Texas Tech basketball: Critical moments in win over Cowboys
In Saturday’s 85-50 win for the Texas Tech basketball team, these critical moments are where the Red Raiders separated themselves from Oklahoma State.
Sometimes the pace of the basketball season can be tough to transition to for fans still coming off of a football mindset. But for the last month, the Texas Tech basketball schedule has looked as much like a football schedule as possible with several breaks of nearly a week in length if not longer.
There were only five games on Tech’s schedule in December. Each had at least five days in between.
After opening the month with a loss at DePaul on December 4th. Tech would then have to wait six days to wash the taste of that OT setback out of their mouths but when they got back on the court, they made some significant waves.
December 10th’s defeat of No. 1 Louisville at Madison Square Garden came without freshman Jahmi’us Ramsey and reminded the college basketball world that the Red Raiders were still a factor despite massive changes to the roster. But Chris Beard had to wait six more days to see how his team would handle its greatest success thus far.
On December 16th, the first game after the university’s self-imposed final exam sports break, Beard’s team was sluggish and lethargic in a 71-65 defeat of Southern Miss. In the first game in Lubbock in nearly a month, Tech trailed a Golden Eagle team missing several key players at the half and did not deliver the knockout blow until the final minute of the game.
Five days later, the Red Raiders were again uninspiring at home when UT Rio Grande Valley came calling. Again on the wrong side of the score at the intermission, the Red Raiders picked up their intensity in the second half on their way to a 68-58 win.
That game was the last before an 8-day Christmas break. When Tech returned on December 29th, we saw a workmanlike performance in a 75-58 win against Cal State Bakersfield in Lubbock.
Another six-day layoff brought us to Saturday’s Big 12 opener against Oklahoma State. Tech won’t go that long between games again for the remainder of the regular season with games coming every 2-5 days.
It will be a rather breakneck pace for this team and the fans over the next two months and that begins Tuesday night with the showdown with top-10 Baylor inside the U.S.A. But before we turn our attention to that game, let’s look back at the fantastic opener to league play that saw Tech score its largest margin of victory ever in a Big 12 game.
Though the game was a blowout, there were times when the game hung in the balance and that’s when Tech can through in a big way. So here are the critical moments from Tech’s impressive victory over the Cowboys.