Texas Tech basketball: What we learned in win over UTRGV
This team continues to play to the level of its opponent
One sign of a young team is that it plays according to the level of its opponent. That’s what we’ve seen from the Red Raiders for much of this year and it happened again on Saturday afternoon against UTRGV.
Consider that the Red Raiders have been the decided underdog just once, against No. 1 Louisville, and that game was easily the best showing of the year thus far. The rest of the time, Tech has failed to match that performance when playing against teams that view the Red Raiders as a trophy.
It cost them in losses to Iowa, Crieghton, and DePaul and it has been a problem in games against the mid or low-major teams on the schedule this year. For instance, against Tennessee State Tech was up just 27-22 after a lethargic first half.
We’ve already discussed the fact that the last three teams to come to Lubbock have held halftime leads. But consider that those three teams are just a combined 12-24 on the year and none have more than four wins to this point.
The fact is that this Red Raider team is now the prey rather than the predator. That’s just what happens when you have the type of success that the Red Raiders have had in the last two years.
What is interesting though is that this is a team with seven newcomers so there really isn’t any logical reason for arrogance or entitlement to be present. The only players that have any skins on the wall as Red Raiders are Davide Moretti and Kyler Edwards.
The rest of this roster should be just as hungry as any opponent because they haven’t been to a Final Four, haven’t won a Big 12 title, haven’t played in a National Title Game. There’s no reason for this roster to feel superior to anyone other than the name on the front of their jerseys but that’s been a problem in the last month.
Hopefully, as Big 12 play arrives the intensity will pick up. Multiple times this year, Beard has said that his team has not played as hard as its opponent. The one time when Tech did overwhelm a team with effort and intensity was against Louisville. But that same type of showing has to be what we see against No.1 or No. 300 this year if the Red Raiders are going to get back into the fight for a conference title.