Texas Tech Red Raiders at Michigan State Spartans

Mooney, Red Raiders D clamps down 61-51 over Michigan St

While the Red Raiders were locking down Michigan State on one end, the graduate transfer shooting guard was raining in 3s on the other, lifting Tech one win away from a title Saturday night with a 61-51 victory over the Spartans in the Final Four.

Mooney matched his season-high with 22 points, including three 3-pointers over the span of 3 minutes to give Texas Tech a 13-point lead midway through the second half.

With the kind of `D' Texas Tech plays, it was too much to overcome, and now the Red Raiders are getting ready for another defensive battle, in a Monday final against Virginia, and its vaunted pack line defense. The Cavaliers are a slight 1-point favorite, and the over/under was at 117 1/2 and falling late Saturday night.

Texas Tech wins by doing just enough on the offensive end. On this night, Mooney did the major damage.

"He's obviously very, very talented, but the thing that impressed me tonight was just his courage, wanting to make those big plays in big moment," Texas Tech coach Chris Beard said.

Mooney's first two shots in the stretch capped a 5-for-5 hot streak by Texas Tech (31-6) that stood as the game's only true blast of offense. His third 3 gave Texas Tech a 48-35 lead with 9:38 left.

It was, to put it Texas Tech's way, perfectly ugly.

"It's like they never make mistakes," Michigan State forward Kenny Goins said. "They got us kind of caught in that trap today."

But they did not go away easily.

Culver shot 0 for 6 in the first half, and scored six of his 10 points over the last 2:30.

"When you've got a whole team that trusts you on the court, you keep shooting with confidence," he said.

Most all these Red Raiders have a story like that.

Culver wasn't in the top 300 among high school recruits, and chose his hometown college over a few other places. He kept battling despite the rough start, and Texas Tech overcame his cold first half to head to the locker room leading by the not-so-scintillating score of 23-21. It was the lowest scoring first half at the Final Four since the Spartans took a 19-17 lead over Wisconsin in a 2000 slugfest.

"We threw a lot of punches tonight," Beard said. "We tried a lot of things on defense, and fortunately most of them worked."

Culver had one block and rim protector Tariq Owens, also a grad transfer, had three more before leaving late in the second half with a leg injury.

Owens came jogging back in toward the end to the cheers of the Texas Tech crowd, which included alum Patrick Mahomes, the high-flying QB for the Chiefs.

"Pretty cool to have the MVP of the NFL on our side, cheering for us," Mooney said.

Turns out, the quarterback isn't the only Red Raider who can light up that scoreboard.

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