Red Raiders roll to 29-point win over Omaha

LUBBOCK, Texas – Kerwin Walton scored a career-high 22 points with six 3-pointers to help lead Texas Tech to an 87-58 win over Omaha on Wednesday at United Supermarkets Arena.

The Red Raiders (6-2) jumped out to a 20-point halftime lead, were up by as many as 38, and cruised to their 26th straight non-conference home win after going 18-for-20 at the free-throw line and making 11 3-pointers as a team. Joe Toussaint scored 20 points and Pop Isaacs had 13 to give Tech three double-figure scorers, while Warren Washington matched a season-high with 12 rebounds. Tech finished the game with a 37-27 rebounding advantage and forced the Mavericks (5-5) into 15 turnovers which resulted in a 24-11 points off turnover advantage.

“After the defensive effort at Butler, I felt like we needed to make some significant improvements,” Tech coach Grant McCasland said. “The way that Omaha attacks the basket, they’re one of the best at getting to the free throw line in the country. So, our ability to guard one on one, and to take pride on individually guarding without fouling was a huge part. Honestly, I thought the one guy that set the tone for us was Kerwin (Walton) when he came in the game. I think that led to him playing great offensively. It wasn’t the other way around.”

Walton was 6-for-7 on 3-pointers to break his previous career high of 19 points and five 3-pointers when he was a freshman at North Carolina in the 2020-21 season. In his second season at Tech, Walton came into the game averaging 1.8 points per game this season with a previous high this season of three points in three different games.

“I’ve been trying to be the best “three and D” kind of guy I can,” Walton said. “Coach has been telling me that he knows I’m a good scorer. Right now, he just wants to see me play defense and prove to him and myself that I belong out there and that I can play hard and play smart. So, my main focus is just playing to the best to my ability and knowing what I can do, and then just playing off of that.”

Tech has now had five leading scorers through eight games and Walton has 17 double-figure scoring performances in his career.

“Every time you get an opportunity, it doesn’t matter when, whether that’s at the end of practice, at the beginning of practice,” McCasland said of Walton. “If you get to the last three minutes every possession matters. Every rep matters, how you compete matters, and how you trust your teammates matters. I will tell you this, Kerwin’s hung in there. He’s practiced really hard, he’s been competitive, and he’s listening, and he’s gotten better defensively and rebounding. He came up with some rebounds tonight. We weren’t very good at defensive rebounding, but Kerwin ended up with three in 27 minutes. We need our guards to lead some rebounding. It feels like that’s when we’ll be great, that’s the teams we’ve had. Kerwin’s rebounded better and played defense, so that’s why he’s played.”

Toussaint has now scored in double figures in all eight games and 20 or more twice this season after he went 5-for-8 from the field and 7-for-8 at the free-throw line against the Mavericks. Darrion Williams added eight points, six rebounds, and led the team with three assists while Devan Cambridge had nine points and four rebounds. Lamar Washington had a season-high with seven points and Chance McMillian scored three points with one 3-pointer. McMillian was coming off his 24-point performance at Butler which earned him Big 12 Newcomer of the Week. Tech finished the game 11-for-28 (39.3 percent) on 3-pointers in the game and was 29-for-58 from the field (50 percent). The Red Raiders scored 12 points on fast breaks and also had a 26-22 scoring advantage in the paint in the 29-point win.

Tech took a 42-22 lead into halftime with Toussaint already with 14 points, Walton at 12 points, and Warren Washington leading the team with seven rebounds. The Red Raiders were 13-for-14 on free throws through 20 minutes and 7-for-16 (43.8 percent) on 3-pointers to get out to the lead. Walton was 4-for-4 on 3-pointers going into the break while Toussaint was 7-for-8 at the free-throw line. Cambridge had four of his nine points at halftime, all coming at the line where he was 4-for-4 and Darrion Williams had five points with one 3-pointer and also three offensive rebounds. Tech held Omaha to only 2-for-8 on 3-pointers and 10-of-21 from the field. The Mavericks had 10 turnovers and were out-rebounded by an 18-10 margin.

“We improved in a lot of areas, but we still have to be better at rebounding,” McCasland said. “One area I felt was good for us was that we got to the free throw line. We made more than they took. With a team that attacks the basket like they do, I thought our defense, our ability to play without fouling, and getting to the free throw line was the difference in the game.”

Texas Tech is off this weekend and will return to host Oral Roberts at 8 p.m. on Tuesday, December 12 at United Supermarkets Arena before playing Vanderbilt on Saturday, December 16 at Dickies Arena in Fort Worth. ORU is currently 3-4 on its season and will host Ozark Christian on Saturday night before traveling to Lubbock next week. Tech and Oral Roberts will meet for the ninth time with the Red Raiders owning a 7-1 advantage in the all-time series. Vanderbilt is 4-4 with a game against San Francisco before coming to Texas next week. All-time, the Red Raiders are 2-6 against Vanderbilt with all eight matchups having come in the month of December. The most recent game was played on December 20, 1979, with Texas Tech earning an 89-86 overtime win in Nashville to snap a three-game losing streak to the Commodores.

Release Provided by WES BLOOMQUIST Texas Tech Athletics