Texas Tech basketball: Red Raiders regress in loss to Oklahoma State

Saturday’s 73-70 loss to Oklahoma State in Stillwater was disappointing because of the regression the Texas Tech basketball team showed in a number of important areas.

It appears that all the talk of the Texas Tech basketball team playing its best basketball of the season can now be put to rest for a few days.  That’s because, in Saturday’s 73-70 loss to Oklahoma State in Stillwater, the Red Raiders took some steps backward in areas where significant progress had been apparent in recent weeks.

"“I’ll be real clear,” head coach Chris Beard said.  “I think the better basketball team won the 40-minute game today. They guarded better than us, the rebounded better than us and they made better plays when the game was on the line. They play with great poise.”"

Certainly, it was yet again a failure by the Red Raiders to come up with winning plays in the final minute of a one-score game, something that has been problematic in the majority of their losses in 2019-20.  Saturday, Jahmi’us Ramsey lost the ball to Jonathan Laurent with 59 seconds to play and his team down 68-67 leading to a pair of  Laurent free throws on the other end that pushed the OSU advantage to three points.   Though there were a few more desperation opportunities for Tech to pull off the miraculous in the final 30 seconds, the pickpocketing of Ramsey was the defining play of the afternoon.

It was a frustrating performance by a Texas Tech team that came into the game winners of three-straight games and basking in the glow of a 46-point drubbing of TCU on Monday night.  But the tenants that had carried Chris Beard’s team to its best stretch during Big 12 play thus far; rebounding, free-throw shooting, toughness, and poise, were nowhere to be found in Stillwater.

For the third-straight road game, the Red Raiders were sluggish and tentative out of the locker room.  After trailing at Kansas 17-2 and at Texas 27-11, one might have thought this team would have learned its lesson about slow starts on the road but Tech opened the game by falling behind the Cowboys 8-0 before managing to come up with a bucket.

But despite that awful start and the fact that forward T.J. Holyfield saw only 5:17 of action in the first half thanks to foul trouble, the visitors still held a 29-27 lead at the intermission.  That lead was thanks to a beautiful layup by Kevin McCullar who converted in traffic off a lob from Kyler Edwards on the final play of the half.

Unfortunately, the second half turned into a parade to the free-throw line for the Cowboys and Tech couldn’t keep pace.  Entering the game shooting just over 71% as a team from the line, OSU nailed 31-38 free-throw attempts (81.6%) on Saturday to hold a 19-point edge in free-throw scoring.

When OSU wasn’t living at the line, it was dominating the glass.  Outrebounding Tech 37-22, the Cowboys managed 15 offensive boards leading to 12 second-chance points.

So let’s go inside the game that dropped the Red Raiders to 16-9 overall and 7-5 in Big 12 play.  And we begin by looking at an unlikely hero for the Cowboys.