Texas Tech University Athletics
Sunday, March 25
Boston, Mass.
1:20 PM
Texas Tech Athletics
vs
No. 2 Villanova
Red Raider Preview: No. 2 Villanova
March 25, 2018 | Men's Basketball
BOSTON, Mass. – The No. 14 Texas Tech men's basketball team will face its third consecutive ranked opponent when the Red Raiders face top-seed and No. 2 Villanova in Sunday's NCAA East Regional Final.
Tipoff is locked in for 1:20 p.m. CT from historic TD Garden home of the NBA's Boston Celtics. The game will be televised by CBS along with the NCAA March Madness app. Ian Eagle, Jim Spanarkel and Allie LaForce will serve as the announcing team.
CBS can be found on DirecTV channel 13 and Dish channel 7939 coupled with channel 1013on AT&T U-Verse and channel 13 on Suddenlink in the Lubbock area.
The Texas Tech Sports Network will carry the game live on its flagship station Double T 97.3 FM and will be joined in progress after Tech's basketball on 100.7 FM The Score and 950 AM in Lubbock. Geoff Haxton and Chris Level will have the call. The radio broadcast also will be available on the Texas Tech Sports Network radio affiliates. Fans can interact with Friday's broadcast by following @GunsUpRadio on Twitter.
Westwood One's NCAA radio broadcast featuring Gary Cohen and P.J. Carlesimo will air on Sirius channel 138 and XM channel 202. That broadcast also can be heard on the TuneIn Radio app.
The Red Raiders (27-9) went from sweet to elite with a 78-65 victory over No. 11 Purdue during Friday's NCAA Sweet 16 round. Texas Tech bookended both halves with a pair of impressive runs. The Red Raiders ripped off a 10-0 run to close the opening half and scored 20 of the game's last 30 points to wrap the 13-point victory.
Villanova (33-4) flexed its defensive muscle and captured its ninth straight win with a 90-78 triumph over fifth-seeded and No. 18 West Virginia on Friday. The Wildcats have held the opposition to a 37.8 field goal percentage over their last four games highlighted by a 27.5 mark from three-point territory.
Sunday's game will mark the first time that the two programs on the hardwood. The Red Raiders have dropped 13 of their 15 decisions against the current 10 members of the BIG EAST Conference which includes an 89-79 setback to Seton Hall earlier this season on Nov. 30 at Madison Square Garden as part of the Under Armour Reunion.
"I told the guys, when you continue to advance in the Tournament, you're just going to continue to play the best teams in the country," Texas Tech head coach Chris Beard said. "That's certainly our opinion of Villanova. Just being a basketball guy, they're a team I'm familiar with because I try to watch them whenever they're on TV at night. Just love the way they play. A lot of things we do defensively, we've taken from Villanova, in terms of switching and playing versatile players. We have nothing but respect for their program, their talent level, and their coach. In our eyes, we're going to have to play our best 40 minutes of the season to advance, and that's our objective."
ABOUT TEXAS TECH
The Red Raiders have come away with 27 victories, the program's second-best season win total only behind the 30-2 record piled up by the 1995-96 squad under James Dickey. Texas Tech is the Big 12 frontrunner in scoring defense (64.6) and field goal percentage (40.3).
Keenan Evans, the three-time All-America selection, has pumped in 17.7 points and 3.2 assists per game. The Richardson native has had a memorable March with averaging 20.3 points per game and tallied 95 of his 122 points during the second half. Evans is one of four players in program history to have multiple 20-plus point performances in the same NCAA Tournament. He joins Harold Hudgens (1961), Jason Sasser (1996) and Ronald Ross (2005).
Zhaire Smith and Jarrett Culver have chipped in 11.4 points and 11.2 points per game, respectively. The duo is third among Big 12 freshmen scoring tandems only behind Oklahoma's Trae Young and Brady Manek followed by Iowa State's Lindell Wigginton and Cameron Lard.
