The Texas Tech basketball team is in the midst of its second-straight excellent season under Chris Beard. Interestingly, this year’s squad is eerily similar to last year’s Elite 8 team through 26 games.
Coming in to this season, many expected the Texas Tech basketball team to take a step back after losing six of last season’s top eight scorers including All-American Keenan Evans and first round NBA Draft pick Zhaire Smith. In fact, the Red Raiders were picked to finish just seventh in the Big 12 preseason poll.
Fortunately, Chris Beard’s team has managed to prove just about everyone wrong. And now they are in the mix for a Big 12 title as March nears, just as they were last season.
A season ago, Texas Tech picked up their 22nd win of the season by defeating eventual lottery pick, Trae Young, and the Oklahoma Sooners, 88-78 in Lubbock in game No. 26. Through 26 games this year, Tech is just one game worse at 21-5 with a huge showdown against Kansas on tap Saturday. Hopefully, game No. 27 is far more positive this season.
In Tech’s 27th game last year, disaster would strike as Evans sustained a broken toe in a loss at Baylor triggering a 4-game losing streak. Though Evans would fight through the injury, he was a shell of his normal self. Unfortunately, the four-straight losses to Baylor, Oklahoma State, Kansas and West Virginia put an end to Tech’s regular season conference title hopes.
Luckily, their earlier success had them firmly in the second seed. The Red Raiders ended the regular season with a home win against TCU and beat Texas in the quarterfinals of the Big 12 Tournament before losing in the semi-finals to West Virginia. In spite of their late season stumble, Texas Tech made a run to the Elite Eight and were arguably the best challenger to eventual national champion Villanova.
Thus far in 2018-19, Tech has lost to the two best teams they’ve played this season in a road contest against Kansas and a more bothersome neutral site loss to current #1 Duke. I say bothersome because NCAA tournament games are all neutral site games.
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It’s arguable that the top of the Big 12 last season was tougher than it is this season with Tech, Kansas and West Virginia all being legitimate top-15 teams. Although this season’s conference is deeper with TCU having a shot at an at-large big while sporting a 5-8 conference record and eight of ten teams projected to make the Big Dance.
Last season’s Texas Tech basketball team was slightly better offensively (76.2 ppg vs 71.5 ppg) but this year’s Red Raiders are significantly better defensively (57.2 ppg vs 62.7 ppg). As a result, the two teams have a comparable average margin of victory (13.5 ppg vs 13.3 ppg) through 26 games.
And there is reason to believe that Tech could be set up for a stronger conclusion to the regular season this year. The main reason is that the team looks to be healthy right now (knock on wood), which was not so a year ago when Evans was hobble.
What’s more, last season, Tech was mostly on the road down the stretch finishing the regular season with three of five games on the road. But this season, they get three out of their next five at home. The biggest game will be Saturday’s rematch against Kansas, the last team to beat the Raiders. A win in game No. 27 this year could set Tech up for a long win streak going into the Big 12 tournament as the Raiders currently ride a four-game winning streak.
Being as this team is considerably better defensively and still has enough firepower on offense, there is reason for fans to be optimistic that another March run could be in store. Considering how well last year’s NCAA tournament went for them, it could be even better if Tech is the hot team going into the Big Dance this season.