McCasland, TTU Shocked By The Final Minutes Versus Kansas
The 13th ranked Red Raider basketball team found themselves in yet another slugfest, this time with the #11 Kansas Jayhawks. Unfortunately, Texas Tech couldn’t hold on in the last few minutes due to an 8-0 Jayhawk run that was capped off by a pair of back-to-back threes by star freshman Darryn Peterson. Tech would eventually lose to Kansas 64-61, and to make matters worse, the team received news that Christian Anderson would be unavailable to play this game. Head Coach Grant McCasland met with the media after the game to breakdown his takeaways from the loss.
The Loss of Anderson
In what took the team and fans by surprise was finding out that Anderson was not out with the team in the first half. Despite going through warm ups prior to the second half and giving the USA crowd hope, the team decided to end up resting him. McCasland shares his takes on Anderson’s condition and was anticipating to have his All-American out there.
“We’ll leave it at this. Before the game we just didn’t have any idea that it was an option, and then just was told during warm-ups that we’re gonna hold him out for right now and fully anticipated him playing. And then we got closer to going out there and they were saying “we’re going to take him and try to warm him up while they’re doing intros and see if we can get him where he’s ready to play.” I just think everybody thought he was playing at the very end. Then the whole thought process was just keep trying to get him to see if he can play at all. I’m not going to speak to the specifics of what it is, but it just got to a point where Mike just kept coming and telling me giving me an update like “looks like we’ll have him ready.” and then the last thing you came and told me “we’re not playing him.” and we left halftime thinking there’s a chance you were playing the second half. And then just wasn’t able to go.”
Defending Darryn Peterson
When looking at the stats, one would think the fact that Kansas’ potential NBA lottery pick only shooting 5-of-14 from the field and 3-of-7 from deep with two coming in the final minutes and winning the game would be flat out crazy. McCasland mentioned the approach to the scheme that was going after Peterson before taking the first shot to tie the game.
“Ultimately you got to crowd the space on the three-point line and I thought Donovan was great other than that offensive rebound. The one he (Peterson) made in the first half. He was trying to draw fouls all night long and I said “as long as he’s doing that, he’s not trying to shoot it” and then let’s stay attached to him just don’t come down and don’t move into him and do a great job showing in your hands and I thought our guys did a great job of that. I think he still drew seven fouls over the course of the game. At the end there, they set a flare screen when they were down three and we were 100% switching it. JT switched it. We talked about it. It was what we communicated anytime he gets hit, and man he made a really hard shot over JT. I mean JT at a left-hand contest on the right handed shot and I mean, I thought the degree of difficulty of that shot was tremendous. Then the second one we didn’t execute that well. The game winner that he hit. I mean he came off and we’ve been putting two on the ball with him. And for some reason we didn’t on that last play. He doesn’t need time and space after he’s made one made like he did on the right wing. Just big shot making by him to do it. The first one I thought was unbelievable. The second one we didn’t guard it the right way. He still made a great play. Give him credit.”
Kansas Defending JT in Christian’s Absence
Given the adjusted approach offensively and how they wanted to facilitate the pick and roll, McCasland voiced his thoughts on his awareness of the challenges the Jayhawks brought when they narrowed their focus on JT Toppin.
“I think part of this is they put two guys in the middle of the floor and I thought Tiller and Flory were really good in the middle of the floor. It’s like just switching like one of them could take JT on the roll. They didn’t have to guard them with one guy in the ball screen. They could kind of switch and interchange, and like the last play when he got down the lane line, Tiller came over and blocked it and Flory was trying to corral him to. I just thought they did a good job putting 2 on there. We were spacing LeJuan (Watts) some to and that was working also. It’s just at the end of the game LeJuan had a great offensive rebound put back and we had a couple wide open threes to. Not really anybody close on some offensive rebounds. I thought Jaylen Petty‘s ability to deliver the ball was awesome though. We trust JT that he’ll make those and make the right plays and give them credit because I did think they make it just hard enough on him to miss some of those that sometimes he makes.”
If Facilitating was a Benefit for Jaylen
When given the opportunity to run the offense as the primary floor general and ball handler like he did tonight, McCasland sees giving Jaylen Petty the reigns when necessary as being a boost to where he can do that a little more the rest of the way.
“You’ve been around me long enough. You know I believe that we’re in the right place and we’re doing the right things and these are the right experiences. We’re supposed to have an order to put us in a position to do what we want to do at the end of the season. I can’t always explain it I think this is probably pretty unexplainable and pretty tough for our guys. Kansas deserves all the credit for the win. They finished and won that basketball game. But I love our guys fight and I love Jalen Petty‘s heart to win the game like he’s crushed in there, JT‘s crushed, Christian Anderson’s crushed. He’s so sad and disappointed he wasn’t able to play. We got the right guys. We just need more experience in time together. I love this group! And I believe in them and I know we can win real games that are meaningful in March. We just got to collectively find ways to get a little more experience. Get a little tougher. Get a little more fight to us. Get a little more grit to the way we compete down the stretch and we’re just scratching the surface of what we can really be.”
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