Texas Tech basketball: Kevin McCullar’s five best games of 2019-20

No. 2: @ Kansas State

The redshirt freshman’s coming out party came in Manhattan, Kansas as the Red Raiders found themselves in a fight against one of the worst teams in the Big 12.  With 10 points, five rebounds, and three steals in just 16 minutes off the bench, he was according to his head coach, his team’s best player despite the fact that Kyler Edwards had 24 points as the Red Raiders took down the Wildcats 77-63.

"“The player of the game for us is [McCullar],” Beard said to the ESPN+ broadcast crew following the game.  “This is a guy who’s overcome a lot of adversity.  He’s had two injuries, didn’t play his last year in high school.  He’s just plugged away, plugged away, and he’s getting more opportunity as he’s earned it and tonight, I thought he was the player of the game.”"

It wasn’t just the stats he put up that night in an arena where his school has long found the going rather difficult.  It was the timeliness of the plays he made.

Moments after he briefly gave his team a 49-48 lead with a free throw in the middle of the second half, he grabbed an offensive rebound and scored on the putback to extend that lead to three points.  On the play, he was fouled and when he converted the old fashioned three-point play, Tech was up 52-48 with 10:48 to play and the Red Raiders would not look back.

Just a minute-and-a-half later, McCullar scored again to push his team’s lead to 57-50.  He then essentially put the game on ice but hitting one of two free throws for a 62-52 lead with 5:55 to play.

It was just the third time in his career that he’d put up at least 10 points but it was the first against a major conference opponent.  That performance came out of nowhere because our expectations of McCullar were still somewhat low at the time but that breakout performance showed us that the raw redshirt freshman was capable of being a component that could help the team win.