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Grambling St. 56, Texas Tech 91 | Boxscore | Quotes
Of the two games that I've seen, I thought that Texas Tech played worse in this game than against Nebraska-Omaha, but ended up winning a game by it's largest margin that I can remember and simply dominating an over matched Grambling St. team. We'll see about this team. I still think they'll struggle in conference play and there will be three games upcoming soon in terms of competition with Alabama, Arizona and Arizona St., but I do think this team has better athletes to compete opposing teams. Cautiously optimistic.
QUOTES
Our guys they play hard, I know at time it may seem a bit sloppy and it's hard for young guys to play with a lead but I will say this in the last 10 minutes they kept pushing that lead further and further, we kept subbing and we keep subbing and putting fresh bodies in and I wish I had more minutes to put more guys in, but they've kept a great attitude and we play for 40 minutes, we press and even if we were down 40 I would tell those guys to play hard to the end and if we are up 30 we are going to play hard until the end. It's just a habit we have everyday in practice and we are going to continue it as games get tougher and tougher. Our next opponent, we are going to get ready for them, it's the biggest game on the schedule for us and we are going to take a couple of days off and enjoy Thanksgiving and be together and be thankful for the team that we have and thankful for the time that we get to spend together and we will be ready to go on Monday.
I also wanted to add some of Walker's thoughts on what he envisions for his team and what he thinks he wants as a coach for his team:
It's just a matter of scouting and at the end of the day there is a lot of full court man to man and that's calculated risk but at the end of the day it's not just about playing better teams the bottom line is we just try to speed people up that's our style. Somebody else's style may be to play man to man the whole game, or somebody else's style may play zone like Syracuse for an entire game. Our job isn't necessarily to press them every game, pressing always sounds like you're taking crazy risk, the bottom line is we are attacking them on defense every possession down that could be a zone, sometimes we don't even trap, you know we almost got three or four 10 second calls today. It comes in many forms, the bottom like is we want to play 94 feet whether it's on offense or defense and they may simply be just man to man and turning them, and then acting like we are going to press but that is an attitude that we are bringing, we are bringing the fight to them.
I can get used to this. We'll see if it continues, but I like the attitude.
GRADE |
POSITION |
B |
BACKCOURT |
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The guards got off to a rough start, in particular PG Josh Gray who turned the ball over three straight times (I think) to start the game, but he eventually settled down. It was strange in that I thought that he never looked comfortable last night, but he still finished with 11 points, 2 assists, 3 steals and 3 turnovers for the game. That's not bad for a game where I didn't think he really got into the flow. SG Trency Jackson had 15 points on 5 of 11 from the floor and 3 of 6 from beyond the three point line. Another guy that I didn't think played all that well, but he's really active and really pushing the defensive tempo all game. TG Jamal Williams had a quiet game scoring the ball, but he still finished with 5 rebounds, 3 assists and 1 steal for the game. He showed up in other spots. PG Daylen Robinson did a good job of settlign things down when Gray was a bit off and did a good job of distributing the ball, finishing with 5 assists and just 1 turnover. That's good. SG Dusty Hannahs is purely an outside shooter at this point, but he could broaden his game if he wanted. Already knows how to use the shot fake and that's a good thing. Toddrick Gotcher only got 10 minutes. He looks like a linebacker now. |
|
A |
FRONTCOURT |
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I really thought that two forwards in Jordan Tolbert and Jaye Crockett set the tone for the entire game. They earned the "A" for this game. Crockett was explosive and active and just everywhere on the press. He scored 17 points, grabbed 14 boards, 4 of them offensive, and had 3 steals. Just a fantastic game. Tolbert had had 14 points, 8 boards, 4 offensive and seemed to dunk all 5 of his baskets. I do think that Dejan Kravic is going to struggle offensively in the Big 12. He's awkward offensively, like he doesn't have a clear idea what he wants to do. I think he can be be most effective just hanging around the rim and cleaning up missed buckets. This team needs Kravic on the boards. Kader Tapsoba did get more minutes, 12, and I think that's good. He finished with 6 boards and 4 points, all on free throws. |
|
B |
COACHING |
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Does anyone else think that Texas Tech was running a match-up zone in the halfcourt? I could swear that we essentially saw a match-up zone defense that created some pretty serious problems for Grambling St. I don't think they were ready for it, but I liked it. And the team seemed to be pretty adept at running it and did a good job communicating. So now Walker has the 2-2-1 press, the match-up zone, and a man defense at his disposal. The press continues to be effective and forced 24 turnovers and created an astounding 17 steals for Texas Tech. Another solid rebounding effort, out-rebounding GSU by 19 boards is something that I cannot recall happening all too often in the recent past. |
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LINKS
Full-court press pays dividends for Texas Tech in win against Grambling State | Red Raiders