Assembled in the locker room for halftime, the Texas Tech players set a goal: hold South Dakota to less than 50 points.

Texas Tech's D'walyn Roberts, left, and Darko Cohadarevic, right, battle for a rebound with South Dakota's Jake Thomas and Tyler Cain, center, during their game Friday.

Pat Knight defines his first full season as head coach by the Red Raiders’ high-scoring games in which opponents always seemed to sneak through with one or two more buckets. On Friday, Knight opened his second full campaign, this time using a defense-first approach to defeat South Dakota 88-49.

“You actually get more points playing defense,” Knight said. “It leads to easier buckets.”

Tech used a powerful transition game to break ahead of South Dakota, scoring 14 points on fast breaks and 36 off turnovers.

Forward Mike Singletary said that kind of scoring will be important throughout the season.

“We’ve got so many athletes who can just run, everybody can push the ball up the floor and get the rebound,” Singletary said. “Whenever we get fast-break points that just makes it easier on us.”

Singletary had 15 points and 5 rebounds, while South Plains College transfer David Tairu scored 17 and Darko Cohadarevic finished with 8 points and 13 rebounds.

Tech hoped to open a wide lead early in the game, but stalled midway through the first half and allowed South Dakota to pull within three points after Roman Gentry split a pair of free throws to make it 16-13 with 9 minutes, 3 seconds left in the first half.

“I think our defensive pressure helped, got us some easy buckets, but then our kids relaxed,” Knight said. “Both teams were tight coming out, but that’s natural. It’s both teams opening games.”

The Raiders soon took off, using a 20-6 run to build a lead it would never let go.

It was during that stretch that Tech blasted past the Coyotes, not using their motion offense but through transition buckets.

Tech scored eight points in transition during the first half.

And that pesky defense Knight has been dogging on for the past month? The coach seemed happier with what he saw, holding USD to half of Tech’s scoring through most of the first 30 minutes.

South Dakota turned the ball over 30 times. For Tech it was just 13.

“We gave up a lot of conversion baskets,” South Dakota coach Dave Boots said. “Our conversion defense was very poor.”

The Coyotes didn’t climb back during the second half they way they’d hoped to. Tyler Cain scored on back-to-back jumpers in the first minute before Tech went on an 18-point run before Steve Smith made a layup with 14:09 remaining for USD’s third score of the half.

Cain was the only Coyote to score in double digits; he finished with 11 points and 9 rebounds.

The final five minutes looked a lot like the second half in a men’s 3-on-3 league, with players jogging down court to toss up outside shots. Tech took a 41-point lead when Brad Reese sunk one with 4:36 to go, making it 82-41 Raiders.

Knight said he was happy to see the players set a halftime goal about holding their opponent to low scoring, rather than firing shots themselves. He said last year’s team might have beat the Coyotes, but not by nearly 40 points.

“I was really happy with that,” he said. “It’s just a different mindset that we didn’t have last year.”

Tech hosts Texas A&M Corpus Christi at 6 p.m. today.