First Half Outburst Pushes Tech Past Northern Colorado
By: Travis Cram - Texas Tech University
Updated: December 16, 2012
LUBBOCK, Texas --
Casey Morris hit a season-high five,
3-pointers and scored a game-high 18 points to help lead Texas Tech to a
68-41 win over Northern Colorado on Sunday at United Spirit Arena.
Tech
(8-1) lit up the scoreboard in the first half, shooting 65.2 percent
from the field (15 of 23) and 80 percent from behind the arc
(8 of 10) to take a 42-22 lead into the half.
It
was almost as if the Lady Raiders never missed a beat and picked up
where they left off against Illinois on Dec. 5 - hitting 64.3
percent in the second half of that contest.
"There's
a correlation there with the flow of your offense," head coach Kristy
Curry said. "I thought the first half we obviously executed
better than the second half, but I'm still really pleased with our
execution. It's something we've really been working on the last 10
days."
Morris,
Chynna Brown, Christine Hyde and Monique Smalls all hit threes in the
first half, with three coming in the closing minutes of
the first half as Tech closed out a 19-4 run before the break.
Hyde ended the day with 15 points and nine boards while Brown added 12.
"I
think that's what we've been doing all season is just buckling down on
defense and it will flow into our offense," Hyde said. "Even
if we don't get that consistent flow on offense, it's our defense that
really helps us out in the end."
Northern
Colorado (2-6) could not catch up in the second half as Tech's defense
went to work while the shooting cooled off. The Lady
Raiders - ranked sixth in the country in turnover margin (+9.8) - scored
25 points off 19 turnovers while giving up only nine.
"I think defense is always most important," Morris
said. "So even if shots aren't going in then I think
you
just need to learn from the situations and experiences from earlier in
the season so later on when we play in the Big 12, we known you need
defense to make offense and that defense is the most important thing."
Tech
now heads to the Las Vegas Holiday Hoops Classic where it will take on
Michigan State (9-1) and Oregon State (6-4) before coming
back home to finish non-conference play against Houston (4-6) on Dec.
30.
