Texas Tech basketball: Why this Red Raider team is so inconsistent

This year’s top three scorers are all heavily reliant on the 3-point shot

While the 3-point shot is exactly as prevalent in this year’s offense as it was last season (in both years, 35.9% of Tech’s field goal attempts have come from behind the arc), the difference is that this year’s top three scorers are all far more dependent on their outside shot to get their offense than last year’s top three scorers were.  That leads to some trouble when two or all three of those players are cold in the same game the way they were in the loss to the Sooners.

This year, Jahmi’us Ramsey, Davide Moretti, and Kyler Edwards are averaging 6.1 combined makes from 3-point range per game while attempting a combined 15.5 shots for deep.  That’s quite a bit more volume from long-distance than last year’s top three scorers produced.

Jarrett Culver, Moretti, and Matt Mooney combined to make just 4.5 shots from behind the arc last year.  What’s more, they attempted just 11.7 per game between them.

To put it in further context, last year, Culver and Moretti each led the team by attempting 4.2 shots from downtown per game.  This year, all three of the top scorers on the team are shooting more than that with Moretti at 5.5, Ramsey at 5.2, and Edwards at 4.8.

All three are more than capable of getting hot but when they struggle as a group, Tech’s offense is severely hamstrung. That’s because that trio is accounting for 78.7% of Tech’s made 3s this season.  Last year’s top three scorers combined for just 61% of that team’s 3-point output.

In 2018-19, if the starting guards were not on target from deep, Beard could still get some productivity from Edwards, Brandone Francis, or Deshawn Corprew off the bench.  This year, there are no reliable 3-point shooters to bring into the game if the three starting guards are cold as has been the case in so many of Tech’s losses.

Tuesday night, Ramsey, Edwards, and Moretti were a combined 3-9 from 3-point range.  In last month’s loss to Kentucky, a two-point OT loss, they were 3-14 as a group.   That came a game after they were 4-15 in the loss in Fort Worth.  What’s more, they were just 7-22 against Baylor with Edwards and Moretti combining to make just 2-12 between them.

Last year’s team had more players capable of hitting shots from deep and it helped to prevent against nights as we saw on Tuesday when Tech simply had no punch from behind the arc.  What’s more, last year’s leading scorer, Jarrett Culver, was far more capable of getting his points off the dribble than any of Tech’s top three scorers this year meaning that when his shot wasn’t falling, he could still lead the offense.  But because Moretti, Ramsey, and Edwards are all so dependant on the 3-ball, we are having to endure more nights of offensive frustration than we would like.