Tuesday in Fort Worth, the Texas Tech basketball team finally had one of those head-scratching performances that nearly every Big 12 team puts forth at least once in a season. In their 69-66 loss to TCU, the Red Raiders played one of their worst games of the season and couldn't overcome their mistakes and lapses.
It was arguably the most disappointing effort that Tech has put forward since dropping the Big 12 opener at home to UCF 87-83 on New Year's Eve. Between that game and Tuesday night, the Red Raiders went 11-2 with their two losses coming at the hands of then-No. 3 Iowa State in Lubbock and then-No. 20 Arizona in Tucson.
In all 13 of those games, Tech was at least able or willing to match its opponent's grit and fight, but on Tuesday, it was clear that TCU was the hungrier and more determined squad. That made the performance so disappointing, and after the game, head coach Grant McCasland took the blame for the loss.
"So yeah, give TCU and coach Dixon a lot of credit for the way they physically got after us today," he said, "15 offensive rebounds and they got to the free throw line 22 times to our 8, and that's not going to get it done when you're playing on the road. I thought our team, I thought we were playing hard.
"Two things. One, I got to do a better job...played too many guys, too many minutes. Felt like those guys had the understanding of what it took to win this game, but we ran out of gas and weren't able to finish it. We took the lead in the second half with about seven minutes to go, and felt like we put our stamp on what we wanted to do and how we wanted to do it, but just didn't have the grit that it takes to win on the road. And I thought TCU was got a lot of rebounds and 50-50 balls at the end of this one. And that's how you lose on the road."
Even after scoring just 66 points in Fort Worth, Tech still leads the conference in points per game at 81.8. However, the Red Raiders struggled to find any rhythm on that end of the floor on Tuesday night. McCasland discussed what TCU did to slow his team's offense and why the Red Raiders struggled to put the ball in the bucket.
"Well, in the first half, specifically, because if you look at the second half, we scored 38 points," he said. "I mean, I probably, and only getting to the free throw line eight times. It's a pretty good little run in the second half. Probably was more what we needed to do in the first half. I did think we got a few open threes. I mean, Walton had a couple of good looks. Kevin Overton had a couple good looks. And, you know, you make two of those, and you're looking at a little bit different game.
"I thought, where really the big part of it was just that stretch from six minutes to the end of the game, we looked like we ran out of gas, and we settled for some perimeter shots that weren't good. We turned the ball over in some key moments, and then didn't come up with offensive rebounds. And I don't know what we finished the game with, but we didn't score very much down the stretch. And chance, McMillan has been giving us such a good lift, and he kind of carried us in that first half, and then Darrion Williams settled in and really gave us a lift.
"And their double team took K.O. out of the game, and then from there, it's like, where do you get where do you get baskets? And those guys have been delivering for us, and tonight is one of those miss-or-make games where we didn't. But really the disappointing part was not the offense. I felt like that was probably what it needed to be. If we could just defensive rebound, then we could play in transition. That's where we've been lethal."
One reason Tech's offense was sluggish was the fact that star forward JT Toppin had only 14 points in 26 minutes of action. That came after he posted 41 points against Arizona State and 32 against Oklahoma State in his two previous outings. McCasland talked about why Toppin didn't have another big night.
"Yeah, well, they just double-teamed him all game long," he said. "I mean, and got the ball out of his hands. That's what I was saying. Like, you know, you just swing the basketball to a few guys and you make those and it makes it, you know, where you can't do that very often, and we've been successful with that. But yeah, they were physical and pushing his touches out.
"He was he was way more assertive the second half. I mean, getting in foul trouble and getting two fouls early in the game, hurt him I thought, and he's been playing through some of that, and we try to throw him back in there, actually, and not let it affect him. We played him with with those extra fouls in the first half, just to give him some confidence, and then we stuck with him when he got that third quick in the second half and rolled with him a little bit, but really just the double team, and we didn't take advantage of passing out of it."
With Tech carrying a No. 9 national ranking this week, the Red Raiders are now a target for other teams in the league and that was evidenced by the fact that TCU's fans stormed the court after the win. McCasland was asked if that type of reaction from the opposing fans and that type of loss could jump-start his team for the rest of the season.
"Yeah, I mean, I talked to our team about just the I think the way we started the game offensively was scoring 12 points pretty quickly and scoring in transition," he said. "It felt like, 'Hey, we're going to score'. And we lost some fight. We lost the physicality that it takes to be what we needed to be in this one, and we started playing, I mean, it wasn't like we weren't playing hard but weren't scrapping.
"So to me, I think it'll be a fine tuner. I told them in the locker room like, all things considered, okay, let's just talk about, what do we do with this. That will determine our season. Honestly, and I believe it with all my heart, like, do we embrace this and say, 'okay, we can go into these games because we pretty good, been pretty good offensive and go, hey, we'll just score some baskets?'. No, I just want them to recognize the edge.
"And I think [TCU] had five offensive rebounds at the first media [timeout}. And that was the game to me. And then we talked about it at halftime. We actually went on a run. We were the ones getting offensive rebounds to, like, the seven-minute mark. And then it flipped. Then it flipped back in their favor. And I thought a lot of that had to do with their ability to keep subbing. And, you know, they had two guys at 30, 32, 31, 31 [minutes played] and we had three guys at 37, 36, 37. That's on me. I got, just got to keep us subbing. And I thought I'd use our timeouts to rest us, but it wasn't good enough."