SCORE
- Am I crazy to think that I wasn’t totally impressed with a 31 point win? Yeah, I probably am, but I never really thought that there was one stretch where Texas Tech just dominated the play. It was one of those gradual or slow-burn sort of things where Texas Tech was just better athletically and made more shots. I thought had it not been for the turnovers for Longwood, things might have been different, but the Lancers shot 47% from the floor and 40% from the three-point line. I was maybe hoping for a more dominating defensive performance because dominating defensive performances will need to be a part of Big 12 play.
- Instead of the defensive performance, Texas Tech shot 55% from the floor and made 8 of 18 from the three-point line, which seems like a lot for this team, which translates to 44%. As a team, the entire group played some terrific offense and they shared the ball better than I can ever remember. Texas Tech had 24 assists, that’s right, 24 assists, to just 9 turnovers. Niem Stevenson and Justin Gray had 5 assists each, while Anthony Livingston had 6. Offensively speaking, this team really is playing on a different level and I think that’s going to be important heading into Big 12 play.
- Noresne Odiase returned to play 11 minutes and was immediately effective, scoring 8 points on 4 of 6 from the floor and had 2 rebounds and 2 assists on the day. Coach Beard mentioned after the game that Odiase worked like a true professional to work his way back from injury:
“I was just really pleased with Norense,” Beard said. “He basically took the same approach as [Aaron] Ross did coming back from his injury. With younger guys, you worry that they’re going to get out there and try to do too much or play outside of themselves. I thought it was very obvious today that Norense was calm. He played within the team concepts. He didn’t force anything. He had a really productive game per minute played. So, just like I was with Ross when he came back, I was really impressed with Norense’s professionalism and maturity. It looked like he was just trying to get out there and get his feet wet.”
- The biggest offensive play was from Anthony Livingston, who scored 19 points on just 11 shots, grabbed 4 rebounds and the aforementioned 6 assists.
- Zach Smith recorded yet another double-double, registering 15 points, two highlight dunks, and 12 rebounds. Livingston made 4 of 5 three-point shots, which is great for the team overall.
- Aaron Ross scored 14 points on just 7 shots, making 2 of 3 from the three-point line and grabbing 3 rebounds and dishing out 1 assist.
- Keenan Evans also scored 11 points on 4 of 10 from the floor with 2 assists and 1 rebound.
- I loved the bench play of Matt Temple, who scored 6 points on 3 shots including a nice pick and roll flush and Niem Stevenson is a weird and good player in that he’s really unconventional in how he scores and how he moves on the floor. I like unconventional and his 4 points and 5 assists were interesting. Texas Tech out-scored Longwood’s bench, 36-16 yesterday.
- Texas Tech dominated the boards, 42-18, which is a huge margin, plus Texas Tech scored 32 to just 16 points in the paint and had 16 offensive rebounds to just 3 for Longwood.
- There was apparently a comment made by Beard after the game asking about Gio McLean, who did not travel with the team to Richmond and was not on the bench yesterday. Beard would announce something about McLean after the holiday.
