Game Links:
Tortilla Tossin’ Player of the Game: Let’s go with Warren Washington because I don’t think he’s received this “honor” much. Washington had 10 points on a perfect 5 of 5 from the floor, 6 boards, 5 assists, 4 blocks, and just 1 turnover. Changed a ton of shots.
The Motion:
- Another highly efficient offensive game from Texas Tech. The team shot 54% from the field and 40% from beyond the arc, as well as 89.5% from the free throw line. That ends up being 1.371 points per possession which is great. On the other side, the defense held North Alabama to 38% from the field and 21% from deep and only allowed .966 points per possession. I think that Texas Tech got everything out of this final warm-up before Big 12 Conference play.
- Normally Texas Tech doesn’t have a huge advantage off the bench, but did yesterday, 30 to 19 for the Lions, largely behind the 16 points from Chance McMillian who scored 16 on 6 of 10 from the field. Texas Tech also out-rebounded North Alabama by 8 and didn’t necessarily dominate any one stat except for total assists, 20 to just 6 for North Alabama.
- Another nice shooting performance from Pop Isaacs, which is 2 in a row, making 6 of 12 shots and scoring 21 points, which led the team. Also 3 of 5 from deep, had 0 turnovers and that’s important.
- Just 3 players in double-figures, but it was a well-rounded effort. The team was sharp, only 8 turnovers and 3 of them were from Lamar Washington in just 11 minutes (he still played well) and the aforementioned 20 assists.
- The ability of the big-men to pass is pretty special. Washington does pass out of double-teams and finds his mates, while Darrion Williams maybe had 2 of the passes of the game, feeding I think Jennings for a layup and someone else. Williams finished with 4 assists on the night, but when all 5 players can pass the ball, good things on offense will happen.
- We’ll briefly discuss Kerwin Walton who had 9 points on 3 of 5 and Joe Toussaint who had 8 points on 3 of 9 with 4 assists and just 1 turnover. Will be interesting to see how this plays out in conference play.
- Advanced stats say that Washington was the player of the game with a box score +/- of 27.6 and no one else was in double-figures. the next highest was Isaacs who had a score of 9.5 and he would have been my next choice.
- Before the game, Texas Tech was 41st in T-Rank and after they sit at 39th overall. The offense has gotten much better and the defense is okay, still on the good range, but maybe not great. I think that not having Devan Cambridge changes some of that. Regardless, things are trending in the right direction on offense and defense. And looking ahead to Texas, they’re ranked 36th by T-Rank, so not that far ahead of Texas Tech, but they are ranked.
- Head coach Grant McCasland: “Two things jumped out to me. One, we had nine guys with an assist today, which means that it’s not just one guy to worry about and then we had three guys with four or more assists. So, when you’ve got that kind of movement and the guys that you can trust to make the right play, I think it just shows that we’ve got a team that you can’t key on one guy. The more we move it, and that’s what I was really stressing, but I’m really thrilled with the way our guys are sharing the basketball and honestly, they’re doing it on both sides.”
- Up next? Texas Tech heads to Austin to take on Texas on January 6th with tip-off at 7:00 p.m. in the brand new Moody Center.
Highlights