Texas Tech basketball: Players that will be x-factors when season resumes

Burton

It’s time for Jamarius Burton to begin looking more like the player he was at Wichita State and less like the one we’ve seen for a majority of this season.  If that happens, Tech will be a far better team because it will mean that Beard has another quality guard to bring off the bench.

No one is expecting Burton to all of a sudden start scoring 10.3 points per game the way he did last season for the Shockers.  He won’t get enough minutes on this year’s team to do that.

However, it is time that he starts to match his per-40 minute stats from last season, which was 15.2 points, 5.1 rebounds, and 5 assists per game.  This year, he’s putting up just 8.5 points, 3.4 rebounds, and 2.6 assists per 40 minutes of play.

If Burton can become more of an offensive plus for his team, Tech will have a safeguard for nights when other guards (namely the one we are about to talk about next) may not have their usual impact.

In recent games, Burton has given us some reasons to think he may be on the verge of becoming a more reliable option for Beard.  Mainly, there was his 9-point effort against Iowa State, which is a game that we would like to see him replicate more often.

Hitting four of eight shots from the floor, Burton was assertive and efficient in that game (albeit against the conference’s worst team).  That type of outing is likely the ceiling for him on this year’s team and it’s the type of effort that could help propel the Red Raiders past the better teams in the Big 12.