Fresh off its biggest victory of the young season, Texas Tech takes on another challenge Thursday with a road game against Butler as part of the inaugural Big East-Big 12 Battle.
The Red Raiders rolled past Michigan 73-57 last week at the Battle for Atlantis to finish 2-1 at the event. The Bulldogs (5-2) delivered a similar showing in Orlando at the ESPN Events Invitational, with back-to-back wins against Penn State and Boise State after a narrow loss to No. 19 Florida Atlantic.
Now two teams with reconstructed rosters collide as they work toward establishing a long-term identity.
For Texas Tech (5-1), this is the first true road game, and that’s a challenge first-year coach Grant McCasland wants his team to embrace.
“Togetherness is important in road games,” McCasland said. “How committed you are in hostile environments? … How do you do it with adversity? You come together. … How connected can we stay and how committed over the course of 40 minutes on the road? It’s always that, but it’s amplified when you play road games.”
This is especially true against a Butler team that began the season with three thorough home wins. The Bulldogs (5-2) averaged 88.7 points per game in those three outings and won by an average of 36 points.
Since then Butler has split four games — losses vs. ranked opponents Michigan State and FAU — followed by the weekend-salvaging outcomes in Orlando.
Pierre Brooks has been a major reason for the recent uptick, with 51 points in the past two games. The transfer from Michigan State leads the team with 16.9 points per game and is connecting on a team-leading 40.9 percent from 3-point territory.
Brooks is one of five transfers playing key roles for the Bulldogs, who underwent an offseason overhaul after the first season of Thad Matta’s return to Indianapolis. The revamped roster has resulted in an ever-changing rotation, with eight players logging 12 minutes or more a game.
“This group right now, we’re like 11 stepchildren,” Matta said, “Guys have done a good job of growing and molding together. The games in Orlando, when we lost the lead or came from behind, we showed some resilience and I like that about this group.”
Likewise, the Red Raiders appear to be congealing nicely under McCasland.
Joe Toussaint has asserted himself as a leader, averaging 14.5 points a game with 18 assists. Returning starter Pop Isaacs has struggled to find consistency shooting the ball but is supplying 13.7 points.
–Field Level Media
