Knight praises Jayhawks
Texas Tech coach: Kansas exhibits 'rare' relentlessness
Bob Knight has been coaching college basketball long enough to know a buzzsaw when he sees one.
On Saturday, Knight, now in his first season at Texas Tech after umpteen years at Indiana, was on the other end of a buzzsaw massacre.
Kansas' Jeff Boschee (13) gets hacked by Texas Tech's Marcus Shropshire. Boschee finished with 14 points in KU's 108-81 rout of the Red Raiders on Saturday at Allen Fieldhouse.
“What they have,” Knight said of Kansas following the Jayhawks’ 108-81 victory in Allen Fieldhouse, “is they’re just relentless. That’s their key ingredient. That relentlessness is rare.”
Relentlessness was obviously not a key ingredient of the Red Raiders.
“We were not capable of doing that,” Knight said. “We just wore down. There will be a day when we have five relentless players, but we don’t now.”
Injured Nick Valdez, one of Tech’s key reserves, didn’t suit because of an ankle injury, and Kasib Powell, the Raiders’ third-leading scorer, suffered a leg injury less than a minute into the second half and was unable to return.
Asked if the absence of Valdez and Powell had an effect on the outcome, Knight replied: “Naw, it didn’t affect us.”
Kansas did, however. The Jayhawks came at the Red Raiders in wave after wave after wave.
“First of all, we got beat by a much better team,” Knight said. “We knew how good they were and we tried to do some things, but there is just a relentless quality to this team. They throw the ball away, for instance, and they’re all over you defensively.”
How good are the Jayhawks?
“They’ve got to be one of the two or three best teams in the country,” Knight said. “Duke would be as good, then I don’t know where you go.”
Nathan Doudney, a 6-foot-4 freshman guard who made only his second start, and Andre Emmett, the Red Raiders’ leading scorer, led Tech with 15 points apiece.
Emmett had been averaging 18.5 points per game and Doudney just 3.9. Marcus Shropshire added 13 off the bench.
Tech was guilty of 18 turnovers, half of them by starting forward Pawel Storozynski.
None of the TTU players was made available for postgame interviews.
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Three-point goals: 9-17 (Doudney 4-9, Shropshire 3-6, Ellis 2-2). Assists: 19 (Storozynski 5, Doudney 5, Shropshire 2, Ross 2, Powell, Ellis, Emmett, Chavis, Michalec). Turnovers: 18 (Storozynski 9, Ellis 3, Marhsall 2, Doudney, Chavis, Ross, Michalec). Blocked shots: 3 (Powell, Ellis, Emmett). Steals: 13 (Doudney 3, Storozynski 2, Powell 2, Ross 2, Shropshire, Chavis, Marshall, Cassidy). |
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Three-point goals: 7-13 (Hinrich 3-5, Boschee 2-3, Gooden 1-1, Ballard 1-1, Langford 0-1, Miles 0-2). Assists: 26 (Miles 10, Langford 4, Hinrich 3, Boschee 3, Harrison 3, Gooden 2, Ballard). Turnovers: 22 (Hinrich 4, Gooden 3, Collison 3, Langford 3, Lee 3, Miles 2, Harrison, Ballard, Nash, Zerbe). Blocked shots: 10 (Collison 6, Gooden 2, Carey, Simien). Steals: 10 (Gooden 2, Hinrich 2, Boschee 2, Ballard 2, Miles, Simien). |
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| Texas Tech | 38 | 43 | 81 |
| Kansas | 52 | 56 | 108 |
Officials: Mark Reischling, Mark Whitehead, Terry Davis. Attendance: 16,300.