Texas Tech Basketball: 2019-20 season recap for Red Raiders

Key moments of the season

Coming off of a magical season, and despite losing three key players, the Red Raiders had high hopes and the pundits agreed by placing them 13th in the pre-season Associated Press rankings. However, success was not to be sustained. The loss of Culver, Mooney and Owens along with their leadership definitely affected the Red Raiders’ ability to bounce back from devastating losses. Instead of a bounce-back win, the Red Raiders would find themselves in downward spirals and, before they blinked, they were on another losing streak.

The wins that would have built their resume and provided some much-needed confidence never came to fruition. Overtime losses to Big-12 opponents were deflating. Losing streaks were deflating. Those losing streaks would be book-ended by winning streaks but the winning streaks were against sub-par opponents. They were not the type of wins that allows a team to leapfrog several teams in the rankings. These were the “you’re supposed to win” type of games and, fortunately for the Red Raiders, they won those games.

The low points of the Red Raiders season were the three overtime losses from late November to late January. The three losses came against Creighton, DePaul and Kentucky. The Red Raiders lost by seven, five and two points respectively. If the Raiders had won two out of three of those games their season trajectory would be quite different.

The high point of the Texas Tech Red Raiders season could have been, ironically enough, their last two losses of the season against Baylor and Kansas. Texas Tech took Baylor to overtime, at Baylor, and only lost by three points. They lost by four to Kansas. What was the message in the locker room? The young, inexperienced Red Raiders could hang with the most talented teams in the country. They proved it, they were ready but the world had other plans.