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LUBBOCK, Texas — Judging by the two-hour drive she made to reach her second-row seat at United Supermarkets Arena on Saturday, conference realignment hasn’t been all that bad for Monica Ramirez.

It’s brought her closer to her son, KJ Lewis.

A junior high school assistant principal in Midland, Texas, Ramirez has been a regular at the Wildcats’ games since Lewis was a freshman last season. But UA’s move to the Big 12 made the geography work even better for her.

At least to some point. The Wildcats aren’t scheduled to play at TCU or Houston this season, though they did pass through Lubbock and will make a trip to Waco to face Baylor on Feb. 17.

So that’s two easily driveable games instead of flying, well, everywhere in the Pac-12. That should make it easier for Ramirez to reach her goal of attending every UA game this season — except a game at BYU on Feb. 4.

“Too cold and wrong time of year,� Ramirez said of that one in Provo, Utah.

Ramirez said she also cut out of UA’s Cincinnati-West Virginia trip early, going home from Cincinnati after the Wildcats’ Jan. 4 win there before a massive winter storm hit both areas.

But it turns out if she misses a game here or there, maybe it’s not all bad. Without her in the stands at West Virginia, Lewis collected a career-high 21 points with four assists and three rebounds.

“I don’t know what he did, but he just played,� she said of that game.

On Saturday, Ramirez said she was one of a 44-person group of friends and family watching Lewis. The only problem was that the visitor seats the group obtained were scattered all over Texas Tech’s NBA-sized arena, some well into the upper deck.

“They did a good job of spreading us out,� Ramirez said.

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As long as you could brave a couple hours of near-freezing weather, it wasn’t hard to get a good seat in Texas Tech’s “Raider Riot� student section on Saturday.

The lineup for the 4,223-seat student section didn’t even open until three hours before Saturday’s game, and it still had only about 200 students in line two hours beforehand, when the temperatures were still hovering in the low 30s.

“It’s too cold for us,� Texas Tech student Anderson Douglass said.

The section did eventually fill almost completely up, over multiple sections that wrapped around ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥â€™s bench, so the students’ late arrival wasn’t a problem. In fact, it’s often the case that there are usually minimal lineups except for when rival Texas used to come to town.

The Longhorns took off for the SEC this season, something student section monitors universally lamented, but Raider Riot VP Grayson Waldron said ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥â€™s move in has been a plus.

“You’re talking about adding a brand name to the Big 12,� Waldron said. “We’re all for that.�

DRF double play

The Wildcats’ trip this week was a two-for-one opportunity for ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥ athletic director Desireé Reed-Francois, who was able to watch the UA track and field team participate in Texas Tech’s “Corky Classicâ€� indoor track meet on top of catching the men’s basketball game.

Reed-Francois said she would also travel with the Wildcats on Saturday night to Oklahoma City, where the Wildcats were scheduled to practice Sunday and also probably take in a Thunder-Nets NBA game on Sunday night.

The UA traveling party will then head to Stillwater, Oklahoma, on Monday to prep for a Tuesday game at Oklahoma State.

Reed-Francois said it helped that Monday is Martin Luther King Day, reducing the amount of missed class time for players (and office time for her). The Wildcats’ other two-game trip in conference play, to Cincinnati and West Virginia, was also completed before spring classes started, an intentional gift from the league.

“The Big 12 looks at things holistically,� Reed-Francois said.

While the Wildcats could have returned home via charter Saturday evening, and then flown out again Monday afternoon to Stillwater, Reed-Francois said it is cheaper to stay the extra hotel nights instead of taking extra flights. But she said travel for similar trips going forward would be planned on what proves best for the players.

New landscape for Pasch

While Phoenix-based ESPN play-by-play broadcaster Dave Pasch says he’s scheduled to work at least four ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥ games this season, some things aren’t the same.

Most notably, of course, is that Pasch no longer works with analyst Bill Walton, who passed away in May.

The other is that all those ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥ games aren’t in Pac-12 games anymore. So he was in Lubbock on Saturday doing one of them a week after going to McKale Center to cover the Wildcats’ matchup with a team called the Knights.

“UCF, that would be a game in November, not January,� Pasch said. “So that’s strange.. It’s definitely weird. It’s going to take some time.�

The big number

16: More Texas Tech rebounds than ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥ rebounds on Saturday, the Wildcats’ biggest rebounding deficit of the season. UA’s previous low was minus-7 against Duke.

Quotable

“You can’t start this without talking about how awesome it is to have the students in the United Supermarkets Arena. I mean, it is such a different place. The energy in the building, the energy behind their bench, I know everybody was waiting just to explode.� — Texas Tech coach Grant McCasland, at the beginning of his pregame press conference.