Texas Tech basketball must become road warriors to win Big 12

As the Texas Tech basketball team begins a stretch featuring three of four games on the road, the Red Raiders must improve their play away from Lubbock if they are to be serious Big 12 title contenders.

During the Chris Beard era of Texas Tech basketball, no team in the Big 12 has had a bigger home advantage than the Red Raiders who have gone 43-4 in United Supermarkets Arena in the past three seasons. But with Saturday’s game in Austin, Tech is set to begin a road-heavy stretch of the schedule. And if the Red Raiders are truly Big 12 title contenders, they must become more adept at winning in enemy territory.

In fairness, Tech is not the only Big 12 team that has found life on the road a challenge. On average, Big 12 home teams win about 70% of the time as the home court often tips the scales when evenly-matched teams square off. Thus far, Big 12 teams have gone 11-3 in conference games this season.

Of the three road wins, one belongs to Texas Tech courtesy of their 62-59 win over West Virginia on January 2nd. The other two road wins were Iowa State’s 69-63 win at Oklahoma State and Texas’ 67-47 drubbing of Kansas State in Manhattan.

Now, Texas Tech will travel to Austin, Manhattan and Waco in the next four games with Tuesday night’s showdown with Iowa State the only home game between now and January 26th. What’s more, after Tech faces Arkansas on the 26th and TCU on January 28th, Beard’s team heads back out on the road for another stretch of three out of four games away from the USA.

In other words, six of the next nine conference games will send Texas Tech into hostile environments, which has spelled doom recent seasons. In Chris Beard’s first two full seasons as head coach, Tech has managed to go just 3-15 on the road in conference play including an 0-9 2016-17 and just 3-6 last year.

In the non-conference Tech has managed some nice wins in true road games. Two years ago, the Red Raiders beat Richmond 79-72 on the Spiders’ home court and last year, Tech handed South Carolina a 70-63 loss in Columbia as part of the Big 12 / SEC Challenge.

But Tech must find a way to do much better on the road against Big 12 teams if it is to dethrone 14-time reigning champion Kansas. During their current Big 12 run, the Jayhawks have lost on average 3.2 conference games per year and have not lost more than five in a season.

In all likelihood, five games would be the most a team can lose this year and still have a shot at the Big 12 title. Tech went 8-1 at home last year, with the only loss coming to Kansas, meaning that a 5-4 mark on the road would have been required to just equal the Jayhawks. Tech has lost at least five Big 12 road games every year since 1996-97, the year Big 12 basketball began.

But there is reason to believe that this year could be different. A number of factors may combine to help this version of the Red Raiders have more road success.

First of all, Texas Tech is playing defense at a historically elite rate. Kendall Kautt at SB Nation has an eye-opening look at how dominant Tech’s D has been this year and it is worth your time but just know that the Red Raiders are on pace to put up defensive stats not seen in the advanced analytics era of college basketball.

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While last year’s team was also elite defensively, it was not nearly as suffocating as this year’s. If the old adage about how defense travels holds true for the Red Raiders, their defense could be capable of choking the life out of teams on their home courts.

Second, the Big 12 is as evenly-matched as it has ever been. Injuries to preseason favorite Kansas as well as Kansas State and West Virginia have brought the top three teams in the preseason poll back to the pack. Tech has already won in Morgantown and has beaten Kansas State in Lubbock so we know that the Red Raiders can play with the Mountaineers and the Wildcats. We will find out about Kansas on February 2nd.

What’s more, there are no truly elite offensive teams in the conference. Iowa State leads the conference in scoring at 81.3 points per game but that ranks just 25th in the nation.

Of the top 50 scoring teams in the country, only the Cyclones, TCU and Kansas represent the Big 12 and the final two are just No. 43 and 46 respectively. We have already seen Tech hold the No. 2 scoring team in the nation, Duke, 21 points below their season average of 90 so there does not figure to be a team in this league that will overmatch the Red Raiders with offensive firepower.

Finally, Tech has a true all-American level scorer in Jarrett Culver who can take over in close games as he did against both Oklahoma and West Virginia. Of course, you could argue that Keenan Evans was that player last year for the Red Raiders but Culver is even more dominant this year than Evans was a year ago.

Culver’s size makes him a more well-rounded offensive player and a tougher matchup than even Evans was. And do not forget that Evans was not himself for the second half of Big 12 play last year after breaking his toe in Waco in early February. Had he been healthy, he likely would have been the difference in some close losses. Do not be surprised to see Culver steal a game or two on an opponent’s floor this year as All-Americans are known to do.

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There is a true opportunity for Texas Tech to make history this season and bring home the program’s first Big 12 basketball title. But to do that, the Red Raiders have to figure out how to navigate the perils of life on the road starting Saturday in Austin where Tech has not won in 22 games.

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