Texas Tech basketball: Ball movement key to offensive explosion vs. TCU

One of the keys to the Texas Tech basketball team’s offensive explosion in Monday night’s 84-65 win over TCU was the Red Raiders’ ability to share the basketball.

The most dominant narrative surrounding the Texas Tech basketball team in the month of January has been the limitations of the offense. While there are several factors that go into making the motion offense work, as we saw in Monday night’s 84-65 blowout, ball movement may be the at the top of the list.

After failing to break the 70-point barrier in the previous eight games, the Red Raiders set a season-high for points against a major conference opponent and the key reason was the team’s 20 assists. Tech made 32 of 59 shots from the field and 62.5% of their made shots were assisted, an increase of 8.5% from their season average.

Not coincidentally, in a game in which Tech set a season-high for assists against a major opponent, it also shot better (54.2%) than it has in any of the previous twelve games against power 5 schools and Memphis.

Not surprisingly, the Red Raiders three top players led the way. Davide Moretti had a season-high seven assists while Matt Mooney had five and Jarrett Culver had four.

It was a refreshingly crisp performance in that regard from a team that averages 13.8 assists per game. That ranks 4th-best in the Big 12 overall but in eight Big 12 games, Tech has seen its assists drop to 10.5 per game, ahead of only West Virginia. And the impact on the offense is easy to see.

In the nine games against non mid-major teams in which Tech has registered 13 assists or fewer, Chris Beard’s team has averaged just 63.2 points. Conversely, in the four games with at least 14 assists, Tech’s offensive output has risen to 74.2.

Of course, when discussing the relationship between points and assists, we run into the proverbial chicken and egg debate. It is impossible to determine if Tech’s poor assist totals in their low-scoring games are a result of bad shooting or if the bad shooting is a product of having to take tougher shots when poor ball movement leads to desperation heaves at the end of the clock. Regardless, the outcome is the same; ineffective offense.

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What is most important is that on Monday, Tech may have rediscovered what makes the motion offense effective…motion. Aside from Jarrett Culver, this is not a roster built to live off of isolation plays.

In fact, the three leading scorers on the team that are not Coronado High School graduates are rather dependent on the motion offense to get good looks. Matt Mooney and Davide Moretti are effective spot-up shooters who see their accuracy plummet when they have to shoot off the dribble. And Tariq Owens’ best offensive skill is his ability to finish at the rim off of lobs.

But on Monday, 46 of Tech’s 84 points were assisted. What’s more, 30 of the 46 points to come from Mooney, Owens and Moretti came off of assists.

When the Red Raider offense has stalled out in games, it has almost always been because the ball stays in the hands of one player (usually Culver) while the other players on the court become spectators. Tech does not want to turn the game into a 1-on-1 contest because the lack of a true point guard makes isolation offense next to impossible for this team.

On the other hand, TCU entered the game leading the Big 12 with 17.6 assists per game. But they had only nine against the Red Raiders. Much of that was because their point guard Alex Robinson, who was averaging a Big 12 best 7.7 per game, had just one.

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Monday night was one of those rare occasions when the Texas Tech basketball team could do no wrong offensively. That likely will not happen again this year. But if the Red Raiders can make certain that their motion offense is always full of motion and that the basketball moves even more than the players on the court do, the offense will not be a liability the way it was during most of the month of January.

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