An empty Erwin Center hosted one of the best college hoops games of the year. Unfortunately for the No. 4 Longhorns (10-2, 4-1) they were on the wrong end of a poor closing sequence and watched No. 15 Texas Tech (10-3, 3-2) do what they did in Morgantown – nail a game-winning jumper to steal a road win in the final seconds. Life in the Big 12 can be brutal.
Here are 10 postgame thoughts after No. 15 Texas Tech beat No. 4 Texas 79-77.
1) Despite Jericho Sims’s two free throws going down and out, Texas held a 77-75 lead with around 45 seconds remaining thanks to Greg Brown’s excellent defense to draw another charge, his second of the sound half. Texas Tech immediately used full-court pressure and Courtney Ramey, with two timeouts remaining, inexplicably threw the ball right to Texas Tech’s Kyler Edwards.
“I looked away. I thought that was on the inside of him. When I passed it, he wasn't. So, I just made a bad judgment call. I got to know being of the leaders that we have timeouts and I can call timeout just to reset the count,” Ramey said about the late turnover.
Much to the surprise but delight of Edwards, he gathered the ball and tossed it to Terrence Shannon for a layup to tie the game.
With 34 seconds on the game clock and 24 seconds on the shot clock, Texas, after a timeout, was given a clean look at a mid-range, baseline jumper, but Matt Coleman’s shot missed the mark. As it did all second half extremely well, Texas pushed the ball quickly up the floor off the break and Mac McClung buried a deep two in Ramey’s grill. The Texas guard sank to the floor with his head in his hands as Texas called timeout.
Coleman was able to get the ball up the floor, after Texas put the ball in play with 3.0 seconds left and attempted an off-balanced 30-footer that was off the mark.
2) As the game ended, both teams shared long stares and some words were exchanged; it was perhaps the most competitive, intense, and high-level game I’ve covered in person in a long while because both teams went to war and weren’t afraid to bang bodies and talk to the other team passionately and colorfully about what was going on. It felt and looked like an Elite Eight game.
And it seems at least slightly crazy to describe tonight’s game that way considering there wasn’t a single fan – well, Chris Del Conte was loudly voicing his encouragement for players about 30 rows up – in the arena. Speaking of that, an empty arena meant you could hear the Texas Tech boisterous celebration and booming music from the locker room very clearly before Texas frustratingly walked off the floor.
“Man, it hurts. It hurts. It hurts. It hurts,” interrupted Coleman while being asked how much this loss stings. “We won six-straight. We’ve just been playing well, been connected. It's been fun. Winning is fun. It leaves a poor taste in everyone's mouth because we haven't lost much this year. So, the feeling is something we don't want to have, but we’ll remember it.”
Courtney Ramey, arguably the fieriest, most demonstrative competitor on the team, was visibly upset afterwards, which included throwing a chair from the Texas bench. Knowing how much this one hurt his teammate, Coleman hung around with Ramey during his postgame session while the junior guard from St. Louis answered everything directly like a pro.
“I'd do the same for him. It just shows that we're connected,” responded Ramey when asked what it meant for Coleman to stick around by his side during postgame. “And we're close. I mean, we want to talk about the game. Of course, we talk about every game. He was the reason I came to Texas. I talked to him. He allowed me to be his backcourt mate. He could have been like, ‘Nah, I want to run the show by myself.’ He allowed me to play alongside him. So, I appreciate him for that.”
Ramey put the loss on himself, but it wasn’t on him. Texas Tech did a little bit more, and made a couple less mistakes while Texas definitely left some points and stops on the floor in the second half.
“I just made a couple of bad plays. I wasn't really myself down the stretch. I’m going to learn from it and that's what good players do. I'm not going to dwell on it. It hurts right now because I want to win every game. But I'm going to get past it and be there for my team. They're going to be there for me. I'm just going to prepare for Kansas State. I think we played them Saturday.
3) This loss felt a lot like the Villanova one Ramey mentioned in the postgame. The Longhorns gifted Texas Tech a couple crucial mistakes and Texas Tech capitalized while making one less mistake during the final minutes. In addition to the turnover on the inbounds pass, Texas, leading 74-71, missed a long jumper and allowed Texas Tech’s Kevin McCullar to drive right down the court for a transition layup because no one in a burnt orange and white uniform tried to stop the ball.
“We had a four-point lead. I thought the layup that we gave up with a four-point lead in the closing minutes was just huge,” said Smart about the play. “We didn't we didn't do a good job of stopping the ball. And just in general, our transition defense in the second half wasn't good enough.”
Unfortunately for Texas, that issue wasn’t a one-time thing, although a single stop would have done wonders in that moment. After getting beat up on the offensive glass, Texas Tech made it a point to push the ball up the floor after any Texas miss with excellent pace and aggressiveness, which led to some quick, quality offense when it didn’t get to the rim.
