Texas Tech basketball: How the Red Raiders beat the Sooners

Tech had a 6-point edge at the line

There was a time this year when it seemed like the Red Raiders had an edge at the free-throw line on a nightly basis.  But in recent weeks, that has not been the case.

In fact, the last time the Red Raiders had an edge in that aspect of the game was January 18th against Iowa State.  But on Tuesday night, against a predominantly jump-shooting OU team, the Red Raiders finally got back to being the team that made more progress one point at a time.

Shooting 11-17 was not impressive.  That 64.7% was almost 12% worse than the Red Raiders have shot for the season.

But considering that OU was just 5-6 for the game, the Red Raiders still had a six-point cushion.  In an eight-point win, that proved to be important.

The line was one of the reasons that Tech finally had a strong showing in the final two minutes of a game.  During that span, the Red Raiders were 5-6 to equal what OU did for the rest of the game.

Davide Moretti hit a pair to push a four-point lead to 64-58.  That proved to be important because, on the next possession, OU got a three from Reaves to cut the lead in half.

A minute later, T.J. Holyfield hit a pair to push the lead to 68-61, which was critical because it made the game a three-possession affair with just 34 seconds to play.  Moretti then closed out the scoring by making one of two at the line.

Holyfield, Moretti, and Kevin McCullar were all 3-4 at the line to lead the way.  Meanwhile, Jahmi’us Ramsey and Terrence Shannon were both 1-2.

By contrast, OU had only two players, Bradey Manek and Reaves, get to the line at all as both attempted three free-throws.  It was indicative of the style both teams deployed as OU tried to shoot its way to a win while Tech began to drive to the rim down the stretch and that was a reason that the Red Raiders finally managed to pull away.