Texas Tech basketball: How the Red Raiders manufactured their comeback in Austin
I’ll admit it. After the first half of Saturday’s game, I had not only given up on the Texas Tech basketball team’s chances of beating the Texas Longhorns, I had also become quite frustrated with the way Chris Beard’s team had played over the course of the last 80 minutes of basketball.
After Tech was guilty of sleepwalking through most of Tuesday’s 69-61 victory over Oklahoma in Lubbock, a game in which the Sooners seemed to take the fight to Tech for much of the evening, it was fair to expect a renewed sense of intensity and focus for this team on Saturday. But the first twenty minutes of Saturday’s game was the worst half of basketball this team has played all year.
Anytime a team’s turnovers outnumber its made baskets, it is a signal that it isn’t playing competitive or winning basketball. That was the case for Tech in the first half against UT when Beard’s team turned the ball over 11 times while making just 9 of 23 (39.1%) field goal attempts.
That shooting performance included 0-5 from 3-point range. What’s more, Tech got to the line just once in the first twenty minutes.
Defensively, where effort and intensity are the two primary factors in success, things were not any better. Forcing just four UT turnovers, Tech allowed the home team to shoot seven more shots and get to the line five more times than the Red Raiders did.
"“We were really fortunate to be just down what we were at the half,” Texas Tech coach Chris Beard said. “It felt like 20. We did a good job chipping it down there at the end of the first half. The emphasis was to take care of the ball and take good shots. We couldn’t keep just giving it away to them. We wanted to become the more aggressive team again. I think we were able to do that.”"
Consider just how doomed Tech could have been had it not been for the first half of Terrence Shannon Jr. The freshman scored nine points, which was just one less than the rest of his teammates.
Meanwhile, Kyler Edwards and Davide Moretti were held scoreless. Edwards missed all six of his shots in the first half while Moretti failed to get a shot off at all (his only shot attempt was erased when he was called for traveling as he attempted to shoot a 3-pointer on a fast break).
To say that I was less than hopeful for a turnaround would be fair and I doubt that I was the only Red Raider who felt that way. But those of us who were ready to wave the white towel at halftime and take the dog for a walk or do anything but watch the second half were guilty of violating the No. 1 rule of being a Texas Tech basketball fan these days, never count out a Chris Beard team.
In the second half, Texas Tech got back in touch with its identity and it led to one of the best comebacks of the Beard era. So let’s go inside the second-half box score to see just how the Red Raiders were able engineer Saturday’s rousing win.