March Madness is one of the biggest tournaments of the year, across all sports. One the reasons for this is the unpredictability of this annual basketball tournament. Nobody really knows what’s gonna happen, and any team could come out on top. But the biggest story of the 2019 March Madness  tournament was the Texas Tech Red Raiders. After not even making the tournament in 2016, in just 3 years, Texas Tech built a team that went all the way to the championship game.

Chris Beard, the coach of the team, was essential to the team’s success. After being hired in the 2016-17 season, Chris Beard has done incredible things for the Raiders. The team had a losing record for the last 5 out of 6 seasons before hiring Beard. In his 3 seasons as the head coach, he lead Texas Tech to 2 elite eights, and a championship game. There are many reasons why Chris Beard had led this team to success. He is said to have an incredible work ethic, and he brought that to the rest of the team, which played  a big role in their improvement throughout the 3 years Beard has coached them. But the real reason that Texas Tech has gotten where they are is because of Beard’s defensive tactics. In a league were offensive stars dominate, having a good defense is key, and Texas Tech had arguably the best in the game.

The defense system that the Red Raiders (Texas Tech’s team name) used is called “The Iron Donut”. And it’s one of the most effective defenses in college basketball, because of how it stops players from driving in and passing. What happens is that instead of standing between the ball and the basket, the defender stands between the basket and the middle of the floor. The advantage of this is that the entire middle of the floor is basically blocked off for the defense, so no driving straight to the basket. But you would think that, instead, the ball handle would just try to go around the defender because his path to the basket is more open. And that’s the trap that Texas Tech wants you to fall in. The defender will drive to the basket only to be swarmed by other defenders coming into the middle. So the ball handlers options are to either try and chuck up a shot over all the defenders, or try and desperately find a pass. Most of the time, the play ends up with no points for the offense.

But obviously none of this would be possible without the players themselves. And Texas Tech’s lineup was full of unlikely talent. The team was led by Jarrett Culver, a 6-6 sophomore from Texas. Jarrett Culver was one of the big surprise players this season, as he came out of nowhere and tore up the Big 12 ( the divison Texas Tech plays in). Culver is an elite offensive scorer, but also, is a great defender. Throughout the season, he has shown that he is a great rim protector. And in addition to that, he is also a solid passer, and can shoot well from the 3-point arc. These are a combination of skills that are hard to find.  But one of the best things about Texas Tech’s roster is that every player has the ability to bring something unique to the table, and their skills complement one another. For example, while Culver is an all-around star, Norense Odiase, an experienced senior, is a rebounding machine, who brought down almost 200 rebounds. Also, let’s not forget about sharpshooter Davide Moretti, who shot 45% from 3, and an incredible 92% from the field. While these are just a few of the Red Raiders star players, when watching, it’s easy to see what role each player plays on the court.

Having great players is key to a strong team, but is useless unless the team performs well in the season. Throughout the regular season, teams are always looking at one thing: March Madness. This 64-team basketball tournament is the biggest of the year, and a committee selects the teams and seeds for the tournament. As a team you have 2 goals: Make the tournament and, if you’ve already made it, get a good seeding. Texas Tech’s goal this year was the latter, because they’d already made the tournament for the past few years, and even went to the elite eight recently. Coming in to the tournament, they already had gone past a big obstacle, as for the first time in years, they were the regular season champs of the Big-12 conference, passing powerhouse Kansas, who had won it 11 times. This brought them to be the 3-seed in their division in the tournament, behind Gonzaga and Michigan. They breezed through the Northern Kentucky, the 14-seed, in the 1st round, beating them by 15. Next, they crushed 6-seed Buffalo, beating them by 20. Then, in the Sweet 16, they faced 2-seed Michigan. This was their hardest matchup yet. Michigan had had a solid season so far, and had a offensive-minded play style. It was in this game the Texas Tech’s defense shone, as the iron donut held strong. They beat Michigan by almost 20 points, as Jarrett Culver played great, scoring 20 points. Also, importantly, they locked down Michigan’s offense, only allowing 5 players to score points. Next came Gonzaga, the 1-seed in the division, who had lost only 4 games out of the 37 they played. Gonzaga had one of the best offenses in college basketball, and it was a struggle to keep them locked down. Multiple players scored over 15 points. But in the end, Tech did just well enough, behind another great performance by Culver, to etch out a 75-69 win.

Texas Tech had now made the prestiged Final Four, facing an unlikely opponent in Michigan State. Michigan State had had a dominant season, winning the Big 10 championship. But the bigger surprise was that they beat the landslide favorite to win the tournament, Duke, in the previous round. And in this match, we saw a similar game to the one against Michigan, were Texas Tech completely locked down the MSU offense, and won 61-51. And just like that, they were in the championship match, against Virginia. Virginia was the number 1 seed in the tournament, and obviously was the favorite to win this match. This matchup was amazing, as it took an overtime match to determine a victor. Throughout the game, Texas Tech’s roster put up great numbers, as 5 players put up double digit points. But Virginia’s play style was able to break through the Texas Tech defense. Virginia had players, such as Kyle Guy, who could shoot the 3 very well, and so when they were guarded they could just shoot from the 3-point line instead of falling for the trap of driving forward. Kyle Guy and Deander Hunter, 2 good shooters from Virginia, both put up over 20 points, leading Virginia to a 7 point victory.

Although Texas Tech lost in the championship match, it doesn’t undermine the obstacles and challenges they overcame to get there, and how their coaching plans and players contributed to beat some of the best teams in the country. Their unique play style was one of the best in the game, and also showed the impact of team chemistry and incorporation. The team success of Texas Tech is important because it paves the way for other teams to be unique instead of doing similar things over and over again, and makes the game more exciting to watch. Using all the elements of a strong team, Texas Tech was able to become a championship contender, and shall be one for years to come.