Inside the numbers: Where the Texas Tech basketball offense has digressed

Under Chris Beard, the Texas Tech basketball program has never been known as an offensive juggernaut but this year’s offense has digressed significantly.  Let’s go inside the numbers to find out exactly where.

Virtually everyone is aware that this version of the Texas Tech basketball team is offensively-challenged to say the least.  But that has been the narrative for this program for as long as most can remember.

However, last year Tech was able to overcome a pedestrian offense on their way to the Elite 8.  Eventually though, the Red Raiders ran into a team that was balanced enough on both ends of the court to make them pay for their inability to score as Villanova kept Tech out of the Final Four.

Certainly, there are similarities between this year’s offensive output and last season’s.  For starters, both teams were led by one dominant offensive force.  Last year, Keenan Evans led the team with 17.6 p.p.g. while Jarrett Culver leads the way this year with 18.7.

But Evans received 22.5 points of support per game from his second and third-leading scorers, Zhaire Smith and Culver.  This year, Tech’s second and third scorers, Matt Mooney and Davide Moretti, are scoring just 20 p.p.g.

One huge difference between the 2017-18 secondary scorers and this year’s has been consistency.  Smith and Culver combined for 27 games below 10 points last season while this year, Mooney and Moretti have already had 21 with a third of the season remaining.

Certainly, Mooney and Moretti have had huge nights (Mooney had 22 against Texas and Moretti had 19 against KSU in Lubbock) but when they are off their game, they have contributed next to nothing as was the case Tuesday night in Manhattan.

Another area where this year’s team has taken a step back is at the 3-point line.  Having made 112 3’s this year, Tech is averaging 5.8 per game.  That is down from the 6.8 per game we saw the Red Raiders hit last year.

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While one 3-pointer per game might not seem like a huge difference, consider how important every point is in Big 12 play.  (How different would the end of the Iowa State game have been if Tech would have hit an extra 3 along the way?) Also, given that Tech still has 11 conference games left to play, there’s a decent chance that those 3-point numbers will drop even further as the Red Raiders continue to face some of the top defensive teams in the country.

And one problem is that there are far fewer reliable long-range shooters on this year’s team.  Shooting just 33% from deep this year, Tech has only two players, Kyler Edwards and Moretti, shooting over 35% from long-range.  But last year, five players shot the ball at at least a 35% clip.

Moving a bit closer to the basket, Tech is not nearly as dominant at the free-throw line this year as well.  The team is shooting 70.5% from the line which is virtually the same as the 70.4% it shot one season ago.  The problem is that Tech is not getting to the line quite as often.

Tech averaged 22.2 trips to the line last year but that has dropped to 19.1 this year.  Much of that is because Keenan Evans and his 6.5 attempts per game and Zhaire Smith and his 6.6 are no longer on the roster.  Culver leads the way this year with 5.6 foul shots per contest, which is strong, but his teammates do a poor job of drawing contact.

Last year, Tech’s starters averaged 18.2 free throw attempts per game.  This year, that number is down significantly at 13.7.  Much of that can be attributed the the fact that players like Evans and Smith, who made a living by attacking the rim have been replaced in the lineup by jump-shooters like Mooney and Moretti.

Finally, last year’s bench was far more productive.  Tech received 26.1 points per game from its regular reserves in 2017-18 led by Niem Stevenson at 7.5 and Zach Smith at 6.2.  This year’s bench is scoring just 17.4 per game.  Much of that is a factor of the rotation being shorter this year as Beard regularly only plays eight players this year rather than the nine he used last year.

And Tech was counting on Brandone Francis to be a bigger factor this season but he is scoring just half a point more in his senior season despite playing 8.4 additional minutes each game.  His shooting percentage has also dropped from 43.6% to 31.3% but this year’s team needs him to keep being aggressive because he must give the Red Raiders something on the scoreboard each night.  His role was not nearly as critical last season.

Fortunately for the struggling Texas Tech offense, a very undisciplined Arkansas defense is headed to Lubbock this weekend.  While it is apparent that this year’s Red Raiders are not as talented offensively as even last year’s very average scoring team, Tech needs to rediscover its scoring touch against the Razorbacks if it is to have any hope of being a contender in the Big 12.