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

Tech’s starters essentially played the entire game

Today’s Texas Tech basketball fans have become accustomed to the rapid-fire substation patterns of Chris Beard and Mark Adams (the latter of whom is the coach that actually handles the team’s substations).  But in this 2005 classic, Bob Knight essentially asked his starters to play the entire game.

The five Red Raider starters (Ross, Jackson, Zeno, Giles, Dora) played 188 of the 200 minutes the team had to fill for the game.  That’s an average of 37.6 minutes per game.

Ross, Jackson, and Dora each played the entire 40 minutes while Zeno logged 35 and Giles 33.  Meanwhile, the Red Raider bench logged just 12 total minutes and did not score a point.

On the other hand, the Gonzaga bench had one player log 15 minutes and another 13.  However, those two gave the team just four points between them.

As a result of Tech’s non-existent bench, Knight had to walk the razor’s edge in the final ten minutes of the game.  As the Gonzaga front line bullied Tech on both ends, both Dora and Giles picked up their fourth fouls with several minutes to play.  That combined with the fact that Zeno was saddled with three fouls after chasing Morrison all day long meant that Tech was just one bad whistle away from being in huge trouble.

Fortunately, none of the starters fouled out and Tech’s iron men were able to close out the win.  That year, all five starters averaged at least 26.4 minutes per game and their conditioning and fortitude were put to the ultimate test against the Zags when Knight asked them to shoulder the vast majority of the load against a bigger and more physical team.