Texas Tech basketball classics: Revisiting Tech’s 2005 upset of Gonzaga

The two halves could not have been more different

At the half, CBS studio analysis Seth Davis said that it was hard to see how Tech was going to win this game and it wasn’t hard to understand why.  In the first 20 minutes of action, the Bulldogs absolutely bullied the Red Raiders with their size in the frontcourt and it seemed as if there was no way Tech could hang around.

At halftime, the Zags had a 10-3 edge in offensive rebounds and an 8-0 lead in second-chance points.  That was due to the work of 6-foot-10, 249-pound Ronny Turiaf and 6-foot-9, 269-pound J.P. Batista.

That duo outweighed Tech’s starting duo of forwards, Darryl Dora and Devonne Giles, by a combined 50 pounds.  The Gonzaga starting big men would outrebound Tech’s starting forwards 21-10 (7-3 on the offensive glass) and outscore them 21-18 for the game.

In the first half, Giles and Dora were essentially ghosts.  In fact, Dora had only two points by the break before ending up with 10 for the game.

In the second half though, Tech made a key adjustment against a 2-3 Gonzaga zone that caused the Red Raiders fits in the first half.  Instead of aimlessly dribbling and passing the ball around the perimeter against the zone, Tech began to attack off the dribble with Ross, Martin Zeno, and Jarrius Jackson creating for Dora and Giles by probing the middle of the defense.

Tech also did something that would seen counterintuitive when playing Gonzaga; they picked up the pace.  This was not the same type of matchup between the Red Raiders and Bulldogs that we saw in last year’s Elite Eight were Tech wanted to slow the pace and grind down the run-and-gun Zags.

Rather, this game saw Gonzaga want to exploit their size edge inside, which included a three-inch advantage for Morrison over Zeno.  But in the second half, Tech got the ball up court as fast as possible and began to swarm defensively with their three quick guards and it caused Gonzaga to commit a number of key turnovers during the run that let Tech back in the game.  For the game, Tech turned the ball over only seven times while Gonzaga gave it away 13 times.

Another key was that one of Gonzaga’s unlikely first-half heroes reverted back to his normal ways after the break.  Entering the day averaging just over six points per game, guard Erroll Knight boosted his team with 12 points in the first half but wound up with only 14 for the game.  So while Dora was heating up with eight points in the second half, Knight faded away and that proved to be a huge factor in this Red Raider comeback.