Red Raider Newcomers Try to Make Statement in First Big 12 Week

Chris Clarke, TJ Holyfield Terrance Shannon and Jahmi'us Ramsey have all enjoyed solid outings this season at different times. This weekend in the Red Raiders' dominating 85-50 win over the Oklahoma State Cowboys, it all came together like The A-Team.

Along with Davide Moretti and Kyler Edwards, the Red Raiders had a strong Big 12 opener from their newcomers and returning role players. Ramsey led the way scoring 18 points, but Holyfield had a big game as well, adding 17 to the total.

Tuesday night (January 7th), the Red Raiders look to continue their strong open with another home game at the United Supermarkets Arena. The Baylor Bears, ranked no. 4 in the AP Poll, head to Lubbock for a matchup that will likely have ramifications on the Big 12 title race down the line.

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Baylor is incredibly sound as a team and have very few holes. They are the best offensive rebounding team in the league, and are the 5th ranked team in the NET rankings. It's not the scoring that has Baylor as one of the best scoring margin teams in the Big 12, however. It's their defense, which is giving up a conference low 58 points per game. Analytics wizard Ken Pomeroy has the Baylor defense as the 9th best in the country.

For reference, Texas Tech's defense is 13th in KenPom's rankings, giving up 62 points per game. While neither team has had an incredibly taxing non-conference schedule, Baylor did beat Villanova, Butler and Arizona.

In my opinion, the game is too close to call by the numbers because they are all so similar. I'll lean toward the Raider Riot and United Supermarkets Arena providing the difference in a 67-63 win for Texas Tech over no. 4 Baylor, giving Texas Tech its second top five win of the 2019-2020 season.