Wichita State coach Gregg Marshall was too drained to thoroughly
enjoy beating Texas Tech on Saturday night.
And there was that one number on the stat sheet that made him
take pause.
"They scored 62 points in the second half," Marshall said,
rubbing his forehead after an 85-83 win. "That has to be a record
against one of my teams."
Indeed, the Red Raiders rallied as hard as they could to
overcome a 35-21 halftime deficit and even led briefly in the
second half, helped by John Roberson's 24 points and four other
double-figure scorers. But it wasn't enough to keep Texas Tech from
falling to 9-1.
Wichita State (10-1) was 28 of 35 (80 percent) from the foul
line, including hitting all 11 it took in the final 65 seconds, to
hang on to the victory. Clevin Hannah scored 24 points, and J.T.
Durley added a career-high 20 to go with 10 rebounds.
Durley scored 14 of his points in the first half to help the
Shockers build their lead.
"I don't know if we were tight, rusty or what, but we just
couldn't hit a bucket in the first half," Texas Tech coach Pat
Knight said. "We were just more aggressive in the second half."
That was evident. Five points from Roberson helped the Red
Raiders score 10 of the second half's first 14 points. Even after
the Shockers pushed the lead back to 11, Roberson's 3-pointer and
Nick Okorie's slam cut the Wichita State lead to 44-39 with just
less than 13 minutes left.
Okorie scored 16 points, Singletary finished with 13 and
David Tairu had 11.
With 8:24 to play, Tech's D'Walyn Roberts broke loose for a
layup and converted it into a three-point play that made it 53-53
Wichita State.
The Red Raiders took their first lead in more than 20 minutes
on Tairu's jumper and pushed their advantage to four, 61-57, on a
Roberson 3-pointer and Singletary free throw.
"They were hard to stop," Marshall said. "They were really
pushing it in transition. They've got some great athletes, and they
exploited that."
Hannah sparked the biggest moments of the game for the
Shockers. Durley's missed free throw was rebounded by Wichita
State, and Garrett Stutz made the first of two free throws. When
Stutz missed his second, another offensive rebound led to Hannah's
tying 3-pointer.
One possession later, Hannah buried a baseline 3-pointer.
When Stutz followed with two more free throws 22 seconds later, it
was 66-61 Wichita State.
Marshall said the rebounded foul shots were huge.
"Those are effort plays," Marshall said," and effort plays
can make the difference in a game like this. And they came at a
time when things weren't going our way."
The Red Raiders did cut the lead to three twice in the final
30 seconds, but Hatch and Hannah answered with free throws. A
turnaround 3-pointer by Tairu cut Wichita State's lead to 85-83
with 1 second on the clock, but the Shockers threw the inbound pass
to Durley on the far end of the court to seal the victory.
The first half was nothing like the second half. A
grudge-match pace was established early, and neither team made a
field goal in the first 4 minutes.
Wichita State could not find much offense outside of Durley
for most of the first half, and he scored nine of the Shockers'
first 11 points.
The real trouble for both teams in the first half was
turnovers -- each had 11. Singletary had six of those, including
two during a 12-1 run that pushed Wichita State's lead to 21-14
with 5:16 left in the half.
Texas Tech closed within 21-18 on Tairu's stickback, but the
Shockers closed the half with a 14-3 run that included 3-pointers
from Durley and Hannah. On its final possession of the half, Graham
Hatch airballed a 3-pointer that went to Durley for an easy layup.
