We’re at Hope Coliseum again to host the Texas Tech Red Raiders for the only time this year which I find…odd? I had always assumed that all conference games were a home and away series, but thankfully we’re playing this game at home. That doesn’t mean that this game will be an easy one by any means. Texas Tech comes into this game as the 13th ranked team in the country and they’re currently 5th in the Big 12 which just goes to show how tough this conference is (the best conference in college basketball if you ask me).
I don’t know a ton about this team other than their Junior superstar JT Toppin. Toppin could have very easily been a top 10 pick in last year’s NBA Draft but stayed another year to polish parts of his game (and I’m sure the NIL money didn’t hurt either). I’m not positive that he would go top 10 in this year’s NBA Draft but that’s less of an indictment on him and more of an acknowledgement of how insanely stacked this year’s class really is. JT on the year is averaging 22/10/2 with 3 stocks a game and is shooting 55% from the floor. You always said that a team’s defensive gameplan should be to shutdown their best player, and I’m hoping we can do that today.
I would say that for the majority of the first half we were able to keep it a competitive game, but in the last 5 minutes or so, we allowed them to break the lead open. It wasn’t JT Toppin, necessarily, who was killing us but it turns out that Texas Tech has a couple other guys who are just as dangerous.
Donovan Atwell and Christian Anderson combined for 20 of the Red Raiders 39 points and after seeing Anderson also have 7 assists and 3 steals in the half I did some digging. The consensus seems to be that he’ll be a first round pick, probably chosen around the end of the lottery, based on his 3-and-D skillset. I checked the box score and… yep. He fits the bill with 2 three pointers and 3 steals through 20 minutes.
I won’t say that we’re completely out of this game yet because we did manage to keep it a two or three possession game most of the way, but so far it seems like we are outmatched in this one. Hopefully Coach Hodge has something up his sleeve, though.
Sometimes you have bad wins and sometimes you have good losses. We don’t have many of them so it feels weird to write it, but this was certainly a good loss. Texas Tech were great all night long but it never felt like the game was out of reach. We managed to stay within striking distance the entire way even when it looked like we couldn’t.
The biggest reason they even won this game was their 3 point shooting because they finished the game shooting 54%. Like, how often is that going to happen? Furthermore, we finished the game shooting 9% from three. If either of us had a normal game from the floor I think there’s a good argument that we walk away with the W in this one. That shouldn’t even be the case either because Honor Huff didn’t score his first point until 12:32 left… in the second half. Brenen Lorient, Chance Moore, and Jasper Floyd kept us in this game offensively and the entire team played great defense. The literal only problem was how hot the Red Raiders were from deep.
I usually feel pretty deflated after a loss but I think we can walk away with with our heads held high. We competed all night long, played great defense, and we only lost by 7 points (70-63) when Eaglestaff and Huff combined for 11 points and 2/17 from the floor. I would have loved to get a huge upset win here, but all in all, I’ve seen worse losses.
The Roundball Big 3 of the Game:
Brenen Lorient – 21 points, 5 rebounds 4 stocks
Chance Moore – 10 points, 6 rebounds
Jasper Floyd – 10 points, 4 rebounds, 3 assists
Our next game is on Saturday against UCF which should be a good reset game (he said hopefully). They’re a good basketball team but they aren’t Arizona, Houston, or Iowa State good. I think it’ll be a good way for us to get our confidence back.
I love you, Dad. I miss you. I’ll see you soon.
Round The Game 
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