Let me say this about that: It's probably going to be a long time before you see a team win a game in the tourney shooting 43 three pointers, then win their next game absolutely pounding the post. A long, long time.
Teams just don't have the ability to beat you both ways, they just don't. You'll hear announcers and analysts talking about most teams and say things like, "they can beat you in a variety of ways," but what they should be saying is, "they beat you with a combination of inside and outside play that's very effective and hard to defend." Except for Texas Tech, they really can beat you in a variety of ways - completely different ways, separate and distinct from each other, and either one independently of the other can beat you.
Particularly, teams playing at 80% capacity shouldn't be whipping up on teams from outside in one game and inside the next. It's not normal and we are not hearing enough good things about it.
Yesterday's win over Drake was fun, it was relaxing, it was entertaining. Well, it wasn't entertaining if you were Drake but it was sure entertaining for me. I haven't giggled through a basketball game since Texas Tech laid the wood to TCU in January of 2019.
I can't say enough good things about Elijah Hawkins and his superlative defense. His man was six inches taller than him but a lot of that height is negated when you're lugging around another man in your shorts. And Hawkins was absolutely in that guy's face the entire night. It's been a while since I've seen something like that, a concerted, focused effort to lock down your man and really just ignore anything else happening on defense. Hawkins had one universe last night on defense and it was Stirtz. And despite that focus and the bumps and bruises that always come with it, he had a really nice offensive night that our man @Brandon Bohannon has talked about. Not enough good things can be said about that performance. Having a legit junk yard point guard is a rare luxury.
On to Arkansas, a different beast who looked pretty beastly against St. John's yesterday. As tourneys are supposed to go, this will be the toughest game Tech has played yet.
