Not enough
Jacob Young scores 29 points, but Texas falls to Tech.
KANSAS CITY, Mo. — It was after Texas Tech lost to Texas in the first round of the Big 12 tournament, ending the Red Raiders’ season, that Chris Beard defied his team to avoid a similar fate the next year.
They’ve certainly risen to the challenge.
Keenan Evans scored 25 points, including a pretty fadeaway jumper in the closing minutes, and the No. 14 Red Raiders held off hot-shooting Jacob Young and the Longhorns for a 73-69 victory on Thursday night that ushered them into the semifinal round for the first time since 2005.
“We said we were going to do everything we could the next 364 days to put ourselves in a better position,” Beard said, “and I think we’ve done that.”
Jarrett Culver added 13 points for the Red Raiders (24-8), who had lost four of their last five in the regular season but appeared to recapture their mojo in Kansas City. They’ll play No. 18 West Virginia on Friday night for a spot in the title game.
Young had a career-high 29 points for the Longhorns (19-14), going 11 of 17 from the field and 6 of 7 from beyond the arc. But he missed a wide open layup with 36 seconds left that would have gotten the Longhorns within 7067, and Evans made a free throw at the other end to help seal it.
Matt Coleman added 20 points for No. 7 seed Texas, which got star freshman Mo Bamba back from a toe sprain that had caused him to miss three games.
Coming off the bench for the first time in his college career, the big man flashed an occasional grimace, but otherwise moved well. He finished off a 9-3 UT run with a buzzer-beating three to cut Tech’s lead down to seven points at intermission. Bamba played 14 minutes — four more than the team trainer recommended — and finished with 10 points and four rebounds.
“I thought Mo played well,” Texas coach Shaka Smart said. “He was back and forth whether he was going to be able to play. And then he went through a workout today, it went pretty well. The way he played, we’d love to have him for 29, 30 minutes.”
Bamba’s minutes restriction and the struggles of bigs Jericho Sims and Dylan Osetkowski left the task of carrying UT to Young and Coleman. The two scored 30 of UT’s 41 second-half points.
“We just lost a tight game and you never feel good after a loss,” Smart said. “Texas Tech played a great game but there’s a lot of things, when we look at the tape, if we could have done this a little harder or a little better we could have won.”
Texas will spend the weekend rooting against conference tournament upsets and hoping its season-long résumé, which includes six RPI top-50 wins, holds up. The NCAA Tournament selection committee is still expected to let the Longhorns slide in, though they might have to take a trip to Dayton, Ohio, and win a play-in game.
“We’ve had a really good year,” Smart said. “We’ve had a ton of ups and downs in terms of adversity we’ve been hit with. I think our guys have responded with great resolve, great togetherness, great fight. I think when you come out of this league, obviously you go through the fire. And we have.”
It was the No. 2 seed Red Raiders’ first quarterfinal win since 2005. They have never won the league’s postseason tournament.