Texas Tech basketball: 3 reasons the Red Raiders were able to beat TCU

Nembhard and Miles were non-factors

If TCU has any chance at winning on a nightly basis, RJ Nembhard and Mike Moses have to be at their best.  But on Tuesday night, the two leading scorers for the Frogs were anything but effective.

Combined, they scored just 12 points with all but two of those coming from Nembhard.  Overall, that pair shot just 5-20 from the floor and 1-8 from 3-point range between them.

The 10-point effort that Nembhard managed was tied for his second-lowest scoring output of the season.  Additionally, the 40.5% shooter for the year hit at just a 33.3% rate in this game.

But it was the disappearing act of Miles that had the greatest impact on this game.  The true freshman entered scoring over 13 points per contest.  Yet he was held to just 1-8 shooting overall and 0-5 from 3-point range.  That set a new mark for his career in terms of the most attempted 3-point buckets without a make.

The dynamic guard has scored double-digits in 16 of 22 games this year.  What’s more, he has scored 20 points or more four times.  Thus, holding him to just two points was quite the effort by the Red Raider defense.

This was the second-straight game in which Tech has taken a set of opposing guards out of the game.  Against Texas on Saturday, Beard’s team held the trio of Courtney Ramey, Matt Coleman III, and Andrew Jones to a combined 24 points on 6-24 shooting.

In March, guard play is usually what tells the tale.  Thus, it is an encouraging sign that in back-to-back games, Tech has managed to shut down an opponent’s dynamic guards.  Hopefully, that continues throughout the rest of the month.