Texas Tech Basketball: Takeaways from Red Raiders loss at Providence

Struggle to adjust to zone

As mentioned above, after Texas Tech jumped out to an early 27-13 lead, Providence deployed a full-court pressure and 2-3 zone combination that seemed to change the entire outlook of the game. Texas Tech’s offense went completely stagnant and guys kind of just stood around the perimeter in disarray. The key to beating zone defense is getting penetration and kicking the ball out to cutters or open players along the perimeter.

Instead, Texas Tech refused to attack the paint and settled for low percentage jump shots. The full-court pressure also wore down the Red Raiders and made them waste 7-8 seconds of play clock each possession. You would’ve liked to see Texas Tech be more aggressive off of the full-court pressure and attack the rim after breaking the press in transition. I’m not sure they did that once in this game.

Providence ended up running the 2-3 zone for roughly 30 minutes of the game. While Texas Tech eventually figured out ways to exploit it in the second half, they had already blown their 14 point lead and found themselves in a deficit on the road and in foul trouble.

Ultimately, Texas Tech will need to regularly emphasize ways to break the zone in practices and film study or you can expect good teams to deploy this strategy every game.