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Game Recap
Tortilla Tossin’ Player of the Game: I don’t know if I should give this to Culver who scored 20 points and grabbed 16 rebounds, but he wasn’t his normal self and struggled from the field, 30% overall, and from the free throw line, 5 of 10, plus 5 turnovers.
Defender of the Game: Tariq Owens again affected a handful of shots, finished with 7 points, 3 blocks, 2 steals, and 5 boards.
Multi-Purpose Player of the Game: Kind of a tough one on this one, only Kyler Edwards had more than 1 assist and he had 2 assists, with only 6 assists all game. Not a lot of ball movement here. I’ll give it to Edwards who had 9 points, 4 boards, 2 assists, and 1 turnover.
Game Notes:
- Well, that sort of stinks. Texas Tech was playing from behind for most of the game, Texas Tech allowed ISU to run in the first half, creating easy buckets and allowing the Cyclones to get into a flow offensively. Texas Tech didn’t clamp down defensively until the second half, not forcing an Iowa State turnover until the second half and the pressure and the intensity just wasn’t there. That’s not to say that Texas Tech wasn’t playing hard, and if you actually look at the fast break points, it was 4 in the first half, and 8 in the second half, so truthfully, ISU pushed the tempo in the second half at times too.
- It also doesn’t help that your best player just isn’t making shots. Jarrett Culver was not his normal self, only making 7 of 21 from the field and maybe the worst thing was Culver at the free throw line where he was 5 of 10. It wasn’t Culver’s best day and he was turnover prone and he’s had better days. A lot of those shots were in close range and if he just hits a few of them, both those close range and free throws, then I think this is a different game. And at the end of the game, Beard gave the ball to Culver, put the ball in his hands and for whatever reason, Culver couldn’t pull Texas Tech to tie or take the lead with the ball in Culver’s hands.
- Oh, the free throws the team was 6 of 15 overall. Kyler Edwards was 0-3 and Culver’s 5-10 were the worst offenders.
- And the layups, oh the layups. According to T-Rank, Texas Tech was 17 of 37 at the rim. that’s right, not just from the field inside the three-point line, but 17 of 37 at the flipping rim. So you can take two alternate views, that Texas Tech won’t go 17 of 37 (46%) at the rim again or that Texas Tech is cursed forever (there are more than these two views). For reference purposes, Texas Tech is normally hitting 68% of his shots at the rim, thank you Hoop-Math. If Texas Tech just hits their yearly average, that’s 25 field goals and 16 extra points, which Texas Tech missed. And Culver was 6 of 16 at the rim, which is just uncharacteristic for him. In every other game, Culver was at least 50% except for the Mississippi Valley State game where he was 4 of 11. So this was clearly an anomaly. To be clear, not all of those 20 misses were going to be scored as buckets (multiple short misses at the rim in one possession). The bottom line is that there were too many shots missed at the rim and one other note, Texas Tech had 0 dunks.
- I think this team was greatly affected by Deshawn Corprew not going last night. This is a short bench and with Corprew not being able to play makes it even tougher for Beard to have options.
- Khavon Moore made his season debut, playing 2 minutes and Moore is not going to be a savior at this point. To get thrown into the Big 12 fire and to perform at the level that Corprew is at isn’t realistic.
- I think everyone else pretty much played up to what they normally do. Take away Culver’s 7 of 21 and Texas Tech was 45% from the field, so the rest of the crew was pretty much on pace. The one thing you didn’t have is one of the other guys catching fire, whether that be Moretti or Mooney or Francis or Edwards. Again, they weren’t terrible, they were just average.
- I thought the refs were weird, there were only 4 fouls called on Iowa State in the first half, 2 of which were in the seconds that wound down the half and they had fouls to give while Texas Tech had 7. Amazingly, those things evened up in the second half and it was actually 16 personal fouls for Iowa State to 15 for Texas Tech. Texas Tech didn’t take advantage of those free opportunities anyway.
- Hey, we all hate losing games and losing games at home stinks. Iowa State has already beaten Kansas in Ames, blew them out actually, so they can run and play with anyone. Texas Tech will need to rebound against Baylor on Saturday in a big way.
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