Texas Tech basketball stunned by WVU in Big 12 Tournament

The Texas Tech basketball team dropped its first game of the Big 12 Tournament to No. 10 seeded West Virginia 79-74 Thursday night, ending the Red Raiders 9-game winning streak.

Every winning streak comes to an end. Fortunately for the Texas Tech basketball team, their 9-game winning streak (which dated back to February 4th) ended in the second round of the Big 12 Tournament and not next week in the opening two rounds of the NCAA Tournament.

That is about the only consolation Red Raider fans can take away from Thursday night’s 79-75 loss to No. 10 West Virginia, which became the first No. 10 seed to beat a top-2 seed in the Big 12 Tournament since the conference went to ten teams.

Jarrett Culver led the Red Raiders with 26 points but it was not enough as the No. 2 seed was unable to complete a 17-point second-half comeback. Tech played its worst game of the season being out rebounded 44-30 and letting the Mountaineers grab 19 offensive boards giving the underdogs ten extra shots in the game.

It was a trio of freshmen that helped carry West Virginia to its second win in two days. Emmett Matthews Jr. led all scorers with 28 points on 10-14 shooting, much of which came as a result of his six offensive rebounds.

Meanwhile, Jordan McCabe added 13 points despite hitting just 4-18 shots from the floor. And though forward Derek Culver had just six points, he pulled down 13 big rebounds and drew a key whistle in the final minute to give Texas Tech forward Tariq Owens his fifth foul of the game.

Aside from the rebounding domination, WVU benefitted from another statistical anomaly. The third-worst free-throw shooting team in the Big 12 drained 20-22 (90.9%) shots from the line after entering the game shooting just 68.1% on the season.

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But credit must go to Bob Huggins’ team, which played like a team that desperately wanted to win while Chris Beard’s team played like a team that believed it deserved to win.

Thanks to a 17-2 run, WVU jumped out to a 38-29 halftime lead. At one point in the first twenty minutes, they held a 22-5 rebounding advantage over the Red Raiders as Chris Beard was so confounded by his team’s lack of effort he inserted slightly used forward Malik Ondigo and walk-on guard Avery Benson into the game at the same time for a handful of possessions in hopes of finding anyone that could provide a spark.

And though Tech would ultimately battle back to take a 69-68 lead with just 2:03 to play after a Jarrett Culver layup, the Mountaineers closed out the game with excellent work at the foul line. In the final two minutes, they drained all nine of their free throws as only two of their final eleven points in the game came from the field.

Meanwhile, Tech could not come up with answers on the offensive end. Jarrett Culver missed three of four shots in the last four possessions of the game to seal Tech’s fate but it is hard to fault the Big 12 Player of the Year because he was forced to carry his team all night as his usually running mates struggled.

Davide Moretti had one of his quietest games of the year with just 10 points on 4-5 shooting. It was only the third time since the start of Big 12 play that he has had ten points or fewer.

Meanwhile, Matt Mooney struggled as well going just 3-10 from the field but because all three of his field goals were 3-pointers, he managed to score 13 points. However, he was not careful with the basketball as he turned it over four times (as did Culver, though given that Culver had to do so much seemingly by himself, it is far easier to live with his turnovers).

Another surprise was the Red Raiders lack of bench production. With just nine combined points from Kyler Edwards, Brandone Francis and DeShawn Corprew, Tech had few answers for Beard to turn to when he needed someone to infuse some life into his team.

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The Red Raiders now await Sunday’s announcement of the NCAA Tournament bracket to find out where they will be playing next weekend. And after being one of the biggest disappointments of conference tournament week, perhaps the best we can say is that they should be plenty rested for what we hope will be a much longer run than they had in Kansas City.

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