The No. 10 Texas Longhorns overcame a 12-point deficit as they defeated Texas Tech men’s basketball 72-70 Saturday at the Moody Center in Austin.
Texas Tech (10-7) is now 0-5 in the Big 12, tied for last with West Virginia. Texas improves to 4-1 in the Big 12 and 15-2 overall. It’s only the third time they’ve lost to Texas in the last 11 meetings.
UT super-seniors Marcus Carr and Sir’Jabari Rice led the second-half comeback, finishing with 20 and 18 points, respectively, after combining for eight points in the first half.
Pop Isaacs led Texas Tech with 23 points as De’Vion Harmon added 13. Jaylon Tyson had his first career double-double with 12 points and 14 rebounds.
Aimaq stole the show when he came in at the 17:16 mark in the first half and scored his first points as a Red Raider a little over a minute later.
He ended up playing 29 minutes in his first game back from a foot injury he sustained before the season and had 12 points, five rebounds and two assists, taking the second-most shots on the team.
The Tech defense held the Longhorns to just 34.9% shooting in the first half. Both teams had seven turnovers, but Tech scored 11 points off turnovers compared to Texas’s 5, and Tech outrebounded Texas 21-15 including some important offensive rebounds on their way to a 34-25 lead.
The second half started with the Longhorn offense figuring itself out. Carr and Rice led the way to break the game open. An Isaacs three-pointer and some good buckets from Tech stopped it for a bit, but Texas finally took back the lead.
They didn’t just take a lead; they took as big as a seven-point lead on a 23-6 run where the Red Raiders looked completely out of sync and Texas looked like a top-10 team again.
Even as Tech tied the game again, Texas always had an answer. Kevin Obanor couldn’t make two free throws down 58-55 late, and those likely made a difference at the end of the game considering the margin of victory.
Even as Harmon made two free throws to cut the Texas lead to two points, suddenly, Brock Cunningham decided to actually play basketball in a useful way and make a three-pointer to put Texas up five.
Isaacs and Harmon made three-pointers, and Tech continued to try to get back into the game, but the Longhorns made just about every free throw and fouled Tech to prevent them from ever tying the game with a three-pointer.
Another sore spot for the Red Raiders was watching Daniel Batcho foul out with 3:23 to go, putting up just a rebound, two assists, a block and three turnovers.
It was another game that ended in a close loss for Tech with a lot of the same problems as before, but they showed heart to try to get the lead back, even as they ultimately fell to another top Big 12 team.
Up Next
The Red Raiders’ next game will be back in Lubbock at 8 p.m. Tuesday as they continue to search for an elusive Big 12 win against Baylor. Baylor also started Big 12 play 0-3 but has rebounded with wins over West Virginia and Oklahoma State.
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