Saturday night, the Texas Tech basketball team completed its season sweep of the Drake Bulldogs. Though most people didn't see the first matchup, it was actually the second time these two programs had squared off since October.
While Tech's 77-64 win in Wichita, Kansas to advance to the Sweet 16 is the matchup that everyone will remember, prior to the season, the two programs met for a scrimmage in Lubbock. That was due to the friendship between Texas Tech head coach Grant McCasland and Drake head coach Ben McCollum. In fact, McCasland tried as hard as he could to hire McCollum to Lubbock to join the Texas Tech coaching staff when McCasland took over in the spring of 2023.
McCollum wanted to remain a head coach, though, so he declined McCasland's overtures. Still, the two have remained close friends and as a result, McCasland had nothing but respect for Drake following Tech's second-round NCAA Tournament win.
"First of all, you know, when you go into these games", he said "especially playing Drake, who it's wild that we started the year with a scrimmage against them, and then we told these guys how much respect we had, and the reason why we scrimmaged them, because we felt like it would be the best test of being able to defend. I mean, could we really guard somebody?
"Ben McCollum and their whole staff and their seniors that came with them and the guys that they added, they have so much toughness, and we had so much respect. We felt like going into this game we would have to play inside-out, and everybody knows. Everybody is talking about how many threes we shot last night -- or on Thursday, but I think we showed that we can win in different ways.
"These two guys [Darrion Williams and JT Toppin] were the reason. I mean, just the game plan and our staff did an unbelievable job putting it together.
"But the two things that really stood out to me that we talked about. One was could we keep them off the glass. They only got six offensive rebounds, and one of them was on the free-throw at the end. Then could we not turn the ball over and give them advantage baskets, which I felt like they needed. We only turned the ball over five times. Man, we didn't make threes, and that just shows the resilience of Darrion Williams and JT Toppin, just to be persistent in the way we put it on the block.
"It's an awesome way to win, and we have so much respect for Drake and how well-prepared they are, and they were extremely difficult to beat."
While Williams and Toppin will get most of the headlines, Tech would not have won the game without the contributions of senior guard Elijah Hawkins. Scoring 16 points, handing out seven assists, pulling down three rebounds, and turning the ball over zero times, he was the only Red Raider guard to have a standout game. What's more, on the other end of the floor, he guarded Drake's star guard Bennett Stirtz all game long. McCasland discussed what Hawkins meant to the win and to the team overall.
"Yeah, man, that dude you talk about, somebody that wants to win," he said. "He wants to win. Seven assists, no turnovers. He got to the free-throw line 11 times, made 10 of them. I'll tell you what I'll always remember is how well he guarded Bennett in the game. If you saw how many times Bennett ran off of screen after screen after screen, and he just never quit. I mean, he did ask for a timeout at the 1:50 mark. That was the only thing he asked of us all game long.
"We would not have won that game if it wasn't for his grit and his fight."
One storyline entering this game was the high-powered Texas Tech offense against the stingy Drake defense. Scoring 77 points, the most any team put up against Drake all season, Tech got the better of that matchup and McCasland talked about the game plan his team deployed.
"Yeah, specifically we felt like that you couldn't play off ball screens," he said, "that you needed to give it to our guys in space and let them play in space, and then tried to clear a side so they couldn't make it difficult to catch and allow -- I mean, these are two of the best ball handlers. They're basically the two best passers outside of Elijah Hawkins on our team.
"So we just trusted them to handle the basketball, and it shows what they're capable of doing. They didn't catch it very often with their back to the basket. They had to catch it at the elbow and face and then turn and then rip down. When we got the advantage and they saw it, we were able to take advantage of it because of their footwork and because of the spacing.
"So really it was like change up the angles and try to make it where we cleared sides to give them space, so they couldn't dig it out."
Of course, McCasland is a defense-first coach and he will always center his team around that end of the floor. He talked about the defensive game plan that Tech utilized to slow down the Bulldogs.
"Well, I tell you, our team can really specifically see the game plan, understand it, and everybody can execute it," he said. "Man, we had a lot of different scenarios. We told everybody, you're going to have to know every position because we're going to need to switch and different people are going to guard different guys. JT was guarding a guard. D5 was guarding the 4, then he was guarding the point guard, then he was guarding the guard. We just felt like the ability to help and not let them score off cuts would be really important.
"Then try to keep their primary guys out of scoring. Mitch Mascari is such a difficult guy to defend, and we felt like if we could limit his threes and not allow him to score, it would make them more where they needed to score inside the arc. Mitch didn't get a basket from three, but they did.
"Daniel made five. Bennett made a couple. Kael made one. Those were the guys that we felt like we wanted to play off of, and these guys, man, just the toughness, the grit, not only just to stick to the game plan over the course of the game, but to rebound I think is kind of what has been our greatest improvement."
Finally, McCasland said that he wasn't going to turn his attention to Arkansas and the Sweet 16 before taking time to celebrate the win over Drake. He also said he expects to have plenty of Texas Tech support in San Francisco on Thursday night.
"I'm going to celebrate this one and celebrate our guys being here, and we'll talk about that," he said. "We'll have plenty of time to celebrate that."
"We are excited to move on, and that's been our vision for this the whole time. One thing I do know, we'll have Red Raiders in San Francisco."