Game Links:
Tortilla Tossin’ Player of the Game: JT Toppin was 12 of 17 from the floor, another double-double with 10 rebounds, a block, a steal, 2 assists and unfortunately 4 turnovers.
The Motion:
- I’m writing this particular bullet without having listened to the press conference from Grant McCasland so that I’m not biased. My initial thought after the game was that there was a lack of juice on the part of Texas Tech yesterday morning. I don’t want to call it a lack of effort, but a lack of the same intensity that they played against Houston and as much as I thought that they’d be up for a revenge game against UCF for what happened last year, that just wasn’t the case. And UCF played great. They have fantastic players that are talented and I don’t think that Texas Tech didn’t think that this was the case, but just didn’t match UCF’s energy.
- I thought the defense was just terrible as well. So many shots at the bucket that weren’t contested and so many missed assignments. Just not beating UCF players to a spot and that’s a terrible. If I had a concern, it would be that the defense was less than intense.
- The offensive rebounds and turnovers and 2nd chance points are all the big things. Texas Tech only had 4 offensive boards to 13 for UCF and UCF had 6 turnovers to 13 for Texas Tech. The biggest disparity was the points off of turnovers, 18 for UCF and just 2 for Texas Tech. The 2nd chance points was 21 to 5 in favor of UCF. Just yucky.
- This was yet another game where I thought that UCF was successful in pressuring Anderson to give up the ball early or not bring up the ball at all and then it was really uneven offensively. The numbers won’t say that, Texas Tech shot 56% in the first half and 57% in the 2nd, but the turnovers were present in both halves, 6 and then 7 in each half.
- I am ready for Josiah Moseley to get more minutes. In 17 minutes, he scored 6 points and had 3 boards and I don’t know how it gets distributed, but I think I’m ready for him to see more time. He’s good and ready.
- Bamgboye did play 3 minutes and it was a bit uneven in just those 3 minutes. A turnover and a foul isn’t going to give McCasland confidence.
- UCF also did a nice job of not giving Jaylen Petty an opportunity to get a shot, he was well covered the entire game and he was just 2 of 6 for the game, including 0-3 from deep. He took a bad shot at the end of the game, but I didn’t think that Texas Tech was going to win anyway so I’m not going to complain about that too much. I think he should learn from it, that’s not a shot you want, but time wasn’t on Texas Tech’s side either.
- LeJuan Watts has had a couple of uneven games and he needs to figure that out. I don’t think he’s playing poorly, but he’s not contributing either. He scored 9 points on 9 shots (you don’t really ever want those to be the same), but he only had 2 rebounds, 2 assists and 3 turnovers. He also only played 23 minutes, so I’m also guessing that McCasland wasn’t happy either.
- Advanced Stats: Toppin +3.1; Moseley +1.0; Anderson +0.6; Atwell -0.5; Bryan -1.3; Petty -2.6; and Watts -4.8.
- Up next? Don’t look now, but Texas Tech hosts Kanas for Big Monday on ESPN tomorrow night, tip-off at 8:00 p.m. Better be ready.
Highlights