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Bobby Knight isn’t coming back to coach Texas Tech anytime soon and the No.13 Kansas State Wildcats made that fact painfully clear with a 68-59 victory over the Red Raiders on Tuesday night.
Rodney McGruder was his usual productive self, putting up 18 points, 9 rebounds (five offensive). McGruder and Angel Rodriguez combined to go 9 for 11 from the free-throw line on a night when K-State took great care of the ball.
The story of the game though was the fact that the Red Raiders couldn’t have played much better and still came away with a loss. TTU committed just four turnovers and shot 43-percent.
The biggest discrepancy for Texas Tech was a 35-19 rebounding edge in favor of the Wildcats.
Jordan Tolbert had three offensive boards en route to a team-high 19 points for the Red Raiders but the overall rebounding presence wasn’t there from the rest of his teammates, aside from Dejan Kravic, who fnished with 12 points, seven rebounds.
TTU is a young, talented team that will only get better but the lack of aggression on the boards is something of a concern. Adding to the plight of the Red Raiders is the fact that Texas Tech doesn’t have aa clear-cut scorer with enough talent toe carry the load on offense.
Junior Jaye Crockett leads the Red Raiders with 12.3 points per-game but he doesn’t get to the free-throw line enough on nights when his shots aren’t falling and he either needs to work a lot more on his 3-point shot or abandon it altogether because he uses it so infrequently during games that he hinders the offense by taking a bad shot that could’ve been fed inside for a more high-percentage bucket.
Texas Tech still has a massive amount of questions and its time to be relevant this season is quickly running out.
Mike Gillmeister can be reached at [email protected], or on Twitter:@mgillmei. Like his Facebook page here for updates on Big 12/A-1o men’s basketball.
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