Christian Anderson scored 18 points to lead five players in double figures as No. 11 Texas Tech pulled away from Milwaukee for an 80-63 win Friday night in Lubbock, Tex.
Donovan Atwell tallied 17 points, Tyeree Bryan scored 13 points and Jaylen Petty came off the bench to add 11 points. LeJuan Watts chipped in 10 points.
Texas Tech leading scorer JT Toppin had been averaging 33.0 points per game, but was held to seven points and made 3 of 10 field goal attempts. He did grab 10 rebounds for the Red Raiders (3-1).
Danilo Jovanovich led Milwaukee with 17 points, Sekou Konneh scored 12 points, and Seth Hubbard added 11 points for the Panthers (2-3).
Milwaukee hit its first three 3-point attempts and jumped out to a 9-3 advantage.
But the Red Raiders also drilled three straight shots from beyond the arc to tie the game at 9. A Jovanovich turnaround jumper capped a 6-0 run to give Milwaukee a 15-9 lead. Over that span, Texas Tech was 0 of 6 on field goal attempts.
The Milwaukee hot shooting from beyond the arc was limited to the early going. The Panthers finished the game making 4 of 17 three-point attempts while the Red Raiders connected on 13 of 31 shots from the perimeter.
On a possession with a pair of offensive rebounds, Petty hit a three from the wing to cut the Milwaukee lead to 21-18 with 8:42 left in the first half.
The Red Raiders finally took their first lead on a 11-0 run that featured threes from Atwell and Petty, and was capped by a Bryan layup that gave Texas Tech a 29-23 lead with 6:13 left in the first half.
However, Milwaukee hung tough. Josh Dixon’s fadeaway jumper beat the buzzer to cut the halftime deficit to 41-36.
Anderson nailed a wing three to give Texas Tech a 51-43 lead with 15:24 to play. The Red Raiders forced 13 turnovers which led to 18 points. Texas Tech only had nine turnovers which led to eight points for the Panthers.
The Red Raiders gradually pulled away over the second half. Another Anderson 3-pointer with 4:03 left gave Texas Tech its first 15-point lead, and the margin remained 12-plus points the rest of the way.
-Field Level Media
