Texas Tech basketball: How the Red Raiders captured the Big 12 title

Tech underwent a mid-season offensive renaissance

Remember back in November when the prevailing though about the Texas Tech basketball team was that it could not score enough points to make a significant run?  That seems like a lifetime ago but it was a legitimate concern.

The first time we saw the Red Raider offense struggle was in December’s 68-59 loss to Duke in which Jarrett Culver scored 25 points but no other Red Raider had more than seven.  And once Big 12 play began, the offensive worries persisted.

In fact, beginning with the Duke game, Tech would surpass the 70-point mark only once in a span of ten games.  What’s more, that one exception was just a 71-point showing against lowly UT-Rio Grande Valley.

In the first seven games of conference play, the Red Raider offense managed just 61.4 points per game.  That included a 45-point upchucking against Kansas State in Manhattan.

But beginning with Tech’s 84-65 home win over TCU on January 28th, the offense came to life; almost without warning.  In the final eleven games of the regular season, the Raiders averaged 78.5 points per game and surpassed the 80-point barrier seven times.

So what caused this offensive rebirth?  The 3-point line.

Tech shot just 32.2% from deep in its first seven conference games.  And in that span, the Raiders never made more than seven shots from deep in a single game.

But that all changed when Arkansas came to Lubbock for the Big 12 / SEC Challenge.  That day, Tech made 10-19 shots from behind the arc (51.2%) but most assumed that showing was an anomaly.

However, that game now seems to have birthed some confidence in the Raiders Raiders.  In the eleven games since, Tech is shooting 40.6% from 3-point range including a streak of four-consecutive games with at least ten made 3’s that culminated in a program record 16 in a 29-point win over Kansas in Lubbock.

Conventional wisdom suggests that a team shoots worse on the road than it does at home but Tech’s 3-point shooting is rather even regardless of where they play.  That is good news as the postseason begins because the ability to hit shots from deep must continue if the Red Raiders are to make a deep run in March.