Game Links:
Tortilla Tossin’ Player of the Game: JT Toppin with 21 points and 13 boards, yet another double-double. Toppin was 9 of 21, so not exactly efficient, but am glad he’s not too injured from the last game.
The Motion:
- I stayed up for the first half, but fell asleep at some point in the second. I am old and cannot stay up late any longer. I thought the first half, Texas Tech competed and did a really good job of fighting back. Arizona is obviously incredibly talented and they went right at Texas Tech. Arizona had 22 points in the paint in the 1st half and 26 in the 2nd half and absolutely dominated inside, 48-28.
- I don’t even need to talk about rebounds because that was also largely in favor of Arizona, 42-29. Just a dominating performance by their big men and that’s probably Texas Tech’s biggest weakness is there just isn’t a ton of guys that can go score and push people around.
- While I was snoozing, Arizona appeared to be running, just 7 fast break points in the 1st half and 18 in the 2nd. Texas Tech had 16 for the entire game, so Arizona saw chance to run and took advantage of those. and I do want to be clear in that with 0:18 seconds left this was a 5-point game thanks to a Williams 3-pointer. So despite the not great shooting and Arizona’s dominance inside, Texas Tech was in this game until the end. This was not a bad loss by any means.
- Texas Tech just didn’t shoot well either, credit to Arizona, they didn’t allow Chance McMillian to do much of anything and probably had one of his worst shooting nights this year, just 3 of 8 for 8 points. They seemed content to let Elijah Hawkins shoot, he was just 3 of 12 from the field, including 2 of 9 in the 2nd half.
- For the game, Texas Tech shot 37% overall, 39% in the 1st half and 35% in the 2nd. One of the reasons Texas Tech clawed back in the first half was hitting 42% of 3-point shots, but made just 33% in the second half.
- Darrion Williams is still not exactly his former self, but he’s working back towards it, 6 of 18 from the field, but an encouraging 5 of 10 from deep, scoring 17 points. He didn’t get involved in passing the ball very much, just 1 assist, and not that many boards, just 3. He did have 3 steals and 4 turnovers.
- McCasland pretty much ran with McMillian, Hawkins, Williams, Toppin, and Anderson. They all played 30+ minutes with Walton getting 7, Overton playing 8, and Federiko playing 14. In a way Christian Anderson filled McMillian’s role a bit, scoring 17 on 5 of 9, including 3 of 6 from deep. If McMillian had been slightly more on target, I think this game changes quite a bit.
- Head coach Grant McCasland: “Arizona was more physical than us in every way. The way they pushed it in transition, the way they got it into the paint and scored at the basket through us. The way they bullied us with their defense and activity. They basically beat us in every area. I thought they played with such great force over the course of the game. We responded a few times. We just couldn’t keep it up because of their effort.”
- Advanced stats had Anderson at +11.4, then Toppin at +8.9, Hawkins +6.9, and Williams +4.3. McMillian and Federiko were at -2.0 and -2.4 respectively.
- Up next? Texas Tech hosts Arizona State on Wednesday, February 12th with the game set for tip-off at 8:00 p.m. and broadcast on CBSSN.
Highlights