Full game review up tomorrow, but here are a few of my notes from Texas' dominating 77-50 win over A&M tonight:
- Great, great, great to see DJ find his stroke. What was most delicious about the performance was that it wasn't one-dimensional at all. DJ was scoring, yes; but he was getting into the lane and finding open teammates, as well. He was easily the best player on the floor tonight. Awesome, awesome performance.
- Especially early in the first half, we did a terrific job working a nice inside-out game. Our bigs are doing a much better job of securing territory inside, the guards are getting them the ball, and we're either getting a solid look at the rim or having our forwards pass out to open perimeter players.
- Hey: how pretty is that Gary Johnson 10-12 foot jump shot?
- A&M didn't shoot particularly well, but our defense continues to improve, as well. We're harassing the ball handler so much better than before, while our forwards are flashing out on pick and rolls to back up the dribbler, preventing the open shot or easy pass inside. Lots of credit also to AJ and DJ, who just seem to be working harder to be a pest on the perimeter. That's critical when you're undersized.
- How about Dexter Pittman's footwork? When you combine that with his terrific hands and superior size... you've got a monster in the making.
- We're a solid rebounding team overall, but we're especially good with Damion on the floor. Can't be said enough: he's the most important player to us doing what we do best.
- Mark Turgeon is a fool. That was an utterly pitiful offensive gameplan he brought to Austin tonight, essentially wasting his advantages by running a rote motion offense through the entire first half. It took far, far too long for Turgeon to get his team to hammer inside on the paint. By then, the game was long over.
- Notice how few moments during recent games when you find yourself screaming, "AJ!!!! DAMNIT!!!!" That's because he's playing within himself now. He adds what we need him to add, but we've diversified our offense and gotten away from him taking ill-advised shots. I counted only two shots that I didn't like. For the most part, he played his role perfectly. And he's tremendously valuable in that capacity.
- Neither side should try to claim the officials were biased. A&M got jobbed on two goal tending calls. Texas was on the wrong end of a series of unfathomable foul calls. In the end, it was just a poorly officiated game... that had nothing to do with the outcome.
- A couple fun stats from tonight's game: (1) DJ Augustin picks up his 1,000th point as a Longhorn, and (2) Texas wins its 8th straight home game against a ranked opponent. Congrats, DJ. Congrats, Rick.
And with that I'm off to bed. There's a lot more to discuss, but we'll dive into the rest tomorrow.
Huge win for Texas, who move to 9-2 in conference, 22-4 overall.
--PB--