Don’t hit that panic button!

The Red Raiders lost on Saturday. They got out-toughed and out-played. Last Tuesday was the same situation. Baylor and West Virginia are great teams that will play great defense night in and night out and the Red Raiders are the same way defensively. The main difference between Tech and the other two teams is that the other teams have a ton of solid scorers and both of the other teams have big guys that can rebound.

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While the Red Raiders don’t have any big guys that can compete with others in this league. I think that is the biggest difference between this year and last year. Where last season you always had a big on the floor with either Tariq Owens or Norense Odiase, now you have only T.J. Holyfield that can barely hold down the center position because he is often in foul trouble.

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While that lack of depth underneath is starting to concern me, it is not quite time to hit the panic button. This team just has too many athletes that can make up for the lack of size to count them out, they just have to find ways to win other than out-toughing teams. Last season’s team and this season’s team are very different. This season’s team has so much more athleticism that pushing the pace on some of these bigger teams may be the way to go.

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Offensively, this team is awful right now. The good news is that this team has shown the ability to work offensively, it just needs to find it’s offensive grove again. Let’s also not forget that last season’s team went through a bad time in January too. It’s just part of a long season and every team that has any chance of winning the Championship has to go through.

Ben Queen-USA TODAY Sports

Losing shows us how to win and what we need to do differently to win. With this team, it is no different. Each of these players, especially the new ones, have to learn how to lose because all they have done in their young basketball careers is win. That’s part of the reason Coach Beard brought them on board.

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So let’s not panic just yet, this team has three VERY winnable games coming up and if they can come out on top in all three, the Big 12 record will be 4-2 and this dry spell will seem like a thing of the past. Also, I never count out a team led by Chris Beard, and I don’t think you should either.