Longhorns Drop the Red Raiders, 62-58

Texas 62, Texas Tech 58

  • This one hurts. Real bad. Losing on the road to a last place team is not going to earn you entrance into the NCAA Tournament. Just not going to do that. Texas Tech did not play well against a bad team and allowed a team that doesn’t score very well to shoot really well. Again, the defense is the Achilles’ heel of the team. The Longhorns really aren’t a good team and Texas Tech played down to their level. This makes the rest of the season one where Texas Tech has nine games remaining and they need to get wins against TCU, Iowa State, Oklahoma State, Texas and Kansas State, while Texas Tech will need to get at least one upset against Baylor and Baylor at home or West Virginia on the road (nearly impossible). Then Texas Tech has to have a terrific showing in the Big 12 Tournament. That’s a tough hill to climb and Chris Beard is going to have to coach his rear off.
  • Such a frustrating game because Texas Tech had the lead and then gave it up for what felt like most of the second half and were battling to try to pass up the Longhorns. But a stagnant offense (it felt like it was 22-17 for 20 minutes during the first half) in the first half allowed Texas to stay close. The first half play was sloppy and darn near unacceptable, turning the ball over 9 times on just 39 total possessions is a turnover rate of 23% of their possessions they simply threw away.
  • No one really clicked offensively for Texas Tech, although it is clear that Keenan Evans is the catalyst for the offense but he was the biggest offender in terms of turnovers as he had 5 turnovers all by himself. Still though, Evans was only 6 of 14 overall, so to get 15 points, he had to take 14 shots and that’s too much. Evans though is one of the guys that can create his own shot.
  • Perhaps the best game was Niem Stevenson scored 12 points on 4 of 8 from the field and he was driving to the basket quite frequently, even if his shot was blocked. Texas Tech could use more of that.
  • Of course, it would help a lot of Texas Tech would hit their free throws and that was an uncharacteristic display of incompetence for both teams. Texas Tech was 10 of 19, which is 52.6% while Texas was 8 of 17 for 47%.
  • Head coach Chris Beard:

    “Texas has been in a lot of close games this year,” Beard said. “From their point of view, I’m sure that they finished strong. I thought they played great in a lot of ways. They have a lot of great players and are a well-coached team. We knew it was going to be very difficult tonight. We normally shoot free throws a lot better than that, and we normally take care of the ball better than that. We had way too many turnovers in the first half. You’ve got to make free throws, but give Texas credit. I thought that it was more of what they did than what we didn’t do.”

  • Must-win at home on Saturday against Oklahoma.

Believe it or not, I can’t find any highlights.

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