Top Five Texas Tech Basketball Games of 2017-18 Season

The perspective of hindsight allows us to see that Texas Tech’s overtime win over Nevada in the first week of December was one of the season’s best wins.  The game itself was one of the most thrilling as well.

Texas Tech actually entered the game unranked while the Wolfpack was sitting at No. 22.  And for most of the night, Nevada lived up to the billing.

Led by twins Caleb and Cody Martin, the Pack built an 11-point lead with just 12:39 to play.  That is when Keenan Evans took over.

Evans scored 25 of his then career-high 32 points in the second half but it was two other senior leaders that helped get the game to overtime.  Justin Gray sank two free-throws to tie the game with 23 seconds to play and Zach Smith blocked a last-second three-point attempt to keep the score knotted at 70.

In overtime, Texas Tech dominated.  Evans had eight of Tech’s 12 points and Nevada had just six as a team as Tech avoided losing its second-consecutive game after falling to Seaton Hall.

The significance of the game is now easily understood as Nevada went on the reach the Sweet 16 making this win easily the best non-conference win of the year.  But the win was big at the time because it put the Red Raiders back into the top 25 after Tech had dropped out following its first loss of the year.

Another important aspect of this game was that it was an exciting win in front of a large home crowd which featured a strong student turn-out.  Texas Tech basketball has always had to earn its fans and coming off of a disappointing 2016-17 season, the same was true of this year’s team.  The gritty and exciting comeback win was the first big moment of the season and it helped prove to the Lubbock community that Texas Tech basketball was a worthwhile investment.