Chris Beard walked into the Honda Center for the first time on Wednesday talking on the phone with Jim Rome before practicing for a couple of hours, held a press conference with the national media, conversed with CBS’s broadcast team and finished his afternoon with a fireside chat with Andy Katz in front of a dry erase board that moments before had logs and a fire drawn on it.
Just a normal day here at the Sweet 16.
No. 3-seeded Texas Tech is back in the Sweet 16 for the second straight season after advancing to the Elite Eight last year and will play No. 2 Michigan at 8:39 p.m. (CST) tonight in the second game here in the West Region. The Red Raiders won the Big 12 Conference regular-season championship and advanced to the national tournament’s weekend after rolling through No. 14 Northern Kentucky and No. 6 Buffalo before arriving in California on Tuesday afternoon. With travel completed, Wednesday’s prep day was about focusing on the Wolverines who have made three straight Sweet 16 appearances but also included talking with the media about who the Red Raiders have been all season and who they remain to be.
“We got a chip on our shoulder,” Beard said. “We weren’t supposed to be here. They picked us bottom half or last in our league, even today we see people in the country calling out that Buffalo was going to beat us and this and that. We respect everybody’s opinion and fear no one. We’re here to play our best game of the year and try to advance. We understand how hard this is going to be because Michigan is really, really good. But we have a lot of confidence in ourselves too.”
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