Grand McCasland voiced some concerns about his team's ability to string together multiple quality wins at this stage in the grueling Big 12 schedule.
LUBBOCK, Texas - The Texas Tech Red Raiders have one game remaining on the regular-season schedule, a trip to Provo, Utah for a meeting with AJ Dybantsa and BYU on Saturday.
The finale comes after No. 10-ranked Red Raiders' home finale on Tuesday, a 73-65 defeat to TCU, which saw the visiting Horned Frogs grab 16 offensive rebounds and score 18 points off of 15 turnovers by the Red Raiders.
While Texas Tech remains a formidable threat in the Big 12 Tournament and beyond, one glaring trend is noticeable on their schedule:
The Red Raiders have problems in games that immediate follow a premier win ... and for a team that has some of the best head-to-head victories in the country, that's extremely frustrating.
This six-game stretch especially defines this pattern:
Texas Tech beat No. 6 Houston, then lost a week later at UCF.
Then, the Red Raiders knock off No. 1 Arizona in Tuscon. Arizona State upset Tech three days later.
And most recently, Texas Tech took down No. 4 Iowa State on the road only to get out-executed at home by TCU, a team who earned its 10th Big 12 win in program history with the victory.
Red Raiders head coach Grant McCasland talked about the pattern and the makeup of his roster in his postgame press conference.
"I do think that when you play a really physical team, it does take a lot out of us, because we have skill," McCasland said. "And if you were to characterize our players, you wouldn't say that we're a physically imposing team even though we have physical talent...
"I do think, you can see it takes it out of us when we play a really physical team, and then you gotta turn around and play in a short amount of time."
Texas Tech sits at 22-8 and 12-5 in Big 12 play, standing in third place in the league behind conference-champion Arizona and Houston.
Going into the final game and postseason, McCasland knows that his team's aggressiveness will need to ramp up in order to compete against tough competition night in and night out.
"So, am I concerned about [the pattern of losses], yes. But I'm not concerned necessarily about just the physical play, it's the fight that we gotta have in order to be successful."
Saturday's game against the Cougars is a rematch from Tech's 84-71 win over BYU on Jan. 17. The season finale will air on ESPN at 9:30 p.m. CST.