Matt Mooney is money, leads Texas Tech to national championship

Matt Mooney stepped up in a massive way for the Texas Tech Red Raiders, propelling his team to a berth in the national championship.

Knowing that the Texas Tech Red Raiders are perhaps the best defensive team in college basketball and have a lottery pick in Jarrett Culver, many fans may have assumed that their Final Four performance would hinge on their star. However, Culver struggled mightily against the Michigan State Spartans on Saturday night — and it didn’t matter, because Matt Mooney stepped up for the moment.

Texas Tech’s defense continued to be suffocating, as you’d expect at this point. However, their offense was taking a beating with Culver struggling offensively. They had just 11 points almost halfway through the first half of play, but that’s when Mooney took control, drilling one big shot after another. That allowed the Red Raiders to capitalize on their defense and take a 23-21 lead into halftime.

Coming out of the locker room, it was Mooney leading the way still for the Red Raiders on both ends of the floor. Chris Beard’s team continued to out-physical and bully the Spartans offense, but Mooney rose to the occasion and controlled every bit of the offense for the Red Raiders, thus allowing them to control the game as they jumped out to a double-digit lead over Michigan State.

Just take a look at how ice-cold Mooney was on the big stage the Final Four put him on:

Mooney wasn’t perfect, though, as he went a bit cold down the stretch. Considering how pivotal he was to the offense for much of the game, that put Texas Tech in a precarious position as the experienced Spartans slowly chipped away at the lead, ultimately cutting it to one point late in the second half.

That, however, is when Culver came to life. Not only did he sink a big free throw to push the lead back to 55-51, but he then got the ball on the next Red Raiders possession and made his shot count, drilling a crucial 3-point shot that essentially iced the game for his team.

While it may have been Culver being the star late in the game, Mooney was the reason they were in the position to win on Saturday night in the Final Four. And really, that’s what makes this Texas Tech team so dangerous at this moment. Yes, they are elite defensively every night out, but they aren’t just a one-man show with Culver.

Guys like Mooney, Davide Moretti and Tariq Owens have continuously stepped up as the complementary pieces of this team when the Red Raiders have needed them to. They are a complete college basketball team, and that showed brightly as Texas Tech punched a ticket to their first ever berth in the national championship.