One of the hallmarks of the Texas Tech basketball team during its current 8-game winning streak has been its propensity to jump out to double-digit first-half leads.
An old sports adage says that you can’t win a game in the first half but you can certainly lose it. But after watching the Texas Tech basketball during its current eight-game winning streak, one might argue with the notion that games can’t be put away before halftime.
In every game during the program’s longest ever Big 12 winning streak, Chris Beard has seen his team jump out to a double-digit first-half lead. It has been a nightly occurrence for the Red Raiders to put together a stretch of fantastic basketball in the game’s first twenty minutes and in nearly every case, the opposing team has been unable to respond as the leads Tech has built in the opening half have been more than enough to carry the team to victory.
When Tech hosted West Virginia on February 4th, the game was tied at 14-14 at the 10:45 mark of the first half. But just over eight minutes later, the Red Raiders were up 32-18 at the 2:56 mark thanks to an 18-4 run.
During that onslaught, Tech went 7-12 from the field while WVU went 0-9 will all four of their points coming at the free throw line as the Mountaineers went nearly fifteen minutes without a field goal. The Red Raiders cruised to an 81-50 win from that point equaling the program’s largest margin of victory ever in a Big 12 game.
Five days later in Norman, Tech led Oklahoma just 17-13 at the 8:33 mark. But thanks to nailing three of their next four shots from 3-point range, Tech led 30-13 with 4:37 to go in the half (a 13-0 run). During that run, OU went 0-7 from the field but outside of that stretch, the Sooners actually outscored the Red Raiders by one point in the 66-54 game. However, after Tech’s first-half outburst, the home team never cut the lead to fewer than nine points.
In the second of back-to-back games in Oklahoma, Tech and Oklahoma Sate were all square at 5-5 at the 16:08 mark. Then, in just under five minutes of action, the Red Raiders took a 26-12 lead thanks to a 21-7 run. That lead was built on the strength of 8-9 shooting from the field including four 3-pointers. Meanwhile, OSU went just 2-9 from the floor and never got back into the game as Tech won 78-50.
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When the Red Raiders beat Baylor 86-61 in Lubbock the score was 13-12 in favor of Tech with13:45 to go in the first half. However, a 15-3 run sparked by seven points from Matt Mooney, staked the home team to a 28-15 lead at the 7:49 mark. Interestingly, during that run, Tech scored seven of its points from the free throw line and for the game, the Red Raiders held a 30-18 advantage at the line.
During the historic massacre of KU Tech turned a 5-4 lead at the 17:40 mark into a 24-10 lead in just over four minutes thanks to a 19-6 run. Tech made 5-6 from deep during that spurt while KU went just 2-4 from the floor with three turnovers. Eventually, the Red Raiders set a program record with 16 3-pointers in the 91-62 win.
The only game during the current winning streak in which Tech had to sweat the outcome in the second half came at home against OSU in an 84-80 overtime win. But the Red Raiders did build a ten-point first half lead thanks to a 12-5 run to end the half. One interesting note is that Tech was just 3-11 from the field during that stretch but 6-6 at the line. And it was at the foul line where Tech eventually made enough plays to win thanks to the heroics of Davide Moretti who was 12-12 from the stipe.
In Ft. Worth, Tech was up 7-5 on TCU in the first four minutes of the game. But by the 5:36 mark of the first half, the Red Raiders had built a 33-11 lead thanks to a 26-6 run. It was the bench that caught fire for the Red Raiders as Brandone Francis, Kyler Edwards and DeShawn Corprew combined for 14 points. In the 81-66 win, the Tech bench outscored the TCU bench 24-0.
Finally, against Texas on Monday night, Tech turned an11-9 lead at the 11:52 mark into a 30-15 lead over the next nine minutes. During the 19-6 run, Matt Mooney came up big with eight points while the Red Raider defense held Texas scoreless for a stretch of 4:31. The Longhorns hit a 3-pointer at the first half buzzer to cut the Tech lead to nine points but would get no closer in the 70-51 Red Raider victory.
In all, Tech has outscored its last eight opponents 310-195 in the first half (an average of 38.7 – 24.3). That is a formula that the Red Raiders would be wise to utilize again Saturday afternoon in Ames against Iowa State. If they do, they can take the hostile Cyclone crowd out of the game and make their path the program’s first ever Big 12 title much easier to traverse despite playing in an arena that has historically been a house of horrors.