Men’s Basketball Player of the Week: Bryson Williams

It was a roller-coaster week for Texas Tech men’s basketball. Starting with a road contest in Lawrence, Kansas, the Red Raiders found themselves down 12 with 6:35 remaining in the game. With a 1-20 record all-time against Kansas on the road, the game seemed all but over. That was until Tech roared back, ending the half on a 17-5 run to force overtime. In overtime, the Red Raiders jumped out to a five-point lead before squandering it over the last two minutes. Kansas would force double overtime with a late three-pointer, eventually pulling away in the second period and winning by three.

The team did not have to wait long to avenge the loss, hosting Mississippi State on Saturday as a part of the SEC/Big12 Challenge. Texas Tech took a 15 point lead into halftime and never looked back. They would end up winning on cruise control by a margin of 26, just one point shy of matching the football team’s winning margin in this season’s bowl game against the Bulldogs. 

While there were a couple of very distinct individual performances this week, Bryson Williams going toe-to-toe with the likely Big 12 Player of the Year, Ochai Agbaji, will be a performance talked about for a long time. 

Williams was huge in the win against Kansas earlier in the year going 8-10 inside the arc putting up 22 points and eight rebounds. In the second matchup, he continued his domination in the scoring department, finishing with 33 points on 14 of 19 shooting and keeping the Red Raiders in the fight. He followed that performance up with another double-digit scoring night against Mississippi State, notching his 16th 10+ point performance in 21 games this year. 

After a brief pause in conference play for the SEC/Big 12 Challenge, Tech resumes with the most anticipated game of the year on Tuesday at home against Chris Beard and Texas. Following that, the team will make the trek to Morgantown to face West Virginia two weeks after beating them 78-65 in Lubbock.