Will Grant McCasland bring Texas Tech basketball fans bigger non-conference home games?

A day after unveiling the 2023-24 non-conference slate, Texas Tech basketball coach Grant McCasland said he liked how the schedule unfolded.

He noted the two 2023 NCAA Tournament teams heading to Lubbock, the guaranteed battle with Villanova in the Battle 4 Atlantis and the clash with Vanderbilt in Fort Worth as the schedule's strength.

McCasland also admitted last Wednesday the slate is designed for the team he has on hand. That is, a Red Raiders roster loaded with newcomers playing for an entirely new coaching staff in a mostly new system of basketball.

"We wanted to play a schedule that we felt really would challenge us," McCasland said, "but would also give us an opportunity to grow as a team because we need to grow. We just got a lot of newcomers and a lot of guys without NCAA Tournament experience on our current roster, so how do you mold those together? We felt like this schedule really will help us with that."

McCasland's strategy for assembling Tech's non-conference schedule isn't much different from the rest of the country, though it does beg the question the rest of college basketball could stand to answer for their early season games.

Where's the beef?

Comparing the competition

Texas Tech has avoided bringing high-quality power conference games to Lubbock outside of Big 12 play. This far predates McCasland's time as head coach, which spans five months. Tubby Smith was the last coach that attempted to spice up Tech's non-conference home slate. Chris Beard ended that practice upon his arrival and Mark Adams followed suit.

Teams across the country share this scheduling model — Mike Krzyzewski was notorious for avoiding tough home games. The exceptions to these come with conference challenges, multi-team events (MTEs) and the growing number of one-off games at neutral sites.

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Based on schedules released to this point, Power 6 men's basketball teams — programs from the Big 12, Big Ten, Pac-12, SEC, ACC and Big East — have a combined 36 single games scheduled against other P6 schools at neutral sites. Another 33 games are slated for conference challenges, such as Texas Tech's trip to Butler for the Big 12-Big East Battle.

Neutral site games do serve a purpose. McCasland said games such as Tech's contest against Vanderbilt in Dickies Arena allow alumni in the metroplex to attend a game, plus puts the team into a hot recruiting territory.

MTEs are also important as they allow teams to potentially have multiple games against future NCAA Tournament teams, boosting the résumé and providing quality competition at the same time.

Unfortunately, these conference challenges, MTEs and neutral-site games are usually the only time basketball fans will see power conference teams face each other in November and December. Fewer and fewer teams are willing to play in true road environments before they enter conference play.

Outside of the Big 12/SEC Challenge — which no longer exists — Tech's last game against a P6 team in a true home contest was Dec. 18, 2013 when the Red Raiders hosted LSU. The last non-conference road game against a ranked foe was 15 days earlier (Dec. 3, 2013) at Arizona.

Texas Tech fans have missed out on more impactful non-conference games over the last 10 years through this scheduling model.

Does it really matter?

Perhaps the question should be whether Texas Tech fans need a high-profile opponent to attend non-conference games.

Tech announced a sellout of its season tickets before a single home game was confirmed by the team. Last year's team — whose most notable home non-conference opponent was Georgetown — averaged 13,052 fans, the second-highest mark for the program in the last 12 years (trailing only the 2019-20 season).

Then there's the Big 12 factor. Since the 2010-11 season, season ticket holders have been guaranteed to see Kansas, Texas, Oklahoma, Baylor and Oklahoma State every season. More often than not, those five teams have been ranked during their trips to Lubbock.

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Over the last four seasons, Tech has played 43 games against ranked opponents during the regular season, 38 of which have been against Big 12 teams. And 18 of those conference games have been played in Lubbock, average of 4.5 a season.

Adding in the Jan. 2020 matchup against Kentucky, the Red Raiders have played 19 games at home against ranked opponents over the last four seasons. This is out of 67 total games played in the USA in that span. Adding in road games, neutral-site games and the NCAA Tournament games in this span, Texas Tech has played 129 games with 45 being against ranked teams — about 35% overall.

End game

Texas Tech fans were greeted to another non-conference home slate for the 2023-24 season filled with mid-majors. Could they see a change in the future?

Home-and-home series are making a bit of a comeback with 24 of them set for the 2023-24 among P6 teams. Blue blood programs North Carolina and Kansas will begin a series next year. Jon Scheyer even has Duke in a series against Arizona, something unthinkable under Coach K.

The latest conference expansion may make these series harder to pull off as conferences might have to begin league play before Christmas for an adequate schedule. Until that's known, McCasland said there will be an effort to bring marquee non-conference games to Lubbock, though there are many factors that go into procuring a series like that.

"We are going to really push to try to get great home games," McCasland said. "I think we need that. I'd love that to happen. I don't know how that's going to work. We got a late start on that this year. We weren't able to get a home-and-home that we felt like would be a good fit, but we definitely are excited about that being a part of our future."

Texas Tech Basketball Non-Conference Schedule

Times to be announced later

Nov. 8 — vs. Texas A&M-Commerce

Nov. 12 — San Jose State

Nov. 16 — Texas A&M-Corpus Christi

Battle 4 Atlantis (Imperial Arena; Paradise Island, Bahamas)

Nov. 22 — vs. Villanova

Nov. 23 — vs. North Carolina or Northern Iowa

Nov. 24 — vs. Memphis, Michigan, Arkansas or Stanford

Big 12-Big East Battle

Nov. 30 — at Butler

Dec. 6 — Omaha

Dec. 12 — Oral Roberts

US LBM Coast-to-Coast Challenge (Dickies Arena; Fort Worth)

Dec. 16 — vs. Vanderbilt

Dec. 21 — UT Arlington

Dec. 28 — Sam Houston

Jan. 1 — North Alabama

BIG 12 Schedule Matrix (Official schedule to be released at a later date)

Home & away — Baylor, UCF, Oklahoma State, TCU and Texas

Home only — BYU, Cincinnati, Kansas and Kansas State

Away only — Iowa State, Houston, Oklahoma and West Virginia

This article originally appeared on Lubbock Avalanche-Journal: Will Texas Tech basketball fans get better non-conference home games?