Texas Tech basketball: Pop Isaacs lifts Red Raiders over NIU in final second

Texas Tech got almost nothing from its bench

One disturbing trend that needs to be addressed is this team’s lack of bench productivity.  Thursday, Tech managed only six bench points despite playing four players in reserve.

Chance McMillan and Kerwin Walton each hit one 3-pointer to account for everything Tech would get offensively from its backups.  Meanwhile, Eemelie Yahalo and Lamar Washington went scoreless in their brief cameo appearances.

What’s more, McMillan was the only player from the bench to give Tech any other statistical contributions.  With two rebounds, two assists, and a steal, he was able to fill the stat sheet a bit but more is needed from Tech’s backups moving forward.

Against Villanova, Tech did get 16 points from its bench with McMillan scoring nine and Washington seven.  However, none of the other four bench players who saw the floor were able to give the team even a single point.

McMillan is the key to Tech’s success off the bench.  Last year, he averaged 10.9 points per game and he is a career 40.1% shooter from 3-point range so there is reason to expect him to be a key scorer in reserve.

This year, though, he’s had only one double-digit scoring game; 17 points against Texas A&M-Corpus Christi.  If this team is going to be productive, the Red Raiders need some offensive punch from the bench and the Grand Canyon transfer is going to be a huge part of supplying that.  He didn’t do a good job of that on Thursday (nor did his fellow bench members) and Tech almost didn’t have enough offense to survive.