Grant McCasland has his Texas Tech basketball team in a great place right now. Having won nine of their last ten games, the Red Raiders sit tied with Arizona for second place in the Big 12 standings (two games behind Houston).
What's more, the Red Raiders are coming off a dominant road win at Oklahoma State. Some feared that the trip to Stillwater might be a trap game for the Red Raiders because it came on the heels of Wednesday's 2-OT shootout with Arizona State.
However, the Red Raiders brought the energy and the intensity with them on the road. They made a program-record-tying 16 shots from beyond the 3-point arc en route to a 38-point win, their largest win ever in Stillwater.
After the game, McCasland met with the media to discuss his team's dominant win. But first, he talked about how special he felt it was to play at Gallagher-Iba Arena, which opened in 1938.
"I have so much respect for this building," he said. "I had the opportunity to play in this building. I've had the opportunity to coach as an assistant coach and as the director of basketball operations at Texas Tech Under James Dickey. And man, this is a special place to play college basketball, and Coach Lutz has these guys playing so hard.
"And anytime you take over a program...it's extremely difficult, especially in this era of college athletics, and so we have a lot of respect for how they play and how they competed, and we knew just watching, like the Houston game on film, and watching the way they beat Arizona State in here, they only have two home losses, and we just knew we'd have to play our best to put ourselves in position. And I was just thrilled with the way our guys competed and didn't look at the scoreboard and played, tried to play the game the right way, regardless of the score. So, you know, really thrilled with the way our guys are, are playing together and playing the right way."
The star of the day for the Red Raiders was sophomore forward JT Toppin. The transfer from New Mexico put up 32 points, 12 rebounds, and 3 blocks one game after scoring 42 points and grabbing 15 rebounds against the Sun Devils. There's no question that he's playing his best basketball of the season and McCasland was asked why Toppin has been so dominant of late.
"Well, one, he's healthy," he said. "I mean, like, when you see him move, it's not hard to tell when he's healthy, you know. And honestly, he's, he's just moving better, one, and feeling better. And two, our offense is starting to really move the basketball. 23 assists and only eight turnovers. And I think just last time we played them, we actually got pretty three-point looks, and we didn't make them in stretches, and tonight we did.
"So then what happens, when we're making threes, then you got to pick and it's a difficult dilemma. I mean, I do think we got some of the best three-point shooters in the country, and I think we got a couple of the best setup guys in the country, and then when you get JT in the middle of that, it's a monster to deal with. And tonight was one of those ones where we finally had it all kind of going in the right direction."
Early in the game, Oklahoma State was able to stay close to the Red Raiders but as the game neared halftime, Tech had a couple of different runs to open up a 43-24 advantage at the break. McCasland was asked about what enabled his team to put some space between itself and the Cowboys.
"Well, last time we play them in our place," he said, "we had, like, I don't know, a bunch of dead ball turnovers that we forced, but we didn't get any advantage off of them. And then a lot of the defensive rebounds we had were team rebounds because they got deflected out of bounds. And I felt like tonight we were able to get in transition, especially to close the half. And when you can get them out of just set defense at half court.
"Our advantage is clearly better. And that was, I thought the difference in that stretch. And then, you know, getting three stops in a row is kind of a number for us that we love to get, and we had the most we've had in a half in that first half. So it wasn't like we were great offensively. They still are so disruptive. And they had blocked shots, and we had some layups at the basket. I mean, we weren't super clean at finishing around the rim, but I did think our defense was solid, as it could have been in regards to a majority of the half, which allowed us to get those transition baskets and opportunities."
An unsung hero for Texas Tech was senior point guard Elijah Hawkins who posted 11 points, six assists, and three steals while turning the ball over only twice in 34 minutes played. McCasland discussed what he saw from his floor general.
"I mean, anytime you're getting pressured, like they do," he said, "and they put two on the ball, and how they constantly are physically guarding you the way they do. And It's impressive how well they compete and how well they disrupt, is just you got to have somebody up there that's not phased, that still sees the floor and where he's made the greatest improvement is he's starting to communicate what he sees. It's one thing for us to go like, 'Hey, this is what we need to do', and him try to execute it. He's already got great feel. Now you can see him navigating and putting people in the right spots. He's really orchestrating it, not just with his ability to pass, but with the way he's communicating with the team."
With the Red Raiders ranked No. 12 in the nation and sitting in second place in the league standings, many conference opponents are gunning for a win over Texas Tech. McCasland discussed what that means as far as how his team must approach each game.
"I think there just has to be an urgency that when you are playing this game," he said, "that you're always playing it with an edge. And we've got honestly, we've got awesome guys. I mean, one of the officials came to me after and said, 'Man, you've got a great group of guys like they just play hard and they're respectful, and when we communicate with them, they, they listen and do what we ask them to do'. And so to me, we have a great group.
"But then sometimes what's really good guys, it's hard to create, like, an edge, I mean, like, we've never had a fight in practice, not once. And I'm not saying we should fight in practice, but sometimes it happens, if it's competitive. We just got an awesome group. So I do think in order for us to be what we need to be in these games, we have to keep competing with an edge. And that's why, like, I just believe every possession matters, no matter the score, and our team's starting to embrace that. And so that hunted mentality is, like, you're always on edge because somebody's coming after you. You're not, like, comfortable, because it's just like, win or lose. It's cool. It's just the edge to compete, is what I think this team's starting to embrace. And you're starting to see it when you can create more margin over the course of the game against a really good team."
Finally, McCasland was asked if he was aware that his team was revealed as a No. 4 seed in the first NCAA Tournament bracket preview on Saturday prior to the game. He talked about paying attention to that announcement and why it mattered to him.
"I think my favorite stat looking at that," he said, "and I did pay attention to it, and I did see it just because I wanted to see what they, what kind of value they put on our league. And what I will say is that UCONN wasn't in it the year they won their first National Championship. They weren't even one of the 16 teams. So if that doesn't tell you anything about what this really is, this is about getting better, and for the first time in the history of the Big 12, and maybe the only time we'll play 20 games, and we still have six left, six. At this point in previous years with this number, you're playing four, you know, and that's a total different game. And so for us, I just think there's an urgency with finishing this the right way and that's what our competitiveness needs to be focused on."