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Game Recap
Tortilla Tossin’ Player of the Game: Not very often that I’m awarding the player of the game to a guy that played 17 minutes, scored 4 points, had 5 rebounds, an assist, a turnover, and 2 blocks, but Texas Tech doesn’t win this game without Marcus Santos-Silva in the last 2 minutes.
Multi-Purpose Player of the Game: Kevin Obanor gets it 2 games in a row as he finished with 15 points on 6 of 13, with 15 rebounds, including 7 offensive, 1 assist, 1 block, and 2 turnovers.
Game Notes:
- Big breath. A few things that deserve mention at the end of the game because there were so many after a back-and-forth affair. First of all, when Bryson Williams was being repeatedly picked on defensively by the Notre Dame guards, Adams subbed in Terrence Shannon defensively and that absolutely messed up Notre Dame’s offense. A couple of turnovers later and Notre Dame could not handle four guards and Marcus Santos Silva on defense. Before that happened, Obanor grabbed a terrific offensive rebound and then made both free throws. Making free throws is good. Notre Dame then tried to ISO MSS and that didn’t work out so well as he blocked the shot and was fouled. Santos-Silva then made two free throws right-handed after shooting with his left hand pretty much his entire career. Another handful of Notre Dame missed shots resulted in a fury of activity around the rim and MSS gets his second block in under 2 minutes and Shannon would assist on a runaway dunk by Kevin McCullar that essentially ended the game. Whew.
- The bottom line is that the Texas Tech defense was again stellar. Overall, Texas Tech held Notre Dame to 33% from the field and 32% from deep, those stats were slightly better from the 1st half to the 2nd half, 25% overall and 31% from three compared to 42% overall and 33% from three. It should also be noted that Notre Dame went 6 of 6 from the sine in the 1st half and 4 of 9 in the second.
- Combine that with Texas Tech missing all 3 free throws in the 1st half and going 13 of 14 in the 2nd.
- Texas Tech continued to do what they do, which is dominate inside, 24 points in the paint to just 10 for Notre Dame. That was never going to be what they do, but to make sure they didn’t get easy buckets was huge.
- Speaking of easy buckets, I don’t know layups Texas Tech missed, but it seemed like it was a handful at the back end of the 2nd half. And Texas Tech won the game despite the following shooting lines: Terrence Shannon 1-4; Adonis Arms 1-5; Davion Warren 1-8; and Santos-Silva 1-4.
- Texas Tech had just 8 turnovers, which is shocking that’s all it was, but it is a testament to McCullar and Arms being the primary ball-handlers and Arms having to fill that void while McCullar was out dealing with the Jamie Dixon ankle injury.
- Notre Dame head coach Mike Brey: “I think they were switching out, getting out on us more forcing us to drive. That’s why we had driving opportunities. Dane got in there. Blake got in there. He missed a couple but he got in there. I think they just said switch everything and make them drive it to the rim. Of course, when you do get a head and shoulders on them a little bit, there’s another big, physical dude, usually, back there. And then you’ve got a physical guy riding you. So those finishes are hard. But we just didn’t play the two bigs. I go back, should we play two bigs, but we didn’t run offense. We were just playing basketball. Drive-kick. Drive-kick. Drive-kick. You can’t run anything against them. Which is kind of what I thought would happen.”
- Advanced stats box score? Positive players were Obanor, Williams, Arms, McCullar, and Santos-Silva.
- Texas Tech head coach Mark Adams: “I’m incredibly happy for these guys up here, for our basketball team to stay alive and keep moving forward and play another game. I certainly feel for Notre Dame. They played so hard and played good enough to win. We just made a lot of great plays down the stretch. Couldn’t be more happy for these guys up here and our team.”
- Up next? Duke on Thursday, March, 24th in San Francisco, California, with tip-off at 8:30 p.m. and to be broadcast on CBS.
Highlights
OOOOHHHH MYYYY 🤯@TexasTechMBB are going to the Sweet 16 after this insane sequence! 👏
(Via @MarchMadnessMBB)
— FOX College Hoops (@CBBonFOX) March 21, 2022