Texas Tech basketball: Kentucky loss felt eerily similar to National Title Game

Neither game should have gone to overtime

Both games were there for Tech to win at the end.  That’s what makes each loss so painful to swallow.

Saturday night, the Red Raiders had the Big 12’s best free-throw shooter at the line with a chance to put his team ahead in the closing seconds.  But down 64-63, Davide Moretti bricked the first of his two attempts before he hit the second to at least give Tech a shot at forcing OT.

It marked the second time this year that Tech lost a game in which Moretti was at the line with a chance to win the game.  The first came against DePaul back in December.

With 17 seconds to play that night, Moretti went to the line for two free throws with his team ahead 52-50.  After making the first, he missed the second.  Prior to that, he had made 24-straight free-throws to open the season.

On the ensuing possession, DePaul nailed a clutch 3-pointer to beat the buzzer and force OT.  And as was the case on Saturday night, Tech couldn’t make enough plays in the extra five minutes.

Meanwhile, the Virginia game shouldn’t have gone to OT either.  That’s because Tech was up 68-65 with only 22 seconds to go thanks to a pair of free throws from Norense Odiase.

But on the ensuing possession, something almost as improbable as a Davide Moretti free-throw miss occurred…a Jarrett Culver brain fart.

As Virginia’s point guard Ty Jerome, drove the ball, Culver left Hunter alone in the corner to help seal off Jerome’s drive.  Jerome then found Hunter who hit the game’s defining shot to force OT.

Tn Culver’s defense, he was playing the way his coaches had taught him to play all year by helping keep the ball out of the middle of the floor.  But he had to have greater awareness of the game situation and know that allowing Jerome to hit a two-point shot would have been better than letting Hunter have a wide-open look to tie the game on a night when he was red-hot.

Of course, many people, myself included, believe that in both the Virginia and DePaul games, Beard should have told his team to foul in the final seconds because Tech was up three points.  He didn’t and both games went to OT where Tech lost.

In fact, the Red Raiders are 0-4 in their last four OT games.  And in each of them, they could have won the game had they made one simple play at the end of regulation.  That was the case in the National Title game and again on Saturday night.