Game Links:
Tortilla Tossin’ Player of the Game: Darrion Williams maybe here? he scored 16 with 8 boards, an assist, 2 steals and 2 turnovers.
The Motion:
- Another game where I didn’t see one second. Not even a highlight. Fitsum had a track meet last night and we didn’t get home until 9 and the night before I didn’t get home until 8 as Fits had a tennis match. So I passed out. The good news is that Fits, who had never come close to bringing a point to his team, placed 6th in the mile and a half. A huge achievement for a kid who has placed last or nearly last in every event he’s ever run. It finally clicked this spring. What happened last night in Lubbock could not not deter how happy I was by the end of my night.
- The hype for this game was something I’ve not seen and Texas jumped out early, made plays, and after the game McCasland said he did a terrible job of coaching last night. That’s not something that you typically say after a game. You hate to see people throw things on the court, but that’s just a handful of people.
- It looked like a ref show, there were 6 players that had 4 fouls and Texas shot 30 free throws and Texas Tech shot 26 (some of those were technical fouls due to the bottles thrown on the floor).
- Some figures, Texas out-rebounded Texas Tech by 14, 44 to 30. The Longhorns also had 34 off the bench to just 13 for Texas Tech, thanks to 10 from McMillian who also led the team with 9 boards. Texas had 11 fast break points to just 3 for Texas, which speaks to the Texas Tech offense just struggling to get anything easy. And the Longhorns had 6 blocks to 0 for Texas Tech.
- Other than McMillian, who played 33 minutes, played a total of 10 minutes, which means that the starters plus McMillian played 95% of the available minutes and that also meant that the tallest player on the court for most of the time was Jennings, who again had 4 fouls and only played 20 minutes. That means that Texas Tech basically played the smallest lineup possible.
- Texas Tech shot better in the second half 13 of 26 overall and 6 of 12 from deep, but it wasn’t enough to recover from 8 of 33 overall and 1 of 10 in the first half. Isaacs did go 5 of 8 in the second half so that’s a bit encouraging (that’s coming off of a 0-10 in the first half).
- McCasland also said after the game that he has to get better and figure out how to make the offense work without Warren Washington as part of this game. I don’t see how this team survives with just playing Williams in the post and running out a 4-guard offense.
- Advanced stats said that this game was a 98% certainty victor for Texas with 17 minutes left in the first half when Texas went up 57 to 28. There were only two positive players in box score plus/minus, Darrion Williams was a +4.4 and McMillian was +0.6. The worst players were Jennings at -3.6, Walton at -3.2, Isaacs at -2.6, and Toussaint at -0.6.
- Head coach Grant McCasland: “I think you look in the mirror and you tell the truth. When you look back at it, I’ve been a part of a lot of disappointing losses, but we ended the season and found a way to win championships. When you look back at those it can propel you forward. It’s all part of the process. It’s one game in the Big 12, even though it’s significant to all of us, me included, but that’s how we’re going to approach it. We’re going to get better because of it. We’re going to own it and give Texas credit because they beat us and did it because they were more physical and played better.”
- Up next? On the road in Morgantown to take on West Virginia on Saturday, March 2nd with tip-off at 5:00 p.m.
Highlights