The Texas Tech basketball team finished this season in the NCAA Tournament Championship Game for the first time ever, but it was them getting into the Final Four that knocked Texas Tech off of this embarrassing list:

That's right. Now, it's all on Texas A&M to be the school that hasn't finished in the top four of the major men's sports. Texas Tech baseball has been close, but the men's basketball team took the prize of eliminating Texas Tech from the bottom of the barrel first.

This has been shared every offseason since I've been on Twitter in many variations and several ways. Now, this summer, next winter, and the summer after, the tweets will read, "Only TWO Power 5 programs..." And one of those two programs is not Texas Tech.

Kirby Hocutt said it best after the team's National Championship loss: "Games like this elevate the brand." How right Hocutt is.

There were four schools that ranked in the top five the social media metrics: Duke, Michigan State, Kentucky and Texas Tech. Just the classic blue bloods hanging around.

It seems the tides are changing for Texas Tech. It hasn't been a fast rise, either. The Kliff Kingsbury hire, even though it didn't translate to wins, brought a ton of national recognition to the school. It built the sports performance center. It launched NFL MVPs and assorted NFL careers. It gave the school a spark.

Tim Tadlock took that spark and locked it in. Chris Beard turned that spark into a bonfire full of Lime Scooters, fireside chats and Womble facilities.

Not to mention the other athletic endeavors that have brought success to the university.

Behind it all is Kirby Hocutt, stoking the flames.

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