Preview: Missouri State Bears vs. Texas Tech Red Raiders

Game Details:

Date: Saturday, November 22nd
Time: 7:00 pm
Good Guys: Texas Tech Red Raiders
Bad Guys: Missouri State Bears
Location: United Supermarkets Arena | Lubbock, TX
TV/Stream: FSSW Plus / FCS Pacific
Radio/Stream: Broadcast Affiliates and TuneIn App

In Their Own Words -- Talking Missouri State and Marshall. As noted below, Missouri State has one of the best scoring guards in the country in Marcus Marshall.  Missouri State head coach Paul Lusk talked about his leading scorer and Marshall also talked about taking quality shots:

Lusk said he's noticed Marshall demonstrating an "extra burst" at times in getting to the rim.

"Sometimes we have to tell Marcus to play at a little bit faster pace," Lusk said. "That sounds crazy, but sometimes he just plays at his own pace. He's shown that faster burst at times early in the season."

When the time comes that opponents commit to taking portions of his game away, Marshall said he has to remain patient.

"I'm not going to force anything," he said. "I'm going to let the game come to me. If I score 20 or 30 points, I do. If I don't, as long as we get the win, that's what matters.

"I'm going to take good shots. That's the key. We'll see how it goes."

Texas Tech is very much going to have to guard against Marshall just driving to the rim, which slows down the game to the point of not being able to get into any flow offensively.

Three Keys to the Game:

1. Scouting the Bears: Missouri State, which apparently changed their name at some point from SW Missouri State, is undefeated on the year, with three wins all at home, Missouri Southern, Eastern Illinois and Avila, which is a college that I do not know where it is located. The Missouri Southern game was apparently an exhibition. The guy that you need to watch is Marcus Marshall. Marshall scored 23 points against Missouri Southern, going 8 of 18 from the floor, and 38 points against Eastern Illinois where Marshall was on fire, making 12 of 16 from the floor including 6 of 7 from the three point line and made all of his free throws. No other player was in double-figures and the closest player was Christian Kirk, who scored 8 points off the bench. Marshall is 6-3/190 and a junior and was the Missouri Valley Conference freshman of the year and was a 2014 preseason pick on the All-MVC team. Camyn Boone (6-6/240) has been good off the bench, grabbing 5 boards and scoring 13 points against Missouri Southern and grabbing 9 rebounds against Eastern Illinois. MS does have a big center in Tyler McCullough (6-11/246), but he hasn't done a lot thus far as a sophomore, but I'm guessing that he'll block a few shots.

2. Matching Up with Marshall: It should be interesting to see how Texas Tech matches up with Marshall and I'm guessing that Devaughntah Williams gets the call here initially and Toddrick Gotcher can be a fantastic defender off the bench. This really sounds ideal and maybe more than anything, I'll be interested to see how Williams plays defensively, especially right off the bat. It's clear that Marshall is Missouri State's best player by a mile and it will be interesting to see how Williams takes to that challenge.

3. Even Early: Thus far, Missouri State and Texas Tech are relatively even teams in a very young season. Statistically, Texas Tech is better than Missouri State both offensively and defensively according to KenPom, but not by all that much. If Texas Tech can shut down Marshall, which appears to be a pretty tall task, then this should be an easy game for your Red Raiders. The Red Raiders are ranked 118th overall and MS is ranked 144th overall. It’s only two games and so the data is pretty small, but those are encouraging.