The Cincinnati Bearcats showed up in Lubbock looking to build upon one of the Big 12’s strongest winning streaks that included a road win over the then No. 8 ranked Kansas Jayhawks. And to be completely fair and frank, the Bearcats looked pretty impressive early on in this game. They managed to build a solid early lead over the No. 16 Red Raiders.
And then Texas Tech completely took over and ran away with a 12-point win over a solid team. Now we’re one step closer to the Texas Tech Red Raiders getting the chance to face off against the Iowa State Cyclones this weekend.
That, my friends, will be something worth keeping a closer eye on.
With regards to this game, I’ve got a few thoughts on how it all played out. Let’s take a look at three observations from the Red Raiders 80-68 win over Cincinnati.
Cincinnati started out hot, but Texas Tech didn’t flinch at all and closed out the first half strong
With 5:34 left on the clock in the first half of the game, Texas Tech’s offense hadn’t shown up and Cincinnati was smothering the Red Raiders from just about every angle. Baba Miller drained a three and the Bearcats had built a 32-27 lead over Texas Tech.
After that, the Red Raiders took over. Texas Tech hit a streak and went on a 15-2 run to closer out the first half with a 42-34 lead over Cincinnati. That included a couple of threes from Donovan Atwell and some solid defense from Texas Tech to shut the Bearcats down during that stretch.
And that pretty much set the Red Raiders up to win.
Christian Anderson was stellar coming out of halftime and pushed Texas Tech into a strong position to close the game out
I said “pretty much set the Red Raiders up to win” largely because Cincinnati came out of halftime swinging and managed to keep things close. At one point, Texas Tech had a 49-43 lead following a few scores from the Bearcats.
And then Christian Anderson responded with nine straight points for the Red Raiders. He stretched Texas Tech’s lead out to 59-46 and then the Bearcats were never once back within striking distance of the Red Raiders.
With Toppin sidelined, having Anderson being able to do this and take over a game as needed is huge.
I didn’t expect Texas Tech to have such strong front court protection, but the Red Raiders had impressive shot blocking by committee
Luke Bamgboye and Josiah Moseley really had an impressive impact on this game even though they didn't really get a ton of minutes. Texas Tech finished this game with a grand total of six blocked shots against Cincinnati. That’s some solid rim protection.
Interestingly enough, all six of those blocks came from Bamgboye and Moseley. Three for each of them. Given that JT Toppin was averaging 1.7 blocks per game prior to his injury, getting six from role players is huge and allows the Red Raiders to build upon their defensive efforts in an impressive way.