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No. 21 Texas Tech Gets Ready to Open March Madness Against Utah State

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Basketball

No. 21 Texas Tech is set to open the 2021 NCAA Tournament as a No. 6 seed in the South Region against 11th-seeded Utah State at 12:45 p.m. (CST) on Friday at Assembly Hall in Bloomington, Indiana.

The Red Raiders (17-10) are coming off a 67-66 loss to No. 9 Texas in the Big 12 Championship quarterfinals last Thursday, while the Aggies (20-8) have won six of their past seven games but fell 68-57 to San Diego State in the Mountain West tournament finals. The TTU-Utah State winner will advance to the second round to play the winner of the No. 3 Arkansas and No 14 Colgate matchup which is at 11:45 p.m. on Friday at Bankers Life Fieldhouse in Indianapolis. 

Mac McClung leads the Red Raiders with 15.7 points per game this season, while Terrence Shannon, Jr. is scoring 12.7 per game. Kevin McCullar and Kyler Edwards are both at 10 points per game to give Tech four double-digit scorers going into the national tournament. Marcus Santos-Silva, who is the lone senior on the team and played in the 2018 NCAA Tournament with VCU, leads TTU with 6.5 rebounds per game and 1.2 blocks. Edwards lead Tech with 2.7 assists per game and has the most tournament experience on the team after playing as a freshman during the run to the national championship final. A junior from Arlington, Edwards scored 12 points with two 3-pointers in the title game against Virginia. Avery Benson, Edwards and Santos-Silva are the three players on the TTU roster with tournament experience. Benson was on the Elite 8 team and played in game against Buffalo and Michigan in the 2019 tournament. 

All NCAA Tournament games will be played in Indiana this year with the First Four games to be played on March 18. The First Round is on March 19-20 followed by the Second Round on March 21-22. Advancing teams will compete in the Sweet 16 on March 27-28 followed by the Elite 8 on March 29-30. The Final Four is set for April 3 before the national championship final on April 5 at Lucas Oil Stadium.  

Tech is making its 18th NCAA Tournament in program history and is 16-19 all-time. The program has made the tournament in 1954, 1956, 1961, 1962, 1973, 1976, 1985, 1986, 1993, 1996, 2002, 2004, 2005, 2007, 2016, 2018 and 2019. In the past two tournaments no program has won more games with the Red Raiders securing wins in the 2018 NCAA Tournament over SFA, Florida and Purdue to advance to the program's first Elite 8 before reaching the 2019 NCAA Championship Final with victories over Northern Kentucky, Buffalo, Michigan, Gonzaga and Michigan State in the Final Four. 

• Texas Tech has an 8-2 record in the NCAA Tournament under head coach Chris Beard with trips to the 2018 Elite 8 and the 2019 National Championship Final... The 8-2 record over the past two NCAA Tournaments is the best in the nation after the run to the program's first Final Four... TTU earned a win over Michigan State in the national semifinals before an overtime loss to Virginia. The run to the 2019 National Championship came with wins over Northern Kentucky, Buffalo, Michigan and Gonzaga before topping the Spartans in Minnesota to reach the final Monday night of the 2019 college basketball season. 
• Texas Tech is making its 18th NCAA Tournament appearance and its third straight which is a program record... The team was projected to make the 2020 tournament before it was canceled due to the coronavirus pandemic.
• At No. 21 in the final week of the national polls, Texas Tech has been ranked throughout the 2020-21 season which is the first time in program history... The Red Raiders began the year at No. 14 in the AP Preseason Poll and were as high as No. 7 on Feb. 8. 
• Avery Benson, Kyler Edwards and Marcus Santos-Silva are Red Raiders who have competed in the NCAA Tournament... Benson is the only current player who was on the 2018 Elite 8 and 2019 Final Four teams while Edwards played as a freshman during the 2019 tournament... Santos-Silva played in the 2019 tournament at VCU... McCullar was a redshirt on the 2019 team. 
• Four Red Raiders were honored with All-Big 12 awards with Mac McClung being named the Big 12 Newcomer of the Year to go along with All-Big 12 Second Team and Big 12 All-Newcomer Team recognition... Terrence Shannon, Jr. was named to the All-Big 12 Third team while Kyler Edwards and Kevin McCullar were All-Big 12 Honorable Mention selections. 
• Tech and Utah State are meeting for the 5th time with the series tied 2-2... The Red Raiders won 75-51 on Nov. 23, 2016 at the Cancun Challenge in Beard's first year... The programs played in Assembly Hall against each other with USU winning 78-68 in the Indiana Classic on Dec. 21, 1976.
• TTU is a six seed in the tournament for the fourth time, most recently in 2005 where the team opened with a win over UCLA in the West Region before falling to Gonzaga... The Red Raiders were a three seed in the past two tournaments. 
• TTU is 7-10 all-time in the first round of the tournament coming into the matchup against Utah State. 
• Tech is 6-10 this season against teams in the NCAA Tournament field... vs. Oklahoma 2-0; vs. Texas 2-1; vs. Abilene Christian 1-0; vs. LSU 1-0; vs. Baylor 0-2; vs. Oklahoma State 0-2; vs. Kansas; vs. West Virginia 0-2; vs. Houston 0-1.
• The Red Raiders are one of seven teams from the state of Texas in the NCAA tournament, joining Baylor and Texas from the Big 12 along with North Texas, Texas Southern, Houston and Abilene Christian. TTU played Houston and ACU during the regular season, dropping a neutral-court matchup against UH on Nov. 29 in Fort Worth before securing a 51-44 win over ACU on Dec. 9 in Lubbock. The Red Raiders were 2-1 against UT this season and 0-2 against Baylor. 

STAT RANKINGS: Texas Tech comes into the NCAA Tournament fifth in the nation with a 5.1 turnover margin advantage and 25th with 16 turnovers forced per game this season. The Red Raiders forced 20 turnovers against the Longhorns in the conference tournament and have now forced 15 or more turnovers in 17 of 27 games this season. Tech leads the Big 12 and is 28th nationally by holding teams to 63.4 points per game after holding 12 opponents under 60 points. Offensively, the Red Raiders are averaging 73.0 points per game and are shooting 44.3 percent from the field. The team is 10th nationally with 432 free throws made (16.0 per game) with a season-best 25 in games against Sam Houston and Oklahoma State. Tech's defense is limiting opponents to 41.0 percent shooting with 10 teams being held under 35 percent.

UTAH STATE: The Aggies come into their matchup against Texas Tech having won six of their last seven games after dropping the Mountain West tournament final to San Diego State. USU went 15-4 in conference play this season. Neemias Queta leads the team with 15.1 points and 10.0 rebounds per game and also has 90 blocks, 71 assists and 30 steals. A 7-foot center from Portugal, Queta is coming off scoring 18 points and having six rebounds and three blocks against SDSU. He was named an honorable mention All-American by The Associated Press. Justin Bean is second on the team with 11.3 points per game, while Marco Anthony is averaging 10.0 points per game and has 84 assists. Rollie Worster leads USU with 91 assists to go along with scoring 9.2 points per game. The Aggies are led by head coach Craig Smith who is in his third season. Smith coached former TTU player Matt Mooney at South Dakota State before taking the job in Logan and Mooney transferring to Tech to help lead the program to the 2019 Final Four. Anthony is a junior from San Antonio who played against McCullar in high school.