Texas Coasts to Crucial Home Win

by awiggo on Mar 2, 2009 11:53 PM CST in Basketball Comment 17 comments

For the first time in a long time, Texas cruised to a victory on the hardwood. The 73-57 win over Baylor improved the Longhorns to 20-9 overall and 9-6 in the Big XII. The win was huge for a number of reasons.

First, the win basically assured Texas of their eleventh straight trip to the NCAA tournament. Second, Saturday's trip to Lawrence just became a lot less stressful. Win and Texas probably grabs fourth place alone in the conference (assuming Ok State beats Kansas St on Wednesday) and first round bye in the Big XII tournament. But a loss at Kansas won't be season crippling either. Third, Texas has now won 20 or more games for the tenth straight season. Last, Rick Barnes improved to an impressive 24-0 against Baylor.

This game was never close, thankfully, and seniors AJ Abrams and Connor Atchley got to walk off the Erwin Center floor winners one final time.

A few quick comments:

Baylor has regressed like no team in recent memory and is way less than the sum of their parts. They have plenty of scorers but play almost no defense and foul. A lot. The Bears squeaked into the NCAA tournament last year with less talent, and I thought before the season, this team was NCAA destined as well. No defense = no ability to win.
Justin Mason played much better tonight. He was aggressive with the ball, moved well without it, and was disruptive on the defensive end.
This team misses Gary Johnson badly. Get healthy quickly.
Dexter Pittman was a beast tonight. He single handedly put the Baylor frontline in foul trouble.
I would love to see what kind of terror Dogus Balbay could cause with a jump shot.
Clint Chapman must find some toughness or he isn't going to see the floor.

I may not get to a full review until tomorrow evening, if at all. To me, there weren't too many special things about tonight's game--Texas dominated an inferior and undersized team in the paint, attacked the rim nicely off the dribble and from the post and was rewarded at the line, and contested the Baylor perimeter jump shooters well.

Post your own comments here.

Box Score

Next Game: at Kansas -- Saturday, March 7th 3 pm CBS

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Comments

Maddening

A very good effort against Baylor last night. Shooting roughly 55% from the field in the first half always help.

Where is this team at College Station and Stillwater? I don’t think this team plays to the level of its competition. They are better than that effort. However, at times this season the team looks terrific and should be a 3 or 4 seed in the NCAA tournament. At other times this season, the team looks more like an NIT qualifier than a NCAA qualifier.

Maddening.

by milevin on Mar 3, 2009 8:02 AM CST reply actions 0 recs

Just curious...

But even if Okie state beats K-State tonight, wouldn’t they still get the fourth seed over you guys in the tournament (assuming you lose @ KU and they win at home v. Colorado to close the weekend)?

by hiphopopotamus on Mar 3, 2009 8:45 AM CST reply actions 0 recs

"Win and Texas probably grabs fourth place alone in the conference (assuming Ok State beats Kansas St on Wednesday) and first round bye in the Big XII tournament."

Yes. He was saying we will get the fourth seed if we beat Kansas.

by Texas Wahoo on Mar 3, 2009 9:08 AM CST up reply actions 0 recs

Yeah

we would need to win at Kansas and have OSU beat KSU.

Or have KSU lose both their games this week, then things would get more interesting. (This is not likely as KSU hosts Colorado on Saturday.) OSU could get the #4 seed with two wins and a 10-6 record. Or Texas would get the #4 seed with an OSU loss to OU on Saturday. In that case, OSU and Texas would tie at 9-7 but Texas has the better record against South opponents. Someone please correct me if I’m wrong.

--AW--

by awiggo on Mar 3, 2009 9:18 AM CST up reply actions 0 recs

When do the BCS rankings come into play? nt whills

by Wells on Mar 3, 2009 9:21 AM CST up reply actions 0 recs

My bad...

read it wrong.

by hiphopopotamus on Mar 3, 2009 10:30 AM CST up reply actions 0 recs

Dogus

So, this guy is always very interesting to me… See, pretty solid at the PG position; he’s fast and can distribute the ball well, and is getting better. Yet still, he is absolutely terrible at shooting a basketball. My girlfriend hits 35% FT. Maybe it’s different in Europe, but when little kids here learn to play, it’s “shooting hoops with dad” or whatever… Shooting is the fundamental, then you pick up the team skills later. Apparently in Europe, there is a severe dearth of available baskets for the youth, resulting in extensive dribbling and passing drills being the only available means to practice.

by Tackchevy on Mar 3, 2009 9:12 AM CST reply actions 0 recs

I always thought European players we supposed to be fundamentally sound just not as athletic...

