Red Raiders Head to Tulsa as Third Seed in the West Region

Texas Tech is headed to Tulsa as the No. 3 seed in the West Region where the Red Raiders will play Northern Kentucky at 12:30 p.m. on Friday in the opening round of the NCAA tournament.

The No. 7-ranked Red Raiders (26-6) earned their first Big 12 Conference regular-season championship after going 14-4 in conference play and will be making their 17th NCAA tournament appearance in program history. The No. 14-seeded Norse (26-8) are the Horizon League Tournament champion and regular-season co-champion. Tech, which advanced to the NCAA Elite Eight last season, made its tournament debut in 1954 and are back in consecutive seasons for the fourth time. The Red Raiders and NKU have met once in program history with Tech earning a 75-69 win on Dec. 4, 2012 in Lubbock.

Texas Tech head coach Chris Beard was named the Big 12 Coach of the Year for the second straight season and leads the Red Raiders to the national tournament having won 11 of 13 games. Beard is 71-30 leading the program over the past three years and will be making his third NCAA tournament appearance after also leading Little Rock to the tournament in 2016.

The Texas Tech-Northern Kentucky winner will advance to the second round on Sunday. In the other matchup this weekend in Tulsa, No. 6 seed Buffalo (31-3) will play the winner of the Arizona State (22-10) and St. John’s (21-12) matchup that will be played on Wednesday. The first-round game for the Red Raiders will be broadcasted on TNT.