Texas Tech basketball: Red Raiders bullied in defeat at West Virginia

Saturday night, the Texas Tech basketball team was bullied in all aspects of the game by a physical West Virginia team in a 66-54 loss.

For the second-straight game, Chris Beard saw his Texas Tech basketball team face one of the most physical teams in the Big 12. And for the second-straight game, the Red Raiders were unable to rise to the challenge.

Saturday’s 66-54 loss at No. 17 West Virginia in Morgantown dropped Tech to 10-5 overall and just 1-2 in conference play and came on the heels of Tuesday’s 5-point home loss to Baylor. In both games, the Red Raiders simply could not match the physicality of their opponent.

In Morgantown, the Red Raiders were once again dominated on the glass. One game after being outrebounded by Baylor by 19 boards, the defending Big 12 regular season co-champions were beaten by 13 boards overall at the hands of the Mountaineers.

The rebounding total was part of a larger story that unfolded in the paint. WVU dominated play down low by blocking five shots and altering countless others as the Red Raiders struggled to score inside for the second-straight game.

In this game, Tech actually held a 28-26 edge in points in the paint but that stat is somewhat misleading. WVU won the second-chance points battle 14-9 and controlled the action near the basket on both ends.

Looking more closely at how both teams shot inside the restricted area, the arc in the middle of the lane that defenders must be outside of when trying to draw a charge, tells the story of how this game played out near the basket.

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West Virginia made 8 of 10 shots in that area while Tech was just 11 of 24. Making matters worse, Tech was just 3 for 11 from inside the free-throw line meaning that in the lane, Beard’s team made just 13 of 35 (37.1%) shots.

Davide Moretti was the only Red Raider to get to double-digits. After the worst shooting effort of his Red Raider career on Tuesday night when he was 3-11 overall and 0-6 from deep, the junior was back to being the type of player we’ve come to expect as he hit 6-12 shots overall and 4-8 from 3-point range.

Meanwhile, the home team was led by 22 points from guard Miles McBride, who came of the bench to hit 8-11 shots. It was his fifth-straight game in double-digits.

While McBride gave his team a lift to compliment the pair of star big men, Oscar Tshiebwe and Derek Culver (16 points and 24 rebounds combined), none of Moretti’s teammates could help him out. The other four starters for Chris Beard added just 23 points to the effort meaning that WVU’s leading scorer essentially equaled what four of Tech’s starters gave their team.

Freshman forward Terence Shannon did not play due to a sprained back. Chris Clarke took his place in the starting lineup and put up 6 points, 6 rebounds, and 7 assists.

Meanwhile, two players that this team needs to get some production from, Kyler Edwards and T.J. Holyfield, were essentially invisible on Saturday. Holyfield was held without a point while Edwards had just 9 points on 3-11 shooting, which included an 0-5 day from 3-point range.

The Red Raiders actually battled fairly well in the first half and trailed only 37-31 at the break. But in the second half, the Mountaineers spent more time at the free-throw line than a shark spends in the ocean on their way to 35 attempts, of which they hit 23. Tech was just 6-7 at the line.

That disparity in opportunities came just one week after WVU head coach Bob Huggins referred to the officials that gave Kansas a 30-22 edge over his team in free throw attempts last Saturday in Lawrence as “3 blind mice”. Earlier this week, he was fined $10,000 by the Big 12 but in the first home game for his team since that fine, he got his money’s worth out of those remarks.

The loss puts Tech is an early hole in the Big 12 race. Already with a loss to two of the teams considered prime candidates to win the league this year (including one at home), Tech now heads to Kansas State on Tuesday night looking to right the ship.

A desperate Wildcat team will be waiting for them though. After falling at Texas 64-50 on Saturday, KSU is just 7-8 overall and 0-3 in Big 12 play so they will be selling out in order to earn their first conference play.

But in this conference, no road game is easy and Tech has won only once in Manhattan since the start of the 2008 season. Thus, stopping this early-season conference slide will be tough. Unfortunately, toughness is something that the Red Raiders have not had enough of in their last two games.

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