Anything goes as No. 8 Texas Tech heads to Baylor
Nothing is predictable a few weeks into the Big 12 season. Two teams that typify that sentiment get together Saturday when No. 8 Texas Tech travels to tangle with Baylor at the Ferrell Center in Waco, Texas. The Red Raiders (15-2, 4-1 Big 12) stubbed their toe for the first time in league  Wednesday, losing at home to Iowa State, 68-64. The Bears (10-6, 2-2) played their fourth straight conference game decided by five points or fewer in a 73-69 road win at Oklahoma State on Monday. While Tech maintained a share of first place with Kansas, there are seven teams, including Baylor, with either two or three losses as the league season heats up. And the Bears may be the most hard-to-figure team in the league so far. The win Monday was Baylor's first after losing forward Tristan Clark for the season with a knee injury. That prompted coach Scott Drew to operate with a smaller starting lineup, and the dividends against Oklahoma State were immediate. After struggling all season to hit 3-pointers, the Bears connected on 15 of 25 from beyond the arc against the Cowboys, led by King McClure's 7-of-11 performance. "We shared the ball well and Mark Vital (five assists) found a lot of guys," Drew said in his postgame radio interview. "When King got hot, everybody did a good job finding him. It takes a team to win and we had so many guys step up." That concept eluded Texas Tech in its first home loss this season and just the fifth in three years under coach Chris Beard. Jarrett Culver came up big with 20 points and 16 rebounds, but Davide Moretti was the only other Tech player in double figures with 10 points, although freshman Kyler Edwards supplied a spark off the bench with nine. Culver's night was emblematic of the Raiders' offensive struggles: He needed 21 field-goal attempts to reach 20 points and missed several shots at the rim. More surprising, the gritty Tech defense had problems with Iowa State in the first half and never completely shut down the Cyclones. ISU shot 44.6 percent from the floor (25 of 56), the best for a Texas Tech opponent this season, and led 41-33 at halftime -- matching the most points in a half vs. the Red Raiders this season. "They play with great spacing and they have veteran, low-turnover players," Beard said in his postgame press conference. "I didn't think we were very aggressive in the first half. The second half, I think we came back and caused some turnovers and looked more like Red Raider defense out there, but the first half our guys just weren't aggressive enough." Tech will have to turn the page quickly against a much different foe in Baylor. The Bears will play mostly its unique 1-1-3 zone defense and dare the Red Raiders to shoot jump shots. That's not something Tech has excelled at: The Raiders shoot 34.1 percent from 3-point territory and only recently warmed up to near that accuracy in Big 12 games after making 14 of 56 in the first three league games. Baylor encounters a similar challenge against a defense that is among the best in the country. Even after the red-hot day vs. Oklahoma State, the Bears remain the Big 12's worst 3-point shooting crew (31.3 percent). --Field Level Media |