Texas Tech basketball: Critical moments in Tuesday’s victory at KSU
The Texas Tech basketball team brought home a 77-63 victory from Manhattan, Kansas on Tuesday thanks in large part to these critical moments.
After four rounds of the 18-round Big 12 regular season, the Texas Tech basketball team sits at 2-2 following Tuesday’s 14-point triumph over Kansas State. Given that last year’s team started conference play 4-0, some fans might not be all that pleased with a .500 mark after four games but the Red Raiders have kept their heads above water and are still in the conference fight.
They are currently tied with Texas and OU for fourth in the league standings. Of those three teams, most believe that Tech is the only real contender.
Just above that gaggle sits a somewhat surprising TCU team. At 3-1, the Frogs are off to an uplifting start but keep in mind that their three wins have come against the three worst teams in the league, Oklahoma State, Iowa State, and Kansas State. What’s more, Tuesday night they were humbled by West Virginia in an 81-49 beating in Morgantown.
The Horned Frogs are even with Kansas and West Virginia in the conference standings but no one expects them to remain in the upper echelon of the league’s hierarchy for long. They will host the Red Raiders in Fort Worth next week in what will be a true measuring stick game for Jamie Dixon’s program.
The other 3-1 teams in the conference, the Jayhawks and Mountaineers, have already met once with Kansas taking the win 60-53. They will meet again in Morgantown on February 12th in one of the more impactful Big 12 games of the year.
Of course, the entire conference is chasing 4-0 Baylor. The No. 2 team in the latest polls, the Bears have already scored huge road wins in Lubbock and Lawrence positioning them perfectly for a Big 12 title as they have already won what many might have thought would be their two most difficult road tests of the season.
But in a way, this Red Raider program has loftier goals than winning the conference. While last year’s Big 12 regular-season co-title with Kansas State was special, we would all sacrifice that trophy for the one they hand out on the final Monday night of the season.
After being tantalizingly close to bringing the game’s most coveted prize back to Lubbock last year, Texas Tech fans, coaches, and players alike all have one goal in mind and it isn’t winning the Big 12. Now, doing so would not be something we would frown upon. But because winning a conference has far less bearing on a basketball team’s ability to win the National Title than it does in football, seeing another team wear the conference crown would not be devastating.
This isn’t to suggest that the Red Raiders are going to simply give up on chasing down Baylor but the reality is that because of their wins at Tech and KU, the Bears look like they will be tough to overtake. Of course, no one knows what will happen in the next 14 games. And the Red Raiders have kept themselves in the fight despite suffering consecutive losses last week.
That’s why the Red Raiders’ success in Manhattan was so important. Though it is early in the league year, a loss to the worst team in the conference would have likely ended Tech’s shot at a Big 12 title before we hit mid-January.
So let’s go back and look at the critical moments from Tuesday’s night’s win. As we do, we will look at what those moments might suggest to us about where this team could be headed.