Texas Tech basketball: Red Raiders dominate Oklahoma State to move to 2-0 in Big 12 play

In the opening minutes of the Texas Tech basketball team's game against Oklahoma State on Tuesday night, it seemed as if the infamous "fat little girlfriends" of Lubbock were set to rear their ugly heads once again. Coming off of an emotional win over Texas on Saturday, the Red Raiders were sluggish and sloppy early allowing the Cowboys to jump out to leads of 7-0 and 20-11 as it appeared that Grant McCasland's team was in for a fight. However, the Red Raiders found another gear that the Cowboys simply couldn't match as they would steady themselves and cruise to a 90-73 win to move to 2-0 in Big 12 play and 13-2 overall.

Pop Isaacs once again led the Red Raiders in scoring with 24 points as he continues to play elite basketball. Meanwhile, every other starter also managed to score at least 13 points.

It was important for Tech to seize the opportunity to claim a home win over one of the lower-tier teams in the conference given that, next week, the team is about to embark on a string of four brutal games against Houston, BYU, Oklahoma, and TCU with three of those contests being played away from the South Plains.

Now, the Red Raiders can turn their attention to Saturday's home tilt with Kansas State, a game that Tech will be favored to win as well. Right now, though, let's go inside the box score to break down the win over Oklahoma State.

Texas Tech has an elite game in regard to taking care of the basketball

Averaging just 11.1 turnovers per game, the Red Raiders came into this game ranked 5th in the conference. That standing might improve after a night that saw them give the ball away just four times.

For what it's worth, OK State committed only nine turnovers themselves. However, they couldn't apply enough pressure on the Red Raiders to get McCasland's team out of rhythm.

This was the second game in a row that has seen Tech play well in regard to taking care of the ball. Against Texas, nine turnovers were all that the Red Raiders would cough up.

Most impressive was the fact that Pop Isaacs and Joe Toussaint, Tech's two primary ball-handlers, had zero giveaways between them in a combined 63 minutes of action. What's more, the five starters had only two turnovers between them.

Scoring 90 points in a Big 12 game is tough. Part of that success was because Tech was red-hot from the floor shooting 59.3% from the floor but part of that was due to the low turnovers.

Prior to Tuesday, Oklahoma State had given up no more than 79 points and that was to No. 15 Creighton. Tech hung eleven more than that on them in this game, though, and that was due in large part to the fact that Tech put up 59 shots. That's what happens when you take care of the basketball as well as the Red Raiders did against the Cowboys.