Texas' Defense Stifles Oklahoma State 69-59

was how J. Ham played tonight. He took a couple of shots that weren’t great, but you expect scorers to do that. But he played smarter than he has played all year in this game, even on the defensive side. I know he had that one game where he went off, but this game was better to me because it wasn’t lucky.

Pitt looked great in the second half, but he was playing against their third string.

Damo was a beast as usual, and everyone else played so well together we barely needed him in the second half.

Bradley was BRILLIANT, especially on D. And (I think) he didn’t have a foul until the last 5:00 when he got 2 fouls (both of which I thought were questionable calls)

J. Brown was great running the show.

Our offensive sets also looked less stagnant than they have in a while.

2 small complaints – Lucas still looks weak, like I could just scare the ball away from him. We still need work adjusting to press and zone defense.

PB hit the main points. I’ll add a few others.

Dexter was effective when he touched the ball. Our guards still have trouble recognizing pasing angles or creating better angles with a single bounce, though. It’s late February so don’t expect any big changes in that arena. However, I was encouraged that Pittman continued to battle on the low blocks and took advantage of his limited opportunities. He didn’t get in foul trouble either—another plus.

J’Covan didn’t play well. The early carrying and traveling violations seemed to throw him. I don’t know how many minutes he played either but it wasn’t as many as I expected.

The decrease in minutes was also because of the solid play from Hamilton. This was Jordan’s best game as a Horn. He didn’t go nuts from the field like the last time we tangled with OSU. Instead, Jordan competed on the defensive end like he rarely has this season. He also rebounded like a 6-7 wing player should, helped handle the ball and break the press, and attacked the basket off the dribble. Great, great stuff from him.

This was a team win. Our team and help defense was really, really good, especially in the second half. Texas won the entire game—rebounding, turnovers, bench points, at the foul line, etc.

Last point, we’re down to seven guys, btw. Jai Lucas and Alexis Wangmene made cameo appearances and both were forgetable performances. Matt Hill and Clint Chapman didn’t even play. That means its five starters plus Hamilton and Johnson from the bench. That’s all we’ve got. I’m ok with it but Rick will need to use his timeouts even more now and not just to stop runs but for rest too.

Tonight and the Nebraska game were the only games this season that I didn’t watch or follow. Just saying that I think I’m going to to sacrifice my viewing pleasure til the tourney for the sake of this team. Taking one for the team here. That is all.

Thanks for the recap PB.

Didn’t the refs seem worse than usual tonight? In addition to a slew of bad calls, there was a 3 second call and that inbounds violation. Good thing the guys kept their shirts tucked in.

is Rick Barnes himself. Let the mind games continue.

…put me in too good of a mood to really try to nitpick.

However, if you wanted to, you could very easily point to the games of Jai Lucas and J’Covan Brown. J’Covan had bad body language tonight and seemed really dispirited after he missed that godawful shot to end the first half.

Dexter’s 360’ish dunk was one of my favorite highlights from this season. It was his best game in a while, and a few people were wondering if that can be connected to Balbay’s injury. His 16-8-3 line was pretty sexy, and it was nice to see him dunk without traveling. It was entertaining to watch the OSU big men rack up foul after foul after foul in trying to guard him. Walker and Shaw racked up 8 fouls in only 11 minutes. We’ll see if this is a step in the right direction, as he gets another crack at Brian Davis and A&M on Saturday.

A great anecdote from tonight…right before he shot that horrendously awkward three-pointer, Justin Mason started waving for Jordan Hamilton to go rebound his upcoming miss. That was really, really funny.

I’m very interested to see if we see the same three-guard starting lineup on Saturday against A&M…would like to see Hamilton get a start, but I doubt we’ll see any changes.

It looked to me like the ‘Horns were looser and actually enjoying playing basketball for the first time in a while. I think this games presents strong evidence that most of the team’s woes in recent weeks were due to mental/psychological/attitude failures. I really liked seeing the light come back on in the players’ eyes. Hope to see it again on Saturday.

This guy has been a key spark all year and gets about zero credit. Nice job for giving him some recognition and a shout out.

We have been missing Dexter Pittman down low.

I think he has been a huge part of this slide, he has been non-existent in conference games. 3.9 points a game or something like that. Compared to his 15+ points a game the first 17 games.

That is something that is hard to replace, and he needs to be our run stopper as well. When other teams start going on a run, throw it down low. Dex can either dunk it or go to the line.

I was really glad to see him play a good game, great game by everyone else as well a side for J. Brown and J. Lucas this was one of the better games we have played all season.

Hook ’em!

we’re an average-to-good team when Dexter underperforms, we’re good-to-elite when he’s at the top of his game.