Texas Tech basketball needs the Brandone Francis we saw in Waco

One of the few bright spots from Saturday’s loss to Baylor was the play of senior Brandone Francis who had his best game of the season after a prolonged shooting slump.

Most Texas Tech fans would like to forget Saturday’s 73-62 loss to Baylor in Waco.  But one Red Raider who needs to build off of what transpired at the Ferrell Center is senior guard Brandone Francis.

Last week, we discussed how Francis had become one of the team’s biggest liabilities on both ends of the court.  But if he can return to the form he showed last season, it would be a key in helping the Red Raiders achieve their goal of winning the Big 12.

Hopefully, Saturday was the beginning of such a turnaround.  With 14 points on 4-8 of shooting, Francis set a season-high in points and was Tech’s second-leading scorer behind Jarrett Culver’s 19.

Perhaps most encouraging is the fact that Francis was 3-4 from 3-point range perhaps signaling an end to his prolonged shooting slump.  Dating back to Tech’s December 5th game against Arkansas Pine Bluff, he had hit just 7 of 36 attempts (19.4%) from behind the arc prior to Saturday.

But in three of Tech’s last four games, he’s hit multiple 3’s with his 1-7 performance against Texas as the only poor shooting effort in that span.  During that time, he’s hit 8-14 3’s (57%), his best streak of the year.

Throughout his career at Tech, the former transfer from Florida has been a streaky shooter.  For instance, he had a four-game run against West Virginia, Texas, Iowa State and Oklahoma State last season in which he nailed 10-19 (52.6%) from deep.  But in his next seven games, he got cold hitting just 5-20 (25%).

Unfortunately, Tech has struggled with consistency from its secondary scorers.  While Culver can be counted on to produce virtually every night despite being the entire focus of the opposing team’s defensive game plan and Davide Moretti has scored in double figures in every Big 12 game, the rest of the roster has been unreliable.

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Matt Mooney has failed to score over eight points in three of his last four games.  Fortunately, the one exception was a huge 22-point outburst against Texas.

Tariq Owens has scored in double figures just once in Big 12 play while true freshman Kyler Edwards has been held scoreless in half of the conference games thus far.  That’s why it would be especially critical for Francis to get hot again as the Red Raiders get set to face the best defensive team in the Big 12 not wearing scarlet and black.

Tuesday’s opponent, Kansas State, ranks fourth in the nation in scoring defense allowing just 59.2 points per game.  And in their last three games, they have held each opponent to 61 points or fewer.

That’s not good news for a Texas Tech basketball team that has averaged just 62.6 points per game in its last three.  But if Brandone Francis can stay hot from deep, he could help alleviate some of the scoring burden on Culver and Moretti.

And the Red Raiders need someone to step up and knock down some shots from deep with consistency.  In only one Big 12 game has the team shot better than 33% from long-range and in conference games Tech has made the fewest 3-pointers in the league (32).

The biggest question surrounding this year’s Red Raiders is whether or not Chris Beard can find enough firepower on a nightly basis to succeed in the best defensive conference in the nation.  If the same Brandone Francis that we saw in Waco shows up on a more consistent basis, it would go a long way towards accomplishing that goal.