Texas 79 New Mexico State 67

by Peter Bean on Mar 16, 2007 10:52 PM CDT in Basketball Comment 13 comments

It wasn't the prettiest exhibition of the season, but Texas played well enough to advance through the first round of the tourney by defeating New Mexico State 79-67 tonight in Spokane. The Longhorns advanced behind 27 points from Durant, 19 from Augustin, 16 from Abrams, and a welcomed dose of Good Connor to take out the truly thugtastic Aggies of New Mexico State.

The Aggies worked hard to stay close with Texas, but they were pretty clearly outmatched throughout the game. I thought New Mexico State head coach Reggie Theus did a fine job of convincing his team that they could (and should) come out and slug Texas in the mouth - his players clearly believed they could pull off the stunner. Unfortunately for the Aggies, Theus also insisted on sticking with a full court press that yielded exactly two turnovers of significance all night (while helping Texas score at least five wide open baskets in transition).

Let's walk through the critical points of tonight's game:

The Three Blind Mice Have you ever seen a more poorly officiated basketball game? I don't mean to insinuate that the referees had it out for Texas; rather, I just thought they were wholly incompetent. They (consistently) botched calls on both ends of the floor, leading to a choppy game that often lacked a good flow. While the Aggies had their fair share of opportunities to wonder what the officials were thinking, no one got screwed quite like Damion James did. When James picked up his fourth straight foul, I wondered aloud whether the zebras were actively trying to keep him fresh for Sunday. It was just an atrocious game for the officials.

(Mostly) Good Connor! Come on, come on! You gotta hand it to Connor. He had a very solid game. (Mostly!) Aside from three turnovers, Athcley gave Texas tremendous minutes off the bench - minutes that were critical with the officials inexplicable desire to get Damion James off the floor. Atchley played 28 minutes, chipped in 7 points, pulled down 6 rebounds, and blocked three shots. Honestly - as hard a time as we've given Connor for that end of season slump, he deserves our praise for a gutty effort today. And really, Texas is in big trouble without Connor stepping up tonight. He was outstanding.

F*ck The Critics Wait, what, Bill? You want Kevin to shoot the ball every possession? Think he's invincible? That Rick's at fault for all the team's shortcomings? Please. . . The best player in college basketball had five critical turnovers tonight and - despite being supreme once more - had to be picked up by his teammates tonight. We'll save the bulk of this "debate" for the offseason, but mark my words: Rick Barnes has done an outstanding job with this -team- and the 18 year old Kevin Durant is as dependent on his teammates as they are on him. No matter what the callous and flippant outsiders will try to have you believe.

Team Effort All the stories tomorrow will be about Durant's 27 points, but make no mistake about it: this was a team effort. Justin Mason gave Texas outstanding minutes on defense, limiting what the Aggies best scorer (Justin Hawkins) was able to do. Craigory chipped in four points in eight minutes, DJ had one of those outstanding overall games that we take for granted these days, and the team picked up the win with contributions from everyone - as opposed to being heaved on Kevin's back. Critics of this Texas team fail to realize how important the role players on this squad are. Believing that Kevin Durant will (or can) just throw up 50+ points in a game is adolescent analysis.

Looking Ahead The bad news is that Texas was a little flat today. The good news is that we won despite:

A subpar game from Kevin (who was a little over-excited tonight)
Bizarre officiating (that didn't mesh well with what we like to do)
Most breaks going New Mexico State's way

Texas now has to prepare for a solid USC club who performed quite well against Arkansas this evening. We do have to be concerned about USC's athleticism and their ability to make life difficult for Texas on offense, but the good news for the Longhorns is that the Trojans are a subpar scoring team - as noted many times before, I firmly believe teams who aren't great on offense will struggle to take out Texas in the tournament.

The key for Texas is limiting turnovers and making USC work hard on transition defense. I've been saying for some time now that I think USC is too offensively challenged to beat Texas, but I do know that Tim Floyd will get his team ready to put forth a good defensive effort on Sunday. Expect a hard fought game, but look for Texas' superior scoring to prevail. Much more on this game in the next 36 hours, but my initial call is: Texas 75 USC 70.

--PB--

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When KD touches the ball

I was wondering if anyone else notice during tonight's game when Kevin had the ball, every teammate stood on the opposite site of the court. Is this in the coach's plan or just plain instinct by the players, giving out as much space as possible to let Kevin do his magic without any interference?

by CaliforniaHorn on Mar 17, 2007 1:00 AM CDT reply actions 0 recs

Three things

That's by design, in large part. We want Kevin to have the ball with minimal opportunities for double teams. The fact is that it's a viable offensive strategy simply to clear out for KD.
DJ needs to do a better job of hitting Kevin off the FIRST screen we set for him off the ball; too often we waited for him to come off the first screen and then run over to the weak side.
Connor - useful as he is as a screener - needs to just disappear sometimes when we're running these clear outs for KD.

--PB--

by Peter Bean on Mar 17, 2007 1:05 AM CDT up reply actions 0 recs

AJ

I noticed this stat line on the post-game notes: "With three made three-point field goals, Abrams has 116 for the season, which is second on the Big 12 single-season list. The record is 118 by Clarence Gilbert of Missouri in 2001-02." With a decent night against USC, AJ will set the record. As frustrating as it was to watch him at various points in the game last night - especially early - you have to grudgingly admit we wouldn't be where we are right now without him. I remember one classic sequence in the commentary here last night were PB posted "Bench AJ!", followed a couple of minutes later by "Don't Bench AJ!!!". That pretty much sums up his season. Moments of incredibly poor decision-making followed by moments of effortless scoring.

