Well, things didn’t go well for the Texas Tech Lady Raiders on Wednesday. When facing the Iowa State Cyclones in United Supermarkets Arena, Texas Tech just wasn’t able to defend its home court and the Cyclones came away with a dominant win.
Bailey Maupin, Sidney Love, and Snudda Collins all played at a high level for the Lady Raiders, but none of them were a match for what Iowa State brought to the table. Fouls and turnovers and the inability to slow Iowa State’s star down all lead to a frustrating 14-point defeat.
Now, with that 84-70 loss to the Cyclones in Lubbock, I have a few questions.
No. 1: What on earth happened to Texas Tech in the paint?
The Lady Raiders simply were not ready to match up against the Iowa State Cyclones. Or, well, that’s at least true when it comes to the paint. Iowa State managed to outscore Texas Tech 40-14 in the paint. Texas Tech hit on just 23 of 54 shots from the field overall.
And then there’s the rebounding element, where Iowa State managed to dominate the boards (which was particularly glaring when looking at the offensive rebounds, where Iowa State won 15 to nine).
Audi Crooks scored 33 points and grabbed 12 rebounds. There just was no stopping her for Texas Tech. And that’s an issue. This disparity and glaring problem is a huge reason why the Lady Raiders lost. And I don’t know if Texas Tech can fix that.
No. 2: Did Iowa State just outline the perfect formula for beating Texas Tech?
I’m not even remotely sure if this was a matchup sort of issue that relies specifically on having an elite front court (something many teams won’t have) or what’s going on here specifically, but I’m afraid that the Cyclones may have found the blueprint for beating this particular Texas Tech team.
Between the domination in the paint (it’s terrifying that Iowa State outscored Texas Tech by 26 points there), the Cyclones winning the rebound battle with relative ease (a 41-30 advantage), and Iowa State managing to take advantage of Texas Tech’s mistakes (fouls and turnovers and whatnot), it seems like Texas Tech just wasn’t equipped to take on the Cyclones.
Audi Crooks was able to effectively just do whatever she wanted to and Texas Tech couldn’t slow her down. Add that to also running into foul troubles and it seems like Texas Tech’s frontcourt might be a bit of a weakness.
I’m hoping it’s something of an anomaly, but we’ve now seen the Lady Raiders lose three of their last four games, which seems bad!
No. 3: How will Texas Tech respond when facing the TCU Horned Frogs on Sunday?
And that brings me to my next question. How does Texas Tech respond to this moment? It’s not exactly ideal that the Lady Raiders have lost a few games in the past couple weeks and things are about to get very difficult as the TCU Horned Frogs come to town this weekend.
TCU is sitting at No. 2 in the Big 12 right now. The Horned Frogs, at 19-2 overall and 7-1 in the Big 12, look poised to further the gap between them and the Lady Raiders. And a loss would really hurt Texas Tech’s chances at getting back into the Big 12 title contention.