I can only imagine how refreshing this feels for Grant McCasland and the Texas Tech basketball team. On Saturday, the Red Raiders got the chance to go out and play basketball. They didn\u2019t have to continue to dwell on the fact that JT Toppin was out due to injury.\u00a0<\/p>\n
They\u2019ve accepted that fact and approached Saturday\u2019s matchup against Kansas State with a seriousness and a dedication that was welcomed to see. And I\u2019ve got a few thoughts. Here\u2019s a handful of takeaways from Texas Tech\u2019s 100-72 win over the Kansas State Wildcats.\u00a0<\/p>\n
No. 1: The scoring, rebounding, and shot blocking by committee is refreshing to see from Texas Tech<\/p>\n
While it was always so much fun to see JT Toppin and Christian Anderson just enter a game and completely and totally take over, it\u2019s fascinating on how enjoyable it was to see Texas Tech do everything possible to move the ball around more effectively.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Texas Tech really might have a higher ceiling as a collective unit following Toppin\u2019s injury, just as McCasland mentioned. I don\u2019t know if that\u2019s accurate, but I know that McCasland doesn\u2019t look crazy following Texas Tech\u2019s 28-point win.<\/p>\n
Having five players in double digits scoring, six players with at least four rebounds, and then eight blocks from a total of six players, it\u2019s clear that the Red Raiders are responding in such fascinating ways.<\/p>\n
No. 2: Excellent three-point shooting can continue to elevate Texas Tech\u2019s ceiling in significant ways<\/p>\n
Following up on that, again, it\u2019s really starting to feel like McCasland\u2019s bold statement about the higher ceiling held by this team as a whole following Toppin\u2019s injury might just be accurate. It\u2019s fascinating, but the Red Raiders were able to get a number of players involved and producing at a high level following Toppin\u2019s injury.<\/p>\n
Maybe that has to do with the fact that Kansas State really isn\u2019t all that great, but it\u2019s encouraging to see 18 assists for Texas Tech. And also it\u2019s encouraging to see Texas Tech make 13-of-28 three point attempts. The Red Raiders aren\u2019t afraid to shoot from behind the three point line and that might do enough to elevate Texas Tech\u2019s offensive approach.<\/p>\n
No. 3: Texas Tech\u2019s bench has a number of helpful contributors who didn\u2019t try to do too much against Kansas State<\/p>\n
I\u2019ve had a few concerns with Texas Tech\u2019s bench all season up until this point, but now I\u2019m starting to see plenty of room for growth and plenty of opportunities to achieve that growth over the next few weeks as we get closer and closer to the postseason.<\/p>\n
Texas Tech saw Moseley grab five rebounds and score four points, Akuentok grab four rebounds and block a shot, and then Bryan grab four rebounds, block a shot, and drain a shot from behind the three point line.<\/p>\n
None of them did anything overwhelmingly complex, but all three played a collectively pivotal role of providing much needed depth for Texas Tech.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"I can only imagine how refreshing this feels for Grant McCasland and the Texas Tech basketball team. On…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":177839,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[168,170,169],"class_list":["post-177838","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-lubbock","tag-lubbock","tag-lubbock-headlines","tag-lubbock-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/177838","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=177838"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/177838\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/177839"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=177838"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=177838"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=177838"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}