Like It Is

Hot Hannahs made Tubby squirm at half

Texas Tech head coach Tubby Smith directs his players in the second half of an NCAA college basketball game against Arkansas in Fayetteville, Ark., Saturday, Jan. 30, 2016. Arkansas won 75-68. (AP Photo/Sarah Bentham)

FAYETTEVILLE -- Tubby Smith almost did it.

The wily veteran with 550 victories, including a national championship at Kentucky, knew Saturday at halftime he had to do something about Dusty Hannahs.

Smith knew as well as anyone what Hannahs was capable of, and it was no surprise the Red Raiders opened the game with a defender always in Hannahs' face on the perimeter at Walton Arena.

During Smith's first season at Tech, he saw Hannahs hit six three-pointers in a row in a comeback victory at West Virginia.

Saturday, with 11:31 to play in the first half, Hannahs had two points and hadn't attempted one three-pointer. Then he got a couple of layups and scored on a cutter after a great assist from Moses Kingsley, who was hitting a wall in the paint.

Hannahs nailed his first three with 7:17 to play before halftime, then another, and his third -- a 24-footer -- gave the Hogs their first lead of the game, 26-23.

The junior transfer from Texas Tech finished the first half with 21 points -- 7 of 10 from the field and 3 of 4 on three-pointers -- and if Smith wasn't thinking on his way to the locker room that he should have found a way to talk Hannahs out of transferring, he should have been.

The Red Raiders were 1 of 9 on three-pointers, and a 12-point lead had become a 29-28 deficit. Hannahs almost totally overshadowed what was happening with Tech.

Smith, though, was thinking at the break just a little too much about Hannahs and not enough about Kingsley.

Tech's starting center, 6-10 Matthew Temple, was in his second start filling in for injured Norense Odiase. Well, his second start outside of his recreation center.

During Temple's first two years at Tech, he was leading his fraternity in intramurals, but last season he was noticed by a senior and urged to contact Smith.

He wasn't great on offense Saturday, but he clogged up the middle and helped hold Kingsley scoreless in the first half.

But Temple got lost on the bench when Smith decided to zone the Hogs, allowing Kingsley to bow up and score 13 second-half points when the Razorbacks were struggling so mightily against the zone that they lost an 11-point lead.

It went to overtime after a final drive for a layup to win in regulation resulted in a miss by Devaugntah Williams.

By then Smith had milked the zone for all he could, and while it did hold Hannahs to four free throws after halftime, Hannahs added two assists and three rebounds.

Tech used offensive rebounds to build a 12-point first-half lead, but that's how Kingsley kick-started the overtime to give the Hogs a 62-60 lead.

The score would be tied two more times in overtime, with Tech's Aaron Ross playing his heart out off the bench. But Anthlon Bell hit a three with 2:34 to play and the Razorbacks never trailed again.

Kingsley added another offensive putback, Jabril Durham hit a driving layup and two free throws and with 26.6 seconds to play Hannahs strolled to the free-throw line, iced them both and the Hogs had won their portion of the SEC-Big 12 challenge 75-68.

On a day when coaches all across America wear tennis shoes to support coaches against cancer, two heavyweight coaches went at it for 45 minutes.

Mike Anderson started with a four-guard offense, switched to a big lineup with Trey Thompson joining Kingsley and kept fresh legs on defense as much as he could while using 10 players.

Kingsley and Bell stepped up with Tech worried about Hannahs, but so did Manny Watkins, who finished with nine points. All of Watkins' points came at key times, and in the end defense and team play made the difference.

Sports on 01/31/2016