Texas Tech basketball: Takeaways from Tech’s loss to Baylor

Shannon can’t be a no-show

Terrence Shannon had one of his worst games as a Red Raider against Baylor.  That proved to be a huge reason why his team couldn’t pull the upset.

With only two points on 1-7 shooting, the Red Raiders’ second-leading scorer on the year was a non-factor offensively.  That isn’t going to cut it.

In fairness, this was just Shannon’s second sub-par game of the year.  The problem is that the other one also came against a quality team.

In Tech’s 64-53 loss to Houston, he was able to score just five points on 2-8 shooting.  And there was a similarity between that game and Saturday’s loss.

In both contests, the player who is second on the Red Raider roster in free throws wasn’t able to get to the line.  Against the Cougars, he didn’t earn a single free throw and against Baylor, he managed just one attempt…which he missed.

Free throws are a huge component of Shannon’s game.  He’s shooting 79% on the year and so far, 27.3% of his points have come at the line.

Baylor scouted Shannon Well and at times flustered him by cutting off his driving lanes to the rim.  They also sent physically stronger players like Mark Vital to muscle up on him and prevent him from even getting started towards the rim.  That combined with the fact that his jump shot wouldn’t go down proved to be too much for him to overcome.

Still, Shannon is this team’s second-leading scorer and the only player on the roster that we can say for certain will eventually be an NBA draft pick.  Thus, he has to play like a future professional for the Red Raiders to beat teams as good as Baylor.