Well, the Texas Tech men’s basketball team may have been exposed a bit in the Big 12 tournament as Grant McCasland’s Red Raiders clearly have a glaring problem that they’ve got to figure out how to address if they’re going to end their losing streak.
Seriously, there are questions that are going to be raised by Texas Tech’s early departure from the Big 12 tournament. Because Texas Tech was completely and totally overwhelmed by an Iowa State team that the Red Raiders beat previously.
The issues were mostly evident in the second half of the game as Texas Tech came out and built a solid early lead. Folks, the Red Raiders were up 17-5 in a little over six minutes into the game. But, uh, Iowa State just slowly gained momentum, took control of the game, and held onto a 36-33 lead at halftime. And then in the second half, the Red Raiders were outscored 39-20 (and ultimately lost 75-53).
Texas Tech’s alarming second-half collapse against Iowa State leads to early Big 12 tournament exit for the Red Raiders
There were some very clear issues for the Red Raiders as Texas Tech made just 22.2 percent of its shots in the second half (while the Cyclones made 65.2 percent of their shots). And as a whole, Iowa State really controlled the paint in this matchup.
Iowa State had 42 points in the paint in this game. Texas Tech was no match for the Cyclones’ front court. Iowa State had 32 total rebounds while the Red Raiders managed to get a grand total of 22 rebounds (which is just not good, it’s actually very, very bad).
Texas Tech has now lost three games in a row and Selection Sunday is just a few days away. The Red Raiders have had high hopes for what this season could be, but things have spiraled as of late. Can McCasland and Texas Tech get things figured out when the tournament gets started?