Texas Tech Hoops | Team Energy on the Rise

It's amazing what can happen when baskets go in the bucket! Scoring 78 points while making 11-24 (45.8%) from the three-point line and hitting 23-28 (82.1%) on free throws is a winning recipe for any college basketball team. Last Saturday it was the correct formula needed to knock off the #9 team in the country.

Less than a few days before the ISU match-up people in the Big 12 were already talking about the possibility of Texas Tech not getting a single win in the Big 12. That question has now been thankfully answered. It's time for the Red Raiders to move forward and play the rest of the conference games like we know they are capable of playing.

According to a Krista Pirtle article; here is what some of the guys had to say after the win...

"We got tired of losing," junior guard Toddrick Gotcher said. "We called a meeting. We were tired of losing and wanted to change it immediately, not in 10 games but immediately."

Turner had this to add...

"We know we’re a competitive team," senior guard Robert Turner said after the Iowa State win. "We know what we’re capable of, and we went out there and showed it tonight. It was a matter of just going out there and showing everyone else."

In order to do that, the Red Raiders realized that they needed to come together.

"The whole thing before the game, you get your pregame ritual and you jump around, bounce around and yell a little bit," Turner said. "But our thing was we came together and made a tighter circle and said if we were going to do anything, we were going to have to do it together. That was the thing for the game. Everything came together, and that’s the way we wanted it."

The reason I love watching Texas Tech basketball during Big 12 play is because we always silence the critics, and pull off spectacular upsets. How great is that? The players, the coaches, and a lot of Red Raider fans know that we have a competitive team... it just takes time for things to come together.

"We’re getting the right type of effort that we need," Smith said. "I liked our energy level. It was a big win for us against a ranked team. That always helps to liven your spirits and get guys believing that they’re better."

You're damn right Coach Smith!

Sometimes team's need different things to unite them. The losses could have broken the team's spirits, but instead it caused them to come together. They had a newly formed energy and nothing to lose. That is always dangerous to the opponents that Texas Tech faces.

Last Saturday might have been a different game statistically then the Red Raiders have shown most of the year, but it's time to keep up the intensity and continue to score. Tubby Smith recently made the comment about his team and the trip to Oklahoma...

"A lot of it has to do with playing good, defensive teams on the road," coach Tubby Smith said in a Big 12 conference call on Monday. "When you go on the road in the Big 12, it’s going to be tough to score."

He is being nice, not trying to gloat about the humongous upset in Lubbock. We all know that we hope that our offense shows again what they are capable of when running the right plays with the right players. If we can drop in over 40% of our downtown shots and hit over 80% of our shots from the charity stripe while scoring 75+ overall... we will see quite a few more victory's this season. Get ready, because this young squad will continue to shock us... Wreck 'em Tech!