Wreck'Em Red
Fansided

Texas Tech basketball: Why the Red Raiders were able to beat Kansas State

By Matthew Conner

DALLAS, TX - MARCH 17: The Texas Tech Red Raiders mascot performs during the game against the Florida Gators during the second round of the 2018 NCAA Tournament at the American Airlines Center on March 17, 2018 in Dallas, Texas. (Photo by Tom Pennington/Getty Images)
DALLAS, TX - MARCH 17: The Texas Tech Red Raiders mascot performs during the game against the Florida Gators during the second round of the 2018 NCAA Tournament at the American Airlines Center on March 17, 2018 in Dallas, Texas. (Photo by Tom Pennington/Getty Images) /
facebooktwitterreddit
Prev
1 of 4
Next
Head coach Chris Beard of the Texas Tech Red Raiders (Photo by Streeter Lecka/Getty Images)
Head coach Chris Beard of the Texas Tech Red Raiders (Photo by Streeter Lecka/Getty Images) /

Let’s go inside the box score of the Texas Tech basketball team’s 77-63 victory over the Kansas State Wildcats to see why Chris Beard and his team were able to prevail.

For about 30 of the 40 minutes in the Texas Tech basketball team’s 77-63 victory over Kansas State on Tuesday night in Manhattan, the Red Raiders were by far the better team.  But the first ten minutes of the second half had folks in Scarlet and Black biting their nails.

After staking their claim to a 37-30 halftime lead, the Red Raiders almost certainly spent the majority of the intermission talking about the need to protect the basketball being as they gave the ball away 12 times in the first half.  In fact, that was the only reason Tech wasn’t up by 20 points after the first 20 minutes of play.

If that was indeed Chris Beard’s main talking point, it didn’t immediately take root.  That’s because, in the first ten minutes of the second half, his team turned the ball over three more times.

In fact, Tech didn’t do much right at all to begin the second 20 minutes.  After a T.J. Holyfield turnover got the half off to a frustrating start, KSU went on a quick 5-0 run to pull to within two points.  During that time, Tech also committed two fouls and missed a 3-pointer.

Tech would respond by pushing the lead back up to 45-37 before the under-16 timeout.  However, that would proceed one of the dreaded scoring droughts that we have seen this program suffer through from time to time over the last few years.

Over the next 3:47, the Red Raiders would shoot 0-4 from the field and commit two turnovers as the Wildcats stormed to a 46-45 lead, their first and only lead of the game.  That was the moment when just about every Red Raider fan started to worry, and for good reason.

Think about how disastrous a loss on Tuesday night would have been.  If the Red Raiders consider themselves to be serious Big 12 contenders, they could not afford to drop a game to a team in as much of a tailspin as Kansas State.

Already sitting at 0-3 on the season and having yet to beat any major conference opponent in a 7-8 start, the Wildcats were also without starting guard Mike McGuirl.  The 6-foot-2 junior guard averages 6.2 points per game and is 45.5% 3-point shooter but he was held out of the game after suffering a concussion in his last outing.

When Tech went to Manhattan last season, he was 4-9 from the field with a 3-pointer on his way to nine points as the Wildcats beat the Red Raiders 58-45.  This isn’t to suggest that his presence would have changed the outcome of the game but taking a starter away from an already struggling  KSU team made this game even more heavily tilted towards the Red Raiders.

Still, we have to give the Cats credit.  They played as hard as possible and in doing so, they turned the game into a sloppy affair that looked at times as if it were a Three Stooges re-run more than a college basketball game and the officials allowed that style to take root because of their inconsistency throughout the night.

But in the end, that was exactly the type of game the Red Raiders needed to win.  After losing two straight games that felt like Russian slap fighting contests, Chris Beard’s team needed to be reminded that in order to win games the way their head coach has taught them to, they had to not only become comfortable taking on a junkyard dog mentality, they had to prove to themselves and their opponents that they were the toughest and meanest street dog on the block.

That’s not what transpired in the games against Baylor and West Virginia but against Kansas State, the Red Raiders took on the mentality that has carried previous versions of this program deep into March.  Rather than winning a game in an artistic fashion as they did against Oklahoma State to open conference play, the Red Raiders needed to scratch and claw for a victory in a game that was as much a test of manhood as it was a test of basketball skills.

So let’s go inside the box score to see just where Tech was able to put KSU away.  And we will start by looking at the aspect of the game that nearly cost the good guys the victory.

Home/Texas Tech Basketball