Texas Tech

Texas Tech fell to Iowa State 78-76 on March 7th to finish the regular season at 0-11 on the road.

John Roberson led Tech with 23 points, and despite his 35 point, nine three pointers game against Kansas on the 4th, Alan Voskuil was held to only 3 points.

Tech put up a valiant effort. Roberson sank a trey with 33 seconds left on the clock to leave Tech behind by one, but a foul by Roberson sent Diante Garrett to the charity line. He missed one, and scored the other to take a two point lead. Roberson then took a chance from the arc but missed, giving Mike Singletary the shot right before the buzzer, but the three pointer rimmed out.

“That is kind of the way our season has been going.” Texas Tech coach Pat Knight said, “We got two open looks at the end and they didn’t fall. I thought Iowa State came out with more energy and jumped on us.”

Iowa’s Alex Thompson, Bryan Peterson, and Sean Haluska combined to score the first 12 of the Cyclones points, setting the tone for rest of the game.

“I had a lot of energy coming into the game, with the last time playing in Hilton, and for these fans. Meeting with the coaches, I felt like we were going to come out and play well. I fed off the rest of the seniors,” Thompson said.

Craig Brackens scored 21 points and 14 rebounds for his fourteenth double double, and Peterson scored a career high 20 points, including six three pointers. Diante Garret added 17 with six assists.

Iowa led by 10 points with 16:58 left on the clock in the 1st half, but Tech trimmed the deficit to only four points with 1:30 left, when Iowa went on a 17-6 entering halftime at 42-37.

Iowa lead by 10 points again in the second half with 17:18 left on the clock, and scored six straight points with 10 minutes left.

With two minutes left of play, Tech narrowed the gap to 72-70, but was unable to gain the lead for the rest of the game.

“These are two teams that are much better then their record shows. It is fitting that this game came down to the final shot. We got the look we wanted, it just didn’t go down,” Knight said.

Iowa had excellent defense and ball handling, turning over a season low of five balls, and snapped a four game loss to the Red Raiders.

“We haven’t had a lot go our way this year,” Iowa State’s head coach Greg McDermott said. “Banked three-point shots and loose balls seem to end up in our opponents’ favor. I’m really proud of my team’s effort. I’ve been saying all year long why I still enjoy coaching this team. When you have leadership like we did in this game, where guys put their team first and fight through adversity — that’s really hard to do. These three seniors (Thompson, Peterson, and Haluska) deserve to go out like this.”
Scott Peterson is a writer for LeatherBeltStore check out his Texas Tech Belts or his Texas Tech Wallets or his Big Game Hunter Gifts