Texas Basketball: Struggles Continue as Kansas State Ruins Senior Night

Can you expect Hamilton to play this poorly the rest of the season? If he ever finds his stroke again, he’ll hopefully gain confidence that will also give him additional energy to try on defense. If not, then we’re pretty much done.

There’s not a single leader on this team right now. Hamilton HAS to put the team on his back with his actions on the court.

Y’all peaked early last year AND had terrible chemistry. Not sure you peaked early this year. Think y’all are just playing a little tight.

I think today’s loss was unique in it’s own way. The defensive play was not that bad, K-State was just stellar at hitting tough shots and are gonna be good in the tourney. Today’s problem was merely the fact that for most of the game, GJ, Joseph, Hamilton, and even J’Covan couldn’t hit a shot to save their life. They seem to lack flow offensively resulting in some poor shot selection. Both Hamilton and JCovan forced it inside a few times when nothing was there. Joseph missed badly on some open 3s that almost seemed he had TOO LONG a time to measure and contemplate. In the end, I think the problems the team is having is all between the ears. Need to watch some old game film and recognize what works v. What doesn’t. This team still could be a contender. The just must reclaim their mojo by mentally resetting to the earlier state. Best of luck finding your stroke, your chemistry, your confidence and swagger. Lack of confidence is causing sluggish play, bad defense at times, and a lack of rebounding. Tonight it seemed to cause shooting to be frigid. Still plenty of time to right the ship. Must calm this team down- I know they tried really hard tonight. KState played well and Texas struggled. Time to move on and try to regain our composure we carried earlier this year. All is not lost. Must be mentally strong lead by a strong coach and strong team leaders.

Same song, different verse.

they had their backs against the wall, came together, and they’ve gelled and have it going on at just the time of the year you want everything to come together

People who say you’ve peaked too early are missing the point entirely; that was the issue last year, but not this season. Y’all weren’t winning in blowouts because you were peaking earlier this season, y’all were winning because you were playing terrific, mistake-free basketball.

The thing that stood out to me last night about Kansas State was how tough they were on defense; they play with reckless abandon.

I do think y’all need to see what Brown can give you on the offensive end as the starting PG. People can point to Balbay all they want on defense, but he struggled with Pullen (no shame there, but when you struggle in the only area you can contribute, you need to be on the bench b/c you are bringing nothing to the floor), and he can’t make up for it on offense. If this team is to achieve their potential this postseason, you may need to see if Brown can be one of the leaders. My question is, is he up to taking on that role?

Not to be discounted, it has to be difficult to make the turnaround from a tough game at Colorado to playing Kansas State at home on senior night. I would bet your players are exhausted right now, mentally and physically. This break between now and Saturday may be just what this team needs.

I will still watch and root for this team, but I am not going to get pissed off and frustrated watching this team self-destruct again. Either Barnes and Co. will get it fixed and make a great run in the NCAA tournament that could possibly culminate into a national championship because I know this team has the talent to win one.

Or it will not get fixed and the season will end during the opening weekend of the tournament. Either way life will go on and I will enjoy the baseball season and see what Augie can do with a very young, but very talented squad.

to think of a new head coach? I mean Barnes can’t win a conference championship let alone a deep run in the tournament. Pus he keeps recruiting the same guys. Look at next years guys. Look at every one of these guys “needs to work on” and you see the same thing. “Needs to work on his shot.”

And that’s on both ends. If spent the entire night just watching him on both ends. He’s panicking on offense, playing outside of himself again, and when he messes up he doesn’t get back on defense. On D, he’s lost and tired, can’t move laterally and loses man. Then he gets more down on himself.
If he misses a shot, he doesn’t look to get back on defense, he looks to get the quick steal back, to quickly atone for his missed shot.
All of this leads to everyone having to compensate for him, and the team is literally imploding because of it around him.
It’s not at all that he’s a bad player, he’s just doing too much of the wrong things, and reverting back to old ways, and when they don’t work he tries too much of the other wrong things.

I think I recall last year (maybe two years ago) that the coaching staff was making changes to lighten how hard we practice in Jan/Feb to prevent us from losing our legs. Does anyone know any details on the style of practice we’re having this year?
The way we come out of the gates every game, we seem to be spending everything we have by the 10 minute mark of the first half. Maybe this is too easy of an excuse, but it’s common knowledge that when tired, the first things to fall apart are defensive assignments and the outside shot.
I was thinking earlier in the year that we might run in to this problem, but I figured it would be Thompson and Joseph that would hit a wall since they’re averaging 30+ minutes a night as freshmen. However, they seem to be the only two players with much gas left in the tank, other than Brown and his 20 mins a night.
As much as I want a Big 12 tourney title, I don’t think I’ll be too upset if we get bounced early and get some extra rest heading in to the big Dance. We’ve proven that when rested, we can win on the road against really good teams. Maybe the extra rest mixed with a 4 seed opposite BYU, Pitt or OSU wouldn’t be the worst thing.

On a side note, where in the world was Hamilton going on that inbounds pass to McGruder for a wide open 3? That play killed us.

Additionally, the team is in a slump, which could potentially lead to a meltdown. I agree with the above statements that this team needs some counseling but unfortunately Barnes does not provide counseling.

I think this theory of the team being worn out “has legs”, pun intended. The last couple of years you can see how the team has worn down. Also, this team does live and die by the shooting of JHam BECAUSE we do not run set plays with cutting and screening worth a damn, Utah offense indeed. We roll people when JHam is shooting well because it opens up the floor and gives everyone more space to operate due to the defense being honest. I liken this phenomenon to the running game or lack thereof for the football team. I think Bob Knight was making excellent pts with our offense not being spread out and we were crowding 5 guys into 25ft of space.

So combine JHam’s poor shooting shrinking the floor with Dogus inability, through fear or lack of skill, to shoot a jumpshot and the floor shrinks more. this small floor crowds the only other strength we have in TT and he was contested all night despite his numbers. Throw in the hillariously bad FT ability of TT and he really isnt that scary because you can play him hard knowing that: 1. he cant shoot FTs to save himself and 2. If you wear him down its a double victory because his backups cant score at all.

No one thing is dragging this team down after such a great year but a series of small problems that cannot or have not improved.

You hit the nail exactly. It’s like we are playing in really a small room. We have got to keep our floor space honest through tenacious defense and accurate free throw shots. If we don’t…bye bye post season. dudeabide made a great point, its not an issue of talent (believe me, we have got that). It’s a matter of heart. And it just seems like our hearts are somwhere else right now. That is not the Texas way.

Maybe it’s just me, but it seems like we are missing an awful lot of shots under the basket. A lot of times our guards get to the basket only to roll one across the rim. Dunks have not been high percentage shots, esp. for Gary. And I haven’t seen a tip-in basket for a while either (at least into our basket).