Texas Tech Red Raider Basketball lost to #13 Kansas State 68-59 last night at the United Spirit Arena.

Texas Tech grabbed an early lead against the Wildcats, 5-2, about a minute and a half into the game.  But missed shots and inability to grab rebounds prevented the Red Raiders from holding on to the lead and retaking it at any point thereafter.

Kansas State essentially doubled up Texas Tech on the boards. K-State grabbed 38 rebounds to Tech's 20. The Wildcats also scored 11 second-chance points.

At halftime the score was 37-29, Kansas State. The Wildcats got out to their largest lead of the night, 13 points, with about 11 minutes left in the game.  An 11-2 K-State run, upped the score to 53-40.

Rodney McGruder led Kansas State with 18 points and 9 rebounds. Also scoring in double digits for the Wildcats, Angel Rodriguez with 13 points, Thomas Gipson with 12 points and Martavious Irving with 10 points.

Ashley Wirz, 1340TheFan.com
Ashley Wirz, 1340TheFan.com
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Texas Tech's leading scorer was Jordan Tolbert with 19 points. Josh Gray (pictured) also contributed 10 points and 5 assists.

The Red Raiders played one of their best games of the season concerning turnovers. They only committed 4 turnovers and that received the praise of interim head coach Chris Walker. "One thing we did a great job of all game long was not turning the ball over, we had two, 20 turnover games consecutively and that’s what we harped on and we had four turnovers tonight, I couldn’t be any prouder of my guys tonight. They did a really good job tonight of taking care of the ball against one of the best teams in the country of taking care of the ball," Walker said.

With the win, Kansas State improved their record to (18-4, 7-2). Meanwhile, Texas Tech's record dropped to (9-11, 2-7).

The Red Raiders next game is Saturday at Baylor.

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