Texas Tech basketball: Why the Red Raiders lost to No. 4 Baylor

Taking a look at the box score from Tuesday night, it is rather easy to see why the Texas Tech basketball team could not beat No. 4 Baylor in Lubbock.

Entering Tuesday night’s showdown, both the Texas Tech basketball team and Baylor were led by impressive young guards.  For Tech, freshman Jahmius Ramsey was putting up 17.4 points per game while Baylor’s sophomore Jared Butler was almost matching him at 17.3 p.p.g.

So had you told Red Raider fans that their star would outscore the Bear’s star by 15 points, we would have been rather confident in the home team’s chances.  But despite the fact that Ramsey showed up Butler to the count of 20-5, Tech couldn’t pull out the win.

Lost in the minutia of this game is going to be the fantastic job Chris Beard’s team did defensively on Butler.   The Louisiana native was just 2-8 from the floor 0-4 from 3-pint range.  That was far and away his worst outing of the season.

Previously, he had been held below ten points only once when The Butler Bulldogs limited him to 8 points.  It was also his first game of the year without a 3-point bucket.

The Red Raiders did a great job of limiting Butler’s touches.  His eight shot attempts were tied for his season-low so far.

Meanwhile, Ramsey had his second 20-point game in his last three outings.  The other game in that span, Saturday’s victory over Oklahoma State, he slacked off and had just 18.

His five 3-pointers tied a season-high.  On the Sunday before Thanksgiving, he also knocked down five looks from deep against the Long Island Sharks.

Accounting for 38.4% of his team’s offense, Ramsey had all but two of Tech’s 3-pointers.  Had he not been on his game, the Red Raiders might not have broken 40 points.

That has to be one of the more frustrating aspects of this game.  In a showdown featuring two of the Big 12’s best scorers, Tech’s star completely outplayed Baylor’s and yet, the Red Raiders couldn’t come up with the win.

This was a game that was there for the taking.  Though the Red Raiders were outplayed all night, they were able to stay within five points or less for the vast majority of the second half, even cutting the deficit to just two points in the final 30 seconds.

But in all honesty, the Red Raiders didn’t deserve to win this game.  They were not the better or more physical team.  It is hard to write those words about a Beard team and it makes one sick to have to give Baylor its due but that’s the simple reality of what we saw Tuesday night.

So let’s go inside the box score and see just where Baylor took it to the Red Raiders.  As we do, you will notice that some of what hurt Tech was due to the opponent while some of the fatal wounds were self-inflicted.