After riding their defense and a potential lottery pick in Jarrett Culver to the national title game, Texas Tech saw both of their key elements go cold at the worst possible time.
It goes to figure that a game with the lowest projected over/under total in title game history would be a barn burner. Texas Tech, which got to the final on the strength of a suffocating defense and the heroics of Jarrett Culver, collapsed on both fronts in the biggest game in program history.
Entering the contest, a big key to the game plan for Texas Tech was limiting Virginia’s offense from beyond the arc. After forcing Michigan State out of the paint on Saturday, Texas Tech needed to do the opposite against a Virginia squad that was one of the best teams in the nation from beyond the arc during the regular season.
The Red Raiders couldn’t do that, allowing Virginia to knock down 11-24 shots from the perimeter, a staggering 45.8 percent from three. Those points were huge for Virginia, which ended up shooting the same percentage for the game, by far the best offensive output against Texas Tech in the NCAA Tournament.
Another big issue was an extremely poor performance from Jarrett Culver, who came up small for the second straight game. Culver was smothered by another projected lottery pick in De’Andre Hunter, putting up 15 points but going just 5-22 from the field to do it.
In a game where you need your best players to step up to win it all, Culver’s egg made it very tough for the Red Raiders to pick up the victory. If it wasn’t for 29 combined points from Brandone Francis and Kyler Edwards off the bench, Texas Tech may not have even forced this game to overtime, to begin with.
This was still a tremendous year for Texas Tech, which made the championship game for the first time in school history and has a tremendous coach in Chris Beard. It’s just unfortunate that the very elements that got Texas Tech here ended up letting them down in the end.