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THE INFORMATION
| Game Details | |
|---|---|
| TEAMS |
 Houston Cougars (5-1, 0-0)  Texas Tech Red Raiders (4-2, 0-0) |
| WHERE | Barclay Center | Brooklyn, New York |
| WHEN | 6:00 pm Tuesday November 26th |
| CONSUME | Radio - TTSN | TV - ESPN2 |
THE CHARACTERS
| Starters | ||
|---|---|---|
| Texas Tech | Houston | |
| Robert Turner (6-3/180) | PG | L.J. Rose (6-4/190) |
| Dusty Hannahs (6-4/210) | SG | Danuel House (6-7/195) |
| Jaye Crockett (6-7/210) | SF | Jherrod Stiggers (6-5/210) |
| Jordan Tolbert (6-7/225) | PF | Mikhail McLean (6-8/205) |
| Dejan Kravic (7-0/235) | C | TaShawn Thomas (6-8/215) |
THE ANALYSIS
Key Matchup | Thomas vs. Kravic: Someone better be on their game tonight. I really don’t know if Kravic is going to cover Thomas, but assuming that he is, this is going to be critical. Thomas averages 16 points a game and 11 rebounds. In preparing for this game, I really had to prepare for both Stanford and Houston and Stanford starts two forwards that are 6-10+ and 240+, while Thomas is somewhat slim and not all that tall. All Thomas did is score 22 and grab 16 boards last night against Stanford’s formidable front line and he did it on 8 of 14 from teh floor. Kravic, Tapsoba and anyone else guarding Thomas needs to bring their A-game.
Take Aim: Houston really doesn’t have much of a bench, but they’ve got some talented players. Rose is a former Baylor commit that ended up at Houston, and he averages 12 points and 6 assists a game. House is a 5-star playing coming out of high school and one of the better players in the country that year and he chose Houston over Georgetown, Baylor, Ohio St., Kansas and really any team. He’s incredibly talented and going to be a tough matchup for any player guarding him. I could certainly envision Gotcher getting the start tonight to guard House as Hannahs just doesn’t have the foot speed to keep pace.
I know it’s probably not totally cool to say this, but Houston has some serious talent and it wouldn’t surprise me in the lease if the Cougars ran away with this game. Houston is terrific offensively (114th in AdjO), but struggles defensively (209th). Texas Tech has to get an offensive flow early in this game if they want to keep pace or at the very least establish themselves defensively. That’s been something the Red Raiders have lacked thus far, is real strong defensive game.