AJ ended up with the same stat line as Durant, except he made two of his 3's while Kevin had none, and of course Kevin managed to win the game from the FT line. If Barnes could just get him to pass off a couple more times a game, his assists would be up and so would his FG%. And PB would keep more of his hair.

On another note, when are we going to get another breakout offensive performance from Justin Mason? Is he the new Royal Ivey? He effectively shut down Hawkins tonight, which is great, no complaints there. But I'd love to see flashes of the early-season Justin that took shots from BTA and drove fearlessly to the basket for double-digit scoring.

Officially a Limey Longhorn

by patienthornsfan on Mar 17, 2007 1:19 AM CDT reply actions 0 recs

AJ

Is a mystery wrapped inside a riddle.

The man simply befuddles with his shot selection at times, but it's simply undeniable that we need his contributions. The fact is that he's both not quite as good a scorer as -he- thinks he is, and not quite as -unproductive- as we make him out to be. The truth - as always - is somewhere in the middle. Despite AJ's mistakes, he's an incredibly valuable Longhorn. I think it's safe to say we undervalue what he brings to this team.

--PB--

by Peter Bean on Mar 17, 2007 1:26 AM CDT up reply actions 0 recs

Justin

Justin's just ice cold from the field right now - it's tough to say why, exactly, but I'm with you in not having any real complaints about his contributions to the team. I will say this: he needs to keep shooting when he's open; if the open looks are there, Jay - let it rip. They'll fall eventually. Kid can play.

(And on a side note, as much as we admonish Abrams, the guy chips in like 15 points per night. We're not beating opponents by a margin that can afford to lose that. So if we're happy with Mason's contributions as a role player, we have to be happy with AJ's.

Again, this gets back to one of the big themes of my above notes: this year's squad wins with a team effort. Kevin is obviously a basketball god, but the efforts to diminish what Rick has developed around him are pitiful.)

--PB--

by Peter Bean on Mar 17, 2007 1:30 AM CDT up reply actions 0 recs

Game ball goes to DJ

He bounced back big time from his struggles late in the season. NMST didn't scout him very well. When they tried to play help defense on KD, he'd immediately pass to DJ, who will obviously use his signature move and drive hard to the basket for a layup. NMST couldn't scramble back in time to shut down the lane.

When the ball is in DJ's hand, don't even bother pressing. Now when Connor and KD are trying to break the press, look out! Hopefully we'll never have to see that again.

Gotta love our FT shooting! KD awesome as usual. Even Mason hit both of his! Hopefully this keeps up. A number of teams lost in the past couple of days (like Illinois) due to poor FT shooting.

As for the USC game, we'll certainly see if KD = VY... or at least ~= VY.

I'll be searching for USC cheerleaders that celebrate when KD nails the cold-blooded, game-winning shot.

VY : Football :: KD : Basketball

by goingforthecorner on Mar 17, 2007 1:40 AM CDT reply actions 0 recs

rose bowl clip...

rick shows the team inspirational movie clips the night before games. who wants to bet tonight's movie clip is the last 6:42 of the Rose Bowl?

by 4th generation fan on Mar 17, 2007 9:24 AM CDT up reply actions 0 recs

Durant biding his time?

During that stretch where NMSU roared back, most of Texas' possessions hardly featured Durant (which, of course, we'll hear about from Bill Simmons tomorrow). But I wonder, was Durant purposely not geting involved in the offense to stay fresh for the stretch run? He's definitely been wearing down as the game draws to a close (see Big XII Championship), and since Texas had a 12 point lead or so, Durant really didn't seem like he wanted the ball.

If that's the case, why not just bench Durant for a couple minutes in the second half? I thought we had a really good opportunity to give him a breather at 9 minutes, and brought him back refreshed after the 8 minute timeout. Turns out he didn't need it, but it bears mentioning. Barnes simply refuses to substitute Durant out in the second half.

by jc25 on Mar 17, 2007 1:53 AM CDT reply actions 0 recs

I'm sure this has been mentioned

I'm sure this was already said but why do we have an inability to beat the half court trap? All you have to do is stop picking up the dribble after catching the inbounds pass. But for the majority of the 2nd half, everyone kept picking up the dribble and throwing horizontal (atchley mostly, but KD, DJ and Abrams all did it too). I have sneaking suspicion that the half court trap will eventually bounce us from this tourney.

by mroper84 on Mar 17, 2007 3:03 AM CDT reply actions 0 recs

I cant remember NM St running

an effective trap all night, but we have had problems with it in past games.

Not picking up the dribble is harder in the game than in theory, but the ability break down traps well comes from a lot of practice time, something that these freshmen have not had as much as a team full of juniors and seniors.

by Wells on Mar 17, 2007 6:19 AM CDT up reply actions 0 recs

Gotta agree with Wells

That was a huge mistake by New Mexico State. I can only recall two bad turnovers off their pressure - one when Kevin threw it away and one when we tried to inbound it to Connor and it bounced off his hand.

I thought Theus made a mistake by using that weak pressure defense - their press was lousy.

--PB--

by Peter Bean on Mar 17, 2007 9:28 AM CDT up reply actions 0 recs

Scraping the bottom of the barrel

Problem here is that with all the games on the same day, the supply of good refs is drawn thin. (Same reason we get the crappy announcers.) The best way to allocate them is to put the good ones in the games that should be close. This group simply did not seem to accustomed to the level of play. We'll get better refs in the next round.

by Caradoc on Mar 17, 2007 2:33 PM CDT reply actions 0 recs