Takeaways: Texas Tech, Oklahoma set for Tuesday battle
Just before the new Associated Press poll was released, which now has Texas Tech at No. 8 in the country, head coach Chris Beard, redshirt senior guard Matt Mooney and redshirt senior forward Tariq Owens spoke with the media ahead of the team’s next conference game against No. 23 Oklahoma at 8 p.m. on Tuesday inside the United Supermarkets Arena.
Chris Beard
- In his opening statement, Beard called on the season-ticket holders, fans in the West Texas area and Eastern New Mexico to show up for the game against Oklahoma with students still on holiday break at least until next week when classes start again.
- Later on, Beard said Oklahoma will likely be in the running for the Big 12 Conference Championship. “They’re one of the most experienced, older teams in the country with four or five seniors, including two grad transfers like the guys next to me.”
- Regarding Christian James, Beard shared his thoughts on the Houston native on that Oklahoma team. “First of all, you’ve got to look at the coaching. When a guy goes from two points to five points to 12 points to now one of the best scorers in the country, what you’re talking about is player development and we’ve seen this before at Oklahoma and also everywhere coach (Lon Kruger) has been whether it be Pan American or K-State, UNLV, Illinois, the NBA, sound like his agent, might be missing a couple of schools in there but he’s a coach that young coaches look up to.”
- More on Oklahoma, Beard described them as fast and having BCS Big 12-type speed which was something Kansas head coach Bill Self mentioned after the Jayhawks beat the Sooners 70-63. He also described the team as balanced with four or five players being able to score a lot of points.
- He also pointed out the fact that Oklahoma leads the country in defensive rebounds. For Tech, they rank second, just behind Virginia, in points allowed, averaging 52.3 points allowed per game. “You’ve got to give our players the credit. We’ve got guys that have bought in, veterans that came back that continue to make changes in their game defensively and always trying to get better, new players like Matt and Tariq, we’ve asked them to do a lot defensively.”
- Regarding the offense, Beard said limiting the number of turnovers is one of the main things he wants to see improved. “Still have too many turnovers, the last four or five games, I think our players are really trying hard on that, we just need to work on our decision making and our ball handling.”
Matt Mooney
- Looking back on the game against Kansas State, Mooney said the team did not come out in the second half like they had wanted. “We let them right back into the game and every game will be like that if – every team’s good, so in the second half we’ve really got to be ready to go and put a step on somebody’s throat when we’ve got the opportunity to.”
- Mooney said the team keeps finding ways to win and praised Davide Moretti for his performance against Kansas State. “Guys keep stepping up, Moro really stepped up at the end of that game and against West Virginia, guys stepped up and made big plays, so that shows a lot about our character and our heart.”
Tariq Owens
- Owens gave credit to his defensive performances to his teammates. “It takes all of us to play defense. I can’t do what I do without my teammates.”
- On Oklahoma, Owens described them as experienced and aggressive. “It’s the Big 12, everybody has talent, so they’re a really close team and you can see it on film, they play really hard, really aggressive, so just going to be a battle for 40 minutes.”