Texas Tech basketball: Ice-cold shooting dooms Red Raiders in loss to Iowa

In the Texas Tech basketball team’s 71-62 loss to Iowa on Thursday, the Red Raiders couldn’t buy a bucket from outside and it cost them a win.

Though it was Iowa big man Luka Garza who looked like he had gone 10 rounds in a Las Vegas heavy-weight fight on Thursday night, it was the Texas Tech basketball team that got punched in the face for the first time this year.  Garza, the Big 10’s leading scorer had 17 points and 12 rebounds as the Hawkeyes handed the Red Raiders their first loss of the year 71-62 in the Las Vegas Invitational.

But while Iowa’s scoring leader carried his team, Tech’s leading scorer, Jahmi’us Ramsey, was a non-factor.  The freshman entered the game averaging 19.5 points per game, tops in the Big 12, but he managed just 7 points on 3-11 shooting before leaving the game early in the second half with an apparent left leg injury.

Though he left the court under his own power, he was limping noticeably and would not return.  Thus, it would seem unlikely that he will be able to give his team much if anything, on Friday as Tech takes on either San Diego State or Creighton.

It was an awful shooting night all around for the Red Raiders, who made just 4-24 from 3-point range and shot 32.8% from the floor.  With the shots from outside refusing to fall, Tech found it difficult to get to the rim against an Iowa defense that utilized quite a bit of zone when the Hawkeyes realized that Tech could not buy a bucket from deep.

Senior Chris Clarke led the Red Raiders with 11 points while T.J. Holyfield and Kyler Edwards were the only other Red Raiders with double-digits as each scored 10 points.  And if it were not for Clarke, Tech would likely have been blown out of the Orleans Arena.

In addition to leading his team in scoring, the grad transfer from Virginia Tech had team-highs with 10 rebounds and 5 assists.  It was Clarke’s best game of the year thus far and it showed just how important he is going to be to this young team.

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Meanwhile, another grizzled Red Raider veteran had an uncharacteristically quiet night.  Junior Davide Moretti was a focal point of the Iowa defense and could not shake loose for many open looks as he scored just 8 points on 2-8 shooting overall and 2-7 from 3-point range.

On the other side of the floor, the Hawkeyes did not have the same problem with their shooting touch.  As a team, Iowa was 11-27 from behind the arc with their sharpshooter, Jordan Bohannon, nailing four shots from long-range on his way to a team-high 20 points and Joe Weiskamp also draining four bombs as part of his 16-point night.

It was their hot shooting in the first half the propelled their team to a 36-21 lead with 2:26 to play in the first half.  Down ten points at the break, Tech was able to claw back into the game eventually cutting the deficit to 61-59 after Terrence Shannon Jr. hit a pair of free throws with 1:58 in the game.

But on the ensuing possession, Iowa’s C.J. Fredrick drilled a deep 3 as the shot clock was running out to essentially seal the game.  On a night in which the deep ball was so one-sided, it was a fitting way for the Hawkeyes to put this game to bed.

The loss dropped the Red Raiders to 5-1 on the season and revealed some previously undetected flaws in Chris Beard’s team.  But that’s what these early-season tests are supposed to do.

One of the most noticeable was a lack of communication on the defensive end.  Tech struggled to rotate as a team leaving Iowa’s shooters wide open for easy looks.

Also, the Red Raiders were stagnant on offense as the ball movement that had helped them average an NCAA-leading 22 assists per game was missing outside of the brilliant passing from Clarke.  For the game, Beard’s team handed out just 12 assists, with the starters accounting for only five.

Iowa pressured Tech on the perimeter trusting that their size inside would help protect the rim and that’s what Garza was able to do as he blocked two shots and deterred a handful of others.  And when Tech got good looks, the ball just wouldn’t go down.

With the starting lineup shooting just a combined 13-48, the No. 12 team in the nation had its lowest offensive output of the year.  In fact, this was the team’s lowest-scoring game of the year by a full eleven points.

We knew that this year’s squad would have some bumps in the road at times, especially early in the year.  While Beard always wants his team to win, what a loss to a tough Iowa team does is reveal to his team just where it needs to strengthen itself before Big 12 play begins.  After what we saw in the season’s first true test, there’s more than enough work to do.