Hopes for Big 12 title take hit in road loss
Texas was making headway against yet another double-digit deficit late Monday night at United Supermarkets Arena.
Shaving Texas Tech’s lead down was a grind, but the sixthranked Longhorns finally managed to knot the score with 4:16 remaining. The Red Raiders, already the victims of one feverish Texas comeback this season, weren’t going to let the same scene unfold in Lubbock this time around.
Forward Kevin Obanor and center Fadaws Aimaq poured in six straight points to break that late tie and lift Texas Tech to a 74-67 win over Texas in Lubbock. The loss dropped the Longhorns (20-6, 9-4 Big 12) back into a first-place tie with No. 9 Baylor, which defeated West Virginia on Monday night.
“I gave (our team) a lot of credit in terms of how hard they fought back into the second half,” Texas interim coach Rodney Terry said during a postgame interview on the Longhorn Radio Network. “And we knew we’d put ourselves right back in position to win this ballgame, which we did down the stretch. But you can’t give those 20 minutes away earlier.”
Texas Tech (14-12, 3-10) was without freshman dynamo Pop Isaacs (ankle) for the sixth straight game. Starting sophomore forward Daniel Batcho (lower body) also was held out.
Still, even down one big body and one offensive whiz — Isaacs put up a game-high 23 points in Texas Tech’s 72-70 loss to Texas Jan. 14 — the Red Raiders packed quite a punch.
Senior guard De’Vion Harmon tore up Texas’ defense in the first half. He dropped in 21 points, scoring at all three levels as the Longhorns got repeatedly lost trying to stick with Harmon in ball screen situations.
Harmon spent most of the opening half trading buckets with Texas guards Marcus Carr and Sir’Jabari Rice (eight points). But the Longhorns went cold over the final two minutes. Harmon didn’t — he scored the final seven of the half, giving Texas Tech a 44-35 edge at the break.
“Give them credit,” Terry said of Tech, which has now beaten two straight ranked foes to put itself back in the NCAA Tournament picture. “They made some shots. And they made some tough shots, made some off the glass. But even with all that, you have to sit down and be able to guard. We can’t let one player have 21 points at the half.”
Texas Tech’s lead ballooned to 13 with 14:17 left in the second half. Texas’ halftime adjustments started paying dividends soon after.
Rather than letting Harmon wreak havoc, the Longhorns doubled and trapped him to force the ball elsewhere. The Longhorns’ three off-ball defenders worked sideline-tosideline, scrambling around to contest shots or steal wobbly passes.
Harmon scored just four points on six shots in the second half. He finished with a gamehigh 25.
Texas capitalized on Texas Tech’s disarray. Carr (23 points) brought Texas back within four points on his fifth and final 3pointer of the night. Senior center Dylan Disu (11 points) tied it up a few minute later with a buttery 3 from the top of the key.
Tech coach Mark Adams opted not to call a timeout. Instead, he decided to run everything through Utah Valley State transfer Aimaq (12 points, eight rebounds), the former WAC player of the year who’d been limited to just four games this season due to injuries.
Stationed on the high block, Aimaq fired a perfect pass to Obanor (19 points) for a goahead dunk. Aimaq bodied inside for a putback layup on Texas Tech’s next possession, then he set up another Obanor jam with a clever pass over the coverage.
Texas still had some hope left even after Harmon scooped in a tough layup for a 72-67 lead with 34 seconds left. But the Longhorns squandered three scoring chances on one deflating possession — forward Brock Cunningham got wide open off a terrific inbound set, but his hesitation allowed Aimaq to range over for the gamesealing block with 20 seconds to go.
The Longhorns shot just 39 percent from the field and missed 10 of their final 12 shots. Texas Tech shot 47 percent, outrebounded Texas by 12 and outscored it 36-18 in the paint.
“We’ll have to get back and regroup in terms of recovery,” Terry said. “We’ll bounce back. But this time of year, the thing that we got to continue to know as we come back and put this back together again is, we’ve got to compete for 40 minutes. We can’t do it the way we did tonight and not compete for 20 minutes defensively in the first half.”