Smith and Culver are ranked second and third in points among Texas Tech freshmen. Both are within single digits of Martin Zeno's mark set during the 2004-05 season. Smith has posted 13.7 points, 7.3 rebounds and 3.3 assists per game in his first three NCAA Tournament games whereas Culver has recorded 12.6 points, 7.6 rebounds and 1.9 assists per game in his last nine outings.
Texas Tech's bench is fueled by Niem Stevenson (7.5 PPG), Zach Smith (6.4 PPG), Tommy Hamilton IV (5.5 PPG), Brandone Francis (5.1 PPG) and Davide Moretti (3.4 PPG).
Stevenson, Smith and Moretti amassed 30 of the 33 bench points for the Red Raiders during the Purdue game. Smith hammered home 14 points and five rebounds. The 14 points was his second-highest scoring output of the season, while Moretti tallied seven points which was his best scoring effort since the TCU game on Feb. 3.
Justin Gray and Norense Odiase have provided 5.1 and 3.8 points per game, respectively. Gray was money in the NCAA Sweet 16 round with 12 points and seven rebounds versus Purdue. The Tampa native drained a season's best six buckets.
ABOUT VILLANOVA
The Wildcats have a high-octane offense that averages 87.0 points per game and have knocked down 50.3 percent of their field goal attempts coupled with 40.5 percent from beyond the three-point arc.
Villanova's balanced offense is sparked by Jalen Brunson (19.3 PPG), Mikal Bridges (18.0 PPG), Donte DiVincenzo (12.9 PPG), Omari Spellman (10.8 PPG), Phil Booth (10.5 PPG) and Eric Paschall (10.3 PPG). All six players are versatile and have connected on at least 30 three-pointers. They also have knocked down at least 68 percent of their free throws.
Brunson has already tucked away several National Player of the Year accolades from the Sporting News and USA Today. He has dialed up double figures in all 37 games for the Wildcats sparked by 14 games of 20 or more points. Brunson has fired in a career-best 31 points on four occasions, the latest was against Providence in the championship game of the BIG EAST Tournament.
Bridges has secured double figures in 34 of 37 outings. He has poured in seven of his 15 performances of 20-plus points dating back to the Xavier game on Feb. 17. Bridges has taken it to another level with four 20-plus point efforts during the month of March. He tallied 25 points versus Providence in the BIG EAST final and dialed up 23 points against Alabama during the NCAA Tournament Second Round.
DiVincenzo is second on the squad behind Brunson with 3.6 assists per game. He nearly garnered a triple-double with 21 points, nine rebounds and nine assists at Xavier on Feb. 17. DiVincenzo has distributed 36 assists over his last eight games.
Booth has been a big game performer for the Wildcats and poured in 20 points against North Carolina to cap his redshirt freshman campaign in the 2016 national championship game. He missed seven games due to injury earlier in the season, and Villanova was handed two of its four losses during the stretch.
On the interior, Spellman and Paschall also have teamed for 12.9 rebounds per contest. Spellman has tacked on 10 double-doubles on the season. Both are known for stretching the defense and have combined for 91 treys.
"I think, in my generation, Coach Jay Wright's changed basketball," Beard said. "He's the one that kind of invented small ball, where your four man can shoot threes. They always have four guys on the floor that shoot. I mean, this is the way that our teams try to play. In our league, Kansas plays similar offensively with the three-point shooting and the spacing. I think their defense is really good too. Villanova's identity is their offense, but their defense is hard to score against. They switch, they're multi-dimensional players and they're really aggressive. We've got all sorts of worries in this game. We're obviously going to have to figure out how to stop them or contain them, but we have to figure out how to score some baskets on the other end."
UP NEXT
The winner of Sunday's game moves onto the NCAA Final Four in San Antonio next weekend and will face the winner of the NCAA Midwest Regional which features No. 1 seed Kansas and No. 2 Duke. Saturday's NCAA Final Four tipoff times are set for 5:09 p.m. CT and approximately 7:49 p.m. CT from the Alamo Dome.
