Texas Tech basketball: Red Raiders overwhelm Bearkats in Lubbock

Friday, the Texas Tech basketball team cruised to an easy victory over the Sam Houston St. Bearkats in Lubbock.

You can’t ask for a better start from the Texas Tech basketball team than what we’ve seen in the season’s first two games. After dismantling Northwestern State by 43 points on Wednesday, the Red Raiders overwhelmed Sam Houston State on Friday 84-52 in a game that was decided after about the first 10 minutes of action.

Never trailing on the afternoon, the Red Raiders jumped out to a 20-4 lead in the first eight minutes of play and never looked back. By the intermission, Tech would hold a 43-15 edge and Chris Beard’s team would spend the entire second half playing with its food and getting meaningful playing time for the players at the end of the rotation.

Junior guard Mac McClung put on a show in the first half scoring 13 of his game-high 18 points. Coming on the heels of a 20-point effort in his Red Raider debut, the transfer from Georgetown shot 2-3 from 3-point range to move to 4-6 on the year. That’s a nice sign from a player who is just a career 30% shooter from downtown.

Marcus Santos-Silva added 12 points of his own while coming within a rebound of his second-straight double-double to open his Red Raider career. Meanwhile, Terrence Shannon Jr. was the third Red Raider in double digits with 10 points.

As a team, Tech shot 50% for the game while hitting 7-17 (41.2%) from 3-point range. It was the second-straight game in which the Red Raiders have shot at least 40% from deep.

But as great as the offensive effort was, the defensive showing was even better. Sam Houston shot just 31.5% overall and 4-18 from 3-point range (22.2%).

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The Red Raiders now turn their attention to a much more competent foe than they have faced thus far, No. 17 Houston, which awaits on Sunday afternoon in Fort Worth. That will be the season’s first true test and will give us a much greater idea of what Beard has on his hands this season.

Thus far, Tech is overwhelming opponents with a swarming defense predicated on waves after waves of guards and wings with the type of length and athleticism to create problems for the opposition.

After forcing 19 turnovers in the opener, the Red Raiders nearly equaled that Friday with 18 more turnovers forced against a Bearkats team that looked at times incapable of even getting a quality shot attempt up. In fact, they didn’t crack double-digits on the scoreboard until there was 4:16 left in the first half.

Part of Sam Houston’s struggles centered around the struggles of their leading scorer Zach Nutall who had 36 points Wednesday night in his team’s season debut. But against the Red Raiders, he managed just four first-half points (all on free-throws) and wound up with only 14 points on 5-17 shooting from the field.

While there were three Bearkats in double-digits, the rest of the roster scored just 15 points as the Red Raider defense continued to appear locked-in to open the season. Through two games, Tech is allowing opponents to shoot just 32.9% from the field and is surrendering an average of just 55 points.

It’s been as perfect of a start as we could have expected from the Red Raiders in 2020-21, especially given that eight of the players to have seen the floor thus far did not play for the program a season ago. However, business is about to pick up in two days as Houston awaits in a key early-season non-conference showdown. Here’s hoping that the game Tech has played in the year’s first two contests is indicative of what we will see against the Cougars on Sunday.

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