NEW YORK -- After Nolan Groves played just 20 seconds in Texas Tech's win over Northern Colorado on Tuesday, coach Grant McCasland took his seldom-used freshman aside in the parking lot and told him to be prepared for Saturday's showdown against unbeaten Duke at Madison Square Garden.
You're going to play, McCasland told Groves. So be ready.
The Tech coach's heads-up was prophetic, as Groves came off the bench in the second half to spark a 17-point comeback as the Red Raiders handed Duke its first loss of the season, 82-81.
"It's pretty cool when you got a guy like Nolan Groves, who shoots an airball and goes 0-for-2 and plays 13 minutes and only has one offensive rebound and three fouls, but he's a plus-13," McCasland said. "And that shows you what impact you can have on a college basketball game no matter what."
Texas Tech (9-3) was already down three players due to injury, then two more players -- LeJuan Watts and Leon Horner -- fouled out. Star big man JT Toppin picked up his fourth foul with 18:26 remaining. McCasland essentially had zero proven options on his bench to deal with Player of the Year favorite Cameron Boozer.
So McCasland turned to the 6-foot-5 Groves, who hadn't played more than one minute in a game since late November and hadn't played double-digit minutes since the second game of the season.
Groves' first notable action of the game: An airballed 3-point attempt. He wouldn't make a shot during his 13 minutes on the floor, but he took the lead on defending Boozer and limiting the star forward the rest of the game.
"He's showed up everyday," McCasland said. "And the one thing he's done is he's guarded everyday. We put him on scout team so he could play defense and he just keeps taking steps. And the one thing I felt like he could do is move his feet and defend in a physical way. So honestly, it was kind of the perfect matchup for us because it helped JT stay out of foul trouble. He could patrol the rim and still rebound and offer help at the basket and Nolan could stand him up, which not many people in college basketball can stand Boozer up. And Nolan did a fantastic job of that."
Texas Tech scored the first nine points of the game, but Duke eventually settled in and began to control the game at both ends of the floor. The Blue Devils were getting timely 3-point shots from their complementary pieces, while Boozer was steadily getting Tech's frontline in foul trouble. Duke entered halftime with a 10-point lead, while Boozer was on triple-double watch with 10 points, 6 rebounds and 5 assists.
Toppin, who finished with 19 points and 10 rebounds, picked up his fourth foul early in the second half, with Duke extending the lead to 17 points with 16:31 left. The Red Raiders would make a couple of runs, including one to cut the lead all the way down to two, but the Blue Devils quickly responded to lead by 11 with just over six minutes remaining.
Shorthanded, Tech responded again. More specifically, Christian Anderson responded again.
Anderson, the sophomore point guard having an All-American season, struggled mightily in the first half. Entering the game averaging 19.3 points (top 50 nationally) and 7.5 assists (fourth in the country), Anderson had four points, one assist and three turnovers in the first half, going 1-for-4 from the field. McCasland made Anderson one of the subjects of his locker room talk at halftime.
"Christian [is] one of those guys who he's a little bit slow to warm up sometimes," McCasland said. "I mean, he's not always in attack mode. He's got such a good feel for the game and he's such a good passer ... But in this game, I challenged him at halftime, 'Dude, you're going to have to score. You're going to have to be way more aggressive. You can't wait to see what -- No, just go right at him and go get baskets.' And man, what a fun second half he had. And he carried us when we needed big baskets."
Anderson scored 10 straight Texas Tech points during one stretch, and ultimately scored 21 of the Red Raiders' final 31 points. After five straight Boozer points extended Duke's lead to 11 with 6:29 left, Anderson hit back-to-back 3s. He hit another 3 to cut the lead to two a couple of possessions later. He also had a three-point play with 1:14 left to extend Tech's lead to four - and the game-winning free throw with just over three seconds left.
He finished with 27 points and 5 assists, with 23 points and 4 assists coming in the second half.
"I started off a little bit sluggish, not fully in tune with the game," Anderson said. "But thanks to JT, my other teammates and coaches, they just kept pushing me. I got to be aggressive if we want to win this game and just not even making shots, but just put pressure on the defensive and make plays and keep the defenders on their toes. So I tried to put more emphasis on that second half and I was glad I was able to do it."
Saturday marked Texas Tech's first marquee win of the campaign after previous defeats to Illinois, Purdue and Arkansas.
Duke (11-1), meanwhile, had blown big leads on a couple of occasions in recent weeks -- the Blue Devils led Arkansas by 13 and Florida by 15 before needing to hang on late -- and it finally caught up to them.
After a nonconference slate that featured wins over Texas, Kansas, Michigan State and the aforementioned Arkansas and Florida victories, Duke now has 11 days off before the start of ACC play on New Year's Eve.
"The one thing this team has done, they responded every time," coach Jon Scheyer said. "In practice, in games, so I know I'm going to have a team that comes back ready to work, ready to build, and a team that takes responsibility too."
"And I think for us and for me, the only good part about this is it gives you -- Winning can make you soft, it just does," Scheyer continued. "And so it can give you just that extra understanding of the value of every possession, when you have a lead and things can happen where all of a sudden you can put yourself in a position where a call can go against you, a missed free throw, a missed block out, and that can be the difference of winning and losing."