Grant McCasland talks about Darrion Williams', Elijah Hawkins' leadership in win

There was a noticeable edge to Texas Tech head coach Grant McCasland on Tuesday night in Provo, Utah. Perhaps it was knowing that his team was facing an uphill battle in front of 18,000 rowdy fans or perhaps it was simply because he knew he needed to set the tone for his players. But whatever the reason, McCasland coached with an extra bit of intensity in the game and it paid off as the Red Raiders prevailed 72-67 to move to 2-1 in conference play.

After the game, McCasland acknowledged the role that the home crowd played in supporting their team.

"Yeah, no, what a remarkable environment this is to play a college basketball game," he said. "You know, it's the holidays and you're going back to classes starting. But I thought the student section and just the energy in the building was tremendous from tip to finish, and that's why, you know, we have a lot of respect for what they're doing and how they're doing.

"I thought...BYU was really physical with us for a majority of the game, and it caused us problems, especially getting two-point baskets around the rim. And our team stayed the course. They just controlled tempo, and I thought we came up with timely plays. And it starts with Elijah, Hawkins, Darien Williams, and Chance McMillan.

"I thought those guys just hung in there, and Chance broke the game open with a couple threes from Elijah, but the composure level of those two guys to have Elijah with five assists, no turnovers, and to really just handle all the different change in defenses, and then our ability to limit their three-point makes and beat them on the class, I thought that was the difference in the game, but tremendous college basketball game in a remarkable environment."

As the game grew tight late in the second half, the Red Raiders turned to junior forward Darrion Williams to lead the way. He responded by scoring eight of his 18 points in the final seven minutes. His ability to operate with his back to the basket was critical and McCasland talked about how much Williams means to this team on a game-by-game basis.

"Yeah, every game," McCasland said. "I mean, he's a, you know, Ken Pom has the ratings of top college basketball players, and he's a top 10 player in the country, I mean just by every metric. I mean, you know, we lost the game at home to Central Florida, and he struggled, and it poured over to what we did defensively, unfortunately, in that game and this one, I thought even when the game kind of got down, I saw a different look in his eye defensively. And that's where Darren Williams is such a great leader for us, and he's a guy we're always going to play through."

For the vast majority of the game, BYU played an aggressive zone defense that morphed schemes and tried to pressure the Red Raider perimeter players in an attempt to limit Tech's ability to get good looks from 3-point range. When McCasland's team focused on getting the ball inside the lane, it seemed to change the course of the game. He addressed that strategic move.

"Yeah, I mean, anytime you're playing against the change," he said, "and I did think they did a great job changing defenses from different ball screen coverages to different looks in the zone. And they do have a great size and length on the perimeter, which makes it difficult with passing angles. It seems like there's some holes, but they do a good job covering them up.

"And I'll tell you, the biggest thing for us is we were caught in between running man sets and running zone offense. And we kind of just went with, 'Hey, we're going to run some man action and keep the right space and play in attack mode', and tried to just play zone offense and tried to be more, you know, play how we want to play. And I thought our movement got better, and the ball moved better, and we were able to ball screen and give us some more space and cause them some more problems. It took us a while to get to it, though."

Another key player for the Red Raiders was senior point guard Elijah Hawkins. He had a career-high six 3-point buckets on his way to 22 points. What's more, he handed out five assists, came up with four rebounds, and had no turnovers in 37 minutes played. Needless to say, McCasland was more than pleased with the way the Minnesota transfer performed.

"Yeah. I mean, there's two things that I really believe in, and that's work," he said, "and he works every day, works on it, and they're not in the recruiting process. We talked to him about that being, I think, one of the most underrated parts of his game. I mean, everybody sees a guy that leads the nation and assists, the leading returning assist guy, but what he is is he's, he's a really good basketball player, and the one thing I think he's learned is one being ready to catch and shoot all the time, because he can make them he can.

"His percentages have always shown that. And two like, can he change pace and not just be all go where he's over dribbling? And man, was he just a Maestro and the right amount of dribbles? I mean, he did get sped up a couple times and took some tough twos, and their length will make you do that. Man, he was just, I think, his feel for the game and what he wants to do is, really is the most improved part of his game, which allows him to make those threes, because he's been open and he's been taking advantage."

Tech's offense was a slog for most of the night but eventually, it came to life down the stretch. McCasland was asked what changed to allow his team to get hot on that end of the floor.

"I mean, we can make threes," McCasland said. "We have one of the most effective offenses in the country, and what their defense did, and changing it and their aggressiveness, it got us on our heels, and we started standing. And I do think that playing through Darren Williams in the post one, and him just getting tough twos because JT has been that for us, and with [Federiko] out there, it's not one of our strengths, but D-5, it is his strength.

"I mean, he can leverage it, and he can pass and he can make threes, and when you look at his efficiency, it kind of is all three of them. And then we finally got him in where he could get in there, close to the basket with a mismatch, and I felt like they had to figure out, are they going to double him? Are they going to let him keep making twos? And that's when it started opening up, other than the two threes that Chance hit and transition."

Finally, McCasland was asked about the two-game road trip through the state of Utah and if there was a moment when he knew that this would be a great trip for his team. McCasland pointed to a change that he and his coaching staff made between games.

"Yeah, I will tell you," he said, "we played one of the worst defensive games that maybe I've ever been a part of, seriously ever, at Central Florida at home, and we usually don't practice in these kind of environments in between that hard. And I just felt like our team needs to have an edge, by the way we compete, because we don't have a ton of experience at the guard spots, specifically the point, and we don't have experienced defenders on our team that are considered the best defenders, and so we practiced really hard last night for an hour and a half, and our guys are embracing that.

"So the first one at Utah, I thought was more about our build-up to this, but this one, I felt like we kind of built as the game went on, and I thought we got more competitive and tougher as it went on. And to me, it's just a mindset that our guys are believing in. There's no 5-on-0, feel-good practices right now. I mean, we got a lot of grit to how we're practicing, and that's a credit to these guys believing in it and allowing us to coach them and fight with them so that we can win games like this that are difficult on the road, and this is one of the best environments in college basketball, and we had a lot of respect coming into it, and we knew we'd have to win the rebounding battle.

"That would be a number for me, that I look at and go, Hey, we beat them because they're, they are the best rebounding team, defensively, percentage-wise, in the country, and we had more offensive rebounds than they did. So to me, that that was like, that was the fight that we were looking for."