Texas Tech basketball: Numbers to know as Red Raiders face Sooners
The Texas Tech basketball team will take on Oklahoma tonight so let’s look at numbers that will help us understand what the Red Raiders might encounter in Oklahoma City.
Tonight in Oklahoma City, the eyes of the NCAA Tournament Selection Committee will be locked on Chesapeake Energy Arena as the Texas Tech basketball team takes on Oklahoma in a game with massive March implications, especially for the home-standing Sooners.
Jerry Palm of CBS Sports has OU sitting at a No. 10 seed which means they are squarely on the bubble. And right now, Lon Kruger‘s team is trending in the wrong direction.
Having lost their last three games, the Sooners enter this game as the classic “back against the wall” combattant. Granted, two of those losses were to Kansas and Baylor. But Saturday’s 83-66 drubbing in Stillwater to rival Oklahoma State has made every game left on the OU schedule a life-or-death battle to keep alive their postseason hopes.
That’s why Tech had better be ready to take OU’s best punch. After all, it was just three weeks ago that the first meeting between these two teams came down to the last minute of the game.
In Tech’s 69-61 victory over OU in Lubbock, it wasn’t until the Red Raiders got a jumper from T.J. Holyfield with just over a minute to play that the home fans were able to breathe a sigh of relief. Holyfield had a game-high 21 to help hold off the Sooners, who got 19 points from Brady Manek.
It was what happened right after that game though that Tech fans likely remember most. Speaking to Chris Level of the Texas Tech radio network, Beard openly criticized his team and bluntly said that some of his players didn’t want to be coached and only played defense when they felt like it.
Overall, OU leads this series 39-27 and in Oklahoma, the Sooners hold a 24-8 edge. But last year, the Red Raiders managed to break a four-game road losing streak against the Sooners with a 66-54 win that they controlled from the start.
It is going to be interesting to find out if the Sooners’ decision to play this game at the home arena of the Oklahoma City Thunder will hurt their homecourt edge. After all, they will not be as familiar with the arena as they would be the Lloyd-Noble Center on campus and they’ve been rather good at home having lost just twice this year in their own building.
Back on January 25th, the Sooners did take home a 63-62 victory at Chesapeake Energy Arena over Mississippi State in the Big 12/SEC Challenge so they do have some experience in tonight’s venue. Hopefully, they don’t have the same good fortune this evening.
As we look at some numbers to know, we will see where Tech needs to play well in order to bring home a win that will help bolster the team’s NCAA Tournament standing as well as their potential seeding.