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Texas Tech basketball: The good, bad, and ugly from victory over Northwestern State

By Matthew Conner

LUBBOCK, TEXAS - NOVEMBER 25: Forward Marcus Santos-Silva #14 of the Texas Tech Red Raiders celebrates during the second half of the college basketball game against the Northwestern State Demons at United Supermarkets Arena on November 25, 2020 in Lubbock, Texas. (Photo by John E. Moore III/Getty Images)
LUBBOCK, TEXAS - NOVEMBER 25: Forward Marcus Santos-Silva #14 of the Texas Tech Red Raiders celebrates during the second half of the college basketball game against the Northwestern State Demons at United Supermarkets Arena on November 25, 2020 in Lubbock, Texas. (Photo by John E. Moore III/Getty Images) /
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LUBBOCK, TEXAS – NOVEMBER 25: Guard CJ Jones #0 of the Northwestern State Demons holds his head during the second half of the college basketball game against the Texas Tech Red Raiders at United Supermarkets Arena on November 25, 2020 in Lubbock, Texas. (Photo by John E. Moore III/Getty Images)
LUBBOCK, TEXAS – NOVEMBER 25: Guard CJ Jones #0 of the Northwestern State Demons holds his head during the second half of the college basketball game against the Texas Tech Red Raiders at United Supermarkets Arena on November 25, 2020 in Lubbock, Texas. (Photo by John E. Moore III/Getty Images) /

The ugly: Northwestern State’s 3-pont shooting

Tech did just about everything well in this win and that included keeping Northwestern State from getting hot from 3-point range.  Typically when a team like the Demons pulls an upset, that’s a huge aspect of the win.  But their 3-point shooting saw simply ugly.

The 3-point line was not kind to the visitors on Wednesday.  In fact, they went just 5-23 (21.7%) for the game.

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The key was that Jarius Roberson was not able to find the range.  The 6-foot-2 senior guard was just 1-7 from deep on the game with most of his attempts woefully off the mark.

Last year, Roberson shot 37.2% from 3-point range.  What’s more, he made 80 shots from beyond the arc, which was 13 more than Tech’s leader Jahmi’us Ramsey made in 2019-20.

A season ago, teams shot just 30.9% on 3-point attempts against Tech.  That gave Beard’s squad the 65th-best 3-point defense in the nation.  However, that was not as good as the 29.8% the 2018-19 Red Raiders allowed opponents to shoot, which was 12th-best in the NCAA.

For one night in 2020-21, it appeared as if the Red Raider defense was going to be back to an elite level when defending the 3-ball as only one Demon made multiple 3’s.  That was reserve senior forward LaTerrance Reed, who was 1-3 on the day.

On the other hand, three of his teammates combined to hoist 15 shots from deep while making only two.  That’s not how to pull an upset.

Sometimes early in the season, a team can be vulnerable to 3-point barrages from opponents given that the defensive assignments and rotations may not be as crisp as they need to be.  But Northwestern State didn’t have a ton of wide-open looks on Wednesday night and when they did, they couldn’t hit them.  That’s one reason that the Red Raiders had no trouble in dispatching of their foe in the season’s debut.

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