Texas Tech basketball: Numbers to know for rematch with Kansas State

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Montavious Murphy #23 of the Kansas State Wildcats goes up for a rebound against Jahmi’us Ramsey #3 of the Texas Tech Red Raiders. (Photo by Peter G. Aiken/Getty Images) /

KSU had just six offensive rebounds against Tech in January

Speaking of owning the paint, Tech has likely been focusing heavily on rebounding after being obliterated on the boards Saturday. The Cowboys owned a 37-22 overall edge on the glass with 15 of those being offensive rebounds.

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But when Tech faced Kansas State back in January, the Red Raiders were able to limit the Wildcats to just six offensive rebounds and six second-chance points. That’s what needs to happen again tonight.

Beard’s team entered that first meeting struggling on the boards as well. In their two previous games (both losses), they had lost the rebounding battle to Baylor by 19 and to West Virginia by 13. Therefore, it was an encouraging sign to see them own the glass in Manhattan 31-23.

KSU is just 8th in the Big 12 in rebounding margin. The Cats have been outrebounded on average by 1.92 boards per game. In conference play, they are giving up five more boards than they are collecting, the second-worst margin in the league.

As is the case with blocked shots, this is an area where Holyfield needs to be more impactful as he had just three rebounds against OSU. But so too must Terrence Shannon and Chris Clarke be more apart of the rebounding effort. That duo averages a combined 11.1 rebounds per game but had just four between them on Saturday.

KSU isn’t going to win this game by playing pretty basketball. They didn’t win that way the last two years when they had very talented teams so it stands to reason that they will try to muck things up tonight given that their talent level comes nowhere near approaching Tech’s.

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If there is one thing you can count on from a Bruce Weber KSU team, it is that the Wildcats will be gritty and will play a hard-nosed brand of basketball. But that should suit Tech just fine because that’s what Beard likes to pride himself on as well. If Tech can match KSU’s effort level, it seems unlikely that the Wildcats will be able to hang around long enough to steal this game in Lubbock.

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