Texas Tech upset Iowa State on Saturday on the road for its 22nd win of the season. They then faced TCU on Tuesday night, but TCU won 73-65 over the Red Raiders.

It was the third time since January 24 that Texas Tech won against a team ranked in the AP Top 25, and then lost to an unranked team the next time out. Now, head coach Grant McCasland is explaining the trend, per Nathan Giese of the Lubbock-Avalanche Journal.

“I do think that when you play a really physical team, it does take a lot out of us, because we have skill,” McCasland said.

TCU dominated a lot of the physical aspects of the game against Texas Tech. They out-rebounded the Red Raiders 39-25, including 16-7 on the offensive glass. Further, they had 38 points in the paint against the 22 of Texas Tech.

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“I think what we have is a good combination of basketball players,” McCasland said, “but I wouldn't call us physical. We have to really ramp that up. And I do think you could see it takes it out of us when we play a really physical team, and then you got to turn around and play in a short amount of time.”

Texas Tech needs to figure out how to play on short rest in a hurry. They will face BYU on March 7, but then will have some more time off, as they have secured a bye into the quarterfinals of the Big 12 tournament. That places their first game on March 12, but the semifinals are on the 13th, and the finals are on the 14th. This means they need to be ready to perform during back to back situations.

“I'd like to tell y'all, everybody has the answers of why we won't do anything in the postseason. I can tell you, I can give you a lot of reasons why we will, and that's my heart for this group and that's the way we're going to approach it,” McCasland concluded with saying. “We'll stare this in the face, and I will as a coach try to help our team have confidence in these games that we can do it.”

Texas Tech is now 22-8 on the season, and will likely be a three-seed in the NCAA Tournament. They can improve that with a solid run in the Big 12 tournament, which begins on March 10.