Texas Tech basketball: TV info and preview of WVU game
Here are the TV and radio broadcast info and a quick primer for tonight’s Texas Tech basketball game against West Virginia.
With a 12-7 record, a two-game losing streak, and a trip to Lawrence on tap this weekend, the Texas Tech basketball season feels as if it has come to one of its most critical junctures tonight when No. 12 West Virginia comes to Lubbock. Desperately needing a resume-building win, this is an opportunity for the Red Raiders to finally secure a second Quadrant 1 victory this year.
Texas Tech and West Virginia have split the past four matchups after the Red Raiders swept last year’s regular-season series but fell at the Big 12 tournament. All-time, WVU holds a 14-5 edge including a 66-54 win earlier this month in Morgantown.
That afternoon, Davide Moretti led the team with 16 points after hitting four 3-pointers. That came one game after he was 0-6 from deep against Baylor.
Texas Tech enters this week ranked 17th nationally with 17.5 turnovers forced per game, 19th in the nation with 16.3 assists per game and 21st with a 3.6 turnover margin. That’s important because the Mountaineers are last in the conference in assist/turnover ratio and they have committed the most turnovers in the Big 12 this season, 281.
Against Kentucky on Saturday, the Red Raiders forced 20 turnovers. Hopefully, a very young West Virginia team will struggle in that regard tonight in what should be another hostile environment.
WVU has the youngest team in the Big 12 in terms of experience, according to KenPom.com (1.27 years of experience). Thus, we won’t be able to rely on the narrative that Tech is a very young team because, while that’s true, it isn’t going to be a factor in this game.
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As one might expect, the rebounding game is going to be critical tonight. West Virginia is rebounding 40.6% of its misses, tops in the nation. The national average is 28.2 percent. Freshman forward Oscar Tshiebwe leads the NCAA in offensive rebound percentage as he pulls down 19.3% of WVU’s missed shots. Meanwhile, sophomore forward Derek Culver is 16th nationally when it comes to defensive rebounding percentage as he’s collecting 27.9% of opponent’s misses.
The last time these teams met, WVU had a 13-rebound edge overall but surprisingly, Tech won the offensive rebounding battle 16-12. Still, the two big WVU forwards were a problem as they combined for 24 of their team’s 46 boards.
Getting to 70 points will also be key for Tech. That’s because, according to the WVU website, Bob Huggins’ program has won 107 of its last 116 and 163 of its last 182 games when holding opponents to less than 69 points. Meanwhile, the Mountaineers are 212-50 under Bob Huggins when scoring 70 or more points in a game.
This game could be a turning point for the Red Raiders. This is an opportunity to draw even with the Mountaineers in a tightly-packed Big 12 race. But more importantly, it’s a chance for Tech to remind everyone that Texas Tech is a team that is still to be reckoned with this year.