Texas Tech basketball hosts Arizona: Scouting report, score predictions for Big 12 game

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One game after playing his former colleague Jerome Tang, Grant McCasland now gets to square off with current cohort Tommy Lloyd when the Texas Tech basketball team hosts Arizona on Saturday at 1 p.m. in United Supermarkets Arena.

McCasland was an assistant under Lloyd for the Team USA U18 World Cup team that won gold in Buenos Aires last summer. The pair will reunite with the U19 team in Switzerland later this year. But for now, the two are looking to get a crucial Big 12 Conference win against one another.

McCasland applauded seeing Lloyd’s Wildcats turn things around after a tough start to the season, but it’s also not surprising to him.

“The fact that Tommy’s character is there,” McCasland said Thursday, “but it’s his enjoyment of it being difficult. I just don’t think he shies away from it.”

Texas Tech is in a similar spot Arizona (11-5, 5-0) just got out of. The Red Raiders (12-4, 3-2) are now 3-0 on the road after Tuesday’s ugly 61-57 win over Kansas State, but have lost their two Big 12 home games by a combined five points. McCasland echoed the sentiments of Kansas head coach Bill Self — who lost to Iowa State on Wednesday — that the Red Raiders are still figuring out the difference between playing hard and competing.

“I believe it’s a real character of competitiveness together that we’re trying to build,” McCasland said, “and that’ll be the difference in this game Saturday.”

Texas Tech basketball injury report ahead of Arizona matchup

Texas Tech fans watching the Kansas State game may have noticed that JT Toppin was not his usual self. Some may have thought it was due to linger effects from tweaking his left ankle in last week’s game against Iowa State. McCasland said Tuesday that Toppin was “not doing good today and he wasn’t feeling good in the Iowa State game in the second half either.”

McCasland shed some light on this on Thursday, saying Toppin has been battling an illness that’s caused him to drop some weight as of late. After practice, Toppin told McCasland he…

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Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/texas-tech-basketball-hosts-arizona-100415303.html

Author : Lubbock Avalanche-Journal

Publish date : 2025-01-18 10:04:00

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