Thomas’ big night not enough as Tech falls to Iowa State

Saturday, January 29

Lubbock, Texas

12:30 PM

Texas Tech Athletics

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Iowa State

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Texas Tech

Thomas’ big night not enough as Tech falls to Iowa State

January 29, 2022 | Women's Basketball

Box Score Box Score (PDF)

The Lady Raiders fell Saturday afternoon

By: Andrew Stern

LUBBOCK, Texas – Despite 22 points from forward Taylah Thomas, the Texas Tech Lady Raiders fell 86-65 Saturday afternoon to No. 13 Iowa State at United Supermarkets Arena.

Texas Tech (9-11, 2-7 Big 12) also received 17 points from senior All-American Vivian Gray, who extended her streak of scoring in double-figures against ranked opponents to 23 consecutive games.

Redshirt freshman Rhyle McKinney also had a strong performance Saturday, as the SMU transfer scored nine points in her first start since Nov. 28 against New Mexico. McKinney has now hit a shot from behind the 3-point arc in five consecutive games.

Emily Ryan scored 20 points and had seven assists for Iowa State (18-3, 7-2 Big 12), while Lexy Donarski added 19 points. In the end five different Cyclones reached double-figures.

HOW IT HAPPENED:

The Lady Raiders got off to a strong start Saturday afternoon, as a McKinney triple gave the home team an early 5-2 lead.

After Iowa State answered with the next six points to take an 8-5 lead, Tech went on a 5-2 run to tie the game at 10.

The Cyclones would respond, scoring seven of the next 10 points, to lead 20-13 with 2:04 to play in the period.

Thomas and McKinney would answer the 7-3 run with five of the next seven, bringing the Lady Raiders to within 20-18 with 1:25 to play.

Down 24-20 with just seven seconds left in the quarter, point guard Bryn Gerlich found a cutting Ella Tofaeono who hit a layup just before the buzzer sounded. The basket cut the ISU lead to 24-22 after one. Gerlich finished with six assists, and now has at least four helpers in six straight.

In the second period, the two teams traded baskets over the first 4:11 of the quarter. The final bucket in that sequence was a Thomas layup that tied the score at 26-26 with 5:49 to play.

After the under-five media timeout, the visiting Cyclones began to take control of the game, using an 11-0 run to take a first half high 37-26 lead with 1:48 to play.

Gray ended the run with an and-one on Tech's next possession, but ISU used a triple from Ryan to take a 44-34 lead at the break.

Much like Wednesday night, the Lady Raiders started the third quarter on fire, using a 7-2 run to draw to within 46-41. The spurt was capped by freshman Chantae Embree's corner triple.

With the momentum swinging toward the Lady Raiders, Iowa State calmly used a layup from Donarski to jumpstart a 14-3 run that gave them a 60-44 lead with 4:32 to play in the third.

By the end of the period, Iowa State was able to grow its lead all the way to 73-49.

In the fourth, the Lady Raider deficit grew to as many as 26, before Tech used a 10-5 run to draw to within 21 at the final buzzer.

INSIDE THE BOX SCORE:
• After hitting 11-of-15 from distance against Baylor Wednesday, the Lady Raiders hit 5-of-10 from distance Saturday.
• Thomas scored 10 of her 22 in the first quarter.
• Her 22 points are three shy of her career-high of 25 set back on Jan. 2 against Oklahoma.
• McKinney is now 7-for-her-last-9 from behind the arc and is shooting 20-of-45 (44.4 percent).
• Gray has now scored 70 points over her last three games. She is just 104 points shy of eclipsing 2,000 in her D-I career.
• Gray has scored just under 2,300 (2,295) points in her five-year career (including D-II).
• Guard Bre'Amber Scott returned to action Saturday for the first time since Jan. 8 against OSU. Scott scored three points and grabbed three rebounds in her eight minutes of action.
• ISU outscore Tech 42-28 in the paint.
• After outrebounding its opponent in the first six games of B12 play, Tech has now been outrebounded in three straight games. The Cyclones outrebounded the Lady Raiders 36-27.

COACH SPEAK (HC KRISTA GERLICH):
"Iowa State is a really good basketball team, and I have a lot of respect for [Iowa State] coach [Bill] Fennelly. I think he does a really good job. They have a lot of returners who are experienced and they're very good at what they do. Our kids in the first 15 minutes really executed our gameplan and battled. We were making it really difficult for them to shoot the three which was part of our gameplan. When you focus so heavily on defending the three it leaves some one-on-one chances in the paint, and we didn't get as many stops as I would have liked. But for the first 15 minutes we did a pretty good job of that. Iowa State's run to end the half. And then starting the third quarter we didn't make a real push to put them on their heels at all. They continued to knock down some shots. There was a segment where we got several stops in-a-row and we didn't capitalize on offense. We didn't trust our offense in those situations probably because we were behind. Everyone had urgency in trying to come back instead of grinding it out and taking it one possession at a time. There's a lot of things that we saw today that we can fix for the next time we play Iowa State."

UP NEXT:
The Lady Raiders return to action one week from today (Feb. 5) when they travel to Manhattan looking for season sweep over the Wildcats. Tech dropped K-State two weeks ago, 64-45.