Grant McCasland disappointed in lack of competitiveness
Grant McCasland following a 80-63 win over Milwaukee praised the Panthers for their competitiveness and fight. Whilst on the other side disappointed with his team’s lack of competitiveness overall and on defense. The Red Raiders will head to the Bahamas for a matchup against Wake Forest, following that one up with either Purdue or Memphis next week.
Lack of competitiveness + struggles
In another slow start, the Red Raiders found themselves up, but never being able to end the Panthers dreams of an upset until a few Christian Anderson buckets put it away.
“I was disappointed in our competitiveness. I thought Milwaukee played super hard and they made some difficult shots and they’re a well coached team. And I said this to our team before, they are never gonna back down. I told Coach (Bart) Lundy before the game, I do love his team. I think that team has a chance to win their league.”
“And we purposely are scheduling more difficult so that we’re challenged. And we started this game really flat. And you just can’t let teams have rhythm. And we weren’t competitive in the first half defensively like we needed to be.”
“…we need some more time together, especially that lineup where we get him (Luke Bamgboye) out there. I thought he gave us some good minutes, especially his defensive energy. I was really impressed with Jaylen Petty‘s fight, and I told those guys, man, we just need to be ready to practice. So tomorrow we’re going to cheer on the football team, and let’s get the win, and then we’re all focused on figuring out a way to be at our best to play Wake Forest in the Bahamas.”
“I thought our point of attack defense wasn’t horrible, but I thought our help defense was horrible. And give them credit too, because they were doing that continuity ball screen offense where they’re running through and they were getting to the next action.”
“I told our team, man, it’s two different things. It’s pace of play that they get you on your heels. And any time a team plays that fast, getting the ball moving side to side, then you have a tendency to get hugged up and you get fatigued. And we did both of those. And over the possession, I showed them film at half.”
Coach McCasland also came away from Friday night’s matchup feeling like his team had too many problems with the zone press Milwaukee set up to cause havoc.
“I thought their zone press caused us problems early, which we had five turnovers early, which led to some confidence for them. And honestly, we just – we didn’t give the energy that we need to in order to win real games in the Big 12, for sure. But Milwaukee deserved a lot of credit for what they did for that. And I know our team was disappointed in the locker room.”
“We’ll get better at it. I mean, we got better over the course of the game. We didn’t turn the ball over. We just didn’t make very many shots and we didn’t have much flow to what we did. I mean, we were pretty stagnant, honestly. It was stalled out quite a bit. And we didn’t recognize the next action.”
“They came out and changed defenses a couple times and switched some and changed the way they were guarding ball screens. They had a great plan to keep us on our heels. And we just didn’t adjust quick enough to it. And honestly, it’s just a lack of experience and I got to do a better job coaching our team.”
“We’ve got to do a better job preparing us in these windows to get better where when we face these different changes over the course of the game that we recognize them and can attack them, not that we recognize them and look for the right option. You’ve got to go attack people.”
“You can’t hold the ball and hope JT (Toppin) can dribble down close to the basket and shoot a layup. I mean, that works to some extent, but it wasn’t working tonight, so you’ve got to be able to get to the next action. And we’ll get better at it. We just need to practice.”
Luke Bamgboye
The Red Raiders got back a key piece tonight in Luke Bamgboye who made his debut in a Texas Tech uniform. The Forward was ranked as the #1 defender by Andy Katz. Grant McCasland trusts him, and is ready for Bamgboye’s high-end defensive skills to be on the floor.
“I think we’ve got the opportunity to really separate from teams when he’s out there defensively. And he’s a lob threat, and we didn’t get him the ball there very often because we were in the wrong spot several times. We just really trust him on that defensive end and it’s going to take some time to get some flow on the offensive end. He’s a game changer down there defensively.”
Christian Anderson
Christian Anderson is continuing to rapidly progress as a sophomore, giving the Red Raiders a possible NBA-like talent on the court. Although, there is some more room for growth.
“That’s what we’ve been challenging him with. Like, even though we’re running some actions, how do you still keep people on their heels? And he tried it tonight. I thought he was better than what he’d been. And there’s this balance because he’s such a good scorer.”
“You don’t want him to shoot everything off the bounce. You want to try to get him in a catch scenario. And that’s where the more time we get to play together, we can maybe get him to that second action where he doesn’t have to feel like he’s trying to do it on the first one.”
“And that’s where some continuity and practice will really benefit this group because we’re going to play JT (Toppin) and Luke (Bamgboye) together. So that’s happening. And with the way Luke is a lob threat and JT can drive it from the perimeter and make a three, I mean, it’s just going to open up and it’ll give Christian an opportunity, I think, to be in even a better position to look for offense. I do think the more he thinks shoot, the better we play.”
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