Texas Tech drops National Championship to Virginia

The Texas Tech Red Raiders’ season came to an end tonight with an overtime loss to the Virginia Cavaliers by a score of 85-77. The Red Raiders came out looking to win the game and it just didn’t happen for us. It was the end to a great Red Raider career for 5 great Red Raiders. Here’s how it went down.

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Both teams started slow, with the score at the under 16 timeout being 3-2. The Cavaliers got a couple of good looks at the basket and grew a lead to double digits when Brandone Francis and Kyler Edwards hit a couple of three pointers to bring the Red Raiders back into this game.

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Davide Moretti hit another three pointer with 7:33 left in the first half to tie the game at 19. The Red Raiders grew out a small lead and was able to maintain it until the last minute when the Cavaliers hit a three pointer with seconds left in the first half to give themselves a lead of 32-29 going into halftime.

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Jarrett Culver at this point in the game had been ineffective, only scoring three points, all free-throws. Brandone Francis and Davide Moretti both had 8 points in this game and both hit two three pointers in the first half. Kyler Edwards also came off the bench and scored 5 points.

The Red Raiders came out cold in the second half, missing a few shots while the Cavaliers couldn’t miss. The lead grew to nine points before Jarrett Culver hit a couple of easy layups to cut the lead to seven going into the under 16 timeout. The Red Raiders had trouble keeping up with the Cavaliers at points in the second half as their lead swelled to 10 with 10 minutes left. The Red Raiders were able to make a couple of good buckets and cut the lead to only 8 going into the under 8 timeouts.

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The Red Raiders clawed back into the game, with Kyler Edwards hitting a field goal with 5 minutes left in the game to cut the Virginia lead to only 6. The Red Raiders continued to claw back, tying the game over and over. The Cavaliers took a 4 point lead until Moretti hit a golden three pointer to put the game within reach for the Red Raiders.

The Red Raiders were able to gain the lead only to give it away on a De’Andre Hunter three pointer with 12.9 seconds left to send the game into overtime. The score going into the extra period was 68-68. Going into overtime, the Red Raiders scored the first couple of points, but the Virginia Cavaliers took the game by going on a great run at the end of the game to end the season.

The Red Raiders had the best season in team history, no doubt. Give credit to Virginia for their win but also look at what the Red Raiders could have done better. There were far too many open three pointers allowed by a team that hasn’t allowed that to happen all season long.