-55. The first half seemed like it was way too close, but the Lady Raiders eventually put them away. Head coach Candi Whitaker broke down the game:

“I thought we started out really attacking and getting some good things going,” Texas Tech head coach Candi Whitaker said. “We missed some layups early and then we started settling for jump shots. After that, we started attacking again and giving ourselves some good opportunities.”

Texas Tech was led by Japreece Dean who had 20 points on 8 of 13, as well as 5 rebounds and 4 assists and Leashja Grant, who had 18 on 9 of 14 from the floor and 8 boards. The Lady Raiders play again on Sunday against Arkansas-Pine Bluff.

Evans’ Close Knit Family. LAJ’s Krista Pirtle writes about sophomore point guard Keenan Evans and his family, how his mom attended Arkansas-Pine Bluff:

Keenan Evans used to sit on a different bench.

At the time, he was just a toddler, running around the court at halftime and hanging onto his mother, Shantell Evans, who was a four-year starter for Arkansas-Pine Bluff and an all-SWAC standout.

“There were times he would actually be at the gym hanging on a gym while we were at practice,” Shantell said. “One of the advantages of going to a smaller school. He would be in the gym. If I had to bring him to the campus. He was kind of like the team baby. At halftime he’d be running on the court. We had one of our managers sitting with him behind the bench. Just to look over and see your child and now to see him actually playing your alma mater is kind of surreal.”

Good stuff.

Q&A with Toddrick Gotcher. LAJ’s Krista Pirtle does a good Q&A with shooting guard Toddrick Gotcher. I think Dan got his question in.

Duffey and Lake Ridge Lose State Title Game. Via the DMN, Texas Tech QB commit Jett Duffey wasn’t his normal self on Friday night as Mansfield Lake Ridge fell to Richmond George Ranch, 56-0 in the Class 5A Division I state final game. Duffey was obviously injured, a dinged hamstring that limited him and fellow offensive standout, Duke Carter. Both players were not what they had been all year, which was fantastic. A disappointing end to the season, but a huge round of applause for the year that Jett Duffey led his team to a 15-1 record on the year.

Campus Insiders’ Preview. Campus Insiders’ Pete Fiutak previews the LSU game and he’s predicting a 10 point win for LSU. I usually like Fiutak’s previews, but this paragraph was about as inaccurate as I’ve seen:

Texas Tech will give up the rushing yards, but it has to make up for it with a huge day from Patrick Mahomes. Why is Baker Mayfield at Oklahoma? Partly because of the rise of other Red Raider quarterbacks, with Mahomes the right fit for the passing attack able to spread the ball around decisively and quickly, and enough of an arm to push the ball deep with 4,283 yards and 32 touchdowns. He’ll throw picks – 14 on the year – but when he’s in a groove, the offense is unstoppable. He needs to get into that groove in a big hurry and maintain it for a full sixty minutes.

Mahomes wasn’t even around when Mayfield transferred.

Diverse Attack. The Advocate’s Marcus Rodrigue takes a look at the Texas Tech offense from the LSU perspective:

The Red Raiders, LSU’s Texas Bowl opponent, are known for their up-tempo, pass-happy offense engineered by 4,000-yard passer Patrick Mahomes. Under coach Kliff Kingsbury, Tech’s high-powered system has produced the No. 2 scoring, passing and total offense in the country this season.

But when LaCouture turned on the tape, he discovered another element of the Red Raiders attack, one he and his teammates didn’t expect to see.

“They actually like to run the ball a lot more than we thought,” the junior defensive tackle said. “The running back, I think, has rushed for 1,500 yards this year. They’re more than capable of running the ball just as they are throwing it, so we have to prepare for both.”

Miscellaneous. The Denton Record Chronicle confirms that North Texas’ head coach Seth Littrell officially announced the hiring of Graham Harrell, as offensive coordinator, and Joel Filani, as wide receivers coach (Congrats to both!) . . . Football Study Hall’s bowl game predictions (remember, this is a computer model, not an actual human making these picks, although the human does create the formula for picking games) has LSU winning by double-digits . . . Texas A&M has been in the news for transfers, but one other TAMU and LSU note is that LSU admitted to making alterations to the contract with John Chavis . . .