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Not a bad little game. Texas Tech kept it close. Played almost their entire team. Lots of small contributions from different players. I won't have time to do a full write-up this morning, but I did think there were some good things this morning.
I thought that last night was the most complete game that I can recall from PG Josh Gray. He only scored 10 points, but he had 5 assists, 2 steals and just one turnover in 29 minutes. That's progress. He looked so much better last night and he looked in control. Now, if he can just work on his jumpshot, his game is going to be really tough to stop. In fact, the team as a whole had 4 turnovers for the entire game to 9 assist. I can't recall the last time that happened.
I thought the team as a whole did a much better job of getting the ball into the post. This is a lost art and has been a lost art for just about everyone on last year's team except for Luke Adams. This game, I thought that the spacing wasn't perfect, much better, but getting the ball in the post to PF Jordan Tolbert and C Dejan Kravic was really nice to see. For a team that has struggled offensively, getting the ball to the block is the best way to cure that. Tolbert finished with 19 points and 5 rebounds. Kravic had 12 points, 7 rebounds, 1 assist, 2 blocks, 1 steal and 1 turnover.
Now the bad. The team was out-rebounded by 18 rebounds (38 to 20). Kansas St. had 15 offensive rebounds on the night and that was the biggest difference of the night. Tolbert and Kravic contributed, but Jaye Crockett has to hit the boards more as he along with Tolbert and Kravic are the only guys that are post players that are seeing significant time. It also starts with just putting a body on the opponent and the guards need to do that, especially with a team that shoots 20 three-point shots.
I was ecstatic about the lack of turnovers, very happy about that.
The other news last night is that Keith Frazier (6-5/185 | Kimball HS, Dallas, TX) is going to visit this weekend or soon. Frazier is a top 20 player in the nation and he has an offer list a mile long. The fact that Walker is able to get a kid like Frazier to visit when Walker only has an interim tag is unbelievable. Yea, he's good.
QUOTES
After every loss, Chris Walker literally says he wants to give credit to the opponent. He is very gracious. Here's head coach Chris Walker:
Now I talk to our guys about getting better and better and showing improvement, that’s the most important thing and that’s the measurement of what we use to guide our program and to continue to get better every game but yes there are things we need to work on every game, you stop one leak and another one springs, we’ve just got to keep working and now we have to emphasize toughness. I will say this, I’m proud of my guys and they way they came out and defended, we are not glorifying losing, we expect to win and we expected to win this game and I thought we had a really good chance and our guys put us in a position to do that we just came up a little short tonight.