The Texas Tech basketball team fell to TCU 85-78 on Tuesday night in Fort Worth. Let's go inside the box score to see why the Red Raiders dropped their second Big 12 game of the season.
Texas Tech was sloppy with the basketball
If you look at Texas Tech's turnover total, you'll see only 13 giveaways. That's not an alarming number. However, being sloppy with the ball was a huge reason for the Red Raiders' loss.
It's not fun to single one guy out but Joe Toussaint deserves the lion's share of the blame here. With a season-high eight turnovers, he had two more turnovers than he had points. Now, we must also point out that he had nine assists but still, no point guard ever wants to lose the ball eight times in one game.
Tech's turnovers were also untimely. It seemed as if every time the Red Raiders had a chance to really put the pressure on TCU, a turnover would swing momentum back in the favor of the home team.
What's interesting is that both teams had 13 points off of turnovers. However, the giveaways prevented Tech from getting up enough shots to keep pace with the high-powered Frogs.
Because TCU had seven more offensive rebounds and four fewer turnovers on the night, they had six more shot attempts than Tech. In a game decided by seven points, that's critical.
Also, the Red Raider defense couldn't force enough turnovers to get TCU out of its offensive rhythm. In their last home loss, a one-point defeat to Iowa State, they gave the ball away a staggering 27 times. What's more, in their four-point loss at Cincy, they had 19.
Tech averages over 12 turnovers forced per game but couldn't reach that number on Tuesday night. That combined with the rough night from Toussaint spelled doom for the Red Raiders.