Texas Tech basketball: Red Raiders drub overmatched Lamar

The Texas Tech basketball team jumped out to a 14-0 lead against Lamar on Saturday afternoon in Lubbock and never looked back in an 89-57 win.  Now, business begins to pick up for Mark Adams’ team with matchups at Providence and against No. 15 Tennessee (in New York City) on tap next.

Tech has blown out its six opponents this season by an average of 31 points per game.  Yet we still don’t know how good this team is given the lack of quality on the schedule thus far.

There wasn’t a ton we could take from the Lamar game as well.  Kevin Obanor led the team with 20 points to go along with seven rebounds.

Meanwhile, Bryson Williams was efficient with 16 points on 7-10 shooting.  And Terrence Shannon Jr. contributed 15 points and a pair of rebounds.

So let’s go inside the box score for some takeaways from this game.  And we will start by looking at a key improvement Shannon appears to have made.

Shannon continues to shoot it well from deep

If there was a weakness in Terrence Shannon Jr.’s game coming into this season, it would have been his 3-point shooting.  After all, he was just a 30.7% career shooter from distance over his first two seasons.

However, he’s proven to be much more accurate than that this year.  In fact, after shooting 4-8 from 3-point range against Lamar, he’s still a 50% shooter from deep this season.

Granted, the sample size has been small (only three games) and the competition has been lacking.  But Shannon is going to start to make teams respect his outside shot and that could make him a deadly weapon given how electric his first step to the basket is.

Shannon’s shooting could also be a huge boost to the Red Raiders as a whole.  Tech needs someone from among its group of guards to step up and prove to be a long-range marksman this year when the opponents become tougher as will be the case starting next week.

Thus far, three Red Raider guards, Shannon, Adonis Arms, and Davion Warren are all shooting over 40% from beyond the arc.  But the shots aren’t likely going to be as easy to hit from here forward as the stakes will be much higher and the opponents more competent.  So it will be interesting to see just how well this team can shoot from outside when they play teams with a pulse.

Santos-Silva continues strong play

Coming off the bench might suit Marcus Santos-Silva rather well.  After starting all 29 games for the Red Raiders a season ago, Tech is now using the super senior big man to be a key reserve after the additions of forwards Kevin Obanor and Bryson Williams.

Saturday, he was excellent with nine points, 12 rebounds, and even three assists against Lamar.  That included five offensive rebounds.

While some players may not take to such a change with much eagerness, Santos Silva is making himself a key reserve for his team.  Thus far, he’s averaging 6.8 points and 4.4 rebounds per game.

While those numbers might not jump off the page at anyone, keep in mind that he’s seeing only 16.2 minutes per game this year, seven fewer than last year.  But when you look at his average production per 40 minutes played, a different picture emerges.

This year, he’s putting up 16.8 points and 10.9 boards per 40 minutes.  That’s 2.7 points and 0.1 rebounds per game better than last year’s per-40 minute averages.

It will be so nice for Tech to have a player of Santos-Silva’s ability to bring off the bench this year.  No team can have too much size in the Big 12 and that means that Santos-Silva will have a role to play as the season unfolds.

Don’t forget that Williams is a foul-prone player.  In fact, this year he’s already had four personal fouls in two games and three in another.  What’s more, he’s averaged 3.0 fouls per game this game in his career.

Thus, don’t overlook the contributions of Santos-Silva.  He’s a key big man for this team despite the fact that he’s now coming off the bench.

Perimeter defense was lacking

At times on Saturday, Tech’s perimeter defense was less than adequate.  That’s something that has been a struggle at times this year and something to be a bit concerned about as we head into a tougher portion of the schedule.

Lamar was able to shoot 9-25 from 3-point range, which is not all that alarming given that it’s just 36%.  But what was disappointing is that Tech let Davion Buster hit six threes (though he did shoot 14 attempts from downtown).

The 5-foot-10 guard can do only one thing really well, shoot the 3-ball.  So why wasn’t Tech all over him from the moment he crossed half court?  Why did he have so many open looks?

This year, Tech ranks 9th in the Big 12 in 3-point defense.  Opponents are shooting 36% against them and that’s ahead of only West Virginia (37.6%).  That is an area of the game where Adams has to have better from his team because the 3-point line is often the difference in tight games.