Game Links:
Tortilla Tossin’ Player of the Game: Donovan Atwell. You get the final one for the year. 12 points on 3 of 6, 2 of 5 from deep, hitting all 4 of his free throws, with 2 rebounds. I have never seen a guy launch 3’s as fast as Atwell and it’s been a pleasure to have him on this team. I don’t know if he’ll play in the NBA, but Atwell will play professional basketball somewhere if he wants. That shot is something.
The Motion:
- I didn’t watch. Still getting over a cold and planned on getting up early to watch. I may watch this game, but the final score and the press conference, this wasn’t a fun one to stick around for.
- Amazingly, it wasn’t Philon who would be leading Alabama and it would be a battle between him and Anderson. Philon was 2 of 12 and Anderson was 2 of 11. You wonder exactly how ready each of them are to jump to the NBA. The difference though is that Philon had 12 assists to just 4 turnovers with 6 boards and Anderson had 3 assists to just 2 turnovers and 1 rebound. Now, I think a log of that was his teammates hitting 3’s, but 12 assists isn’t a coincidence.
- And in no way am I pushing more blame on Anderson, but with Texas Tech, as goes Anderson so goes Texas Tech. McCasland said after the game that he didn’t have his team ready. Realistically, no one on Alabama’s roster was a terrific shooter other that Philon. Wrightsell carried the load and I think that was something that they weren’t expecting. Same thing with Mallette, he was averaging 6 points with 36% from deep and he went off for 15 on 5 of 7. They got hot and it was all over.
- This was also a night where Texas Tech couldn’t hit the broadside of a barn, just 16% from deep for Texas Tech, 4 of 25. Watts hit 1 of 4, Anderson was 1 of 7, and steady-handed Atwell was at least 2 of 5. Everyone else missed.
- Rebounding was always the biggest issue with this team, McCasland said that before the game, and it was an issue again, Alabama had 47 boards to just 35 for Texas Tech and they had 18 offensive rebounds, which surprisingly only led to 13 2nd chance points.
- McCasland said that Alabama was running downhill and that’s also probably evident by the 15 fast break points, to just 5 for Texas Tech. Texas Tech isn’t usually a fast break team, but defensively, that’s an issue.
- Texas Tech needed similar games from Petty, Moseley, and Atwell and Petty struggled, 9 points on just 3 of 12 from the field, and 0-5 from deep. Atwell simply didn’t get up enough shots probably, but Alabama likely had something to do with that. Moseley was fine, 6 points on 3 of 5, but he played just 15 minutes (2 turnovers in 15 minutes isn’t good).
- Head coach Grant McCasland: “What a tough night for our team,” Texas Tech coach Grant McCasland said. “Alabama was awesome. I thought they were so much more aggressive on both ends of the floor. They got after us defensively. They disrupted us, and then they were downhill on every action. I just thought they were in attack mode. Ran into a team that I thought was more determined, that was tougher than we were, and that’s always our standard for winning.”
- Advanced stats: Atwell +2.9; Horner +1.5; Moseley -2.1; Bamgboye -2.2; Watts -2.3; Anderson -3.9; and Petty -4.8.
- Up next? Roster construction. The summer will be all about putting a new team together. I still have one big post about the team that’s rolling around in my head that I wasn’t going to start until the season was over. I hope to have that out this week while everythign is still fresh.
Highlights