Belief in Evans proves enough for Raiders
DALLAS — They had to believe in something. Everyone else in this NCAA Tournament did.
But it could not be a 98-yearold nun with a scouting report. Loyola-Chicago already had one of those. It could not be the power of a blazer with a printed tee. That magic, of course, belonged exclusively to Marshall and Mike D’Antoni’s brother.
Some teams like to believe in the impossible, but the adorable, 16th-seeded Retrievers of UMBC used that the night before.
So Saturday night at American Airlines Center, with their first trip to the Sweet 16 in 13 years on the line against Florida, Texas Tech believed in the only thing that made sense.
And just like they thought, believing in Keenan Evans was enough.
The man who has peppered Tech’s magical season with spectacular late-game moments added a few more Saturday, as his clutch late 3-pointer and calm lob for an electrifying alley-oop lifted the Red Raiders to a 69-66 win over the Gators and sent them to next week’s East Regional in Boston.
“As clock runs down, you look at it like, ‘I don’t want my season to be over.’ These guys are the same way,” Evans said about the other Tech seniors.
Evans, who finished with 22 points, made his final mark by driving into the lane and lofting the ball perfectly over the rim for high-flying Zhaire Smith, who thundered it through the rim for a dunk to put the Red Raiders up by five with 29 seconds left.
Tech still had to weather a wild late flurry after the Gators got a basket and a steal in the closing seconds, but a final Florida attempt clanged off the rim and sent Evans and the Red Raiders celebrating another big step under coach Chris Beard.
In orchestrating the resurgence of a program that had settled into its role as a Big 12 non-factor when he arrived two years ago, Beard drew upon his wide array of dirtroad, Whataburger-tinged influences to make Tech a power.
By the time he got the head coaching job at Tech he felt entitled to nothing but hungry for it all, and surrounded himself with a roster full of rugged athletes who felt the same way.
One of the carryovers from the previous team suited the new look of the program just fine. Evans, a 6-3 guard from Richardson Berkner, always had talent but was not supposed to be a star.
The Red Raiders finished last in the Big 12 when he was a freshman, but both he and the team steadily improved since then.
Evans typically saves his best stuff for the second half, and Saturday it looked like it would be no different. He limped to his usual slow start, and the only question was whether Florida really had figured out a way to contain him or if he was again playing possum.
Midway through the first half, the Gators’ KeVaughn Allen not only served Tech’s star with the indignity of a blocked shot, he swatted his 3-point attempt toward the other end of the floor and then chased it down for a layup.
But Evans returned from halftime with two quick buckets, and the thousands of Tech fans who filled most of the arena were ready for another onslaught. Sure enough, one came. With the Red Raiders trailing by a point with less than 11 minutes left, Evans finished a fast break with a nifty move through the paint to put Tech ahead.
Then, after Smith brought down the house with another of his soaring, rim-rattling dunks, Evans spun in, out of, and then back into the lane for a finger roll, and followed that with a falling lefthanded layup that somehow grazed the bottom of the rim and still spun up and over for a basket. Evans finished the three-point play with a free throw, putting Tech up by eight.
That became the latest chapter in plenty that Evans has written for the Red Raiders, and it set up the dramatic closing minutes.
And as Tech entered another of this Tournament’s spine-tingling finishes, it believed in something. It wasn’t nun, it wasn’t a T-shirt, and it wasn’t the impossible.
But once again, it was more than enough.