NCAA Tournament 2022: 5 key storylines for Duke vs Texas Tech matchup

The second weekend of the NCAA tournament is here and only 16 teams remain out of the 68 that the tournament started with. The Duke and Texas Tech matchup is going to be the best matchup of the sweet 16. There are going to be some other great games in the Round of 16. All of them are going to be on primetime TV, so there will be no more daytime basketball this week.

I recently wrote about the key storylines from the first week and heading into the second weekend each game has a slew of storylines. Let’s start by focusing on five key storylines for the Duke and Texas Tech game.

Duke plays in the sweet 16 of the West region and the winner of this game gets the winner of the Gonzaga and Arkansas game in the Elite Eight. This game between Duke and Texas Tech is going to likely be one of the most-watched games in the tournament this season. The Round of 32 matchup between the Blue Devils and Michigan State did over 11 million viewers which is the highest viewed game of this tournament. Expect numbers close to that for this one for a lot of reasons. Yes, most of those reasons have to do with Coach K.

Duke is always going to get viewers; they are one of the most polarizing teams in the country. They have a large following and they also have many haters who would love nothing more than to see them lose. Texas Tech is a school that doesn’t have the overall success that Duke does, but one would argue they have been the more successful program over the last 10 seasons. Texas Tech also has a very passionate fan base who are very educated about the game of basketball and expect their team to win every time they take the court.

This will be the best game of Thursday night. What are the things we should all watch for?