Texas Tech basketball: What Tech has to do to defeat Iowa State

Tonight, the Texas Tech basketball team faces Iowa State in Lubbock, and here’s what Tech needs to do in order to pick up another win.

It will be the final night of basketball in the United Supermarkets Arena tonight when the Texas Tech basketball team takes on Iowa State. And like most other aspects of our world these days, it’s been an unusual season at home for Chris Beard and his team.

That’s because Tech has dropped four home games this season, all in Big 12 play. By comparison, Tech lost just five total home games in the previous three seasons.

For certain, some of that is due to the fact that the home-court advantage that Tech has cultivated under Beard has been diminished by limited capacity numbers. But tonight shouldn’t be a game in which the crowd would have to help carry the Red Raiders to victory.

That’s because Iowa State is putting the finishing touches on one of the worst seasons in their program’s proud history. At just 2-19 overall and winless in Big 12 play, the Cyclones are going to win fewer than 10 games for the first season since 1980-81 and may match their lowest win total since 1924-25.

But if there is one reason to keep from overlooking ISU tonight, it would be the fact that the Cyclones have come close to pulling off a few upsets this year. For instance, they led Baylor for most of the game on February 23 before falling 77-72 in Waco. Of course, that game was Baylor’s first after a three-week COVID-19 pause and it was clear that the Bears were not playing at their typical level.

Back in early January, ISU lost by only six to Texas in Austin. In that 78-72 loss, ISU nearly erased a 15-point first-half deficit but couldn’t complete the comeback.

That game directly preceded Tech’s visit to Ames, which was far from a nail-biter. That day, Tech stormed its way to a 91-64 victory in what remains this season’s largest conference win. So let’s look at what Tech needs to do tonight to secure a similar victory.

Slow down Solomon Young

Though the first meeting between these teams was a laugher, for the first ten minutes of the contest, ISU was able to keep pace with Tech. The main reason was the play of forward Solomon Young.

Opening the game 4-4 from the field in the first ten minutes, the senior looked like he was going to carry his team all day long. However, he would finish the day with just seven points for the rest of the game as Tech began to double-team him and deny him the ball in the post.

The 6-foot-8 senior is averaging 10.6 points per game this year and he’s the only threat the Cyclones have in the lane. Thus, Tech would be wise to start this game by giving him extra attention.

Make ISU shoot 3s

Now, Tech doesn’t want to give up a ton of wide-open 3-point shots today. Any team in the nation can hit those. But being as the Cyclones are one of the worst 3-point shooting teams in the Big 12, Tech needs to make them prove that they can hit contested shots from downtown.

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Making just 32.9% of their attempts from beyond the arc, ISU is the second-worst 3-point shooting team in the conference. They are averaging 7.5 made 3’s per game in conference play, which is 5th in the league, but Tech should still try to force them into being overly reliant on the outside shot.

The key is to make the 3-point attempts come from one of the less accomplished shooters on the roster. The guy you don’t want to leave open is Jalen Coleman-Lands, who is a 40% 3-point shooter for the season. He averages 2.4 makes from downtown per game, which is by far the most on the team.

No other player on the team is shooting over 34% from outside. What’s more, only two are shooting over 31%. So Tech needs to stay close to Coleman-Lands but force the rest of the ISU team to prove that they can stay in this game by hitting outside shots.

Don’t send ISU to the line

The only aspect of the game at which ISU is elite by Big 12 standards is free-throw shooting. That’s why Tech doesn’t need to send the Cyclones to the line very much tonight.

Overall, ISU shoots 78.3% as a team from the stripe. That’s the best in the conference.

However, there’s a catch. They only get to the line 11.3 times per game, least in the conference.

Even when ISU plays their best, they don’t get to the line much. In the near upset of Baylor, they shot only five free throws, and even in their two wins this year, they averaged just 7.3 trips to the line.

For a team to pull off an upset, the free-throw line is typically a huge factor in the win. Thus, Tech can’t have one of those games where they let the opponent have 25-30 trips to the line as they did against West Virginia in Lubbock or Oklahoma State in Stillwater. Thus, here’s hoping Doug Sirmons and Bert Smith aren’t working this game as officials tonight.

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