Texas Tech Preview
January 30, 2015 05:20 PM | General
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(17-3)
(11-10)MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – Which Texas Tech team is West Virginia going to see Saturday afternoon at the WVU Coliseum?
Will it be the Red Raider team that beat ninth-ranked Iowa State by five in Lubbock last Saturday or the one that lost by 45 at Oklahoma earlier this week?
The Texas Tech team that defeated Iowa State made 11-of-24 from 3, held their own on the glass and saw the Cyclones miss 25-of-31 from 3.
The Red Raider team that got whacked by Oklahoma shot 21.2 percent, committed 17 turnovers and set a record for the fewest points scored in a Big 12 game.
Obviously, West Virginia coach Bob Huggins is expecting to see the Texas Tech team similar to the one that knocked off Iowa State last Saturday.
“Knowing Tubby (Smith) the way I know Tubby I’m sure he’ll have them ready to play,” said Huggins. “I think they went 1 for their first 18 or something like that (against Oklahoma) and it’s hard to win.
“The Oklahoma game … that’s probably never happened to him during his career,” added Huggins.
Texas Tech (11-10, 1-7) is in the teeth of its schedule right now facing eight nationally ranked teams in nine games, including Saturday’s game against the 17th-ranked Mountaineers.
Earlier this year in Lubbock, West Virginia had five different players reach double figures in a 78-67 victory over the Red Raiders. Juwan Staten scored 16 and Devin Williams added 14 points and six rebounds.
Devaugntah Williams scored 21 and Toddrick Gotcher added 14 for Texas Tech.
“They just keep coming at you, coming at you, coming at you and if you leave your guard down a little bit and all of a sudden you look around and they are right back in the game or ahead,” said Huggins.
Texas Tech started a lineup that night consisting of Williams, Justin Gray, Zach Smith, Robert Turner and Norense Odiase against West Virginia back on January 5.
In its recent loss to Oklahoma, Tech was without Gray, who is done for the season after undergoing knee surgery on Monday. Randy Onwuasor, a 6-foot-3, 205-pound sophomore guard, has taken over Gray’s place in the lineup.
Both of Texas Tech’s inside guys (Smith and Odiase) are just freshman.
“We’re going to tweak some things but it’s more what we didn’t do right (the first time against Texas Tech),” said Huggins. “I think people probably tweak things more against us than we do against them just because of style of play because you don’t see it every day.”
Williams is the only Red Raider player averaging double figures at 10.6 points per game.
West Virginia (17-3, 5-2), meanwhile, is coming off a tough, 65-59 victory at Kansas State on Tuesday night. Tarik Phillip came off the bench to score 12 points and Staten added 11 as WVU got scoring from 10 different players in a valuable road win for the Mountaineers.
Staten (14.9 ppg.) and Williams (11.0 ppg.) are the only two players averaging double figures for West Virginia, but the Mountaineers have five other players averaging at least six points per game.
West Virginia forced Kansas State into committing 25 turnovers on Tuesday night and the Mountaineers continue to lead the country in steals with 251.
WVU is averaging 22.8 points per game off of turnovers this season.
West Virginia is tied with Iowa State for second place in the Big 12 standings, one game behind conference leader Kansas. Iowa State plays host to TCU on Saturday while Kansas has rival Kansas State in Lawrence.
Saturday’s Texas Tech game will tip off at noon and will be televised nationally on ESPNU (Mitch Holthus and Bryndon Manzer).
“It’s going to be like all of our league games have been – it’s going to be hard,” said Huggins.
The Mountaineer Sports Network from IMG’s coverage (Tony Caridi, Jay Jacobs and Dan Wolfgang) begins at 11:30 a.m. on stations throughout West Virginia and online through leanStream and the mobile app WVU GameDay.
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