Texas Tech basketball: Why this Red Raider team is so inconsistent
After another disappointing performance, let’s look at some reasons that this year’s Texas Tech basketball team is so maddeningly inconsistent.
It feels like every time this year’s Texas Tech basketball team takes two steps forward, it turns right around and takes one step back. That’s what we’ve seen on display in the last week.
After dominating Iowa State by 30 points on Saturday to hand the Cyclones their worst loss ever at Hilton Coliseum, Chris Beard’s team turned about three days later and laid the season’s biggest egg in Oklahoma City. In a 65-51 loss to Oklahoma, the Red Raiders never led and never threatened the Sooners.
Kevin McCullar had 13 points and Chris Clarke had 11 as the only Red Raiders in double-digits on the scoreboard. Meanwhile, Tech’s leading scorer on the year, Jahmi’us Ramsey was held without a single point for the first time this season.
What’s more, Tech’s three leading scorers, Ramsey, Kyler Edwards, and Davide Moretti, combined for just 11 points total. Meanwhile, OU’s top three scorers, Bradey Manek, Kristian Doolittle, and Austin Reaves scored 45 points between them with Doolittle leading the way with 19.
There really isn’t too much point in analyzing Tuesday’s game. Essentially, the team that knew its NCAA Tournament hopes were on life support (OU) played like one would expect a desperate team to play while the team most believe is safely in the tournament (Tech) played as if it would have rather been anywhere else but inside Chesapeake Energy Arena.
For the game, OU shot 46.6% while Tech made a mere 33.3% of its shots. The Sooners won the rebounding battle 43-29 and had 10 blocks to the Red Raiders’ two.
Rather, taking a look at the bigger picture is more important as we approach the end of the regular season with just three games to go. Because this team continues to cause fans and likely its coaching staff tremendous angst over the way it simply can’t seem to put a string of quality performances together, we are going to continue to wonder whether it will be Dr. Jekyll or Mr. Hyde that shows up on a nightly basis.
In fact, after almost every one of this year’s most dominant victories, Tech has wet the bed the next time out. In the second game of Big 12 play, the Red Raiders were just 5-12 from the line in a 57-52 loss to Baylor in Lubbock which came on the heels of an 85-50 drubbing of Oklahoma State. Certainly, Baylor is one of the top teams in the nation (currently No. 2 in the polls) but to suggest Tech played well in that game would be laughable and it cost them a chance at what would have been a truly impressive win, one that would have paid huge dividends on Selection Sunday.
After a 15-point home win over Iowa State, a game that wasn’t even that close, Tech went to Fort Worth and looked helpless as Desmond Bane and the Horned Frogs had their way in a 65-54 win. That night, Bane finished with 27 points and looked like a full-grown man playing against the girls’ developmental team from Cavazos Jr. High as Tech almost ducked and cowered every time the TCU senior got the ball.
Tech returned the favor to the Frogs a few weeks later by issuing an 88-42 beating in Lubbock. Of course, five days later the Red Raiders lost at last-place Oklahoma State in Stillwater 73-70.
Finally, that brings us to the most recent pair of games. You could argue that the 87-57 victory over Iowa State on Saturday was Tech’s best game of the year and Tuesday night’s loss to OU was its worst.
That’s left many fans wondering why this team has turned into the college basketball version of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Indeed, there are some understandable reasons for the roller coaster that has been the 2019-20 season and we will start by looking at how this team gets its offense.