In what is and will likely remain the biggest upset of the weekend, Texas Tech notched its first Big 12 win of the season by stunning No. 9 Iowa State 78-73 in Lubbock.
Iowa State vs. Texas Tech final score: 3 things we learned from the Red Raiders’ stunning 78-73 upset
The upset of the weekend took place in Lubbock, where Texas Tech got its first Big 12 win of the year over the conference’s highest-ranked team.
Michael C. Johnson-USA TODAY Sports
The Red Raiders were in a free-fall entering Saturday, having lost each of their last two games by 20 points and their first six conference games by an average of 16.5 points. Iowa State, meanwhile, was looking to remain tied atop the league standings with an 11th-ranked Kansas team they had beaten at home a week ago.
Instead, Texas Tech came out firing and built an early lead that blossomed as large as 31-12. Despite a furious Iowa State rally in the game's final five minutes, the early advantage proved too difficult to overcome. Devaugntah Williams was the guy doing most of the damage, finishing with a game-high 22 points. Toddrick Gotcher came off the bench to add 17 points for the victors.
The upset was eerily reminiscent of a game two seasons ago in which fifth-ranked Kansas was stunned in Fort Worth by a TCU team that had been 0-8 in league play. That Jayhawks team still wound up capturing the Big 12 regular season and tournament championships, and earned a No. 1 seed in the Big Dance. Suffice it to say, this isn’t the end of the world for Iowa State.
Here are three more things we learned from the stunner on Saturday:
1. Texas Tech is capable of scoring 70 points
It’s a feat the Red Raiders had not achieved since they beat Arkansas-Pine Bluff 72-51 all the way back on Dec. 19. In fact, Texas Tech hadn’t scored more than 54 points in their last four games.
In each of their previous two defeats -- a 63-43 loss at Oklahoma State and a 62-42 home defeat at the hands of TCU -- Texas Tech was held below 30 percent shooting from the field. It was the first time the Red Raiders had done that in back-to-back games since 1990.
All those bad vibes went out the window on Saturday, as the Red Raiders shot 45.8 percent from beyond the arc and 41.5 percent overall. They also connected on 23 of their 28 free throw attempts, good for 82.1 percent.
2. Iowa State probably shouldn’t be living and dying beyond the arc
Heading into Saturday, Iowa State was using 38.2 percent of its field goal attempts on 3-pointers. In the loss to the Red Raiders, exactly half of their 64 shots came from beyond the arc. They hit on just six of those attempts.
While it’s easy to say this was mostly the byproduct of a team scrambling to overcome a hefty deficit, Iowa State’s willingness to settle for the outside shot played a large part in the digging of that hole. Before the game’s second television timeout, the Cyclones had already attempted nine 3-pointers, connecting on just one of them. The result? A 23-8 deficit that proved to be too steep to overcome.
3. The Big 12 is still Kansas’ to lose
Every team in the Big 12 that exists outside of Lawrence is sick to death of hearing about the Jayhawks’ streak of 10 consecutive regular season conference championships. This was supposed to be the season all that ended, and after Iowa State’s win over KU in Ames a week ago, the Cyclones seemed like the team most likely to steal the throne.
After this stunner in Lubbock and Kansas’ impressive triumph over No. 17 Texas in Austin, here we are again:
Despite its ridiculous overall strength, the Big 12 once again looks like it’s going to be Kansas’ to lose.
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