Jahmi’us Ramsey Goes Off in the Bahamas
The Red Raider Basketball team is playing three exhibition games this week. They lost the first one to the Bahamas National Team, but looked a lot more focused against Mega Bemax, a team of professional Serbian players, and took home a win in the second game, 94-92.
That was without Davide Moretti and Chris Clarke, who played early, but both left with injuries within minutes of tip-off.
The final score really doesn't matter, but there are numerous positives to take from this game. Namely, the freshman trio of Clarence Nadolny, Jahmi'us Ramsey and Terrance Shannon.
Talk about seizing the moment. Nadolny and Ramsey dominated penetrating the lane. Nadolny looked poised, for the most part, bringing the ball up the floor and running the offense. Shannon is just a SPARQ plug athlete and flashed again while on the floor. Neither Nadolny or Shannon had clean games, but the potential for both is scary good, and both finished with 13 points.
The star of the trio in game two, though, was Jahmi'us Ramsey, who broke the 40-point mark, scoring at least 20 points in both halves and finishing with 44 on 12-15 shooting.
Ramsey looked truly dominant at points and had his jumper and his penetration working in tandem. Late in the game, the defenders were getting brutalized with his hesi because he'd made four eight of those coming on the offensive end.
The only "veteran" on the team, Kyler Edwards, also had a solid offensive game, reaching double digits and knocking down some tough shots in tight coverage along with some gimme three-balls. Edwards finished with 17 points and 7 boards, but shot just 25 percent.
TJ Holyfield, also a veteran but a newcomer to Texas Tech, isn't a box score hero (or at least wasn't tonight), but he understands spacing and movement and was a big reason for Ramsey and Nadolny getting free paths to the basket all night long.
Overall, the game had a much more competitive vibe from Texas Tech, who just didn't show up in game one. There's still a lot of inexperience showing through, but there's only one way to fix inexperience. It's important to not read into these game results, but the bones are there for a dangerous team.
They'll get a rematch with Mega Bemax on Sunday, August 18th after a few days off. Hopefully, Clarke, Moretti and Kevin McCullar all have recovered from their ailments by then. If they aren't 100 percent, you can bet that Coach Chris Beard will sit them on the bench and play a coach if it comes down to it. No need to push an injury in August.