Typically, moral victories are useless. However, Texas Tech's valiant effort on Monday night against No. 4 Houston in Lubbock felt meaningful.
Down two starters in Chance McMillian and Darrion Williams, the Red Raiders pushed the Cougars to the brink trailing by only three points in the final minute before falling 69-61. The defeat dropped the Red Raiders to 21-7 overall and 12-5 in Big 12 play and ended any faint hopes of a Big 12 regular-season title.
However, the fight that Tech showed despite missing its second and third-leading scorers, two players who combine to average around 30 points per game, was more than admirable. In fact, it was nearly heroic.
Despite playing just six players in the game, head coach Grant McCasland saw his team out-rebound Houston 40-33 and out-score the Cougars 21-19 at the free-throw line. However, two stats proved to be the Red Raiders' undoing.
The most painful was Tech's woeful shooting from 3-point range. Going just 6-30 (20%) on the evening from beyond the arc, the Red Raiders had their worst game of the season in that aspect of the game.
Some of that was due to Houston's fantastic perimeter defense. Knowing that the Red Raiders' only hope of having enough offense to keep pace was to live by the 3-point shot, the Cougars pressured Tech into a number of deep, contested shots from way beyond the arc.
When Tech beat the Cougars in Houston on February 1, Tech was 12-30 (40%) from downtown in an 82-81 upset. But without their best 3-point shooter, McMillian, Tech struggled not only to make the 3-pointers that were available but they even struggled to find clean looks.
The other stat that proved to be the difference in the game was the Red Raiders losing the battle of points in the paint 26-16. That was partly a result of not having Williams on the floor, a player who does plenty of damage in the lane.
His replacement, Federiko Federiko was decent by his standards scoring four points and grabbing nine rebounds. However, he is far from the offensive threat that Williams is, and that allowed Houston to focus more attention on double-teaming and harassing Tech's leading scorer on the season, JT Toppin.
The sophomore entered the game having put up 22 or more points in three of his previous four games. However, he was held to just 14 points on 6-18 shooting as the rugged Houston defense threw all of its low-post might at him.
Still, this game was a battle that came down to the final minute. Unfortunately, that's when Houston's Milos Uzan canned a clutch 3-pointer to put his team up six with around 45 seconds to play. It was the capper on a career night that saw the transfer from Oklahoma score 22 points.
In the end, this game goes down as a loss. However, given all that Tech was up against, it is one that is easy to swallow.
The fact of the matter is that Tech has twice gone toe to toe with Houston and in both games, the Red Raiders have been missing at least one star player. Still, Tech is 1-1 against the Big 12's top team this year and could have been 2-0 had a couple of extra 3-pointers found the bottom of the net.
If anything, Monday's game was further proof that Tech can play with any team in the country, even when it is missing two of its three best players. Hopefully, the Red Raiders will be back to full strength for the rest of the season starting Saturday in Lawrence, Kansas because when this team has all of its bullets to fire, it is one nobody in the country can take for granted.