Texas Tech 71, Oklahoma State 61
* The Flex is a shout-out to Tubby Smith’s flex offense and a place for us to set some screens, make some cuts and discuss the game.
- This was a very tight game pretty much through out the game. Oklahoma State hit a handful of three-point shots early in the second half and Texas Tech played really terrific basketball to keep pace. Oklahoma State was an all-or-nothing sort of offense as they took a ton of three-point shots, and as mentioned above, they hit a few of them, but they missed a boat-load of opportunities as well.
- Oklahoma State matches up really well with Texas Tech, in particular with Aaron Ross. I think it was Hammonds or Olivier that covered Ross (mainly Hammonds) and Ross could never really shake free for an open perimeter shot. Not only that, but OSU really played off of Zach Smith and that clogged up the lane quite a bit. Smith has to be willing to take some of those shots to keep the defense honest, but he was way too quiet tonight.
- With the game tied after the first twenty minutes, Texas Tech took a bit of control of the game, going up by 10 or so, but some bad plays and bad fouls and Oklahoma State would crawl right back into the game. Part of the problem was that Keenan Evans got his third foul early in the second half and Tubby Smith didn’t put in Devon Thomas, but subbed in Devaugntah Williams with Toddrick Gotcher running the point. The offense was stagnant for a good 5 minutes, but Gotcher would hit a few three-point shots and really mastered a nice lead for Texas Tech. Not only that, but Gotcher also blocked a three-point shot, so yeah, that’s pretty good.
- Despite Texas Tech’s lead, this game never really felt safe, at least for me. Oklahoma State never backed down and when you continue to shoot three-pointers and make a few, you can climb back into the game relatively quickly.
- Matthew Temple had the game of his life. Temple was terrific diving to the basket on Keenan Evans dishes and Temple scored 11 points on 5 of 7 from the floor.
- Toddrick Gotcher had 24 points on just 10 shots (that’s great BTW) including 5 of 7 from the three-point line, grabbed 3 rebounds, had 2 assists and 2 turnovers.
- Texas Tech had 6 turnovers on the day and 14 assists. The assists were from unlikely candidates, Zach Smith and Justin Gray each had 3 assist each and Gray was the only one of them that had a turnover.
- Going 21 of 30 from the free throw line made this game much closer than it needed to be. Texas Tech was uncharacteristically inconsistent from the free throw line, only 70%. Only 7 misses doesn’t sound bad, but I thought this could have been better.
- Aaron Ross had another quiet but very good game. Ross had 12 points and 9 rebounds, including 3 of 6 from teh fiedl and 5 of 6 from the line.
- Tubby Smith employed two defenses that really stymied Oklahoma State. Oklahoma State was darn near held scoreless when Texas Tech ran a zone, nothing special, just a 2-3 zone. They simply had trouble getting anything started. And then, when Griffin was injured for OSU, Texas Tech turned up the fullcourt press. It was an intent to make Oklahoma State really have to work to create offense, use more clock and shorten the game. It worked.
- This was the weirdest crowd that I’ve ever seen. You could literally hear individual fans yelling things and the whole vibe was very unlike Oklahoma State. Oklahoma State is not supposed to be this way, but man, that’s rough.