Texas Tech basketball: Red Raiders must capitalize on Kansas’ misfortune
With the news that Kansas’ star center Udoka Azubuike will miss the remainder of the season, the Texas Tech basketball team’s goal of capturing their first ever Big 12 title became far more attainable.
Winning a championship in any sport always requires a combination of preparation, ability and good fortune. No team knows that better than the Texas Tech basketball team which saw a key injury to its star Keenan Evans derail a potential Big 12 title run last year. But this year, the overwhelming favorite to win the league, No. 7 Kansas, has been hit with tremendous misfortune giving the Red Raiders a golden opportunity to win the first Big 12 championship in their history.
Sunday, it was revealed that the Jayhawks’ star center Udoka Azubuike has torn ligaments in his wrist requiring surgery that will cost him the remainder of the season. The 7-foot-1 center was the ace in the hole for the preseason No. 1 team as he was expected to pair with sophomore forward Silvio De Sousa to give Bill Self a front court tandem capable of bullying its way to the program’s 15th-consecutive Big 12 title.
As we saw against West Virginia when both Tariq Owens and Norense Odiase fouled out, Red Raider head coach Chris Beard does not have faith in sophomore forward Malik Ondigo who did not play as Tech went to a lineup that featured 6-foot-5 Jarrett Culver as the tallest player on the floor.
But now, Tech should be far more capable of matching up with a Kansas team that will have only one true center, freshman David McCormack, at its disposal. Certainly, there is still plenty of talent on the Jayhawks’ roster. Saturday against Iowa State, Self’s entire starting lineup was comprised of players that were either 4 or 5-star recruits including former McDonalds’ All-Americans Devon Dotson and Quentin Grimes.
What’s more, KU’s 6-foot-9 forward Dedric Lawson is the Big 12’s third-leading scorer at 18.6 points per game, one-tenth of a point behind Texas Tech’s Jarrett Culver. Additionally, guard Lagerald Vick is fifth in the league in scoring at 14.8 p.p.g.
But even with such a talented lineup on the court, KU was obliterated by Iowa State 77-60 without their big man who had only been back on the court for two games after suffering an ankle sprain in December. On the season, Azubuike was averaging 13.4 points and 6.8 rebounds per game to go along with 1.6 blocks.
Now the question facing Kansas is whether the Jayhawks can shoot well enough to turn into a perimeter-oriented team on the fly. Thus far, KU is shooting just 34.1% from 3-point range and the 95 3-pointers they have it are good for only sixth-most in the Big 12.
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In years past, KU was always near the top of the league in 3-point shooting which would have helped them offset such a debilitating loss inside. For instance, last season, they led the Big 12 in 3-point shooting (40.1%) and 3-pointers made (391) helping them capture the conference tournament title despite being without Azubuike for all three games of the event because of a sprained knee.
But this year, without Azubuike and De Sousa inside, Kansas is a much more manageable matchup for the Red Raiders. Tech leads the nation by holding opponents to just 24.1% from behind the arc and has allowed only two teams to hit more than five shots from long-range.
While Tech may be short on post defenders, the strength of this Red Raider team is in its ability to defend jump-shooters. If Kansas becomes a perimeter-based offense, they could be playing right into Chris Beard’s hands.
Obviously, this news out of Lawrence blows the Big 12 race wide open. There are a handful of teams that could legitimately consider themselves contenders and Tech will see two of those in Oklahoma and Iowa State in their next two home games.
What we learned from win over Kansas State. dark. Next
Now that the talent-gap between Kansas and the rest of the conference has been significantly diminished, this could be the year that another program rises up to claim the league. If Texas Tech wants to take the next step towards becoming a truly elite college basketball program, it needs to capitalize on this opportunity and win the Big 12.