Texas Tech @ Texas preview

Last Meeting ( Mar 4, 2019 ) Texas 51, Texas Tech 70

Texas Tech will face a familiar foe Saturday when the Red Raiders head out on the road to renew their rivalry against Texas. The Longhorns have dominated the all-time series - 86-60 advantage since the first meeting in 1939 - and they’ll be looking to begin a new streak Saturday as they had 22 straight home wins against the Red Raiders before falling in last season’s showdown.

The Red Raiders improved their home record to 11-2 Tuesday with a 69-61 victory over Oklahoma in a game that featured 17 lead changes and 10 ties but saw Texas Tech overcome a halftime deficit by shooting 52.2 percent from the floor and 4-for-6 from downtown after the break. "It was just a great win for us," Red Raiders head coach Chris Beard told the media. "To finish the first half of Big 12 play against a team that I think is an NCAA tournament team with a Hall of Fame coach is great. I thought our guys stood the test. There are going to be a lot of ups and downs during the course of the game and I thought for the most part we kept our composure and kept fighting." Longhorns guard Matt Coleman III poured in a game-high 20 points - the junior’s third time hitting that mark this season - but it wasn’t enough as Texas let its three-point halftime lead slip away Monday and fell 69-58 to No. 3 Kansas. The Longhorns - a high-volume 3-point shooting team who ranks second in the Big 12 in makes and attempts from downtown but are fifth with a 33.8 success rate - shot just 4-for-24 from behind the arc against the Jayhawks and haven’t made more than half their 3-point attempts in a game since Dec. 14 against Central Michigan, when they went 14-for-25.

TIME: 4 p.m. ET. TV: ESPN2

ABOUT TEXAS TECH (14-8, 5-4 Big 12): Coming off a 19-point effort in a 78-75 setback to the Jayhawks last week, senior TJ Holyfield filled up the stat sheet against the Sooners with a game-high 21 points along with six boards, three blocks and a pair of steals. “I thought Holyfield has played really good,” Beard told reporters. “He played with a lot of courage against Kansas, and to duplicate that tonight back to back games is great. He really works hard on his craft. It is good to see him out there playing confident.” The Red Raiders are forcing a Big 12-best 16.55 turnovers per game - 22nd nationally - while leading the conference in assists with 16.0 - 23rd nationally.

ABOUT TEXAS (14-8, 4-5): Junior forward Jericho Sims went 8-for-9 from the floor en route to 17 points against Kansas while the team’s leading rebounder (8.1) grabbed nine boards in 28 minutes. The Longhorns are eighth in the conference in 3-point field goal defense (33.4 percent) but have played great on the perimeter against Kansas in two meetings this season, holding them to a combined 4-for-22 from downtown. Freshman Kai Jones grabbed all of his personal-best eight rebounds in the first half Monday but the 6-11 forward was held without a point despite playing a career-high 33 minutes.

BUZZER BEATERS

1. Coleman III is 11 points shy of becoming the 38th player in program history to reach 1,000 career points.

2. Texas Tech G Jahmi’us Ramsay is fourth in the Big 12 in scoring with 15.7 points per game.

3. The Red Raiders are looking for their first five-game win streak against Texas since a six-game stretch from 1981-85 and are 11-41 against the Longhorns since the Big 12’s inaugural season in 1996-97.

PREDICTION: Texas Tech 77, Texas 71