Red Raiders open season with lopsided win over Lions

LUBBOCK, Texas – The Grant McCasland era at Texas Tech began with an impressive victory after Warren Washington had 12 rebounds and Pop Isaacs scored 19 points to help lead the Red Raiders to a 73-46 season-opening win over Texas A&M-Commerce on Wednesday at the United Supermarkets Arena.

The Red Raiders (1-0) jumped out to an 8-0 lead in the game and led 41-17 at halftime in the dominant performance that also saw Darrion Williams go for 14 points and seven rebounds. Washington finished with eight points to fall two points shy of a double-double, while Joe Toussaint had 10 points to give Tech three players in double-figure scoring on opening night. Tech has now won 24 straight season openers and will now shift attention to playing San Jose State at 1 p.m. on Sunday at the USA in their second game of the season. Commerce (0-2) dropped their opener on Monday against Texas A&M and will now play at Kentucky.

“Give the staff credit, the preparation was there,” McCasland said. “I thought we knew what they were going to do. We were able to apply pressure and turn them over a little bit. Our preparation in regard to personnel like who they are, what they do well, and what we can take away. The scouting report was where we were strong.”

Isaacs led the Red Raiders with his 19 points after making two 3-pointers and going 7-for-9 at the free-throw line. He hit Tech’s first 3-pointer of the game to give the Red Raiders a 13-2 lead four minutes in and push them to 6-for-10 shooting to start the game. Isaacs also had two steals and a career-high four rebounds. Washington recorded the 14th double-figure rebounding performance of his career with five offensive rebounds and seven defensive. He was 4-for-6 at the free-throw line in a game where Tech went 24-for-29 at the line.

“During the summer I’ve just been working a lot on being physical, working on my rebounds because I feel like it’s something I really need to work on,” Washington said. “I just feel like that’s an ongoing process and coaches really been sitting down with me, watching a lot of film, and I’m going to keep working on it and I’m happy to see my boards getting up but I got to be consistent with it.”

Darrion Williams, a sophomore who transferred from Nevada, scored seven points in each half to finish with 14 in his Tech debut. He now has 12 double-figure scoring performances in his career after a game where he was 5-for-7 from the field, including going 2-for-4 on 3-pointers. At the line, he went 2-for-2. Williams hit his second 3-pointer for a 59-30 lead.

“It felt good,” he said. “I mean, we’ve been playing together playing open run since June. Obviously, I was in foul trouble, so I was trying to focus on that but at the same time not take away my aggression from the game and just keep playing.”

Chance McMillian led the reserves with six points and six rebounds, while Lamar Washington had a team-high four assists and also had five points and four rebounds. Devan Cambridge had four points and two rebounds from the starting lineup in a game where Tech finished with a 48-31 rebounding advantage. The team also owned a 20-8 advantage in bench scoring over the Lions who were held to only 29.9 percent shooting in the game and a 17-9 scoring advantage on fastbreaks.

“It was definitely a benefit,” McCasland said. “I told them in the last time-out, ‘Pushing the ball in pace isn’t about scoring on everyone one of them, it’s honestly about a battle of maintaining a level of physicality.’ You look at our team, we’ve got a good team. We got versatile guys.”

Tech took a 41-17 lead into halftime with Isaacs leading the team with 13 points and Warren Washington having 10 rebounds and six points. The Red Raiders limited Commerce to 28.6 percent shooting and to 0-for-13 on 3-pointers in the first half. Tech made four 3s in the first half with Isaacs at 2-for-2 and Darrion Williams and Walton. Isaacs was 4-for-5 shooting in the first half for the Red Raiders who were at 44.4 percent going into the break. Toussaint scored the game’s first four points and had eight at halftime, while Lamar Washington led Tech with three assists.

All 11 players who entered the game scored for the Red Raiders, including freshman Eemeli Yalaho who had a dunk for the first basket of his career.

Tech hosts San Jose State at 1 p.m. on Sunday before finishing off its three-game home stand against Texas A&M-Corpus Christi on November 16 at the USA. The Red Raiders will then travel to the Bahamas to play in the Battle 4 Atlantis which starts on Nov. 22 with a matchup against No. 22 Villanova.

Release provided by WES BLOOMQUIST Texas Tech Athletics