Texas Tech basketball limits turnovers in win over Longhorns

The Texas Tech basketball team was able to limit its turnovers in Saturday’s pivotal win in Austin, showing improvement in a critical area.

Because of their style of play, which is built around controlling the pace of play and a physical defensive mindset, the Texas Tech basketball team can ill-afford to give away offensive possessions. That’s why the Red Raiders nine-turnover performance against the Texas Longhorns on Saturday was an encouraging sign.

This was the second-fewest turnovers that Tech has coughed up in a game this year. The season low was six against Norther Colorado on November 24th.

Though Tech is the only undefeated team in Big 12 play, they are far from perfect, especially on the offensive end of the court. And one of the issues keeping the Red Raiders from taking the next step offensively has been hanging on to the ball.

With 209 total giveaways on the season, Tech ranks right in the middle of the Big 12 at No. 5. But through four conference games, Tech’s 55 turnovers are the third-most in the league ahead of just West Virginia and Kansas.

To begin conference play, the Red Raiders had games of 13, 19, and 14 turnovers and were fortunate that their moments of carelessness with the basketball did not cost them a game. And there is a flaw in the roster that is making it tough to hang on to the ball.

One of the reasons that Tech has struggled with turnovers against the tough defenses in the Big 12 has been their lack of a true point guard. The primary ball-handling duties are generally split between Matt Mooney, Davide Moretti and Jarrett Culver, none of whom are point guards in the truest sense.

Tech’s lack of a point guard was on display in their most high-profile game of the season, which was also their only loss thus far. When discussing the performance of Jarrett Culver after beating the Red Raiders in New York City, legendary Duke head coach Mike Krzyzewski made reference to the fact that Culver was lacking the benefit of a true point guard.

"“Really good player, smooth.” Krzyzewski said of Culver. “It’d be interesting what he’d do with a true point guard.”"

And in that game, the biggest difference between the Blue Devils and the Red Raiders was at the point guard position. Duke PG Tre Jones was fantastic with 13 points, 6 steals, 5 assists and 5 rebounds. Comparatively, Mooney was at the other end of the spectrum scoring just seven points and turning the ball over six times with most coming as a result of Jones picking his pocket.

But with a lack of a true point guard, Mooney has had to play somewhat out of position and at times he has struggled with ball security. He leads the team with 2.8 turnovers per game and he is yet to have a turnover-free outing as a Red Raider.

And once again on Saturday, he did give the basketball away twice but considering that he played a season-high 37 minutes, the fact that he equaled a season-low was certainly respectable. And he helped offset those turnovers by coming up with two steals to go along with his game-high 22 points.

While Mooney did not quite have a clean sheet, Davide Moretti did. In 33 minutes he was able to protect the ball to perfection while also scoring 13 points and coming up with three assists. It was the sixth time the sophomore has had a turnover-free game which is certainly aided by the fact that he plays more of a shooting guard role for this team.

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The only player that struggled with turnovers on Saturday was Culver. Second on the team with 2.5 per game, Culver was off his game against the Longhorns giving the ball away four times.

He has had at least three turnovers in his last three games including back-to-back games with four. Twice this year he has had six turnovers in a game (against Duke and USC) and as teams continue to put a greater emphasis on stopping him, he must be more cognizant of protecting the basketball.

Overall, Tech ranks in the middle of the pack nationally at 135th in turnovers per game at 13.1. Tech also sits fifth in the Big 12 in assist to turnover ratio at 1.1. But in Big 12 games, that number has fallen to just 0.7, second-worst in the conference.

As the team that has attempted and made the fewest 3-point field goals in the Big 12, Tech has less of a margin for error offensively. Turnovers are far more crippling for a team built like the Red Raiders than a team like Texas (which had 14 turnovers Saturday) which receives far more of its scoring from 3-point range.

What’s more, the best way for an offense to score against the dominant Texas Tech defense is by getting easy transition baskets off of turnovers. Therefore, there may be no more important offensive statistic for the Red Raiders than turnovers.

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That’s why Tech’s noticeable improvement in that area on Saturday afternoon is worth appreciating. If Chris Beard’s team can continue to take care of the ball the way it did against the Horns, it will have a tremendous opportunity to stay at the top of the Big 12 standings.

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