Longhorns Prevail 96-85 in Fayetteville

by DaMo’s leadership tonight. Pittman and James both really stepped up. If Bradley and Hamilton are under the same pressure I wonder if they could handle it.

Played a great game tonight. 35 min, 12 points, 3 boards, 5 assists and a block with only one turnover. His defense in the second half was key to shutting down the Pigs’ attack IMO

With all those fouls called, we were able to take Dex, james, Balbay…..off the court and stay strong.

When I came here I got some bogus survey with the BON colors. Then offers for “free” gifts.

It wasn’t pretty but nothing in Arkansas ever is.

I missed most of the game with work, but winning in Arkie’s gym is always a good win. Anybody notice what Pitt is doing in the Big East now? Huge win for Texas come tournie time.

I thought we were going to put them away earlier in the second half. Dexter is absolutely unstoppable. There were a few times down the floor when we took long jumpers when Dex was working hard for position. Dammit, he is such a beast down low there is no reason not to feed him the ball every trip down the floor. He has shown that he can make sexy passes from the low blocks.

I hate the pigs. Jimmy Dykes said that Arkie Pelfry only wears his red blazer when they play Texas. Is that true?

What kind of a name is Rotnei?

Hook ’em

“It was like a little point guard trying to guard Shaq,” Powell said. “It’s impossible. He is a man.”

Extremely disappointed with the defense in the first half. This kind of happened last season where the Longhorns started off well defensively, then kind of became overrated as the season progressed and recognizing three-point shooters and limiting dribble penetration. Mason is the poster child for this, as his defense has become extremely overrated in recent years — his lateral quickness is far from elite.

The main point here is that this is a strong defensive team that has the chance to become elite with better recognition of shooters and a better job setting up screens and recognizing when to go under and when to go over. For a player like Clark, if the screen is set way out halfway between the time line and the three-point line, go under. Anything closer, go over with a strong hedge from the big. Another concern is the lack of floor balance at times — about three or four times in the second half too many players went to the glass and the player in the corner didn’t do a good job of sliding into the middle of the court to limit transition and that type of thing absolutely cannot happen.

In addition to the problems of giving up free runs to the basket off the bounce, the help defense was continually a step slow in rotation. Mason and Bradley did poorly playing screens, especially against the little white kid, who was allowed to get hot early and stayed that way for the first half. Take away that first shot or two and he doesn’t feel so good about himself and maybe misses a couple of those tough shots.

Over the last two seasons or so, AJ Abrams improved greatly defensively by showing a willingness to chase shooters around screens. I was wondering who would fill that role for this time and I think Jai Lucas made himself a pretty good case. Like Abrams, he will have trouble contesting at the end, but he did well playing the screens and staying with Clark.

Offensively, J’Covan just continues to make some bad decisions with the basketball by trying to force passes that just aren’t there. With Hamilton, it’s a lot of the same with his shot selection — it’s getting tiresome to keep talking about it, but I almost feel better when he doesn’t make his first shot because then he won’t be so inclined to chuck it up the next three times he has it.

Dexy has to work on keeping his elbows out better and not bringing the ball down so low in the post. He probably loses 4-6 points every game because of it and it’s a simple issue of fundamentals, compounded by the fact that he needs to gather himself to get any explosiveness in his leaping.

But, wow. How about Damion James? Coming into the game cold after sitting for most of the second half and then having the confidence to knock down two big jumpers. I wonder if Rick Barnes told him that those elbow jumpers would be there for him to take. Just great pre-shot preparation to know those shots were there and knock them down. Then, making his free throws was huge to help seal the game.

Gary Johnson was great too and has played within himself much better offensively this year — not hesitating with his mid-range shots, but not forcing them either and finishing around the rim.

With Balbay in foul trouble and Mason and Bradley both struggling some defensively, I feel that this would have been the perfect game for Varez Ward and I’m sure he would have loved the chance to go against his former teammate Fortson. There’s enough depth on this team that his injury hasn’t been a big point of discussion, but his toughness on both ends of the court would really be valuable.

Overall, though, this was a nice win in the first real road game of the season in a hostile environment against a pretty talented team that has underachieved for most of the season. It ain’t always pretty, but the ’Horns keep rolling.