4) Additionally, the most bizarre stat of the game played just as big of a role as UT’s poor night at the free throw line. The Longhorns somehow didn’t score a single point off a Texas Tech turnover while the Red Raiders capitalized on 15 Texas turnovers with 19 points.
“But yeah, I thought defensively our energy was terrific in the first half. They actually made some really, really tough shots. So, they deserve credit for that because if they hadn't made those in the first half, the margin would have been even bigger at halftime,” stated Smart. “But I thought the second half they just really, unfortunately, really similar to last year here. They just really were the aggressors. And that ends up being a big difference.”
I thought UT’s defensive energy and aggressiveness was excellent in the second half despite some horrendous officiating, like Brock Cunningham being called for a foul on a clean block of a McClung deep jumper and Kamaka Hepa receiving a technical for running away from the bench after a foul call. Plus, Greg Brown only played seven first-half minutes because of foul trouble – he had three second-half blocks – and Ramey sat on the bench some as well because of fouls.
In the second half, Texas Tech, after trailing by 10 at halftime, was the more confident team on offense and more aggressive team on defense; it’s not a coincidence those two things go together when dictating the score. Perhaps that, along with some key statistics and very ugly turnover at the worst time, is the simple way to summarize a fantastic game against two really, really good teams.
“Give Texas Tech a lot of credit for battling and finding a way to win down the stretch. I thought we really competed at a high level and the first half and we're flying around. I thought our pace was terrific on offense,” said Smart. “We got a little more bogged down in the second half. Our flow wasn't as good offensively. And they did a really good job hurting us off of our turnovers. If you want to win down a stretch, you got to make more free throws and we made and then you got to take care of the ball better.”
5) It was a cruel game for Sims. On one hand, he was the best defensive player on the floor. Texas Tech kept trying to get switches for Mac McClung to drive at Sims, and the senior from Minnesota probably defended the Texas Tech guard as much as anyone tonight. I don’t think McClung scored on Sims besides when he threw what looked like was going to be a pass to himself off the backboard as the shot clock was set to expire, which Sims blocked and was called for a foul as he collided with McClung after the attempt. McClung sank both free throws to make it 77-75 Texas with 1:16 remaining. Meanwhile, McClung torched Royce Hamm the moment he came on the floor and was switched on to the smaller guard, and also put a lot of points on Kai Jones as well.
Texas also did perhaps the best job I’ve seen it do in years throwing the ball into the post and allowing Sims to use his size and athleticism to make a play against a much smaller opponent. And while the numbers – five rebounds – don’t show it, Sims’s effort competing for rebounds was excellent, and led to rebounding opportunities for his teammates and second-chance points.
But Sims finished 6-of-14 from the free throw line. That hurts. A lot. And it contributed heavily to UT’s 18-of-31 performance at the free throw line. On the other side, Texas Tech made 22-of-28 free throws helped in large part by McClung’s ability to help himself get to the line with the type of embellishment that would make Manu Ginobli proud.
Following the game, Brown came out to shoot free throws by himself.
6) Texas made 13-of-25 three-pointers and lost. Coleman, Ramey and Andrew Jones scored 48 points and connected on 11-of-20 three-pointers and Texas somehow lost. The turnovers, free throws, and Jones and Coleman scoring just five combined points in the second half hurt. Jones looked like he was set to score 40, but halftime has a way of killing even the best shooting buzzes because Jones wasn’t the same player in the second half.
7) A guy who didn’t look rattled, although he missed a couple of crucial free throws, was Brown. Off a pinball sequence, the ball found him with 2:28 remaining and he drilled a three-pointer to put Texas ahead 74-71. That three swung UT’s win probability back to 86.9%. Earlier when Texas Tech cut the lead to two, the five-star freshman nailed a three-pointer with a defender in his face. He finished with a game-high nine rebounds despite playing only 23 minutes.
8) It was a tough game for Kai Jones, who played just 14 minutes. At one point, he gave up 11-straight Texas Tech points in the second half, which forced Smart to bring Brock Cunningham back into the game. Jones has excellent length and athleticism for his size, but he didn’t use those physical traits when defending the perimeter and fell asleep in off-ball defense, which allowed McClung to make a three. He finished with more fouls (3) than rebounds (two).
9) Even with the sluggish second half when Texas didn’t play with the same pace and confidence in the half-court offense, it finished with is second-best offensive performance, according to adjusted efficiency, of the season. It was also Texas Tech’s worst defensive efficiency performance of the season.
10) Texas can’t afford to allow this game to linger into Saturday’s home game against Kansas State. The Longhorns will be heavy favorites and if they’re truly going to be a Big 12 competitor and team capable of playing deep into March, they need to show a good, focused and energetic response Saturday.
