Lubbock, Texas ? So far, the Bob Knight experiment at Texas Tech has worked out rather well.

Knight, the former Indiana University coaching legend now in his second season in Lubbock, has brought much-needed publicity to the Big 12 Conference university while doing nothing to embarrass the school in the process.

Tonight’s game against Kansas — tipoff is 8 p.m. and the game will be televised live on ESPN — marks the Raiders’ fifth appearance on Big Monday this season. That’s a far cry from late in the James Dickey era when Tech was lucky to get one game a season on national TV.

“There are 52 Mondays in a year. I imagine you’re pretty used to Monday. It comes after Sunday every week,” Knight said sarcastically, asked recently by the Lubbock Avalanche Journal about Big Monday.

Tech’s first four Big Monday appearances, which have resulted in two wins and two losses, all have been on the road.

Tech won on Mondays at San Diego State (75-63 Jan. 6) and at Oklahoma State (62-57 Feb. 24) and lost at Oklahoma (69-64 in overtime, Jan. 20) and at Texas (77-65 Feb. 17).

“The way our schedule has been, we’re getting used to playing Saturday and Monday,” Texas Tech senior Kasib Powell told the Avalanche Journal.

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Valdez not on team: Tech’s Andre Emmett and Nick Valdez were suspended in a team vote Feb. 17 for missing a wakeup call and a shootaround the morning of a 77-65 loss at Texas.

Valdez quit the team four days later, but Emmett was reinstated and scored 26 points in a 70-69 victory Feb. 22 over Texas A&M in Lubbock.

“I think we are a family and people have problems in their families and that’s it,” Powell said. “We’re still good people.”

Added senior point guard Will Chavis, “It’s all made us stronger as a team. We know we still have a chance (of garnering NCAA bid). A lot of people don’t think we can do it.”

Valdez, a 6-foot-6 guard, averaged 5.6 points in 20 games.

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League’s leading scorer: Emmett, a 6-5 junior from Dallas, averages a Big 12-leading 22.0 points a game for the Raiders.

“He’s such a good player,” Powell told the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. “He has it all. He’s athletic. He’s strong.”

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Tough loss at OU: Knight has called it a “shame” that a human error by a scoreboard operator cost Tech in its overtime loss at Oklahoma.

“If there was a little integrity here and there we would have been (credited with the win),” Knight told the Avalanche Journal.

OU was able to win following two controversial clock pauses in the final seven seconds of the second half. TV replays showed the pauses lasted about 1.7 seconds. The extra time was pivotal because Hollis Price drove the floor and forced overtime by hitting a jumper at the buzzer.

Tech would have won at the end of regulation had the clock operator not erred. The Big 12 said the controversy was the result of human error, but the outcome is not reversible. The rematch also was won by OU, 63-58, Feb. 15 in Lubbock.

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Sure, why not?: KU senior Nick Collison was asked if he could play for Knight.

“Probably,” Collison said. “He seems like a good coach. He’s accomplished a lot, that’s for sure. I don’t know what he is like off the court.”