After surviving a brutal five-game stretch that included three road games and four games against teams ranked in the Top 25, the Texas Longhorns return to the Frank Erwin Center with a perfect 7-0 league mark. Fortunately, the team gets a breather tonight, hosting a Texas Tech team that they destroyed by 31 points in Lubbock in their conference opener.

This game should be incredibly lopsided. So lopsided, in fact, that Vegas is giving the Red Raiders an extra 20.5 points. Stat guru Ken Pomeroy and his supercomputer have the Horns as 99% to win the game, with a predicted 26-point margin of victory. Perhaps the biggest question heading into this game will be just how many minutes Andrew Dick, Dean Melchionni, and Trent Morgan see in the blowout.

The first meeting

When these two teams first met in Lubbock, the Longhorns abused Texas Tech inside. Texas posted a +19 rebounding margin and scored 50 points in the paint. The Red Raiders were limited to grabbing just 19.2% of their misses, and the string of one-and-done possessions doomed them to failure.

The dominating performance wasn’t limited just to the Texas frontcourt. Dogus Balbay scored nine points and secured five rebounds, while J’Covan Brown and Jai Lucas combined for 11 points off the bench.

The Red Raiders, meanwhile, had a hard time finding anyone to score. Big man Robert Lewandowski knocked down quite a few tough shots against the tight Longhorn defense, but his 13 points were the most on the team. Guard Javarez Willis also managed to provide a spark off the bench, scoring 10 points on 56% shooting from the field.

Since then…

That loss was the second of four that Tech suffered to open conference play. During that stretch, the Red Raiders lost by an average of 21.5 points per game.

But Tech rebounded nicely, compiling three wins to get back into the muddled mess in the middle of the conference standings. The Red Raiders edged out Nebraska at home before stealing a road win against Iowa State in Ames. They followed that up with an overtime win against OSU in Lubbock, but the momentum was stopped when they were thrashed by Kansas at home earlier this week.

The key to Tech’s resurgance was better performance on the offensive glass. After getting destroyed by the Longhorn rebounders, they had a pathetic 12.9% offensive rebounding percentage in a 34-point drubbing at K-State. In each of the three wins that followed, Tech had an OR% of at least 37.5%.

Mike Singletary and John Roberson were also instrumental in the brief winning streak for Texas Tech. After the pair combined for just 7 points in the loss to Texas, they combined to average 40.3 points per game in the team’s three wins.

Meet the Red Raiders

The Red Raiders are an experienced bunch, and as a result, four of their five leading scorers are seniors. To get a detailed breakdown on all of the retuning Tech players, check out our first preview from last season.

Coach Pat Knight is also getting contributions from three newcomers, who you can read about in our preview of the first game in Lubbock.

Keys to the game

As it was in Lubbock, this game should be one-sided from the start. That means that while this section is titled “Keys to the game,” it could easily be re-named “Ways to win by more points.”

The most important thing that the Longhorns did in Lubbock was dominate the inside game. Texas has a much bigger and more skilled frontcourt, and it led to 50 points in the paint in Lubbock. The Longhorns should have no problem doing more of the same tonight.

Texas will also enjoy a blowout victory if they win the rebounding battle. Tech is not going to grab a lot of offensive rebounds, but if Texas holds them to as few as they did in Lubbock, this thing could get ugly in a hurry. Tech is not a great shooting team — they find their greatest success against defenses that allow them a ton of backdoor cuts — so they will likely miss a ton of shots against a good Texas D tonight. If they aren’t getting many second chances, we could have a poleaxing on our hands at the Erwin Center.

Finally, Texas needs to stay in front of the basketball. The Red Raiders don’t break you down off the dribble, but they will beat you with quick cuts and crisp passing if you can’t see both the ball and your man. Fortunately, the Longhorns have had the most efficient D in college basketball this season, and held Tech to a pitiful 0.738 points per possession in Lubbock. It would be a major surprise to see the Red Raiders pick apart this Texas defense.