Most European players that make it over here seem to be more about dead-eye shooting rather than sheer athleticism. That may be changing, but I always thought the European game was more about finesse, finding the open shot, and then making it.

by Rickyspub on Mar 3, 2009 9:32 AM CST up reply actions 0 recs

That's the problem with taking specific inferences from broad generalizations.

There’s no such thing as “the European game” and “the American game.” Yes, broadly speaking, the styles are different, but each player is different too. More than anything, I think the “European style” (insofar as such a thing exists) is about movement, which means teams need a point guard who can make things flow, which Dogus does.

by billyzane on Mar 3, 2009 10:00 AM CST up reply actions 0 recs

The trapezoid lane of the international game has an effect on the style of play, particularly with big men. You can hang on the low block of the rectangular lane of the NCAA, get the ball, make a move and score. There is no “low block” in international ball (there is, but it’s much farther away from the basket). Therefore big men that play down low in the international game have to learn different skills (shooting while facing the basket, some dribbling, etc.) in order to be effective.

I’d consider it roughly equivalent to the difference between football played in Canada (with its huge, huge field) and that played in the United States.

by DoubleB on Mar 3, 2009 2:33 PM CST up reply actions 0 recs

In Balbays case, hes probably never played anything but point guard, and has always been so much faster and athletic than anyone, that the only skills he needed were slashing to the rim and finishing, or passing skills. Both of which seem to be pretty darn excellent.

Though I agree to an extent, just watching his form when he takes a jumper is terrible. That clunker from 10 feet or so last night was terrible, it looked like he started with the ball at his chest and extended his arms out along a 45 degree arch. You could tell right at release that it had no prayer.

I only attended a few local bball camps in my youth, but it doesn’t take much to at least get a good form to give your shot a chance. Hopefully we will see a big improvement next year for Dogus, because its tough not to love every other aspect of hist game.

by BoddickerIsClutch on Mar 3, 2009 10:06 AM CST up reply actions 0 recs

Balbay with a J

would be a very scary proposition. He does just about everthing else well to very well and plays extremely hard.

by SaintBevo on Mar 3, 2009 9:45 AM CST reply actions 0 recs

Thought

It’s near impossible to find anything bad about last night’s effort. Great to see Mase materialize out of thin air…he was last night’s MVP IMO.

One thing that scares me is our man D on high screens. The gameplan last night and for most of the seson from what I can recall is for the big man on D to show on the opposing guard and the defensive guard to slide over the screen and recover, at which time our big man relocates his original man. The result of this last night was multiple times where James/Dex/Atchley are attempting to check a guard as far as 45 feet from the basket. It’s a recipe for quick, cheap fouls on big men and James and Dex are way too important to be picking up cheapies far from the hoop. It also puts our defending guard on the back hip of a potential driving guard to the hoop. Luckily only Dugat was the only Baylor guard who could finish last night.

Perhaps it was specific to Baylor’s abililty to shoot the 3 that lead to this plan, but if we attempt the same on Saturday I expect a smarter, more talented Collins to put us in foul trouble quickly. Hopefully we choose to slide under ball screens so far from the hoop and stay out of this situation. Is there a reason why haven’t we seen more zone from this team? It seems we have the personnel (quick, ball hawking guards with strong big men that rebound well) to run Barnes’s 1-2-2 of years past. It’s probably silly to talk about it now on the eve of our last regular season game but it just seems like a fit for this team. ( I’ve missed ~5 games this year so if we applied it and got schooled I apologize).

Again – this is extremely nitpicky and the defensive effort last night was fantastic.

by Horndogger on Mar 3, 2009 10:37 AM CST reply actions 0 recs