Bear-ly a game: Texas Tech Basketball blows out Baylor 84-66

Saturday night, Texas Tech blew out No. 21 Baylor 84-66 in Waco. The Red Raiders have won 3 0f their last 4 games and are pushing their way into serious NCAA tournament consideration.

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That sound you hear coming from west Texas is the freight train of momentum the Texas Tech basketball team is riding after a dominating 84-66 road victory over No. 21 Baylor. It is the second upset of a ranked team this week for Tubby Smith’s squad, which beat No. 14 Iowa State in Lubbock on Wednesday.

A trio of sophomores led the Red Raider attack that consisted of fantastic outside shooting and stifling defense. Point guard Keenan Evans paced Texas Tech with a career-high 21 points and continued his growth towards becoming one of the premier point guards in the Big 12. On Wednesday, Evans pumped in 17 points including the go-ahead 3-pointer from near half court in what was the best game of his collegiate career up to Saturday night.

Fellow sophomores Justin Gray and Zach Smith were also key contributors to the biggest road win of the Tubby Smith era. Gray, the guard from Tampa, Florida gave Texas Tech 17 points on 7-9 shooting (2-4 from 3-point-range), while the Plano, Texas native Smith scored 16 points, grabbed 9 rebounds and blocked two shots.

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The game was in Texas Tech’s favor most of the night. The Red Raiders jumped out to an early 14-4 lead only to see that lead cut to one at halftime.

However, in the second half the Texas Tech basketball team exploded to play its best 20 minutes in recent memory. Putting up 51 points in the half (to Baylors’ 34), the team predicted to finish last in the Big 12 crushed the Baylor Bears with a barrage of jump shots and an extra volt of energy the home team could not match.

In what was a satisfying sight for Texas Tech fans that have long been waiting to get the best of their in-state rivals on either the hardwood or the gridiron, Bayor head coach Scott Drew and his team melted down in the final five minutes of the game.

As the route became inevitable, Drew and his players lost their composure in an ugly way. After shouting a series of obscenities at an official that looked to amateur lip-readers like it started with a word rhyming with duck, the Baylor head coach was called for a technical foul while protesting the ruling of a flagrant foul called against Baylor guard Ishmail Wainright.

On the play, Wainright committed an unusually hard foul to prevent Justin Gray from having an open layup. However, the officials deemed Wainright to have been unnecessarily aggressive and assessed a flagrant 1 foul (meanning Wainright was not ejected). Gray suffered a cut around his right eye as a result of the foul but remained in the game.

On the possession, Texas Tech made 3-4 foul shots to extend its lead to 74-58 with 3:25 to play.

Just over a minute and a half later, Gray was again assaulted on his way to the basket. This time Baylor forward Rico Gathers clubbed Gray across the chest as the Red Raider guard drove to the rim.

Having made no attempt to make a play on the ball, Gathers was issued a flagrant 2 foul and was ejected from the contest. But by that time the game was already decided.

Texas Tech basketball has risen from the ashes of a 2-7 start to conference play by winning three of its last four games. Now sitting at 15-9 overall and 5-8 in Big 12 play, Tubby Smith’s team is a serious contender for an NCAA tournament birth with Selection Sunday exactly one month from today.