Texas Tech basketball: The one constant in this season’s losses
In every one of the Texas Tech basketball team’s seven losses this year, the Red Raiders’ 3-point shooting has been a huge problem.
No one expected the Texas Tech basketball team to already have seven losses on the season before the end of January. After all, Chris Beard and last year’s team didn’t lose for the seventh time until the National Title Game.
Naturally, this season’s losses have followed a number of different scripts. There were huge holes Tech had to climb out of against Iowa and Creighton, physical battles against Baylor and West Virginia were Tech was dominated on the glass, back-and-forth OT affairs against Kentucky and DePaul in which Tech couldn’t make the winning plays in crunch time, and a come-from-ahead double-digit loss at TCU defined by a lack of effort and fight.
But there is one problem that has been a constant in each of those seven games, the 3-point shot. In short, when Tech has been beaten this year, it has usually been in large part because the Red Raiders simply couldn’t hit from behind the arc.
To be honest, this team is not a good shooting 3-point squad on most nights. Just 7th in the Big 12, Tech is shooting only 32.1% as a team in 2019-20.
Only four times all year has Tech played a game while shooting over 40% as a team. Naturally, they are undefeated in those games, all of which came against teams that are not from a major conference. In all, Tech has shot 38.6% in its 12 wins.
But when the Red Raiders have lost, their average 3-point shooting as been at just a 23.9% rate. Needless to say, that’s not going to get it done.
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We just witnessed this team’s worst 3-point shooting night of the season. In Saturday’s 76-74 OT loss to Kentucky, Tech was just 3-19 (15.8%), which was problematic given that the Wildcats were 7-15 from deep.
That was the second time this year that the Red Raiders have been below 20%. The other came in the season’s first loss. In the Thanksgiving night 72-61 defeat at the hands of Iowa, the Red Raiders made just four of 24 (16.7%) of their 3-pointers.
Twice in those seven losses, Beard’s team has shot below 24%. Against TCU, a 4-17 (23.5%) effort was not enough to keep pace with the hot shooting Desmond Bane, and in Morgantown, Davide Moretti was the only Red Raider that could find the range with any regularity as Tech went 6-28 (21.4%).
A third time Tech shot below 30% from behind the arc in a loss was against Creighton, the season’s first OT game. That night, the Red Raiders did manage to make eight long-range looks but it required 30 attempts to get there for a 26.7% showing.
In the 57-52 loss to Baylor, the Red Raiders were actually close to their season average at 33.3%. But stop to consider that to get to that point, they had to have Jahmi’us Ramsey hit 5-10 from deep and you can see that the rest of the team didn’t shoot worth a flip going 2-13 as Tech finished the night 7-23.
If there was one loss this year when we might be able to accept Tech’s shooting from deep, it would have to be the DePaul game when the Red Raiders were 6-18 (33.3%). While that game saw Tech hit at a slightly better rate than its season average, when you consider that four players attempted at least two 3-pointers and none made more than two of their attempts, it’s hard to feel like long-distance shooting wasn’t a problem that night as well.
This isn’t to suggest that Tech can’t win when shooting poorly from deep. Against Louisville, the Red Raiders hit just 7-27 (25.9%) but still managed to take down the No. 1 Cardinals.
But what it does illustrate is just how reliant on that aspect of the game this year’s team is. That’s not how we typically think of a Red Raider team. But this year’s offense is built to run through three starting guards, Davide Moretti, Kyler Edwards, and Jahmi’us Ramsey, who all seem to be more comfortable with shooting from the outside than doing anything else to get their offense.
In Tech’s losses, Moretti has shot just 9-46 (19.5%), Edwards 10-42 (23.8%), and Ramsey 8-25 (32%). When looking at Ramsey, remember that he missed two of Tech’s losses with a hamstring injury. But also, consider that if we take his nice night from deep against Baylor out of the equation, he’s shot just 3-15 (20%) in the four other Red Raider losses he’s played in.
So adding it all up, Tech’s three top scoring options are shooting just 23% (26-113) from behind the arc in the season’s seven losses. That dog just isn’t going to hunt.
The problem is that this roster depends on those three players as the only real 3-point options. Occasionally, Terrence Shannon, Avery Benson, or T.J. Holyfield will give Tech a bonus bucket from 3-point range but Beard can’t rely on those players to be regular contributors to his team’s 3-point efforts.
Last year, the 3-point shooting was far more evenly distributed with Moretti, Edwards, Matt Mooney, Jarrett Culver, Brandone Francis, DeShawn Corprew, and even Tariq Owens all being considered at least capable 3-point shooters.
This year, when the three starting guards have struggled from deep, Tech has been in deep trouble. That’s one reason Tech has averaged just 61.5 points per game in its losses.
At times this year, Tech has been able to win when being outrebounded as was the case against Iowa State or when turning the ball over too much as happened against Kansas State. But against major conference opponents, it has been the 3-point shot that has made or broken the Red Raiders. That’s frightening given that Wednesday’s opponent, West Virginia, leads the Big 12 in 3-point field goal defense at 25.7%. Hopefully, the shots will fall in Tech’s favor for a change.