Life on the road in the Big 12 is supposed to be a grind. But thus far in the 2024-25 season, the Texas Tech basketball team is making easy work of bringing home wins from opposing teams' arenas.
Thanks to an 81-71 win at Cincinnati on Tuesday night, Tech is now 4-0 away from Lubbock in conference play. That moved head coach Grant McCasland and his team to 5-2 overall in the league and extended Tech's current winning streak to three games.
To put Tech's road success in perspective, understand that the Red Raiders won only four road conference games all of last season. And thanks to four road wins and a home win over Arizona in the first three weeks of January, Tech is starting to assemble a nice NCAA Tournament resume.
With Cincinnati sitting at No. 39 in the NCAA NET Rankings heading into Tuesday's action, the win registers as another Quad-1 victory. Tech has now improved to 4-2 in Quad-1 games thanks in large part to its work on the road with the wins at Utah, BYU, and Cincinnati all counting as Quad-1 bullet points.
Tech fans have to be thrilled with the way this team is playing right now and Tuesday was a continuation of the Red Raiders' growth as a group. So let's go inside the box score for some quick thoughts on another impressive showing from one of the hottest teams in the Big 12.
Texas Tech forward JT Toppin has another dominating performance
Checked for most of the night by one of the Big 12's best defensive players, Aziz Bandaogo, Texas Tech sophomore forward JT Toppin was at his best yet again on Tuesday. Putting up 20 points and grabbing seven rebounds in just 24 minutes of action, he followed up his big game against Arizona on Saturday (20 points, 16 rebounds) with another stellar performance.
On a night when a number of NBA scouts were in the building, Toppin went to work on the 7-footer Bandaogo going 9-15 from the floor. Meanwhile, the Cincinnati big man was unable to make a similar impact scoring just seven points and grabbing only three rebounds. Perhaps most importantly, he blocked no shots and rarely seemed to deter the Red Raiders in the paint.
Last season, when the Bearcats won in Lubbock, Bandaogo was a menace as he put up a double-double and protected the rim with ferocity. But on Tuesday, he was just a footnote in the game as Toppin completely dominated the matchup in the post.
Texas Tech gets hot from deep after a slow start
Another reason the Red Raiders won this game was the fact that they were much better from beyond the arc than Cincinnati. That proved critical on a night when the Bearcats shot the ball well as a team.
Though the home team shot 51.9% from the floor overall, they were only able to get most of their points two at a time as they were a dreadful 3-14 (21.4%) from beyond the arc. Meanwhile, after starting the game 1-8 from deep, Tech wound up shooting 12-31 (38.7%) as a team.
When the Red Raiders shoot the ball well from 3-point range, they are extremely tough to handle. That was the case on Tuesday when Tech had a 27-point advantage from 3-point range making it impossible for the Bearcats to keep up.
Texas Tech freshman phenom continues to grow up
It is hard to believe that Texas Tech guard Christian Anderson is a true freshman because he certainly isn't playing like one these days. The young phenom was fantastic again in this game with 18 points five rebounds and three assists.
Shooting 4-7 from 3-point range, Anderson was a huge part of the first-half long-range barrage that propelled the Red Raiders to a four-point lead at the break, a lead they would not squander in the second half. What's more, he played a team-high 35 mintues while committing no turnovers.
This was the second 18-point game for Anderson in his last four outings and his third double-digit game in that span. He is playing the best basketball of his season thus far and proving that he is more than just an ordinary freshman. He's a budding star.
Kevin Overton finally has a positive impact for Texas Tech off of the bench
Finally, the Red Raiders got a strong outing from Kevin Overton who had 14 points and five rebounds in 20 minutes off of the bench. That type of performance from the sophomore guard was long overdue.
It had been six games since Overton had hit double digits in the scoring column. In fact, in the last three games, he had scored only nine total points while turning the ball over six times.
Overton did most of his work early scoring 12 points in the game's first 20 minutes to help push Tech in front. It was important for Overton to pick up the slack because star forward Darrion Williams was uncharacteristically quiet with just four points on 1-6 shooting.
Hopefully, this game will propel Overton to a nice finish to the season because if he can be a consistent scoring threat off of the bench, it will only give the Red Raiders an even greater margin for error on nights like Tuesday when one of their stars doesn't have his "A" game.