Game Links:
Tortilla Tossin’ Player of the Game: For me it is Jaylon Tyson who appears to have found a groove. I do think he’s the team’s best defender (he did have the best defensive rating last night) and he’s also just found some consistency scoring as well, 7 of 13 overall, 3 of 8 from deep, with 12 rebounds, an assist, 1 turnover, and 2 steals.
The Motion:
- I’m out of answers I think. Opposing teams are not supposed to shoot that well on the road in what is normally a loud environment, but Baylor did and part of that is Baylor just made some tough shots, but the other part of that is that the defense was an absolute sieve at times, allowing Baylor players to just cut the lane for dunks and/or layups. Baylor scored 26 points in the paint and to be honest, everything else was generally pretty even in terms of statistics.
- Actually, that’s not entirely true. The biggest problem was that Texas Tech forced 3, yes, just 3 Baylor turnovers compared. Texas Tech only had 9, which is great, but the Baylor offense wasn’t under any sort of pressure the entire game.
- I don’t know that I’m qualified to discuss the issues with the defense. Teams that can shoot and teams that swing the ball with good guard play and with the no middle defense (which was not accurate yesterday) the Baylor offense was able to find open players and cutting players? I don’t know? I don’t know that there are enough plus defenders for Texas Tech, especially considering how last year you could throw high-end athletes like Davion Warren, Adonis Arms, TJ Shannon, and Kevin McCullar. That’s not something that happens now.
- A positive is that Kerwin Walton found his way a bit and it was nice having some bench points. He played 22 minutes, 4 of 6 all 3-pointers, to go along with 2 assists. That’s a positive.
- If you are curious, Tyson had a defensive rating of 111. That was the best, with Aimaq at 131 and Batcho at 146. Every other player was at 160 or higher, Isaacs was at 169, Harmon at 176, Walton at 176.
- Other good news? The offense doesn’t appear to be broken any longer. Guys are able to get off their shot in the flow of the offense. Fardaws Aimaq has helped tremendously, 5 of 8 from the floor with 9 boards is a good stat line. I have a theory that Pop Isaacs is tiring out in the second half, he was 2 of 6 in the first half and 2 of 9 in the 2nd. He took by far the most shots in the 2nd half, all of them were 3’s and sometimes that’s not the right shot.
- Head coach Mark Adams: “When you go through these losses it wears on you. What’s important is that our guys keep their heads up and stay positive. No different than you would in life. There’s certain times when you have a bad day, bad week, bad month, and more, and you know, you learn from adversity. We challenge these guys to just not give up on themselves or each other and just keep fighting. We’re going to do that. We only had nine turnovers against a very good defensive team.”
- Up next? Conference leader Kansas State who is sitting at 5-1 and just finished off Kansas in Manhattan. Texas Tech will also hit the road and take on the Fighting Tangs on Saturday, January 21st with tip-off at 1:00 p.m.
Highlights