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TRENDING FOR TEXAS TECH

Offense | In the PVAM game there was a lot of guard drives with big man screens, lots of driving and lots of dribbling. We were kind of sloppy with our offense and didn’t look like a crisp team running a lot of good sets, but I don’t mind sloppy if we win the game and make our shots without turning the ball over. I think Walker is not having our team run the offense with lots of sets yet because he knows we don’t have to right now with the level of competition we are playing. If you watched the game you got the feeling that our guys wanted to get the run-and-gun game going when they got steals and could do it, but when we had the ball slowed down and had to play offense we did a lot of street ball style playing. A guard would dribble, get a screen, drive and dish out or try to shoot himself. Lots of three point attempts, which makes me happy. I have no problem with that right now when the team is hitting over 50% of their shots like we are, even if we were only 7-23 from downtown. This offense is very raw, but I am liking what I’m seeing so far and it is fun to watch. They need to develop more and get on the same page, but I know they will it'll just take some more time playing together.

Defense | Not very good in my opinion during the PVAM game. We had a lot of reaching, hacking, and slapping going on that resulted in a ton of fouls. We need to move our feet better and shift to take away the dribbling lane and the passing lane. We had 27 fouls and sent the other guys to the line 34 times! That is potentially 34 free uncontested points! They made 26 of the 34 free throws, without those points the game would not have been close. Our press defense needs work, we would overplay PVAM and they would make us pay by dribbling right by us leaving Tech players to chase them down from behind. When PVAM did get to set up their offense we did a decent job of staying with our marks, but we got lucky they were only shooting 40% from the court or this game would have been tighter. I would like to see a little better effort on the defensive side of the ball. I am totally cool with the offensive side of the ball having a street ball type style right now, but our defense should probably be more disciplined in these non-conference games.

Starters | So the starting lineup ending up being Kravic, Tolbert, Gray, Gotcher, Williams. I am starting to come around on Kravic as I think he is a good player that does use his tall athletic build to his advantage. I didn’t see Crockett hardly get involved in the game except to foul, but my argument is still an experienced leader needs to start games. I think Crockett had an off night, but if he keeps playing like he did against PVAM my views will change. Williams really impressed me with his three point ability. I don’t know if he has the hot hand just for now, but as long as he does keep him in there. Gotcher was a leader on the floor and we need that. Gray has the best potential talent on the team to be unleashed, so I’m good with him in it. Tolbert is a beast, only guy I can say 100% no doubt should be a starter on this team. I know Jackson was out because of disciplinary reasons, so it will be interesting if he gets the start next game or not. All in all, I’m going to have to think I like the starters the way they were last week except for getting Crockett in there against Nebraska-Omaha.

Turnovers | I wrote our offense looked sloppy; this translates into a bunch of turnovers like we had in the first game against PVAM. We had 17 and I’m not even getting into it again on why you can’t be a good team that expects to get wins if you are turning the ball over giving up opportunities to score when playing good teams. I need to see this number go down. I expected the number to be high with all the new guys on the team and inexperience we have this season, but we have to learn fast. This stat again is my key to our season in Big 12 conference play. If we decrease the number of turnovers per game our win percentage increases… guaranteed.

Winning | I’m glad Coach Walker got the win and looked like he was enjoying himself, most of the time. I watched him take guys aside and coach them up when they came to the sidelines. He was also getting on to guys, especially when they messed up on the defensive side of the ball. Our team and fans needed a win too, or else I think it would have been another punch in the face to this program that is already down. We can get up slowly by winning more, and that is what I expect to see over the next few weeks. Every win generates a louder buzz. I’m excited to see how loud the buzz can get.