Riding a five game wining streak, Kansas State traveled to Lubbock, TX to take on the slumping Texas Tech Red Raiders on Tuesday night. The Wildcats had never won there in Big 12 play and in fact had not won in Lubbock since 1986. However, last night was different as the Wildcats demolished the Red Raiders, 83-64, in front of a fairly sparse and listless crowd.
After rebounding the ball relatively poorly in the past two games, the Wildcats were determined to crash the boards against the Red Raiders. The Wildcats scored 32 points in the paint while Jamar Samuels led all players with 11 rebounds and the Wildcats accumulated 13 second-chance points. With only one lead change that occurred after Texas Tech took an early three-point lead, the Wildcats dominated the game for its entirety.
Led by junior guard Jacob Pullen, Kansas State was able to cruise past the struggling Red Raiders. Pullen was simply too much to handle as he finished with 28 points—21 of which he accumulated in a dominant first half for the Wildcats.
In the first half, the Red Raiders shot very poorly from the field, making just 37 percent from the field and 16 percent from three-point range. Unfortunately for them, halftime did not bring about much change as they continued to shoot the ball poorly in the second half. Nevertheless, the Wildcats were determined to lock down on the Red Raiders’ offense. The end of the game illustrated their shooting woes as they finished by shooting a mere 37 percent from the field and 11 percent from three-point range.
Even with the Red Raiders’ offensive struggles, they managed to pull within eight of the Wildcats, but they could not contain the hot three-point shooting of the Wildcats. Similarly to the past few games for the Wildcats, senior guard Denis Clemente kept the Wildcats well in control of the game with his streaky shooting.
The win gives the Wildcats a lot of confidence going into Saturday’s match-up against Missouri. The Wildcats shot the ball pretty well on the road in the second half against Texas Tech, shooting 52 percent from the floor and 56 percent from three-point range.
John Roberson led the Red Raiders with 15 points while teammates Nick Okorie and David Tairu also chipped in with double-digit scoring.
The Wildcats used balanced scoring and stout defense to contain the Red Raiders. 21 of the Wildcats’ 83 points came off the bench and four players finished in double figures.
This is the fourth-straight loss for the Red Raiders and it pushes them to 16-11 overall (4-9 in conference play). The Wildcats are now 23-4 overall (10-3 in conference play). More impressively, the Wildcats are now 8-1 on the road this season, with the lone loss coming to Missouri in Columbia to start Big 12 play.
With just three Big 12 games left in the regular season, the Wildcats are still in the running to hold a share of the Big 12 regular season title, but they will need undefeated Kansas to lose their final three for it to happen. The Jayhawks play at Oklahoma State, against K-State in Lawrence, and at Missouri. But first, the Wildcats must return home to take on Missouri in the “K-State Proud” game this Saturday.
