Despite losing star JT Toppin back in February, Texas Tech held off Akron's upset bid, closing strong to advance and dodge an early tournament exit. Other teams without their stars haven't been so fortunate.
TAMPA, Fla. — Season-ending injuries are becoming a big storyline in the first round of the NCAA Tournament.
North Carolina didn't have star forward Caleb Wilson and got upset by VCU on Thursday. BYU, without Richie Saunders, was shocked by Texas, and they're going home early, too.
That certainly had to have Texas Tech on red alert here at Benchmark International Arena in Tampa on Friday. The Red Raiders, a No. 5 seed, had a tough matchup with Akron, a mid-major darling that was getting plenty of traction on that ''upset special'' line.
Texas Tech has been playing without star JT Toppin since Feb. 17, when he torn an ACL. The Red Raiders had lost three straight coming into the NCAA Tournament, but they played great Friday — especially in the last eight minutes — and beat the Zips 91-71. They advanced the second round, where they'll play Alabama on Sunday in Tampa.
No injury jinx for them. Moving on, thanks to a 24-9 run to close out the game.
They had huge games from their guards, with Jaylen Petty scoring 24 points, Christian Anderson getting 18 and Donovan Atwell getting 15. The trio combined to make 11 three-pointers.
"What an unbelievable Akron team we played. We knew it would take everything to win this game,'' Texas Tech coach Grant McCasland said. "(Playing without Toppin) I think it was pretty obvious on display today. I mean, our guard play is awesome. I don't know if there's three better guards than Christian Anderson, Jaylen Petty and Donovan Atwell at making threes and playing together. JT was the leverage point, putting two on the ball. How teams had to guard him in the post.
"I thought our ability to score early in the second half by playing through LeJuan on some cross matches was the difference in us separating during the stretch and getting cushion when you know they're going to make a run. How do you get stops, but also how do you leverage the paint, and without JT, and we've done it a lot of different ways. Long roll, short roll. And Josiah Moseley had a great game with his ability to put pressure on the rim in the middle of the paint was really effective. We're always going to do this as a team. That's the way we've won the last few games without JT.''
Toppin, a 6-foot-9 junior from Dallas, was averaging 21.8 points and 10.8 rebounds a game before he was injured. He's one of the best players in the country, and it's certainly no stretch to think the Red Raiders aren't the same without him.
They were a national title contender with him. They've beaten Duke and Arizona — the two best teams in the country — already this season, and they've even beaten Iowa State, who was No. 4 in the country at the time, without Toppin.
So, yes, they remain confident they can make a run here in March, even without their star. And avoiding all the upsets is important, too. Six lower seeds won on Thursday, but McCasland said he didn't even bring that up to his team.
"No. We didn't talk about it, honestly,'' he said. "I've played in this game as a 13 seed. The more you make out of it, I try to show them the realities of this. This (Akron) team is stinkin' good. They can put pressure on you, but let's not make this more than what it is.
"If you put the number by somebody's name and try to determine how hard you're going to play by a number, then you're dumb. To me, let's look at what they do well and let's try to take it away and let's talk about what we do well that they can't handle and let's really focus on that.
"We were really focused on game plan, effort, and how do we execute on every possession. And let y'all talk about all these seeds and numbers because we saw their jersey and it was blue, and ours was white. We wanted the white team to win, and that's the way we approached it.''