Game Links:
Tortilla Tossin’ Player of the Game: To be clear, no player shot particularly well, but LeJuan Watts had 19, on 8 of 22, which is probably the best shooting performance of anyone last night, including 2 of 7 from beyond the arc, 12 boards, 5 assists, 2 steals, and 4 turnovers.
The Motion:
- I did not get to watch this game as I had some events. After the game, McCasland said that they didn’t know that they were going to be short-handed, so they didn’t have a plan 15 minutes before the game about what they were going to do and that’s the notice that they had regarding Christian Anderson being out for the game. Went through warmups to see if he could play and the trainer thought he would have him ready and then the trainer ultimately decided that he wasn’t ready. McCasland said that Anderson was crushed he wasn’t able to play so nothing funny, just a trainer making a call about the readiness of a player independent of a coach and that’s sort of what you want from a trainer, the ability to make independent, but difficult decisions.
- It’s a tough game without a guy like Anderson and they mucked things up enough to make it competitive. Texas Tech shot 30% from the floor in the 1st half and 33% in the 2nd half, while not shooting well from deep either, 29% and 32%. Kansas shot 43% and 48% respectively. Anderson opens things up because of his shooting and ability to make shots.
- Texas Tech stayed in the game because of offensive rebounds, 14 to 5, but couldn’t convert those into points, only 7 2nd chance points to 10 for Kansas.
- I’d also probably point to the turnovers, Texas Tech only had 9, 4 of them were from LeJuan Watts, while Kansas had 15, which is pretty uncharacteristic.
- Somehow, Texas Tech only shot 5 free throws and Kansas shot 13, so not exactly a free throw shooting game, but that seems a bit low no matter the situation for Texas Tech. McCasland said after the game, he’s got to figure out a way to get Toppin to the line more as he didn’t have a single free throw.
- JT Toppin was 5 of 18 from the floor and 0-3 from deep with 7 boards and foul trouble early probably stymied his game as he only played 31 minutes. He also had 5 steals, which is pretty unique for a big man. It just stinks that Toppin, your 1A best player, wasn’t feeling it when your 1B best player, Anderson, was out. To even be in the game is a tough ask, that’s how important Anderson is.
- Jazz Henderson had good minutes it appeared and maybe should have played more. Not sure.
- Head coach Grant McCasland: “What a competitive Big 12 game. I loved our competitiveness and fight. I told them that. This game is about finding ways to win and we didn’t do that. Kansas did down the stretch. We didn’t execute well enough and I thought Kansas was tremendous late with great actions and had guys step up offensively and defensively. We don’t get time to think about anything other than we have to go beat West Virginia on Sunday. The Big 12 is about being resilient and getting better. We’ll get better because of this. Our guys are tough and care a lot about this team.”
- Advanced Stats: Petty +3.1; Watts +2.8; Henderson +0.5; Bryan -0.5; Atwell -1.7; Toppin -1.9; Bamgboye -2.6; and Moseley -1.3.
- Up next? How about a pre-Super Bowl basketball game? Texas Tech is in Morgantown to take on West Virginia on Sunday, February 8th with tip-off at 12:00 p.m. and the game on FOX.
Highlights