McCasland fired up with blowout over Colorado
The Texas Tech men’s basketball team came to play this evening as they trampled the Colorado Buffaloes at the United Supermarkets Arena 78-44. Head Coach Grant McCasland met with the media afterwards to breakdown the huge victory before eventually heading out to Tucson, Arizona.
Solid Effort
McCasland said all along he’s wanted to integrate Luke (Bamgboye) into the rotation, and sure enough he was aggressive, getting fouled, mustering up 4 blocks. Donovan Atwell led all scorers with 20, and shot 6-10 from the field. It was in the makings of a solid performance from the whole rotation and it’s the momentum the Red Raiders need before going on the road to Tucson.
“We’ve been looking at some numbers to finish halves, and to start the second half in the last four minutes we’ve seen a pretty significant dip. I know that a lot of that has to do with playing guys minutes and them thinking they’re going to play minutes. So just the lift that Luke gave us to start the second half, we got him in there pretty quickly and I thought it was great. Really it’s been pretty consistent that Donovan Atwell shows up every night. He’s been phenomenal. His maturity is one thing, but his competitiveness tonight when we needed a lift I just thought he was in the middle of every play. Every rebound, every big three, he just has a way right now of finding ways to win the game and help us stay in the fight when maybe we’re getting out of it. It’s been awesome. He’s did the same thing at Colorado he made a couple threes late. I mean his composure and his competitiveness is great. I thought Christian (Anderson) had a great floor game and had the right defensive effort. Jaylen Petty finished the game well, but his defense keeps improving. It’s fun to see these guys make jumps defensively, and then to get all the guys on the floor that we need minutes starting to move that direction because we need everybody down the stretch.”
Confidence for the Combo of JT and Luke Going Into Arizona and March
It’s a foregone conclusion that size, length, and physicality at the rim is crucial to winning in the Big 12. Luke, JT and even LeJuan (Watts) mustered up nine total blocks and provided a presence at the rim that can make life challenging for the rest of the league going forward. McCasland touched on that concept and applied it to how it can give that combo more confidence when facing the Arizona’s of the world, and to integrate that when it comes time for the tournament.
“You know you’re confident when you’re going into those timeouts, and Luke was trying to do a lot of talking. That doesn’t happen many times with our team. He’s always had energy when he doesn’t play but when he’s usually so exhausted, and when he gets to those timeouts he doesn’t say much he’s just trying to figure out if he can even stand up. But it was nice to hear him communicate what our team needs to do in those timeouts. That’s when I was like “ok, we’re figuring this out!” I can leave him out there a little bit longer, and I will tell you I think we probably had our two best practices of the year this week going into this game. A big part of that was JT’s approach. He came into it trying to win practice, and I just thought that rubbed off on Luke, and to see Luke join in on the competitiveness and fight that it takes, him communicating in those timeouts was really a big point for me to see like “ok, the ownership and his love for this is starting to be him. Not us trying to tell him what to do and him trying to do what I ask him to do.” It’s him believing and communicating to our team. That was a big jump for us.”
2nd Chance Points
At the end of the game, the difference between the teams was Texas Tech’s 21 second chance points to the Buffaloes’ 0. McCasland broke down exactly what went right in the paint to bring that stat to fruition.
“One, I thought our ball movement was good, so we got them in some rotations. And two, I did think we had some size advantage at different positions. How do you take advantage of that? One, is throwing it into the post and they kept doubling us and that opened up the three in the first half. When we missed, or when we got a good shot they’re in rotation. So then we had a size advantage on weak side rebounding. I thought Luke took advantage of that, LeJuan took advantage of that, JT (Toppin) took advantage of that, and Tyree had a couple of good offensive rebounds to. It was fun to see all those guys get in the mix.”
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