TRENDING FOR TEXAS TECH
Turnovers | There's not much to say here as we had 20 turnovers again against ORU. We just are simply not improving on the sloppy game play, poor ball handling, and bad passing. I would have hoped that we could have started to figure things out a little bit more this far into the season. We average 17.5 TO's per game which is good for being ranked #16 in the nation, this means we will not be winning a whole lot of Big 12 games if we keep it up. ORU scored 22 points off turnovers on us, Big 12 teams will score even more.
Fouls | We had 25 fouls against ORU, and sent them to the free throw line 32 times in the game. This is another thing that we MUST improve on if we are going to win Big 12 games. Fouls are a thing that shows our inexperience as a defense, and lack of anticipation to shift to where the ball is going with the opponents on offense. We rank as #9 in the nation with most fouls per game at 22.8, NOT GOOD! If we slow the pace of the games down and give the opportunity for lots of free points to our opponents, we will get whipped by a lot of Big 12 teams.
Three Pointers | We made 1 for 7 three pointers against ORU. I have always said we need to have at least one deep threat on our team to help the opposing team spread out their defense and have to pick us up to open up the driving and passing lanes down low. We try to play a game play strategy on offense that is supposed to get the ball down low to start things off, but this will never work if the defense can clog up all their players inside the three point line. I could go on and on about the lack of three point threat that we have, but let's just give numbers to help show the need for more three point shots by our team. We rank #331 in the nation, yes #331, in only 43 three point makes this year. I would really like to see some more three point shots drop for us. Is it only me, do others feel the three point shot is important to winning games?
Toughness | This is something that you really can't teach to a team, but I am proud to say we do have. We never put our heads down and roll over in a game even when we are down by a lot of points. It seems that we are always diving for balls, going for the break up of passes, and trying to run down rebounds. In the second half of the ORU game Luke Adams go all blooded up throwing his body in front of a guy twice his side who was driving hard to the basket. I think all the guys on our team have a hard nosed attitude to win games, and a never give up attitude. This is something that will be great to have when our team gets more experienced and better at winning games. When the game is on the line, our toughness will be the factor to win it for us over the other guys.
FG % | We shot 50% from the field against ORU, and continue to be good at making our shots that we put up when we actually do shoot them. If we could cut down our fouling and turning the ball over, we could be a very good team considering that we are consistent in getting the ball in the hoop when we get the opportunity. We rank as #17 in the nation in field goal percentage at 49.3% which is a really good stat to have. But, we still need to get some more shots off. I would like to see us play a little faster and put up a few more jumpers to see if we are really a very accurate shooting team. But, I'm just happy that we do put up a lot of high percentage shots.
BIG 12 REPORT
Top Matchups in the Big 12 This Week
#7 Baylor VS. #14 Mississippi State | Wed, December 28th. Baylor is just doing great this year, and hasn't come across a team that can beat them this season. Mississippi State only has one loss on the season, and is a really good team that doesn't want to lose this one. Baylor is a team that I dread us to play this year, and I think they will go on to beat Mississippi State and just keep moving up in the rankings.
Oklahoma VS. Cincinnati | Thursday, December 29th. Oklahoma only has one loss this season, and is a lot better than most people expected. I think they might be a better team then Cincinnati expects and will come out to show them that they have some game this year.
Big 12 Player of the Week
Brady Heslip | The Baylor sophomore gets the weekly honors this week because he was a big help to Baylor win the Las Vegas Classic tournament. I already talked about how much a player on the court that can stretch a defense out by shooting the three pointer, and Heslip hit 11 for 16 of his three pointers over the three games in the tournament. His overall shooting was 14 for 20, so the defenses knew when he had the ball in his hand they had to break out to him opening up the dump down pass to his big men down low.