Texas Tech 2/3 6:00 ESPN+

[leo from jersey]

That’s because for the first time all season, he had the right lineup in the game at the end of the game.

I was going to say "you got your wish".

[leo from jersey]

CWM is laughing for joy.

[Lobot]

Road 3Mas is a good 3Mas tonight

[Corporateballa]

Simas had been playing like he’d been hit by a truck. He looks healthy now. He’s improving offensively. I wish he’d help on the boards.

[leo from jersey]

I was happy with JJ He was a major help with the starters on the bench.. CWM with the pissed again lol

[Lobot]

Dan and T-Nel are very critical of Skillings pointer with over 20 seconds on the shot clock and less than a minute in the game.

That was one of two obviously bad 3s I saw. The other one was Vik. It wasn't the shots because I thought they were in the offensive flow. It was the timing of them with the score close. You've got to have better sitational awareness than that, especially on Dan's.

Simas had a nice game on the road which has been a problem previously. Player of the game.

Thank goodness Newman played. Day Day was also excellent on D.

Vik's shooting woes continue but he did a lot of little things tonight with screens that I think helped the team a lot. Tom Crean, who was much better than I expected as an anlayst, pointed out that when Vik gets a post pass, he just needs to go, None of this dribble and gather stuff unless he's backing someone down.

Zero fouls between Vik and Aziz tonight. I'm confused..

Aziz with a double double.

I'm trying to figure what the refs had against Josh Reed tonight.

Here's the Box:

https://www.espn.com/mens-college-ba...meId/401603456

[fmirzamd]

Please post good highlights.

[bearcatbret]

From GoBearcats.com: Bearcats' Late Heroics Stun No. 15 Texas Tech in Lubbock - University of Cincinnati Athletics (gobearcats.com)

[BearKatz]

I missed a good one tonight Great road win for the Bearcats against a Top 25 Team!

[sedz]

Offensively, this team profiles very similar to what we just faced at West Virginia, with a poor shooting creator (two of them actually), good three point shooting wings, and a rim running big. So right away we'll get to see if we made any adjustments. Isaacs and Toussiant will gladly take midrange jumpers, and we should invite them to do that. They both shoot under 38% from there, so it's a terrible shot. We've got to be aware of Walton and McMillian at all times on the perimeter. They are one dimensional set shooters who have taken 164 threes at a 48% clip, of which over 90% were assisted. McMillian is also effective on backdoor cuts, as 70% of his rim looks are assisted. He's been especially deadly over his last three games, going 12 of 19 from three and 8 of 10 at the rim. Washington is not an outside scoring threat and is exclusively looking to score at the rim. I think we need to play Isaacs and Toussiant straight up with no help outside the lane. On ball screens, the big should stay with Washington and invite the guards to shoot. We'll have a better chance of slowing them down if we force the guards to take contested shots rather than letting their receiving high efficiency guys get open looks.

Defensively, we did exactly what I was looking for. Outside of a couple of early clean looks from Walton, we shut down their high efficiency guys and instead forced Isaacs to beat us. Isaacs scored just 13 points from the field on 19 shots and had just 2 assists to 5 turnovers. When he wasn't seeking fouls, he was very inefficient. Players like that put up big numbers and look good making some incredible plays, but they can hurt your team if they're also forcing up a bunch of bad shots.

We stayed with Washington on every screen and he ended up going just 2 of 9 from the field. Night and day difference from the West Virginia game. And we shut down McMillian on the perimeter, as he didn't make a single three. Even the pair of threes we gave up to Walton were tough to avoid - one on a down screen and one where Aziz got switched onto him. A nearly perfect execution of a defensive gameplan.

Jennings actually hurt us the most off the bench - he was better offensively than Washington in this game. We surrendered 16 offensive rebounds and 19 points at the free throw line, which allowed Texas Tech to put up 1.1 points per possession, which is actually our worst raw performance in the conference. But TTU relies on their offense to win games, and this was their third lowest output in conference play. Credit to Wes for doing what we needed to on the defensive end.

[sedz]

Thanks for the report. I'm guessing their man defense is a pack line style on the perimeter with a lot of doubling in the paint, similar to what we used to run under Cronin. That can be zone-like in many ways. If that's the case, floor spacing and passing out of double teams will be important. Guards need to be looking to dish before they get into trouble, and wings should overload one side and then rotate once the ball gets inside.

We also did what we needed to on the offensive end. Texas Tech indeed played a passive pack line style perimeter and clogged up the lane (thanks to swilsonsp4 for pointing me in the right direction). We did a great job of overloading one side of the floor to set up space for drives and two man action on the opposite side. Our wings were able to attack the basket, as Simas, Skillings, and Newman went a combined 9 of 14 at the rim. And we finally shot a decent percentage from three at 35%. It was nice to see Simas looking confident out there going 4 for 7 from deep.

We put up 1.14 points per possession, our best performance in conference play both raw and adjusted for opponent. And it was a balanced performance, as everyone but Vik, Jamille, and Reed had a positive offensive box plus minus. Player of the game statistically might surprise some people - it was Day Day who led the team with a box plus minus of 6.8 and 1.5 net points. And a lot of that has to do with his incredible defense on Isaacs and Toussaint. He made everything tough for them.

[Pharmfam]

I would think this puts us back on the bubble. Need to make hay the next couple of weeks to cement our spot in the tourney.

[sedz]

I would think this puts us back on the bubble. Need to make hay the next couple of weeks to cement our spot in the tourney.

Torvik has a Wins Above Bubble metric. This win moved us from 0.5 games below the cut line to 0.2 games above. Huge for our tourney chances.

[John P]

Great road win for the Cats.
The more the season goes on, the more I find myself liking Day Day.
I was glad to see Wes sit Vic, he wasn't playing well so there was no need to keep him in the game.

[GoBearcats31]

Postgame press https://x.com/gobearcatsmbb/status/1...429-7Zsp1zj4Tg