As the old saying goes, if at first you don’t succeed, try, try again. After missing his first four shots from the field, Kevin McCullar found his stroke, leading the Red Raider offense and scoring a career-high 24 points, on 50 percent shooting, with 9 rebounds and 3 assists in Friday night’s 88-62 win over the Grambling Tigers. McCullar was asked about his thoughts on tonight’s performance.

“Shots weren’t falling early for us,” McCullar said. “We just had to keep playing and like coach Adams always says, ‘some shots are going to fall, and some shots aren’t going to fall, you just have to make up for it on the defensive end. Coach told us to just stay on the offensive glass and try to win the rebound count there. Also, to try and play through the paint since we were a bigger team than them.”

“It’s still early, it’s November, the second game of the season and we’re still putting everything together and working,” McCullar noted. “Our main thing is trying to work on defense and get stops on that end. Finally, we started stringing some stops together and that got our offense going.”

Texas Tech out rebounded Grambling 41-23 and have a plus-40 rebound advantage through two games this season. McCullar talked about the team’s approach to rebounding the basketball.

“It’s a collective effort,” he said. “We’ve got guys that can definitely go get the ball off the rim. That’s how we’re trying to play this year, just play more physical and try to be the tougher team on the glass.”

Davion Warren and Bryson Williams both made key contributions to the Red Raiders victory. Warren put up 19 points, on 5 of 7 shooting, with 6 boards and added 2 steals on the defensive end while drawing multiple charging fouls on the Tiger offense. Mark Adams talked about the performance from Warren after the game.

“I’m about ready to adopt him, a guy that takes that many charges,” Adams said. “You know we’re like the Marines, we’re looking for a few good men on defense, and we found one (Warren), but we need to find four or five guys that we can stick out there and trust and we’re still looking for those. He was definitely the defensive player of the game.”

Williams meanwhile has been the definition of efficient of the offensive end of the court, scoring 16 points on 6 of 9 shooting, while adding 9 rebounds and picking up a block on the defensive end. Williams is shooting 75 percent (15-20) from the floor through two games this season, and coach Adams talked about the super senior transfer after the game.

“A lot of time guys will have a great game and they’ll have a little bit of slippage and feel comfortable,” Adams said. “But Bryson has put two great games together and has just been solid and been a guy that we can go to. I wish I could’ve gotten him more shots, but they went to that zone. We’re going to have to figure out a way to run more sets and plays to get him the ball inside.”

Texas Tech struggled shooting the ball in the first half, making only 33.3 percent (10-30) of their shots. However, the Tigers would commit 15 fouls over the first 20 minutes, giving the Red Raiders 23 free throws, and converted on 20 of their attempts (87 percent). Warren was 7 of 7 from the charity stripe in the first half and was asked about the team shooting 29 free throws on the night.

“Free throws are very important,” Warren said. “That’s pretty much the easiest shot you’re going to get all game. If we wouldn’t have knocked our free throws down no telling how the game would have been at the end. Free throws are important from the beginning to the end of the game.”

Coach Adams said after the game that he thought his team made some steps forward, and that they played a little better than their last game. Adams noted that the goal is to improve every game out and said he thought the defense was better tonight and able to force some turnovers. Coach was complimentary of the rebounding but said he thought the offense sputtered a little too much in the first half, having shot so many threes with such little success.

“All in all, it’s a good win for us,” Adams said. “Experience is the best teacher we have, and we’ll learn from this game and get a little better the next one.”