Texas Tech basketball: Trying to make sense of the Red Raiders’ woes

The youth movement has led to growing pains

Because of the failures of this season’s transfer class, the Texas Tech basketball team has had to rely heavily on its true freshmen class.  While Pop Isaacs, Lamar Washinton, and Robert Jennings have been quality additions to varying degrees, relying so heavily on first-year collegiates is a tough way to try to survive in the Big 12.

This year, 27.9% of Tech’s scoring and 31% of Tech’s minutes played have come from true freshmen.  That’s a far cry from what we’ve seen from this program in recent years.

Last season, no true freshman was even on the Red Raider roster.  What’s more redshirt freshman, Daniel Batcho, was asked to play only 9.9 minutes per game.

The year prior, no true freshman was in the top ten in minutes played for the Red Raiders.  In 2019-20, Tech relied on only two true freshmen in its rotation, Jahmi’us Ramsey and T.J. Shannon, both of whom proved to be among the best true freshmen to ever suit up for this program.

In the run to the 2019 National Title Game, only one true freshman, Kyler Edwards, was asked to play any meaningful minutes.   Therefore, the 2017-18 season was the last time such a heavy load was placed on true freshmen by this program.

That year, Jarrett Culver, Zhaire Smith, and Davide Moretti averaged a combined 26 points per game.  The difference is that those three players proved to be three of the best players to ever don the Double T.  Also, they were surrounded by a group of veterans that included Keenan Evans, Norense Odiase, Zach Smith, Justin Gray, and Niem Stevenson – a core of players who were able to allow those freshmen to play without having to carry the team on their shoulders.

This year, especially with the recent injuries, Tech is having to turn to its true freshmen to supply a huge portion of its productivity.  What’s more, consider just how young this team is overall, even outside of the true freshmen.

When the game against Kansas was on the line, Tech had two true freshmen (Isaacs and Washinton), a redshirt freshman (Tyson), and a redshirt sophomore (Batcho) on the floor with super-senior Kevin Obanor.  With such youth having to drive this team, it’s no wonder that growing pains have been a problem and that might continue throughout the entire season.

Tech is going to have to take its lumps with these young players learning on the job what it takes to win in the nation’s toughest conference. The only hope is that this young core stays together after this year instead of transferring so that the experience gained this year doesn’t wind up paying dividends for other programs and not the Red Raiders.