Texas Tech basketball: Terrance Shannon Jr.’s 5 best games of 2019-20

No. 5: vs. Southern Miss

Our No. 5 performance by Terrence Shannon Jr. is actually his third-highest scoring game of the year but it doesn’t rank higher because it didn’t come against a major conference opponent.  Still, the 18 points, five rebounds, two assists, and one steal that he gave his team in December’s 71-65 victory over Southern Miss were critically important in helping Tech avoid being upset just one game after taking down No. 1 Louisville.

In that game, Tech actually trailed 32-25 at the half and led only 62-60 with 2:49 to play in the game.  One reason for the Red Raiders’ struggles that night was the fact that Davide Moretti and Kyler Edwards combined to go just 4-18 from the 3-point line.

Making matters worse, Jahmi’us Ramsey did not play as he nursed a hamstring injury.  Thus, someone needed to step up and Shannon proved to be that guy.

Leading his team in scoring, he was just 5-15 from the floor and 0-1 from behind the arc. However, in this game, he was effective when it came to getting to the free-throw line, which was one of his greatest strengths all season.

Against Southern Miss, he was 8-9 from the line on a night when the Red Raiders as a team were 24-27.  Meanwhile, Southern Miss was just 8-12 at the stripe and that 16-point edge for the Red Raiders was the difference in the game.

For the season, Shannon’s 105 free-throw attempts led the team and his 87 makes trailed only Moretti’s 92.  That’s a vastly underrated component of Shannon’s game and one that will pay dividends as his career progresses.

Shooting 82.9% from the line for the season, he was also second on the team to Moretti in that stat.  Frequently, freshmen come into the college game not all that polished as free-throw shooters, especially those who, like Shannon, aren’t known as knock-down shooters.  Fortunately, that wasn’t the case for Shannon and against Southern Miss, his work at the line was a huge reason the Red Raiders were able to keep from dropping a home game to a very poor Southern Miss team.