"It's not a scheme issue, it's an effort issue" McCasland's thoughts on defense against Northern Colorado
Texas Tech took on Northern Colorado Tuesday night at United Supermarkets Arena, with concerns about the defensive side of the ball raised even further. The Red Raiders were able to produce enough offensively to secure a 101-90 victory, but that will not be able to win you the big games, especially during conference play.
Defense has been a question all season, and it has not improved much since the opening game against Lindenwood. Now with Luke Bamgboye’s health status questionable and Marial Akuentok still out with an injury, Tech’s biggest man out there is JT Toppin at 6’9. Tech’s whole roster hasn’t come together defensively, and head coach Grant McCasland is now turning to another solution.
“Our fight isn’t what it needs to be on that end, we just look like we’re trying to get to the offensive end. And whether that’s fatigue or guys just thinking they’re going to play no matter what, we’re just going to have to go deeper in the bench. Because it’s not a scheme issue. It really isn’t. It’s an effort issue,” McCasland told the media after the game. “We’re not getting what we need, so we’ll just sub quicker and just give other guys a turn, and if it costs us offensively, it’ll cost us. We’ll just see who wants to play and who keeps looking at me like they just want to win more than they want to play.”
Northern Colorado with an impressive performance
Despite Tech’s struggles on defense, Northern Colorado played an impressive game. Their offense succeeded, and players knocked down shots. Brock Wisne, their leading scorer on the night with 29 points, gave Toppin lots of trouble in the paint and was able to score with ease almost every time he got the ball.
“It’s two transition baskets, it’s not talking, it’s late on switches, ball screen coverages were bad, and then finally, we woke up and came out the second half and looked like we were trying to fight back. Finally, you know? And then they, they hit some tough shots, but at that point, you’ve already caused the problem,” McCasland said. “We weren’t aggressive enough. We were just weren’t active enough, and guys were okay with trading punches with the team. And let’s just see who can score the most, and that’ll never win a game. Never win a real one. And so just really disappointed in our defensive effort…in the post, we struggled to guard him (Wisne) down there. And, and I know Brock’s a good player. I mean, we faced him last year. It’s, you know, he scored enough here, and I’ve seen him play, and he’s a mature guy, and he has a lot of confidence right now, and they needed to, because they were shorthand.”
McCasland needing someone to step up
There is obviously no real vocal leader on this team, at least one that is obvious to see during games. You don’t have your Chance McMillian type player yet, and I don’t know if they ever will this season. McCasland has said in the past that they have focused on bringing in guys who already excel offensively and, hopefully, turn them into defensive guys as well. Now 11 games in, he’s not sure where this team stands, especially in terms of effort and fight.
“I’m at a loss in regards to who’s playing on the floor, obviously, losing Luke, you know, 10 or so minutes, 12 minutes into the game that was that was tough for our team. You know, he makes such a big difference for our team defensively…that isn’t even close to a team that can win in the Big 12 defensively, not close,” McCasland said. “We’re going to have to go deeper in our bench and play guys that have a willingness just to fight and scrap on that end, and then we’ll just have to fine tune some things offensively to accommodate some other guys, because scoring is not a problem with this group. It’s going to ultimately come down to can we get stops and how physical can we be without fouling? And we were, we were atrocious for a majority of the night…Jazz (Henderson) was one of the recipients of those minutes because of his competitiveness in practice. And then Nolan (Groves) and Leon (Horner) will be next.”
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