Grading the Red Raiders | Arizona St. 77, Texas Tech 62

The Texas Tech Red Raiders dropped their third straight game, to the Arizona St. Sun Devils.

By Seth C Dec 23, 2012, 6:02am CST

GRADING THE RED RAIDERS
Arizona St. 77, Texas Tech 62 | Boxscore

I am starting to get frustrated and I should not get frustrated. This is not a normal situation for head coach Chris Walker or these players. I have always thought that these are better players than last year, but now I am starting to think that it's not going to show up on the win column and that's depressing a bit. And this is why you wait on Walker if you are Hocutt because Texas Tech deserves the best head coach they can get. Walker, as awesome as he is, and he is awesome about this entire situation, it's good that Hocutt decided to wait a year rather than try to hurry to hire a head coach in the middle of the year. That may mean another wasted season, but it is better to waste one season rather than four seasons with hiring the wrong coach.

QUOTES

There was no transcript, but thanks to LAJ's Nick Kosmider, we have a bit from head coach Chris Walker:

"We just have to come out and think about, ‘Why is that happening,’" Walker said. "Maybe we need to make some adjustments, watch film and say, ‘OK, maybe we need to do this to start the game to make sure we can eliminate that, keep it even and give ourselves the best chance to win."

GRADE	POSITION
C	BACKCOURT
Walker switched up the starting line up, sitting Trency Jackson and starting Dusty Hannahs. Hannahs somewhat responded with 9 points on 3 of 8, but he scored all of those points in the first half and none in the second half. Jackson wasn't motivated to get his spot back as he scored 3 points, 3 boards, 1 assist and 3 turnovers. That's not exactly filling the box score. Josh Gray was outshined by his freshman counterpart and he wasn't bad, but he wasn't great. He still isn't shooting very well and he has only had 2 assists in the past two games with 6 turnovers. Gray was only 3 of 8, but he did have 10 points, 4 rebounds, 0 assists and 2 turnovers. Daylen Robinson also found a way to turn the ball over 4 times in just 19 minutes and that's killing this team, add to that he shot 2 of 8 from the floor. Toddrick Gotcher got just a few minutes, but I thought he was the best player off the bench for the guards.
C	FRONTCOURT
Again, this team is only as good as Jaye Crockett and Jordan Tolbert and that's just not enough. Crockett led the team in scoring with just 11 points and he almost had yet another double-double with 9 rebounds. Crockett turned the ball over in some inopportune times and you could see his frustration, but he also had 2 steals to lead the team. Both were traveling calls off the dribble. Tolbert scored 10 points and looked much better, with 5 boards, 2 blocks and 1 turnover. Dejan Kravic was better off the bench, but he is so danged awkward at times. He does play with good effort and his line wasn't bad, but the fact that he only had 3 rebounds is not good. Kravic had 7 points, 3 boards, 2 assists, 4 blocks, 1 steal and 2 turnovers. Again, very active, but awkward.
C	COACHING
What happened to the press? What happened to easy buckets? It seemed like this is a thing of the past and for two straight games, Texas Tech has only scored 62 points against Arizona St. and Alabama. And now, this team is struggling to score, although I thought the offense looked much better against Arizona St. The defense is falling into lapses, mostly early in the game, permitting opponents to just launch from the three-point line and that's just not going to get things done. Walker has to shore up things defensively and if he wants to continue to press, which he can really only do after made buckets, then he needs to commit to it. It just doesn't seem like this is a point of emphasis any more. Starting Hannahs and Tolbert is fine, but it didn't generate any more offense and I'm starting to get real worried that this team just won't be able to stay with opponents in the Big 12 (I've really been worried about this from the get-go, but it now appears to be more of a reality.