Visit www.TexasTech.com for the latest news and information on the men's basketball program. Fans also can follow the program on its social media outlets by liking TexasTechMBB on Facebook along with following @TexasTechMBB on Twitter, Instagram and Snapchat.
Tipoff is locked in for 1:20 p.m. CT from historic TD Garden home of the NBA's Boston Celtics. The game will be televised by CBS along with the NCAA March Madness app. Ian Eagle, Jim Spanarkel and Allie LaForce will serve as the announcing team.
CBS can be found on DirecTV channel 13 and Dish channel 7939 coupled with channel 1013on AT&T U-Verse and channel 13 on Suddenlink in the Lubbock area.
The Texas Tech Sports Network will carry the game live on its flagship station Double T 97.3 FM and will be joined in progress after Tech's basketball on 100.7 FM The Score and 950 AM in Lubbock. Geoff Haxton and Chris Level will have the call. The radio broadcast also will be available on the Texas Tech Sports Network radio affiliates. Fans can interact with Friday's broadcast by following @GunsUpRadio on Twitter.
Westwood One's NCAA radio broadcast featuring Gary Cohen and P.J. Carlesimo will air on Sirius channel 138 and XM channel 202. That broadcast also can be heard on the TuneIn Radio app.
The Red Raiders (27-9) went from sweet to elite with a 78-65 victory over No. 11 Purdue during Friday's NCAA Sweet 16 round. Texas Tech bookended both halves with a pair of impressive runs. The Red Raiders ripped off a 10-0 run to close the opening half and scored 20 of the game's last 30 points to wrap the 13-point victory.
Villanova (33-4) flexed its defensive muscle and captured its ninth straight win with a 90-78 triumph over fifth-seeded and No. 18 West Virginia on Friday. The Wildcats have held the opposition to a 37.8 field goal percentage over their last four games highlighted by a 27.5 mark from three-point territory.
Sunday's game will mark the first time that the two programs on the hardwood. The Red Raiders have dropped 13 of their 15 decisions against the current 10 members of the BIG EAST Conference which includes an 89-79 setback to Seton Hall earlier this season on Nov. 30 at Madison Square Garden as part of the Under Armour Reunion.
"I told the guys, when you continue to advance in the Tournament, you're just going to continue to play the best teams in the country," Texas Tech head coach Chris Beard said. "That's certainly our opinion of Villanova. Just being a basketball guy, they're a team I'm familiar with because I try to watch them whenever they're on TV at night. Just love the way they play. A lot of things we do defensively, we've taken from Villanova, in terms of switching and playing versatile players. We have nothing but respect for their program, their talent level, and their coach. In our eyes, we're going to have to play our best 40 minutes of the season to advance, and that's our objective."
ABOUT TEXAS TECH
The Red Raiders have come away with 27 victories, the program's second-best season win total only behind the 30-2 record piled up by the 1995-96 squad under James Dickey. Texas Tech is the Big 12 frontrunner in scoring defense (64.6) and field goal percentage (40.3).
Keenan Evans, the three-time All-America selection, has pumped in 17.7 points and 3.2 assists per game. The Richardson native has had a memorable March with averaging 20.3 points per game and tallied 95 of his 122 points during the second half. Evans is one of four players in program history to have multiple 20-plus point performances in the same NCAA Tournament. He joins Harold Hudgens (1961), Jason Sasser (1996) and Ronald Ross (2005).
Zhaire Smith and Jarrett Culver have chipped in 11.4 points and 11.2 points per game, respectively. The duo is third among Big 12 freshmen scoring tandems only behind Oklahoma's Trae Young and Brady Manek followed by Iowa State's Lindell Wigginton and Cameron Lard.
Smith and Culver are ranked second and third in points among Texas Tech freshmen. Both are within single digits of Martin Zeno's mark set during the 2004-05 season. Smith has posted 13.7 points, 7.3 rebounds and 3.3 assists per game in his first three NCAA Tournament games whereas Culver has recorded 12.6 points, 7.6 rebounds and 1.9 assists per game in his last nine outings.
