Looking to remove the bad taste from its mouth, No. 20 Texas Tech hosts upset-minded New Orleans on Wednesday afternoon in Lubbock.
Texas Tech (4-2) is coming off an 86-56 loss to No. 1 Purdue in the Baha Mar Championship in the Bahamas on Friday — the Red Raiders’ largest margin of defeat since falling by 34 points at Iowa State in January 2023.
After dropping five spots in the Top 25, Texas Tech wants to look like a much different team on Wednesday.
“That was about as bad of a beating as we’ve taken, ever,” Red Raiders coach Grant McCasland said. “When you start to get punched in the mouth like they did to us, you’ve got to respond and you’ve got to do it quickly, and we didn’t. That one is completely on me. I did not have us ready to play.”
Texas Tech’s All-American forward JT Toppin — who leads the team with 21.8 points and 10.4 rebounds per game — had 15 points in the loss, while second-leading scorer Christian Anderson (17.8 ppg) added 13.
For McCasland, who played 11 players in the loss, the setback will be used as a measuring stick going forward.
“If there’s anything I’ll take from this, I thought we did find a few guys that wanted to go out there and be a part of the game and try to win it, instead of playing good offense and deciding if they wanted to play defense,” McCasland said. “That’s where there won’t be an option in this program. I’m excited to have this on film because it gives us the ammo to tell the truth and to continue to get better.”
On paper, Texas Tech is the far more talented team than New Orleans, but the Privateers have proven to be a formidable opponent through six games.
New Orleans (2-4) began the season with a 78-74 win at TCU, before nearly earning its second power conference upset of the year at Mississippi State on Monday. The Privateers led by 13 points with less than five minutes left but allowed the Bulldogs to finish regulation on a 15-2 run.
The upset bid ended in heartbreaking fashion, as Mississippi State’s Amier Ali banked in a 3-pointer with 1.9 seconds left, handing New Orleans an 81-78 overtime loss.
The Southland Conference members will be underdogs again on Wednesday in their seventh straight road game to open the season.
“It’s a step in the right direction, for sure,” New Orleans coach Stacy Hollowell said after his team’s win over TCU. “Last year, we didn’t really have a chance to recruit a team, so we took some guys without visits and some guys from the prior team, but that’s all behind us now and we’re moving forward. We’ve had a full year to recruit a team and I feel good about the pieces we have.”
In Hollowell’s first season in 2024-25, the Privateers went 4-27 and 2-18 in conference play. Coleton Benson leads this year’s squad with 18.7 points per game, followed by Jakevion Buckley with 15.2.
