Horns' Defense Still MIA, Fall 100-82

MIA

• I thought we lost the game in the first five and last five minutes of the game. Take away that ridiculous start, in which Texas simply failed to contest any Aggie shots, and the last five sloppy minutes, and the two teams played even the rest of the way. Add in some better free throw shooting in the second half and some better defense to start the game and Texas may very well have won on the road tonight.
• As is, you have to credit the Aggies for playing a good game. They -did- take advantage of their open looks early, and -did- close the game strong... and that's what good teams do. I think Rick's (and perhaps Andrew's) frustration stems from the fact that this Texas team isn't showing the capability to play a complete 40 minute game yet. We're showing that for 75% of the game, we're as good, or better, than anyone we play. But over the full course of the 40 minutes, we're coming up short too often.  So it goes with these young teams, I suppose.
• I don't have any major gripes with the game plan, or individual play of any of our guys. We mostly played well, though we came up short on too many layups and - as mentioned - free throws. All things considered, Texas was right there and showed it was plenty capable of playing with Texas A&M on a neutral court. That's a good thing to take from the game, as the Aggies are strong at every position and matchup very favorably with Texas. We succeeded despite some pretty big disadvantages in the matchups.
• Rick and Andrew are right, of course: this team -does- have to learn how to finish, and how to put together a full 40 minutes. Still (and I don't know whether I can put my finger on why I feel this way just yet), I'm left feeling like we got a good effort from our team tonight. On the one hand, we started poorly and finished poorly, but the team could have easily been blown out of the gym in the first half, and even second, but never faded away. My gut instinct is that the team grew up a little bit tonight. If Kansas State was a step backward, I just don't get the feeling that this was one, too. I felt like the team grew a little toward March. So though the loss may sting, and though there were some obvious deficiencies, I'm not internally filing this one as a bad loss in any way.  I may be wrong here. But that's what my instincts are saying.
• While watching this particular Texas team, one does wonder how, exactly it is supposed to get all the way through March, even though at times the team flashes an ability go make a deep, deep run. The guys spend so much energy overcoming their lack of bench and lack of size that they're constantly battling fatigue. That's not much of a recipe for sustained success in the NCAA Tournament.
• Overall, I'm left disappointed with the loss, but optimistic about the way this team will finish its regular season. There certainly exist a host of troubling warning signs that this team isn't going to be able to make a deep March run, but we also have Kevin Durant. So there's no closing the door on these guys quite yet... or ever.

--PB--

i will refuse to say we that we can't go deep in the tournament, but it seems we flat out lack man-power. going deeper into the bench will not solve anything either. fatigue became an issue in the 2nd half, considering we had to play on saturday. fatigue will also become a huge issue in march since the big xii tourney is one of the last ones to end. if we go far in that tourney, that means we play like 3 games in 3 nights, only to immediately prepare for the big dance.

i think the key to our success offensively is getting james more involved in the offense for the sake of protecting durant, and to give pittman a little more playing time and more plays run for him. i want post-up plays for both.

i'm not in favor of a full blown motion offense, but i'd like to see a little more off the ball screens and cuts to the basket. this will help isolate durant. any movement on offense causes chaos for the defense. we have plenty of players that are capable of slashing and screening.

as far as defense... i don't even know what to say anymore... just improve

Still don't understand why they weren't going hard to the hole every single time - the Ags were in serious, serious foul trouble and it seems like we sort of just let them off the hook.

Everything seemed to bounce their way. Damn that rim was friendly to the Ags last night. That Carter guy threw up some no-look garbage shots that went in like the hoop was 5 feet wide. They played fearless at home, played loose -- and their bench made some shots.

It was funny to see Billy G get all indignant about fouls being called, as if he doesn't instruct his players to push the limits with bumps and hand checks. His thugball didn't work last night -- and I found it amusing they got all huffy and puffy about it.

but they really are just a better team right now.  some refs don't call the game that close and they get away with a bit more of the pushing and shoving.  with those refs calling the game, this one would never have been close.  the Ags had to dig deep into their bench for minutes due to foul trouble and Law rolled his ankle with about 10 minutes to go.  if they're full strength for 40 minutes, the whole game looks a bit more like the first 5 minutes.  maybe not that bad, but i don't think it's much of a game for the 2nd half.

their ball movement was pretty impressive and their perimeter players were draining most of their open looks (of which they got a lot).  if AJ, DJ, and Mason had that many open looks from outside, they'd hit that kind of percentage as well.  it's what happens when you can keep a group of players in your system for 3-4 years.  i'd say we probably had more future NBA players on the floor, bu they clearly had the better team.  hopefully we can narrow the gap a bit in the next three weeks before we meet again.

i was impressed with our resilience, though.  our guys fought hard to get back into the game in the end of the 1st half and when they fell behind a few times in the 2nd half.

The Houston Chron with this, "Change is on the way"
http://blogs.chron.com/longhorns/2007/02/barnes_change_could_be_on_the.html

"The most likely change probably involves going with a bigger lineup, inserting 6-9 forward/center Connor Atchley for 6-2 guard Justin Mason. That would give the Longhorns a frontcourt of Atchley, Kevin Durant and Damion James."

I'm not sure what that accomplishes, other than depleting the bench. I think Mason deserves to start and AJ should be sitting. I know I'm in the minority, but AJ's contribution is simply not worth the liability and so many minutes.

but the team isn't progressing like I though they would.  Early in the season, I really though that by Fenruary we would be coming together and looking like a team nobody wanted to play.  Durant gives us a chance to win every game and I relly love Augustin, but I guess I expected more (perhaps too much?) from the other young players.  

I daily say prayers that Durant comes back next year (even though it's not going to happen) because I think we would be primed for a big run.  Even without Durant next year, I think we'll be awfully strong, but guys like him just don't come along very often.

By the way, anyone think it weird (or perhaps typically aggie) that they've immortalized Law's 3-pointer against us as a painting?  I mean I know that they have a big inferiority complex about us and we're their rival and all, but come on.  You'd think they had won a championship that night, instead of a regular season win on their homw court.  I hope we never make that big a deal about a regular season win.