Texas Tech's bench is fueled by Niem Stevenson (7.5 PPG), Zach Smith (6.4 PPG), Tommy Hamilton IV (5.5 PPG), Brandone Francis (5.1 PPG) and Davide Moretti (3.4 PPG).
Stevenson, Smith and Moretti amassed 30 of the 33 bench points for the Red Raiders during the Purdue game. Smith hammered home 14 points and five rebounds. The 14 points was his second-highest scoring output of the season, while Moretti tallied seven points which was his best scoring effort since the TCU game on Feb. 3.
Justin Gray and Norense Odiase have provided 5.1 and 3.8 points per game, respectively. Gray was money in the NCAA Sweet 16 round with 12 points and seven rebounds versus Purdue. The Tampa native drained a season's best six buckets.
ABOUT VILLANOVA
The Wildcats have a high-octane offense that averages 87.0 points per game and have knocked down 50.3 percent of their field goal attempts coupled with 40.5 percent from beyond the three-point arc.
Villanova's balanced offense is sparked by Jalen Brunson (19.3 PPG), Mikal Bridges (18.0 PPG), Donte DiVincenzo (12.9 PPG), Omari Spellman (10.8 PPG), Phil Booth (10.5 PPG) and Eric Paschall (10.3 PPG). All six players are versatile and have connected on at least 30 three-pointers. They also have knocked down at least 68 percent of their free throws.
Brunson has already tucked away several National Player of the Year accolades from the Sporting News and USA Today. He has dialed up double figures in all 37 games for the Wildcats sparked by 14 games of 20 or more points. Brunson has fired in a career-best 31 points on four occasions, the latest was against Providence in the championship game of the BIG EAST Tournament.
Bridges has secured double figures in 34 of 37 outings. He has poured in seven of his 15 performances of 20-plus points dating back to the Xavier game on Feb. 17. Bridges has taken it to another level with four 20-plus point efforts during the month of March. He tallied 25 points versus Providence in the BIG EAST final and dialed up 23 points against Alabama during the NCAA Tournament Second Round.
DiVincenzo is second on the squad behind Brunson with 3.6 assists per game. He nearly garnered a triple-double with 21 points, nine rebounds and nine assists at Xavier on Feb. 17. DiVincenzo has distributed 36 assists over his last eight games.
Booth has been a big game performer for the Wildcats and poured in 20 points against North Carolina to cap his redshirt freshman campaign in the 2016 national championship game. He missed seven games due to injury earlier in the season, and Villanova was handed two of its four losses during the stretch.
On the interior, Spellman and Paschall also have teamed for 12.9 rebounds per contest. Spellman has tacked on 10 double-doubles on the season. Both are known for stretching the defense and have combined for 91 treys.
"I think, in my generation, Coach Jay Wright's changed basketball," Beard said. "He's the one that kind of invented small ball, where your four man can shoot threes. They always have four guys on the floor that shoot. I mean, this is the way that our teams try to play. In our league, Kansas plays similar offensively with the three-point shooting and the spacing. I think their defense is really good too. Villanova's identity is their offense, but their defense is hard to score against. They switch, they're multi-dimensional players and they're really aggressive. We've got all sorts of worries in this game. We're obviously going to have to figure out how to stop them or contain them, but we have to figure out how to score some baskets on the other end."
UP NEXT
The winner of Sunday's game moves onto the NCAA Final Four in San Antonio next weekend and will face the winner of the NCAA Midwest Regional which features No. 1 seed Kansas and No. 2 Duke. Saturday's NCAA Final Four tipoff times are set for 5:09 p.m. CT and approximately 7:49 p.m. CT from the Alamo Dome.
Visit www.TexasTech.com for the latest news and information on the men's basketball program. Fans also can follow the program on its social media outlets by liking TexasTechMBB on Facebook along with following @TexasTechMBB on Twitter, Instagram and Snapchat.
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