Texas Tech Basketball: Why Red Raiders can win the Big 12 in closing stretch

With three games remaining in the Big 12 regular season, can Texas Tech Basketball hold off two Kansas teams and lock up the top seed in the conference tournament?

With just a handful of games remaining in the Big 12 schedule, the question still remains, will Kansas’ run of 14 straight regular-season titles come to an end? With as much adversity as the Jayhawks have gone through this season, it is a real testament to Bill Self and his team that the question is still a viable one at this point in the season.

It is ironic that the regular-season title will come down to the three teams that went the furthest in the NCAA Tournament, Kansas went to the Final Four and both Kansas State and Texas Tech just missed, falling in the Elite Eight. The latter two currently sit atop the conference with the defending champs right on their heels.  The favorite for the title may be the only one of the three not residing in the Sunflower State.

Texas Tech is 23-5 and 11-4 in the conference and ranked No. 11 in the latest AP poll and sit at 10th in the NCAA’s NET ranking. The Red Raiders began the year by winning their first 10 games, then came a meeting with Duke at Madison Square Garden. Chris Beard’s team lost that game, but for the first 34-plus minutes of that game, the Red Raiders were within striking distance before falling 69-58. They rebounded by winning five straight and not giving up more than 62 points in those victories.

The lone lull in the Red Raiders’ season came in a seven-day stretch when they suffered through a three-game losing streak, losing at Baylor and Kansas State and at home to Iowa State. Since then they have won eight of nine and including six in a row.