Texas Tech vs Virginia: 2018-19 NCAA Championship game preview, TV schedule
By Joey Loose
Texas Tech and Virginia will meet in a historical national championship game on Monday; will it be the Red Raiders or Cavaliers cutting down the nets for the first time in program history?
TV schedule: Monday, April 8, 9:20 pm ET. CBS
Arena: U.S. Bank Stadium in Minneapolis, Minnesota
After five months of college basketball, we’re down to the final two teams. Texas Tech and Virginia scored wins in the Final Four and have earned the right to fight for the national title. These are two fantastic defensive programs with talented rosters and excellent coaches. These are also two programs that have never won a national title. Monday’s winner will be the first title game since Florida in 2006 where a team wins their first title.
Texas Tech (31-6) was an unimpressive program very recently. In this three years, Chris Beard has completely jump started this program, and he’s taken the Red Raiders much further than most people ever imagined. This Red Raiders defense has given up less than 60 points to four of their Tournament opponents, and gave up just 69 to Gonzaga, the nation’s best offense. They muscled through Northern Kentucky, Buffalo, Michigan, Gonzaga, and Michigan State and will play in their first national championship game.
The primary scorer to watch for the Red Raiders is sophomore guard Jarrett Culver (18.9 ppg, 6.4 rpg). Culver. led the way offensively in each of the team’s first four games, including 29 against NKU in the first round. The hottest player appears to be senior guard Matt Mooney (11.0 ppg, 3.2 rpg), who just dropped 22 points on Michigan State. Sophomore guard Davide Moretti (11.6 ppg) is a dangerous shooter who will definitely be a factor on offense, while senior forward Tariq Owens (8.9 ppg, 5.8 rpg) is an efficient scorer and the team’s best shot blocker down low.
Related Story. Texas Tech's path to the Final Four. light
They may be just a 3-seed, but this Texas Tech team has the nation’s best defense and is up to 5th in KenPom. What’s even scarier is that the Red Raiders offense has been playing excellent ball for the last two months. This isn’t an elite rebounding team, but they excel at forcing turnovers and limiting possessions, ranking in the top ten in defensive efficient field goal percentage on both short and long-range shots. If Moretti and the other guards catch fire from outside, this Red Raiders team can be deadly when combined with their firm defense.
On the other side of the court, Virginia (34-3) reached this historic title game by the skin of their teeth. It took a miraculous pass and shot in the Elite Eight and a trio of late free throws by junior guard Kyle Guy to propel the Cavaliers into the title game. They are well beyond last year’s disaster against 16-seed UMBC, and Tony Bennett has his team focused on making a different kind of history this year. They navigated through Gardner-Webb, Oklahoma, Oregon, Purdue, and Auburn and pose a threatening defense of their own.
There’s no shortage of talent on the Cavaliers’ roster, and Kyle Guy (15.2 ppg, 4.6 apg) has proven to be the most recent hero. He had 25 points in the Elite Eight and hit a key 3-pointer moments before those game-winning free throws against Auburn. Fellow junior guard Ty Jerome (13.3 ppg, 5.4 apg) led the team with 21 points against the Tigers and can be lethal from long-range. Sophomore guard De’Andre Hunter (14.9 ppg, 5.0 rpg) has been in double figures in each Tournament game and can also heat up from outside. Junior forward Mamadi Diakite (7.5 ppg, 4.3 rpg) has topped 14 points three times in the Tournament and is just one of the big men to watch for Virginia.
Their known for their defense, but this Virginia team currently ranks 3rd in offensive efficiency and just 7th in defensive efficiency. They’re the top-rated team in KenPom and play at the slowest tempo in the nation. They don’t turn the ball over very much and are deadly from the 3-pointer, both on offense and defense. They do rank very poorly at free throw shooting even as Guy’s free throws sent them to the championship game. Any one of Guy, Jerome, and Hunter could catch fire from outside and any lead feels much larger when playing against Virginia’s suffocating defense and slow pace.
This is going to be a defensive match-up for the ages on Monday night, perhaps giving us one of our lowest scoring title games in recent memory. These teams can both be deadly from outside, but will have to fight hard for those open looks. The Red Raiders don’t play at as slow as a pace as the Cavaliers, but if their offensive woes ever resurface, this would be the worst time for it to happen. On the other hand, if this is a close game late, the Cavaliers are going to need to do a better job at converting their free throws.
When the season began, there weren’t a lot of people predicting a Virginia-Texas Tech title game, but fans of great defense should be overjoyed. This might be an ugly game with long runs of no scoring and it’s going to be intense watching these teams trade blows on both ends of the court. These defenses have both shut down elite offenses these last few weeks and both teams will come ready to play on Monday night.
Virginia's path to the Final Four. dark. Next
This game could go either way and will likely come down to the last few possessions of the game. Which team is going to hit the late 3 to seal away the game, or the contested jumper to tie it in the final minute? These teams both possess incredible defensive skill and offensive play makers. I could see this game going both ways, but I think the Cavaliers will win their first national title. They just have a little more talent spread out on offense in a game where shutdown defense will be the key.