Mistakes have been one of the major issues for the Red
Raiders, but especially mistakes at the wrong times in games allowing the
opponent to break open a double-digit lead.
That was the story on Wednesday as No.22/24 Kansas State
came into Lubbock and blew out Texas Tech 69-47, marking their third straight
Big 12 Conference victory.
“We just got
physically whipped,” Tech head coach Billy Gillispie said following the loss. “I
thought they played with a lot of toughness and a lot of grit for the most part
but just too many errors that you can’t have against a good team and errors
that we just keep repeating and not finishing plays, that’s the story of the
game. I thought we fought hard, I thought we fought physically hard for the
most part of it and I’m proud of their efforts.”
The beginning of
the game, like the majority of the conference games this season, started off
well for the Red Raiders (7-12, 0-7 in Big 12 play) as they had a 7-6 lead six
minutes and one second into the game.
But then the mistakes
started kicking in and the Wildcats (15-4, 4-3) took advantage.
The Red Raiders
committed seven of the team’s season-high 25 turnovers in a 7:16 stretch which
opened the door for Kansas State as its went on a 12-2 run opening up a 20-9
lead.
Tech tried getting
back into the game with several runs, getting the closest with 2:13 left in the
first half cutting the lead down to six, 23-17.
The Wildcats
finished the half on a 6-3 run to take an 11-point lead into the locker room.
Coming out of the
locker room, the Wildcats carried the momentum from the first half and poured
it on with their biggest lead being 23 with 4:58 in the game.
Martavious Irving was the big key to success for the
Wildcats as he went for 16 points marking his first double-digit performance in
conference play.
Leading scorer
Rodney McGruder also contributed to the cause going
for 13 points and six rebounds.
Kansas State’s
physical defense held the Red Raiders to 47 points overall, marking the second
time in conference play and this season Tech has been held to under 50 points,
and cruised to its third straight conference win and 15th win of the
season.
Despite getting the
big win by 22 points, Kansas State head coach Frank Martin said it is tough to get these road wins especially in the Big 12.
“People take
winning for granted sometimes,” he said. “They think that winning is like
shooting an uncontested layup in your driveway. Winning is hard. Winning at
home is hard; winning on the road challenges you every single time.”
For Tech, Jordan Tolbert finally broke through the double-digit barrier scoring 18, eclipsing
the 10-point mark for the first time since the Oklahoma State game on January 4
when he went for 13 points.
The only other Red
Raider to reach double digits was freshman Kevin Wagner, who set a new
career-high scoring 16 points against the Wildcats and logging the most minutes
in a game since the December 22 meeting with Oral Roberts.
Outside of Tolbert
and Wagner, two players scored as Jaye Crockett went
for nine points and Luke Adams went for four. The rest of the team scored no
points.
With a ranked team
like Kansas State coming in and the streak they were riding Tolbert said the
team knew what they were getting into.
“Coach told us
after the game that they were a disciplined team,” he said. “The last couple of days we had some good
practices, but we haven’t been doing that the whole year and they have been
doing that the whole year. So we knew what to expect.”