Texas Tech Head Coach Grant McCasland on Cincinnati's 75-72 win
Cincinnati (15-7, 4-5) went in to Lubbock (TX) Saturday night and picked up a quad one win over the 15th-ranked Texas Tech Raiders (16-5, 5-3).
Following the game, Texas Tech Head Coach Grant McCasland gave his thoughts on the game.
Everything he said about Cincinnati below:
"I thought Cincinnati was just extremely physical. They kept putting pressure on us by rebounding the basketball offensively. They ended up with eight blocked shots and I thought they drove the ball to the rim several times. I thought our contests were solid. We just didn't get it dont tonight and a lot of it had to do with Cincinnati. I thought their defense was great. I thought their rim presence caused us a lot of problems. I thought they made big plays down the stretch offensively. A lot of different guys stepped up for them at the end of the basketball game."
Texas Tech forward Robert Jennings came off the bench for 14 points, 6 rebounds after averaging just 2.4 points in 7 minutes per game. He gave his post game thoughts on Cincinnati's defense and the cold stretched that Tech experienced:
" Going in to the game we knew Cincinnati was a great defensive team so we was expecting them to you know get stops."
Grant McCasland on what made Cincinnati so difficult to defend:
"Personnel wise, when you look at their team, I thought they were just efficient at what shots they were getting and a lot of it had to do with the rim presence of Aziz. You got to manipulate around him because he's such a great lob threat and I thought they had different guys. Lukosius, I thought he was the difference in that stretch where he made that three right over Warren, It's kind of like 'hey we finally just maybe went with something different, switched it', and he stepped back and made a three. That's what great players do. You just find ways in the court and then obviously when we took the lead at the end, they did that pistol action on the left side, got it back to him, and he got it going right and kind of got clipped at the top of the key with a ball screen and just stopped and made a good shot. I mean over the course of the game they just got a lot of different guys step up and that what a great team does and that's how you win on the road. You're physical. You rebound the ball well. And then you put pressure on the rim adn make shots. They went 10 for 10 from the free throw line too so give them credit. I mean it's not the greatest shooting team but I thought they made the difference on the glass and the way they defended the rim with their rim pressure."
Cincinnati will return to action Saturday February 10th when Houston visits Fifth Third Arena for a 4 pm tip off.
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