Game Info
Good Guys: Texas Tech Red Raiders (4-0, 0-0)
Bad Guys: St. Joseph’s Hawks (3-1, 0-0)
When to Watch: Thursday, November 21st @ 8:00 pm
Where to Watch: Barclay Center | Brooklyn, New York
How to Watch: ESPN2
How to Listen: 97.3 FM | Affiliates | Varsity Network
The Line: Texas Tech -10.5
Advanced Stats
| TEXAS TECH | STAT | ST. JOSEPH’S |
|---|---|---|
Lineups
| THE STARTERS | Pts / Reb | |
|---|---|---|
| POINT GUARD | Kevin Overton (6-5/200) | 11.3 / 3.3 |
| SHOOTING GUARD | Chance McMillian (6-3/190) | 14.7 / 3.0* |
| SMALL FORWARD | Kerwin Walton (6-5/210) | 11.7 / 2.7 |
| POWER FORWARD | Darrion Williams (6-6/225) | 13.0 / 5.3 |
| CENTER | JT Toppin (6-9/225) | 22.7 / 9.0 |
| THE BENCH | Pts / Reb | |
| SIXTH MAN | Devan Cambridge (6-6/210) | 6.7 / 4.0 |
| SEVENTH MAN | Federiko Federiko (6-11/215) | 6.0 / 4.7 |
| EIGHTH MAN | Elijah Hawkins (5-11/160) | 7.0 / 5.0* |
| NINTH MAN | Christian Anderson (6-2/165) | 9.0 / 4.0* |
| TENTH MAN | Eemeli Yalaho (6-8/240) | – / – |
| ELEVENTH MAN | Leon Horner (6-4/215) | – / – |
| TWELFTH MAN | Corbin Green (6-5/230) | 0.0 / 0.5 |
| THIRTEENTH MAN | Jazz Henderson (5-11/175) | – / – |
| FOURTEENTH MAN | Jack Francis (6-3/185) | 0.0 / 0.5 |
| THE STARTERS | Pts / Reb | |
| POINT GUARD | Xzayvier Brown (6-2/175) | 16.8 / 6.3 |
| SHOOTING GUARD | Erik Reynolds II (6-2/190) | 14.5 / 3.3* |
| SMALL FORWARD | Derek Simpson (6-3/175) | 11.8 / 4.0 |
| POWER FORWARD | Rasheer Fleming (6-9/240) | 13.8 / 7.8 |
| CENTER | Justice Ajogbor (6-10/260) | 4.0 / 2.3 |
| THE BENCH | Pts / Reb | |
| SIXTH MAN | Dasear Haskins (6-8/200) | 4.0 / 2.3 |
| SEVENTH MAN | Steven Solano (7-0/260) | 4.3 / 2.0 |
| EIGHTH MAN | Anthony Finkley (6-7/230) | 5.5 / 2.9 |
| NINTH MAN | Shawn Simmons II (6-6/215) | 2.0 / 1.8 |
| TENTH MAN | – (-/-) | – / – |
* Assists.
Starting 5
1. Stats. St. Joseph’s is good, but maybe not great at anything. They are a team that is 189th in 3-point shooting and 122nd in 2-point shooting. Not a great rebounding team, 171st in offensive rebounding, 155th in turnover rate, and 145th in free throw rate. Again, not terrible, but not great. Just sort of middle of the pack. Defensively, they are a terrific team in terms of limiting opponents from shooting free throws, 14th in the nation, and are 48th in the nation in block percentage. They don’t guard the 3-point line really well, 183rd overall, but are okay inside the arc, 140th.
2. Scouting. St. Joe’s does have wins against Navy, Villanova, and Penn, but an inexplicable loss to Central Connecticut. Brown is their high-use player, he’ll have the ball quite a bit and is adept at finding his teammates. He’s not necessarily a great shooter, but he’s on the floor 89% of available minutes. Fleming is a very good shooter inside and offensive player. He’ll shoot from outside and makes a decent amount, but am guessing his threat is that he can do both. Simpson and Finkley are the best outside shooters, although Reynolds takes a ton of 3’s, as does Brown, and they both make just 24% of 3’s. Ajogbor, Fleming and Solano will block some shots, so they have decent height.
3. How They Match Up. Texas Tech has decent advantages offensively, the Red Raiders are making a ton of shots, but the opponents haven’t been great and aren’t adjusted for that. It will get more difficult. One area that could be problematic is that Texas Tech’s free throw rate is 306th in the nation and this is something that St. Joe’s is really good at limiting. I don’t see this as a huge problem as I think that Texas Tech does go hard to the bucket and there’s enough inside between Toppin and Williams to think that they’ll slowly turn this around. Texas Tech just shoots so well.
4. lagniappe | something given as a bonus or extra gift.
The Athletic’s CJ Moore: Men’s college basketball Top 25 rankings: Wisconsin, Texas Tech, Purdue— you have our attention
No. 12 Texas Tech
Texas Tech is the team the computers and humans are farthest apart on. Texas Tech ranks No. 9 at KenPom, No. 10 at Evan Miya and No. 12 at Bart Torvik. The Red Raiders have yet to appear in the AP Top 25, despite my best efforts. I was one of 18 voters to rank Texas Tech last week and slotted them the highest, at No. 11.
In defense of the other voters, the Red Raiders have played a weak schedule thus far, but they’re crushing those teams. At KenPom, the predicted winning margins for the three games has been 77; the actual margin has been 101. Texas Tech was missing its two top point guards (Elijah Hawkins and Christian Anderson) in the first two games. Both came off the bench last week against Wyoming in a 96-49 win, which KenPom predicted would be a 21-point win.
It’s possible that Texas Tech is this year’s Iowa State, a team beating up on lesser competition early, which could be a sign it’s about to be way better in the Big 12 than expected and the computers are the first to catch on. (Cincinnati is another candidate.) The one difference was that Iowa State had a dominant defense, while Texas Tech is elite offensively. The Red Raiders lead the country in effective field goal percentage (66.3) and are shooting 47.8 percent from deep.
5. Official Site. The official site has their preview right here:
Teams and players don’t become legendary overnight. They do it by seizing moments on the biggest stages. The 100th team in Texas Tech men’s basketball history has its first center stage opportunity this season when it competes in the UKG Legends Classic with Saint Joseph’s, Syracuse and Texas ready to battle the Red Raiders for the championship on Thursday and Friday at Barclays Center.
“We have an awesome opportunity here,” Texas Tech coach Grant McCasland said. “Anytime you get to play in an NBA arena in a great city that loves basketball and represent the Big 12 it’s a lot of fun. Saint Joseph’s has an awesome team. We are going to have to play our best basketball. It’s great to be here and have our fans here. It’ll be a great showing for the Red Raiders.”