Myron Amey Jr (0) walks off the floor for the San Jose State Spartans after a defeat to the Texas Tech Red Raiders at United Supermarkets Arena in Lubbock TX on Sun Nov 12, 2023 (San Jose State Spartans photo)
Sunday, November 12th, 2023
By Troy Ewers
It’s the first road game for San Jose State and they face Texas Tech in the home of the Red Raiders.
The 2-0 Spartans were prepared for the Red Raiders and focused on defense. Keeping Texas Tech and utilizing mismatches early. SJSU cut off the Red Raiders’ access to the paint and forced them to have to try to score from the outside.
On offense both teams weren’t hitting from the three point line, but the Spartans found a stride in the first half scoring in the paint. The game was close all first half, but Spartans Coach Tim Miles was adamant that his boys will win the battle in the key.
A battle Coach Miles wanted his team to win the most was on the boards, Adrame Diongue led the team with rebounds in the first, but the Red Raiders had 19 rebounds over the Spartans 17 rebounds and that battle shows why Coach Miles was so focused on it, because at halftime Texas Tech was up by one point, 22-21.
The second half started with both teams trading leads. San Jose State’s ability to score on second chance points is phenomenal even though they only had six second chance points at the 11 minute mark in the second half. In the last five minutes Texas Tech had a six point lead and Spartans had to get back to what got them a lead in the first half, but turnovers were costing them and Texas Tech capitalized on the Spartans’ mistakes.
The Red Raiders went on a 13-2 run at one point and in the final minute Texas Tech was up 11 and let the clock run out, but not before hitting one last three to make it 56-42 and that was game. The Spartans main problem in this game was when they couldn’t get a run going, they tried to shoot threes and turned the ball over. The Red Raiders scored 19 points off of the Spartans 16 turnovers.
It wasn’t easy, but Texas Tech pulled out and won making their record 2-0 and the Spartans go 2-1. San Jose State wanted this win, but they’ll get to forget about this loss in the U.S. Virgin Islands where they’ll be in the Paradise Jam tournament starting on November 17th.
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