Box Score | Post Game Quotes
THE RESULT | NO OPTIONS | This thing just isn't going to work. The offensive players are awful defensively and the defensive players are awful, to maybe average offensively. Head coach Pat Knight is trying to juggle lineups that just don't work on a handful of levels. Not to mention, it's shocking to see the difference between a team, like Washington, that understands what it means to rebound, versus a team like Texas Tech where one, maybe two, players understand and actually intend on rebounding. The other three or four players head up the court to play offense, not realizing that you have to have possession of the basketball in order to play offense.
And to sum up this game, Washington just has more talented basketball players than Texas Tech. And their players play the game rather than turn to the ref and ask how could he ever be called for a foul when down by 20 points (perhaps players should start getting better position defensively).
And it's not getting better. If you don't know, the national signing day happened last month (there's much less fanfare with the basketball signing day) and taken with a grain of salt, Texas Tech was handed the 7th best recruiting class by Rivals.com. If you take out Nebraska (#9) and Colorado (#10), then Texas Tech has the 7th best recruiting class out of the 10 teams that will be in the Big 12-2 next year. And you can bet your bottom dollar that Kansas and Missouri will not have the bottom two classes for long as they have no scholarships currently available.
Head Coach Pat Knight
General thoughts on Washington: I think they [Washington] are better than they were last year. They pass the ball a lot better. Last year they relied on a couple of guys more than they do this year. I mean they have five guys out on the floor who are a threat. Especially deep threats. I think that they are a lot more team oriented this year. Instead of just being able to key in on one or two guys, you have to pay attention to the whole team. It can be a huge problem when a couple of guys get hot. They [Washington] can really shoot the ball well. For teams that don't shoot the ball well like us, we can run into some trouble if we miss a couple of shots in a row and they make some. I think Washington just has a lot of team balance. I think that we scored enough points. We average around 80 points a game, and that's definitely enough to win, but we killed ourselves with turnovers. They had 28 points off turnovers and when we turn the ball over and they can score off of it then we have a problem. We killed ourselves from that standpoint.
MVP | ???? Don't know. I guess you could give it to SF Brad Reese, but he is such a lazy defender who doesn't care about rebounding despite having the ability to make a difference, I just can't do it.
I thought the post game thoughts table looked awful on narrow view on the front page, so it's after the jump.
POST GAME THOUGHTS |
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GUARDS |
PG John Roberson was dominated by UW PG Isaiah Thomas, who scored 16 points on 4 assists and dominated Roberson athletically. It's not even close and this could apply overall, Texas Tech was just dominated athletically at every position. SG David Tairu continues to battle offensively, but it's not helping in the end result. PG Matt Davis saw limited time and as mentioned above, he is good defensively, but PK can't afford to take offense off the floor. At some point PK is going to have to figure out that if he really wants to preach that defense matters then he's got to start taking away playing time. Roberson shouldn't have been dominated by Thomas the way he ways without a change in the lineup, but he knows that without Roberson on the floor, the offense has little chance of scoring. And defensively, for whatever reason, this team is content to switch defensively on ball-screens, which is why you have Big Lew guarding Thomas, or Roberts trying to guard a wing player. It's much easier to switch than to fight through those screens. SG Jamel Outler and PG Jaravez Willis saw some mop-up time and it's good that they saw this. If you want to play with the big boys, you've got to be better. |
FORWARDS |
SF Mike Singletary has 29 points and 13 rebounds against Oral Roberts and you'd think that he's going to continue his good work, but Singletary's problem has always been that he can't figure out how to score against opponents that are better athletes, which is why he scored 6 points on 3 of 8 from the floor. And the times that he was out of position defensively are too many to count. SF Brad Reese did score 19 points, but he had 2 rebounds. 2 rebounds. Seriously. And you can throw PF Robert Lewandowski into the mix where he scored 8 points in 21 minutes and managed to grab 2 rebounds. 2 rebounds. Seriously. What's lost on all of these players is that they may not compete athletically with a lot of teams, but they've got to out-work their opponents. Blocking out is not an athletic trait, it's about effort. I don't know why PF D'Walyn Roberts was being asked to guard the perimeter players, but if he has a weakness defensively, it's that he's not quick to get out on jump-shooters. Roberts needs to start and Reese needs to come off the bench. At the very least, opponents need to be wary of Roberts underneath the rim and sometimes it's about setting the tone. We got to see a few more minutes for PF Paul Cooper and he does run down the floor and he's still very big with some decent moves around the basket. He's usable for sure, but he's still trying to figure out who he needs to screen offensively. SF Jaye Crockett received minimal minutes, again. There must be some issues there as to why he's not getting minutes and PK called a timeout late when the game was out of hand to teach / instruct Crockett. |
COACHING |
PK has issues and it's evident that he just doesn't know what to do. He's got to put competent defensive teams on the floor and that's not happening. Roberson, Singletary and Reese on the floor all at the same time just isn't going to get it done defensively and from a rebounding standpoint. If he wants to win games he's got to make a statement. Start Roberson, Tairu, Reese (who's a better defender than Singletary), Roberts and Lewandowski. I'm guessing that PK is afraid that he'll lose the room if he demotes Singletary then he's going to have problems, but at this point, he probably doesn't have any options. |
FOUR FACTORS
Fancy basketball glossary found here.