Foul trouble limits Tolbert

COLUMBIA, Mo. — Coming off his best Big 12 performance of the season, Jordan Tolbert put a stop to Missouri’s opening 10-0 run with a tough inside layup three minutes into Saturday’s game.

But foul trouble made it difficult for Tech’s top scorer to contribute much else. Tolbert finished with four points, four rebounds and eight of team’s 21 turnovers in the Red Raiders 63-50 loss.

Three of Tolbert’s four fouls came on the offensive end, and he was whistled for a flagrant foul when officials determined that he hit Missouri guard Marcus Denmon with an elbow early in the second half, an incident downplayed by Denmon.

“That’s just part of the game,” he said.

Tolbert scored 18 points in a loss to Kansas State on Wednesday, but after picking up two quick fouls to open the second half, he was relegated to the bench during Tech’s comeback bid.

“We always want to play inside-out,” Tech coach Billy Gillispie said, “but the best guy we have at playing inside-out was sitting on the bench with foul trouble the entire day. We had to change on the fly as that goes.”

Freshmen not rattled

Of the five players who logged the most minutes for Tech on Saturday, three were freshmen — Kevin Wagner and walk-ons Clark Lammert and Luke Adams. Missouri’s most-used lineup, on the other hand, included four seniors.

Still, Tech didn’t look rattled when it battled back from a 15-point second-half deficit, cutting the lead to 57-50 on Lammert’s end-of-the-shot-clock 3-pointer with 2:37 left.

“Clark did a good job for us, even though he is a skinny walk-on player,” Tech coach Billy Gillispie quipped when describing Lammert’s performance.

Wagner scored just three points, but he collected five rebounds and dished out four assists.

“He did a good job, for the most part, of running our team,” Gillispie said of Wagner.

Adams registered eight points, two rebounds and two assists and drew a charge.

“He’s a smaller guard, but he’s pesky,” Tech guard Ty Nurse said of Adams. “He likes to dive in hard and steal the ball in the post. He’s a tough guy, a tough defender.”

Tech strong inside

The Red Raiders were battered in the post during Wednesday’s 69-47 loss to Kansas State, but they held their ground down low against Missouri on Saturday.

Tech won the rebound battle, 31-27, and each team scored 20 points in the paint.

Key to that effort was Jaye Crockett, who notched a double-double with 11 points and 12 rebounds. He also had four assists.

“Jaye battled like crazy,” Tech coach Billy Gillispie said.

Tech did a solid job limiting touches for Missouri senior forward Ricardo Ratliffe, who entered the game averaging more than 15 points per game. The Red Raiders held him to eight points on 4 of 6 shooting.

“Their game plan was to take away our paint production, and they did a good job of that,” Missouri coach Frank Haith said.

Gillispie said the focus wasn’t as much on stopping Ratliffe as it was playing solid help defense.

“We didn’t do anything special in (Ratliffe’s) regard,” Gillispie said. “We just wanted to help each other in every single way and play our defensive rules. But they make it very difficult for you to play your defensive rules because they are able to make shots.”

The 63 points scored by Missouri were the fewest Tech has allowed in Big 12 play.

Comfortable shoes

As part of the “Suits and Sneakers” event put on by the Coaches vs. Cancer organization, all the coaches in the Missouri-Texas Tech game on Saturday wore white sneakers.

Tech coach Billy Gillispie, whose own mother lost a battle with cancer a year ago, said he was happy to be involved in the event.

“All of us in this whole wide world have been affected by cancer,” he said. “I think it’s a great deal that coaches would make a strong statement to do everything we can to fight it.”

Compiled by Nick Kosmider