Red Raiders Get Their Revenge, 72-60

I got two big things. One, the bigs, or lack thereof. Our depth in the front court has been, and will continue to be an issue. This issue is exacerbated by foul trouble, which is exactly where the Cyclones found themselves on Tuesday night. Jazz Kunc, George Conditt, and Robert Jones ALL fouled out. 15 fouls, and 6 points between the 3 post players. That is Bad with a capital B.

The other problem with the bigs, I would consider none of them to be good passers. Which is really a problem when we freeze a seven footer at the elbow for five seconds of the offense. All of our bigs are relatively conventional. Get them closer to the basket, and away from the perimeter. None of our bigs are special enough where we need to run the offense through them.

If we had a Niang, an Ejim, or even a Deonte Burton to pass out of that 15 foot range, our offense would improve by leaps and bounds but that guy isn’t coming off the bench.

The second big thing, Texas Tech shot almost 40 free throws. I’m just gonna leave it at that, feel free to share your thoughts on the zebras in the comments.

Texas Tech, at full strength, is a different beast than what we saw January 5th, especially when they’re firing at full force. United Supermarkets Arena (Have they started a USA chant in the Tech student section? Because they need to) has become one of the loudest and rowdiest environments in Big 12 basketball. Many a team will go into Lubbock, and many a team will lose. A reminder to everyone, big 12 road wins are going to be incredibly hard to come by. I will repeat that all season. These teams are just too damn good, and the margin of error is very small.

Burn the tape, and spank TCU on Saturday.