Game Links:
Tortilla Tossin’ Player of the Game: Kinda tough to choose a player after that, but we’ll go with Kerwin Walton who led the team with 18 scoring on 6 of 11 and 6 of 9 from deep with 3 boards and 1 turnover. He was good.
The Motion:
- A rough game for sure. The Houston defense was especially tough and I am thinking that Kelvin Sampson’s Houston team was sitting at 1-2 in conference and he knew that they could not afford to go 1-3 in conference and had to get back to .500 in conference play to stay in the hunt.
- I loved the fact that McCasland made the players who see most of the minutes have to finish the game. They sort of created this mess and they needed to finish it and it probably wasn’t fun to continue to play while down by 20, but I think that’s important to make them remember what Houston was doing to them, which was whatever they wanted.
- You know how Texas Tech usually scores well in the paint? Not last night. Houston had 40 points in the paint to just 8 for Texas Tech. Warren Washington and Darrion Williams couldn’t get a clean look to save their lives and they seemed hesitant. Some of that was spacing and Houston could easily double, but from my end of things the refs swallowed their whistles last night and there was no reprieve.
- And before you think that Houston had an advantage at the line or the refs gave them some free throws . . . well . . . Houston shot 3 free throws all game long and made all 3, while Texas Tech was 7 of 15, so they didn’t help themselves. Houston also had a 10 rebound advantage, all on the defensive end of the floor mostly.
- Texas Tech’s turnovers was a problem, 14 for Texas Tech and just 6 for Houston, while Houston scored 17 points off of those 14 turnovers.
- I didn’t love Pop Isaac’s game and I’m not even talking about the shooting, which was 4 of 15 from the floor. The bad or lazy pass and then not getting back on defense is just inexcusable to give up on a play when a teammate is having to hustle back to play some defense. I know Fran Fraschilla addressed it and McCasland called a timeout to address it, but that’s frustrating.
- I thought that one of the biggest problems was that Joe Toussaint seemed highly uncomfortable and couldn’t take his defender (whoever it was) off the dribble. Toussaint was 2 of 4 from the floor and just 4 of 7 from the free throw line with 2 assists and 4 turnovers. He’s such a big part of the offense flowing and it was not flowing at all.
- Williams and Washington have rough games, but as mentioned above, the refs weren’t calling it. I remember one time where Pat Riley and his New York Knicks were so tough defensively and his thought process was that the refs aren’t going to call everything so be rough and be aggressive. It felt that way for me for Houston, they were rough and they had 15 fouls to only 9 for Texas Tech. And Texas Tech has to be more careful because Williams was in foul trouble early. Offseason goal? Find more guys who can play inside (and for the record, Robert Jennings played fine, but I think McCasland wants more).
- Head coach Grant McCasland: “There wasn’t any question on who the tougher team was tonight. We knew coming into the game that we would have to play our best basketball to put ourselves in position to win the game. I thought rebounding would play a big part and I thought we showed some effort there, but their points in the paint and us turning the ball over was the difference in the game.”
- Up next? The party don’t stop. Texas Tech hosts No. 20 BYU on Saturday, January 20th, at the United Supermarkets Arena with tip-off at 5:00 p.m. and will be on ESPN2.
Highlights