Hot-shooting Red Raiders sink Jayhawks, 91-62
LUBBOCK, Texas – A school-record 16 3-pointers and a 60 percent shooting night propelled the No. 14/14 Texas Tech Red Raiders to a 91-62 win over the No. 12/12 Kansas Jayhawks Saturday night inside United Supermarkets Arena. Redshirt-junior Dedric Lawson led KU with 14 points to go along with five rebounds, but that was countered with a game-high 26 points from TTU’s Jarrett Culver and six different Red Raiders hitting multiple 3-pointers to end KU’s eight-game winning streak in Lubbock.
The loss, which marked KU’s largest margin of defeat in a conference game since 2000, dropped the Jayhawks to 20-7 on the year and 9-5 in the Big 12. Texas Tech went to 22-5 in its season and 10-4 in Big 12 play.
Right from the opening tip, it seemed as though nothing could go right for the Jayhawks, while Texas Tech could do no wrong. The Red Raiders came out of the gates on fire, hitting eight of their first 10 tries from the field, which included four of their nine first-half 3-pointers. As they scorched the nets early, KU had issues on its own offensive end, committing four turnovers within the first eight minutes to help Texas Tech jump out to a 21-10 lead.
Over the final 10 minutes of the first half, the Red Raiders still seemingly couldn’t miss. Three-straight TTU triples saw the home team’s lead swell to 20 points, 37-17, still with 6:33 left in the first frame. That trio of threes was part of a 17-5 run by Texas Tech to close the first half and hand the Jayhawks their largest halftime deficit in over 18 years. KU got just one field goal over the final 7:30 before the intermission to head to the locker room in a 45-20 hole.
The Red Raiders closed the half shooting 54.8 percent (17-of-31), while KU managed just nine first-half field goals with no Jayhawk scoring more than four points in the opening 20 minutes.
Following the intermission, Texas Tech’s 3-point shooting cooled briefly, but the Jayhawks still struggled cutting into the deficit. Sophomore Marcus Garrett connected on his first triple of the game just under four minutes into the second half and got KU to within 20 points, 54-34. But TTU heated up once again minutes later and used a 16-6 run to see the lead grow to over 30 points, 77-46, with seven minutes to go in regulation.
Charlie Moore and K.J. Lawson both connected on threes over the waning minutes, but KU was unable to make a dent in its deficit as Texas Tech closed out the 91-62 victory, its largest in the series against KU.
Lawson led the Jayhawks in scoring for the 13th time this season, going 3-of-8 from the field and adding seven free throws to collect 14 points in 26 minutes. Moore and Garrett each added nine points as the two combined to go 4-of-8 from 3-point range. David McCormack and K.J. Lawson rounded out KU’s top scorers as they added eight points apiece.
TTU ended the game going 34-of-56 from the field for a 60.7 percent clip, the first time this season a KU opponent has shot over 50 percent. The Jayhawks were 22-of-48 from the field (45.8 percent) including a 9-of-21 mark (42.9 percent) from beyond the arc.
QUOTES – Full Quotes
Head coach Bill Self
Opening Statement:
“That was a beat down. I’m not going to say the game was over early, but the way they jumped on us … They were so much better than us tonight. We had some guys who had been in the moment not be in the moment and they kind of ate us up. I still think we can learn from this and I still think that there’s a lot of young kids out there playing some minutes that understand, maybe a little bit better (now), how important it is to communicate in practice and not wait for somebody else to do your job, to be aggressive and talk and do some things like that … We are a team that doesn’t adjust well during the game defensively at all and that was very evident tonight.”
On how the team puts tonight behind it and gets ready for K-State in time for Monday’s game:
“We’ll do that. We’ll put this one behind us. It’s not going to do us too much good to watch this film. But we’ll get this behind us. We were talking – not putting it behind us because the game was over – but talking about that as early as halftime. We would have had to come out in the second half, in the first eight minutes, and cut it to 15 (point deficit), or something like that, to probably have a chance to put some game pressure on them and we didn’t do that. So, therefore, the whole deal was that for the last 12 or 14 minutes we were just trying to get our guys to the finish line so we have rested bodies for Monday.”
NOTABLES – Full Notes
- Kansas’ loss gave Texas Tech its first win against Kansas in Lubbock since March 4, 2009, ending a KU eight-game winning streak in Lubbock meetings.
- Kansas’ 20 first-half points are the fewest by the Jayhawks in a half since KU scored 20 against Baylor (2/10/18).
- KU’s 25-point halftime deficit was its largest since Kansas trailed 47-22 at Baylor on Feb. 12, 2001.
- KU’s 29-point loss marked its largest margin of defeat since Kentucky defeated Kansas by 32 points on Nov. 18, 2014 and the largest by a conference opponent since Oklahoma State topped the Jayhawks by 33 on Feb. 7, 2000.
- Kansas gave up a season-high 91 points. KU is now 3-7 in the Bill Self era when its opponent tallies 90 or more points.
- TTU’s 16 3-pointers marked the third-most ever by a Jayhawk opponent and the most this season. It also tied the TTU school record for single-game 3-pointers.
- The Red Raiders were 16-of-26 from 3-point range on the night for a 61.5 percent clip. That’s the best 3-point shooting by a KU opponent with a minimum of five attempts since Iowa State hit 64.7 percent of its tries on Feb. 5, 2001.
- The Red Raiders shot a blistering 60.7 percent from the field, the highest by a Kansas opponent since Long Beach State shot 62.8 percent on Jan. 25, 1993.
- Texas Tech’s 68.0 percent (17-of-25) clip from the field in the second half was the best field goal percentage by a KU opponent in a half since Iowa State also went for 68 percent in the second half of its game against KU in the Big 12 Championship Final on March 14, 2014.
- Tech’s 91 points are the most by a Jayhawk opponent since Iowa State hit 92 (2/4/17) and the most in a non-overtime game since Iowa State tallied 94 in a Jayhawk loss (3/14/14).
- RS-junior forward Dedric Lawson tallied 14 points, including a 7-of-8 mark from the free throw line. Lawson has now scored 10-plus points in 25 games this season and 81 times in his career.
- Dedric Lawson has now hit a 3-pointer in each of his last nine games. In that nine-game span, he has hit 17-of-33 (52 percent) from beyond the arc.
UP NEXT
Round two of the Dillons Sunflower Showdown is set for Monday, Feb. 25 when the Jayhawks host Kansas State inside Allen Fieldhouse at 8 p.m. (CT) on ESPN Big Monday. Kansas, which leads the all-time series 196-94, will look to split the regular-season series after the Wildcats came out on top, 74-67, on Feb. 5 in Manhattan. The game will also mark the 900th contest inside Allen Fieldhouse, now in its 64th season. KU is 786-113 (.874) all-time inside the venue and 248-13 (.950) under Bill Self.
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