Texas Tech’s offensive evolution could lead to Final Four berth

Texas Tech turned a sluggish offense into a three-point nightmare for opponents.

Behind Chris Beard’s offense and a lot of momentum, Texas Tech could make the Final Four.

Since late January, the team has a win-loss record of 11-1, posting an efficiency margin of +.15 its past five games, and as the second-best three seed in the NCAA tournament—albeit one that lost its first game in the Big 12 tournament—one could argue that the Red Raiders are underseeded, and therefore undervalued among the Dukes, Virginias, and Kentuckys (i.e. the teams most often mentioned to win the title in 2019).

Indeed, if the last time you watched the Red Raiders was the conference tournament, when Texas Tech lost to West Virginia in the quarterfinals—forget it. A team is allowed to suffer a poor performance every now and then. And if you last saw Texas Tech play Duke in December, and remember the offensive stagnation when the squad ran its half-court offense, forget that too.

For the past six weeks, Texas Tech has radically transformed. You know about TTU’s defense; it’s been the team’s calling card since Beard became coach in 2016. And it is still just as absurdly stingy, allowing 2019 opponents to score just .86 points per possession, which ranks among just a handful of teams (per BartTorvik.com) to hold opposing squads to that rate while also limiting effective field goal percentages to 45 percent or less. To wit: per Synergy Sports, teams have used 2100-plus possessions against Texas Tech and scored an anemic .74 points per play.

But the offense has morphed into one of the nation’s most efficient since slogging against Duke (.71 PPP in the 69-58 loss). During the final two games of January—both wins against Arkansas and TCU—the team scored 1.14 PPP; that display of scoring efficiency was followed by the team’s 1.22 PPP in February (ranking sixth in Division I), which then “cooled” 1.20 PPP its four games in March. To provide some context, the Red Raiders scored just 1.06 PPP in January, which tracks with its offensive efficiency during non-conference play (about 1.08 PPP). That sort of jump is one that often leads to March success, as highlighted by Jordan Sperber in his recently published HoopVision ebook (which analyzes the 2019 NCAA tournament): since 2002, when KenPom launched, the “hottest” teams entering tournament play were +11 percent versus expected win total.

So what prompted this meteoric rise in efficiency? The squad ramped up its three-point field goal attempts rate: during non-conference play, about 30 percent of the Red Raiders’ attempts originated from beyond the arc, of which it made 36 percent—which is typical of a Beard-coached team. In January, though, that rate spiked to 37 percent, though the squad converted 28 percent of those perimeter shots, helping to explain Texas Tech’s 4-3 record prior to Jan. 22.

From that point, though, Beard became the West Texas Jay Wright (minus the pinstripes): Texas Tech’s rate ballooned to 41.3 percent, and the Red Raiders began to connect en masse, making a robust 41 percent of its threes. Those shots also provided half-court spacing, which explains why the squad’s field goal percentage at the rim—per Hoop-Math.com, 67.3 percent—ranks 16th nationally. Coupled with that already pernicious defense, and Texas Tech has become a juggernaut, a team with capable of slowing the Zion Williamsons in the bracket while also ramping up points against the field’s Virginias.

The Red Raider who benefitted the most from this offensive tweak is Davide Moretti. The 6-foot-2 sophomore guard is arguably the nation’s most underrated player: his offensive rating, true shooting percentage, and three-point percentage all rank within KenPom’s top ten (his offensive rating in Big 12 play—139.2—leads the conference). And most impressively, his usage rate hovers around 15 percent, the lowest of any Red Raider who uses more than 50 percent of the team’s minutes. When he is on the court, according to HoopLens.com, the team scores 1.09 PPP, which is second to only Deshawn Corprew.

These statistical accolades beg the question: why hasn’t Moretti received more attention? Per CBB Reference, just 13 players since 2009-10 have posted similar seasons, and Moretti’s comps, like Jimmy Butler (Marquette, 2010), Cassius Winston (Michigan State, 2018), and Ethan Wragge (Creighton, 2014), are impressive.

Does the conference quarterfinal loss to West Virginia, though, portend an impending offensive slowdown? Not likely. The Mountaineers connected on 38 percent of its threes, well above its season and Big 12 averages, and the Red Raiders had erased a 16 point deficit in six minutes, leading by two points with just 123 seconds remaining.

Teams will have an off game on occasion. But what makes the Red Raiders’ Villanova-esque mimicry so appealing from a bracket perspective is that the West region is arguably the weakest of the four: Gonzaga and Michigan, the 1 and 2 seeds, respectively, were the lowest-ranked of their seed groups, so should Texas Tech’s perimeter comfort continue, Beard and his coaching staff might find themselves in Minneapolis.