“I mean, we're a great team. Great teams lose sometimes. We just got to not let it carry over to the next game,” said Ramey.
Here are 10 postgame thoughts after No. 15 Texas Tech beat No. 4 Texas 79-77.
1) Despite Jericho Sims’s two free throws going down and out, Texas held a 77-75 lead with around 45 seconds remaining thanks to Greg Brown’s excellent defense to draw another charge, his second of the sound half. Texas Tech immediately used full-court pressure and Courtney Ramey, with two timeouts remaining, inexplicably threw the ball right to Texas Tech’s Kyler Edwards.
“I looked away. I thought that was on the inside of him. When I passed it, he wasn't. So, I just made a bad judgment call. I got to know being of the leaders that we have timeouts and I can call timeout just to reset the count,” Ramey said about the late turnover.
Much to the surprise but delight of Edwards, he gathered the ball and tossed it to Terrence Shannon for a layup to tie the game.
With 34 seconds on the game clock and 24 seconds on the shot clock, Texas, after a timeout, was given a clean look at a mid-range, baseline jumper, but Matt Coleman’s shot missed the mark. As it did all second half extremely well, Texas pushed the ball quickly up the floor off the break and Mac McClung buried a deep two in Ramey’s grill. The Texas guard sank to the floor with his head in his hands as Texas called timeout.
Coleman was able to get the ball up the floor, after Texas put the ball in play with 3.0 seconds left and attempted an off-balanced 30-footer that was off the mark.
2) As the game ended, both teams shared long stares and some words were exchanged; it was perhaps the most competitive, intense, and high-level game I’ve covered in person in a long while because both teams went to war and weren’t afraid to bang bodies and talk to the other team passionately and colorfully about what was going on. It felt and looked like an Elite Eight game.
And it seems at least slightly crazy to describe tonight’s game that way considering there wasn’t a single fan – well, Chris Del Conte was loudly voicing his encouragement for players about 30 rows up – in the arena. Speaking of that, an empty arena meant you could hear the Texas Tech boisterous celebration and booming music from the locker room very clearly before Texas frustratingly walked off the floor.
“Man, it hurts. It hurts. It hurts. It hurts,” interrupted Coleman while being asked how much this loss stings. “We won six-straight. We’ve just been playing well, been connected. It's been fun. Winning is fun. It leaves a poor taste in everyone's mouth because we haven't lost much this year. So, the feeling is something we don't want to have, but we’ll remember it.”
Courtney Ramey, arguably the fieriest, most demonstrative competitor on the team, was visibly upset afterwards, which included throwing a chair from the Texas bench. Knowing how much this one hurt his teammate, Coleman hung around with Ramey during his postgame session while the junior guard from St. Louis answered everything directly like a pro.
“I'd do the same for him. It just shows that we're connected,” responded Ramey when asked what it meant for Coleman to stick around by his side during postgame. “And we're close. I mean, we want to talk about the game. Of course, we talk about every game. He was the reason I came to Texas. I talked to him. He allowed me to be his backcourt mate. He could have been like, ‘Nah, I want to run the show by myself.’ He allowed me to play alongside him. So, I appreciate him for that.”
Ramey put the loss on himself, but it wasn’t on him. Texas Tech did a little bit more, and made a couple less mistakes while Texas definitely left some points and stops on the floor in the second half.
“I just made a couple of bad plays. I wasn't really myself down the stretch. I’m going to learn from it and that's what good players do. I'm not going to dwell on it. It hurts right now because I want to win every game. But I'm going to get past it and be there for my team. They're going to be there for me. I'm just going to prepare for Kansas State. I think we played them Saturday.
3) This loss felt a lot like the Villanova one Ramey mentioned in the postgame. The Longhorns gifted Texas Tech a couple crucial mistakes and Texas Tech capitalized while making one less mistake during the final minutes. In addition to the turnover on the inbounds pass, Texas, leading 74-71, missed a long jumper and allowed Texas Tech’s Kevin McCullar to drive right down the court for a transition layup because no one in a burnt orange and white uniform tried to stop the ball.
“We had a four-point lead. I thought the layup that we gave up with a four-point lead in the closing minutes was just huge,” said Smart about the play. “We didn't we didn't do a good job of stopping the ball. And just in general, our transition defense in the second half wasn't good enough.”
Unfortunately for Texas, that issue wasn’t a one-time thing, although a single stop would have done wonders in that moment. After getting beat up on the offensive glass, Texas Tech made it a point to push the ball up the floor after any Texas miss with excellent pace and aggressiveness, which led to some quick, quality offense when it didn’t get to the rim.
