Inside the box score of Texas Tech basketball's pivotal win at No. 11 Oklahoma

The Texas Tech basketball team continues to defy preseason expectations. After Saturday's 85-84 win at No. 11 Oklahoma, the Red Raiders are now 5-1 in Big 12 play and 16-3 overall on the season to sit alone atop the Big 12 standings despite being picked to finish 8th in the preseason conference poll. Let's break down how Grant McCasland's team was able to pick up its latest Quad-1 victory.

Texas Tech guard Chance McMillan stays hot

If we would have known prior to this game that the Sooners were going to get 30 points from their bench, we might have feared that would propel the home team to a win. However, Tech nearly matched that total with 29 bench points of its own thanks mostly to one player, Chance McMillan.

Scoring a career-high 27 points, the Grand Canyon transfer led all scorers and continued his hot play as of late. What's more, shooting 10-13 from the field and 6-8 from 3-point range, he also had one of the most efficient offensive games we've seen from a Red Raider in recent memory.

Coming off of a game that saw him put up 14 points against BYU, he eclipsed that number in the first half alone with 15 points. What's more, he pulled down eight rebounds, second-most on the team.

McMillan was forced to play 32 minutes, essentially logging the workload of a starter, thanks to the fact that Kerwin Walton fouled out mid-way through the second half after playing only 18 minutes. Walton was able to contribute only seven points before departing meaning that somone else had to be an offensive difference maker and that person was McMillan.

In his last two games, McMillan has averaged 20.5 points per game. That comes on the heels of three straight games in which he put up just 5.0 p.p.g.

Ultimately, we can be pretty confident that guards Pop Isaacs and Joe Toussaint will give Tech double-digits in the scoring column almost every game. However, to win in the Big 12, often three or four players have to be offensive forces and on Saturday, McMillan brought his best game to the Lloyd Noble Center to carry the Red Raiders to an impressive win.