TCU 67, Texas Tech 62
* The Flex is a shout-out to Tubby Smith’s flex offense and a place for us to set some screens, make some cuts and discuss the game.
- One of the more lackluster performances for this team that I can remember. They just seemed to never get anything going and there were times that I was annoyed that the announcer noticed that the team seemed to be not into this game, but he was right. The team just seemed to sleepwalk through the game, made some mini runs, but the writing appeared to be on the wall for much of the game as TCU hung around and hung around and I never felt the game was going to turn in Texas Tech’s favor.
- For another game, Texas Tech played terrible defense on Chauncey Collins, at least for a half. It’s disappointing that a guy that averages 11 can go off for 16 points in a half and Texas Tech can’t figure out a way (at least until after half) to stop a player. That’s going to have to get fixed.
- The only players that I felt played well were Norense Odiase, who was terrific off the bench, scoring 10 points and grabbing 6 rebounds. I thought Zach Smith played well, scoring 13 and grabbing 15 rebounds. And Justin Gray had 13 points with 5 rebounds.
- I thought the guards had terrible games. Just terrible. Devaugntah Williams, after coming off of one of his best games, never got into a flow for the game, seemed to dribble into situations that turned into nothing (althought he did have 5 assists to 2 turnovers). Keenan Evans, who is coming off of 6 of 7 game and scoring 20 points, was in foul trouble and couldn’t keep pace with Collins and was abused defensively and only played 18 minutes due to foul trouble. Toddrick Gotcher was only 3 of 10 and looked out of sorts. Aaron Ross was 1 of 7 from the field and looked as lackluster as I’ve ever seen.
- Here’s head coach Tubby Smith on those players:
Yeah, I thought they just — we gained — we struggled scoring the whole game. I mean, when Aaron Ross and Todd Gotcher and Devaugntah Williams are struggling they were shooting the ball, it’s going to be a long night and it was. Because they are the guys that are shooting well. Aaron really hasn’t shot well in the last few games. He made a couple of threes in the last game that made him look a little bit, but people are playing him differently. He had some wide-open looks tonight, and he’s been shooting it well.
I don’t know what happened. Again, Toddrick, he looked like he was struggling, had a little groin pull. And I think that happened with him. When Keenan is not out there playing his game, youget four fouls in, what, 18 minutes of play — so those things, that’s going to put you in a dire situation because those guys have been playing well up until tonight.
Again, a lot of them had to do — because we had good looks. I mean, we had looks, the same looks we had in the last games, they just didn’t go down. And I don’t know whether it was they said something about fatigue, but they were fatigued at a point and I thought that’s how we made the run right before the half and got some momentum, but it evaporated quickly in the second half.
- I don’t think this affects Texas Tech getting into the NCAA Tournament, but I do think this affects their seeding. This team hasn’t had a ton of bad games, this was one of them. It stinks that it happened *right now* but fans should feel safe knowing that this team is most likely in the tournament. This game shouldn’t ruin what has been a terrific season overall, because it has been great.