4) Additionally, the most bizarre stat of the game played just as big of a role as UT’s poor night at the free throw line. The Longhorns somehow didn’t score a single point off a Texas Tech turnover while the Red Raiders capitalized on 15 Texas turnovers with 19 points.
“But yeah, I thought defensively our energy was terrific in the first half. They actually made some really, really tough shots. So, they deserve credit for that because if they hadn't made those in the first half, the margin would have been even bigger at halftime,” stated Smart. “But I thought the second half they just really, unfortunately, really similar to last year here. They just really were the aggressors. And that ends up being a big difference.”
I thought UT’s defensive energy and aggressiveness was excellent in the second half despite some horrendous officiating, like Brock Cunningham being called for a foul on a clean block of a McClung deep jumper and Kamaka Hepa receiving a technical for running away from the bench after a foul call. Plus, Greg Brown only played seven first-half minutes because of foul trouble – he had three second-half blocks – and Ramey sat on the bench some as well because of fouls.
In the second half, Texas Tech, after trailing by 10 at halftime, was the more confident team on offense and more aggressive team on defense; it’s not a coincidence those two things go together when dictating the score. Perhaps that, along with some key statistics and very ugly turnover at the worst time, is the simple way to summarize a fantastic game against two really, really good teams.
“Give Texas Tech a lot of credit for battling and finding a way to win down the stretch. I thought we really competed at a high level and the first half and we're flying around. I thought our pace was terrific on offense,” said Smart. “We got a little more bogged down in the second half. Our flow wasn't as good offensively. And they did a really good job hurting us off of our turnovers. If you want to win down a stretch, you got to make more free throws and we made and then you got to take care of the ball better.”
5) It was a cruel game for Sims. On one hand, he was the best defensive player on the floor. Texas Tech kept trying to get switches for Mac McClung to drive at Sims, and the senior from Minnesota probably defended the Texas Tech guard as much as anyone tonight. I don’t think McClung scored on Sims besides when he threw what looked like was going to be a pass to himself off the backboard as the shot clock was set to expire, which Sims blocked and was called for a foul as he collided with McClung after the attempt. McClung sank both free throws to make it 77-75 Texas with 1:16 remaining. Meanwhile, McClung torched Royce Hamm the moment he came on the floor and was switched on to the smaller guard, and also put a lot of points on Kai Jones as well.
Texas also did perhaps the best job I’ve seen it do in years throwing the ball into the post and allowing Sims to use his size and athleticism to make a play against a much smaller opponent. And while the numbers – five rebounds – don’t show it, Sims’s effort competing for rebounds was excellent, and led to rebounding opportunities for his teammates and second-chance points.
But Sims finished 6-of-14 from the free throw line. That hurts. A lot. And it contributed heavily to UT’s 18-of-31 performance at the free throw line. On the other side, Texas Tech made 22-of-28 free throws helped in large part by McClung’s ability to help himself get to the line with the type of embellishment that would make Manu Ginobli proud.
Following the game, Brown came out to shoot free throws by himself.
6) Texas made 13-of-25 three-pointers and lost. Coleman, Ramey and Andrew Jones scored 48 points and connected on 11-of-20 three-pointers and Texas somehow lost. The turnovers, free throws, and Jones and Coleman scoring just five combined points in the second half hurt. Jones looked like he was set to score 40, but halftime has a way of killing even the best shooting buzzes because Jones wasn’t the same player in the second half.
7) A guy who didn’t look rattled, although he missed a couple of crucial free throws, was Brown. Off a pinball sequence, the ball found him with 2:28 remaining and he drilled a three-pointer to put Texas ahead 74-71. That three swung UT’s win probability back to 86.9%. Earlier when Texas Tech cut the lead to two, the five-star freshman nailed a three-pointer with a defender in his face. He finished with a game-high nine rebounds despite playing only 23 minutes.
8) It was a tough game for Kai Jones, who played just 14 minutes. At one point, he gave up 11-straight Texas Tech points in the second half, which forced Smart to bring Brock Cunningham back into the game. Jones has excellent length and athleticism for his size, but he didn’t use those physical traits when defending the perimeter and fell asleep in off-ball defense, which allowed McClung to make a three. He finished with more fouls (3) than rebounds (two).
9) Even with the sluggish second half when Texas didn’t play with the same pace and confidence in the half-court offense, it finished with is second-best offensive performance, according to adjusted efficiency, of the season. It was also Texas Tech’s worst defensive efficiency performance of the season.
10) Texas can’t afford to allow this game to linger into Saturday’s home game against Kansas State. The Longhorns will be heavy favorites and if they’re truly going to be a Big 12 competitor and team capable of playing deep into March, they need to show a good, focused and energetic response Saturday.
“I mean, we're a great team. Great teams lose sometimes. We just got to not let it carry over to the next game,” said Ramey.
