wow, dismal. dismal.

our offense is pathetic. Rick didn’t help things. connor makes a huge difference defensively.

1-of-8 from three by AJ is weak sauce.

conference is here. we need to put this loss behind us and get ready for the Big 12.

I think you take away too much credit from Arkansas, this is not an average arkansas team, they are very good, with wins over a above average UT and OU squad

we can’t play much worse than that. It wasn’t like the perimeter shots weren’t open, we just didn’t hit them. I’d chalk this up as a stinker for the offense and move on. The defense was uncharacteristically crappy tonight. We looked out of sorts for big chunks of the game. James’ defense on the last arkansas possession was especially putrid.

I was also confused by the 3-point barrage to end the game. Some of Arkansas’ better players can’t shoot FTs very well. Take the 2 and force them to beat us from the charity stripe.

Oh well, at least there’s no BCS in cbb

Basketball chokes under pressure instead of excelling.

Those guys were the same group of clowns that made the Little Rock Regionals virtual home games for whoever Texas was playing against. I hate Arkansas.

but I’m starting to think that it’s not his fault. I think we’ve been overrating a few of our players, especially James. We’re just not that good on offense with the personnel, and Rick sadly can’t do anything about it.

On offense, the team is filled with either a bunch of offensive scrubs or mental midgets. To see us completely fall apart like that AGAIN to close the game is just pathetic and shows complete incompetence.

Once again Abrams is shut down by a player, which just kills us. He shouldn’t have taken more than 10 shots in this type of game where he was being contained. We should’ve fed the post (especially Dexy) all day. Unfortunately, post entry passing is not a strength at all.

I thought our defense was outstanding and suffocating. What we did to them in the 1st half, you’re not supposed to be able to pull that off on their home court. The 67 points doesn’t even tell you how good we were on defense. Thing is, if we actually had a competent offense that didn’t turn the ball over and shot more efficiently, there would be less fast breaks and more possessions for Arky where they’d have to face a set Texas defense. Our offense literally put points up on the Razor Backs scoreboard.

James definitely belongs in the mental midget category. First he throws just a terrible post entry pass to Pittman. How the hell you do miss such a huge target? Then later he goes for a shot fake from Washington, who was shooting 11% from three. As good as our team defense is, I can only imagine how much better it would’ve been if we could lay off those damn shot fakes. We seem to be notoriously going for the fake for a long time. I remember La Marcus used to do that all the time. This has to be a coaching issue, to go with the players’ lack of awareness.

I HATE losing this game to THAT team, with THOSE fans. I would’ve loved to shut them up, and that’s why I’m pissed about losing this game.

Their coach was complimenting us a lot after the game, saying we’re a great team, Final Four team, blah blah blah. I’m not buying right now. Our offense is so God awful that I think we have a better chance of losing in the 1st or 2nd round than going to Detroit unless our O makes significant strides in Big 12 play. Great D can only take you so far.

And to whoever made that 45-35 sign, sorry, but I found that extremely lame. I mean, get over it already, IT’S TOO LATE! This is a basketball game.

I knew we were going to miss Augustin, but I was totally wrong in thinking we could still survive the loss. We can’t. Our offense died the moment he left. You can see this team struggling at the end, that they lacked a leader. A floor leader. Mason and Balbay just aren’t the answers. Speaking of Dogus, why does Arky even bother to guard him? He’s actually really good at driving to the basket, but you could count on him to pass. He wasn’t looking for a shot AT ALL.

In addition to DJ’s true PG’s skills, we’re severely missing his 3pt shooting and mid range shooting. Outside of Abrams, who else on this team can shoot threes? James and Johnson are OK from midrange, but that’s about it really. James’ last shot he took was way short and the release was real awkward.

James is probably the most versatile player on the team, but because of Augustin’s departure, I believe Barnes wants to develop his perimeter game. This is killing us, because you take away a tremendous opportunity in James to post up smaller guys (we could really be a matchup nightmare for other teams if we wanted to), and James is not adapting well to his perimeter style of play. Connor losing his shot is also a killer. Speaking of Connor, we missed his defense, but I’m not sure if him playing would’ve been the difference in winning the game.

Texas women fell to an average Purdue team 66-55.

Both teams out of the top 10 and stumbling heading into Big XII play. Both coaches have a heckuva job to stop this slide before it becomes a death spiral.

The one bright spot: Erika seems to have found her shooting touch again.

Game Recap

It was a bonehead move for Damion James to fall for that Washington pump fake at the end, but Gary Johnson is also at fault for not sliding over to help quicker. Other than that though, he did have a good game off of the bench and has had a few good games.

First off, this was one of those nights when our shots just weren’t dropping — and theirs were. A lot of our inside shots came off of misses. Nineteen offensive boards for chrissake. But down there we fumbled and bumbled. Gary had 5 turnovers all by himself and his teammates coughed up 10 more. Pittman and James gave us heroic performances, but with Atchley on the bench and Chapman sucking even more efficiently than usual, our bench depth disappeared, leaving us in these ineffective 3 guard lineups where 2 of them are guaranteed not to shoot. I swear, I’d have just handed AJ the ball and told him to keep shooting until it started going in. But let’s not slight UA. Fortson, Washington, and Welch are all really good players, Washington probably headed to the NBA. Things just went their way last night from the officiating to the bounce of the ball.

so I missed Abrams going 0-9 before actually having a little success in the 2nd half. We dominated in the paint, but down the stretch we were really having trouble executing entry passes, both from poor passing and big guys not being able to grab the handle. All our inside stuff was slow coming, so with 20 seconds left, I was fine with setting up a play for Abrams, who had seemed to find a little rhythm. Of course flinging up two more desperation threes probably wasn’t wise, but it also may not have been Rick’s plan.

We’re really suffering from a lack of outside shooting and point guards that aren’t contributing enough from the outside. Mason gets great dribble penetration, but he doesn’t have the midrange game of Augustin or the ability to create easy looks for others, quite like DJ. Mostly, it’s an ability to generate layups for himself. Balbay can dribble penetrate, but only for a kickout.

Tough loss. Atchley was missed. Hopefully we’ll grow from it.

When will he suit up? Any idea whether he will play this season?