Grant McCasland previews Wake Forest matchup in the Bahamas
Texas Tech is heading into the Baha Mar Championship tournament in the Bahamas this week, where they will play Wake Forest and either Memphis or Purdue. With a Red Raider team still not fully healthy, defensive struggles have persisted throughout the first four games of the season. Wake Forest is coming off a one-point loss in overtime to No. 6 Michigan, so the Red Raiders’ first matchup in Nassau won’t be an easy one.
After seeing Luke Bamgboye in action for the first time this season against Milwaukee, head coach Grant McCasland likes where the rim protection defense is heading and thinks being able to practice healthy over the past two days has been extremely helpful for growing as a team.
“Throughout the season, we’ve had practices where we’ve had 12 of the 14, but we’ve never had 13 of at least 14. We got down to nine for about three weeks. And so this is the first time we’ve had two back to back days and Sunday and today (Monday) where we we legit got after it. We didn’t try to manage the the amount of time that people got. We just put everybody in it, and we played against us, and we made a big jump,” McCasland told the media on Monday. “It exposed those things that when you get tired, that you get to see, because that’s kind of the problem. When you get fatigued, what kind of fight through do you have? And so we finally got to the bottom of that, back to back days. And man, it just, it tells the story of where you need to improve without you having to get to the games to figure it out. So, man, just two energetic competitive days…that’s what we need, is competition. And the only way you can get real competition is competing against yourselves. And we got better.”
Handling both Toppin and Bamgboye in the paint
Now with Bamgboye back, McCasland wants to use both him and JT Toppin on the floor at the same time, which would ultimately move Toppin over to the four and small forward spots. Bamgboye is still working back into shape after injury, but he is continuing to condition and push forward despite fatigue.
“Luke needs conditioning. That’s kind of the X factor to Luke. And Luke’s defensive awareness, his activity is a game changer with how he plays, because he’s switchable,” McCasland said. “He actually had the same kind of situation this summer when we started with him. He looked like he was fatigued early, but then he has a really good push once he gets over that first bump… he looked better as the game went on. So it’s been, it’s been awesome to see him improve. That gives our team confidence and gives him confidence that he can do it when he gets into games.”
“The biggest area of concentration was one, how do we get a continuity with the lineups that we feel like will get the most as a as a defensive awareness like, you know, the competitiveness of adding Luke is a great add, but then you’re moving JT more to a, you know, a small forward position, so then he’s more on the perimeter, and then now you got to improve him on something that he wasn’t spending a time doing… so to me, it’s more about the continuity of understanding rotations and how Luke changes us defensively, and then how we get better at the point of attack.,” McCasland said. “I think you’ve got to have a little bit different attack when you have those two guys out on the floor, just because JT’s so good at putting pressure on the basket, you don’t just want him standing at 28 feet the entire possession playing around one guy… I mean, it looked horrible the other night. That’s where it stalled out… so what we worked on is just, how do you get to the next action, and what’s it going to look like when those two guys are together? And we were able to get two good days of playing those two guys in actions together, where they have more continuity and flow, and you can be an attack and not be so awkward and fumbly.”
What McCasland sees from Wake Forest
Wake Forest has the same record as Tech, and as mentioned above, their only loss came against Michigan in overtime. The threats they pose to the Red Raiders are something McCasland had high praise for, and knows they will need to be highly physical and tough to secure a win on Thursday night.
“I think it’s their defense that leads to offense, that always is the early indicator and how quickly they put pressure on the rim. They got great athletes playing on the floor, man. So one thing that jumps out at you is just how active they are defensively, and then how quickly they transition on misses and makes to putting pressure on you,” McCasland said. “Their attack early is really where you got to settle in and make sure you get stops, they move the ball well, and then you got to keep them off the glass. I mean, it’s a team to me that you know, has 20 more offensive rebounds than their opponents, and that’s an indicator of a team that’s athletic and aggressive… they’re a great defensive team. They put pressure on the room in transition. They got a lot of active ball handlers that can score. I love their team, man. I love their physicality. I love the way they compete… we definitely know that we’re going to have to handle their pressure and handle their force that they put on the rim in transition and and then guarding is always going to be a big jump for us. How well can we defend without fouling?”
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