Texas Tech Basketball: 3 takeaways from first loss of season to Houston

1. Regardless of the outcome, that was a gutsy second-half effort.

Houston had all the momentum early, and seemed like the Cougars could not miss from beyond the arc. The defensive intensity was lacking and heading into the half down 17, there wasn’t much reason for optimism, especially on the offensive end. However, Chris Beard’s pep talks motivated them to completely outplay the Cougars during the first ten minutes of the second half.

The Cougars would go near nine minutes held scoreless and normally, that does enough to a good chance of taking the lead. The Red Raiders could not capitalize on offense as they only scored five points over the last five minutes. Houston was awful from the field late as they did not have a made field goal over the past twelve minutes, but it did not matter.

There is plenty of season left to play over Texas Tech and have a good amount of tune-up games before their first Big 12 game with a home affair with #6 Kansas on December, 14th. Apart from that, Tech should be favored in every other game and should win those games, leading up to that contest. For now, however, it’s back to the drawing board for Chris Beard’s squad.

For Texas Tech, they will head back to Lubbock to face St. John’s, as apart of the Big East-Big 12 Battle. For the Cougars, they will get back to back Power 5 teams, as they get a home contest with SEC’s South Carolina.