The numbers say Texas Tech is good enough to win the Big 12
On Tuesday night, Texas Tech accomplished something few do by beating Kansas at Allen Fieldhouse. The defeat was just the Jayhawks’ sixth home conference loss under head coach Bill Self and the Red Raiders’ first win in Lawrence in 18 tries.
The 85-73 Texas Tech victory inspired plenty of re-hashed conversation about Kansas. The Jayhawks lack toughness, are poor rebounders and could use either Billy Preston or Silvio de Sousa to get eligible. Those conversations do a disservice to Tech who entered the game ranked just one spot behind Kansas in adjusted efficiency margin at KenPom.
The Red Raiders are officially one of the more surprising teams — on the positive end of the spectrum — in college basketball. They are now 13-1 and pegged as the favorites to unseat the Jayhawks from their 13 year Big 12 title run, according to KenPom’s projections.
What is it that makes Texas Tech tick, though? And how likely are they to continue this run? I dove into the numbers to try to make sense of how this all happened.
It feels odd to start a conversation about a team that ranks eighth nationally in percentage of minutes played by its bench with an individual player, but senior Keenan Evans is deserving of the spotlight. The 6-foot-3 point guard is averaging 25.2 points, 5.0 assists and 4.3 rebounds per 40 minutes on a 61.0 true shooting percentage. Evans is quickly making a case to not only feature on the All-Big 12 team, but to earn some All-American votes as well.
This season, he’s been one of the nation’s premier pick-and-roll scorers. He ranks in the 98th percentile, according to Synergy, at 1.255 points per possession. His pull up jumper has played a significant role. Evans is averaging 1.400 points per possession (99th percentile) on jump shots off the dribble this season. That’s closing in on double his junior efficiency (0.823) in some part, at least, because he seems to have added additional comfort shooting from range. Evans has nine unassisted 3-point makes in 14 games as a senior, per Hoop-Math. He made 14 of them all last season in 32 contests.
Evans has also been more effective inside the arc where his 2-point percentage is up to 58.3 from 48.0 during his junior season. That the Red Raiders have been more willing to get out in transition this season is certainly a factor. 19.0 percent of their initial field goal attempts have come within the first 10 seconds of the shot clock in 2017-18 compared to 14.3 percent last season, per Hoop-Math.
Many of those additional transition opportunities are the result of turning defense into offense. One of every 10 shots Texas Tech takes is the result of a steal and happens within 10 seconds of the shot clock. The Red Raiders have a ridiculous 82.2 effective field goal percentage on those attempts, per Hoop-Math, meaning they’re creating wildly efficient scoring changes on a regular basis as a result of one of the nation’s best defenses.
Tech ranks fourth nationally in adjusted defensive efficiency at 88.1 points per 100 possessions, a 9.4 point improvement from last season, per KenPom. The Red Raiders are not only creating turnovers on 25.0 percent of opponents’ possessions (fifth nationally), they are also stifling opponent shot opportunities.
Opponents have posted an effective field goal percentage of just 43.0 so far this season against them while shooting 42.3 percent on 2s and 29.3 percent on 3s. If teams are looking for a potential weakness, it lies somewhere in that final number because while opponents have shot poorly against Texas Tech from deep, it doesn’t mean they’ll continue to do so.
The Red Raiders benefitted from a poor shooting night from Kansas in Lawrence in which the Jayhawks made just 6-of-26 (23.1 percent) 3-point attempts. The Jayhawks have made 40.9 percent of their total attempts this season. Certainly an argument can be made that the length and athleticism of Tech on the perimeter, particularly from freshman Jarrett Culver and Zhaire Smith, can be bothersome, but the reality is that defense doesn’t have much of an effect on opponent 3-point shooting. Last season, for example, Tech’s opponents made 35.5 percent of their 3s. There isn’t much of a trend.
If a team wants to play better “3-point defense,” then it’s more effective to try to limit opponents’ attempts, but that’s not what the Red Raiders are doing. In fact, their opponents are bombing plenty of 3s. 41.9 percent of the total field goal attempts opponents taken against Tech this season have been 3s. That ranks 298th in Division I, per KenPom. So, don’t be surprised if a couple of hot shooting nights clip the Red Raiders going forward.
That said, the rest of Texas Tech’s defense seems sustainable. They control the interior with excellent weak side rim protection and that length and athleticism does translate into turnovers. It’s still possible to have a very good defense while giving up 3s. There’s just more game-to-game variance involved and there’s no guarantee the pendulum will actually swing the other direction.
So, what does that make the Red Raiders? The answer is a simple “really good.” For years, it’s seemed like Texas Tech had the talent to make a leap into the top half of the Big 12. Now, the Red Raiders are finally there and they have a chance to win the whole thing.