Texas Longhorns Basketball: Inside the Numbers, Big 12 Tournament

Last night, Texas busted out of the Big 12 tournament. Let's take a look at the numbers, and pick apart what happened in the Longhorns' two tournament games. There will be time in the coming weeks to dive deeper into this season, and to understand what went wrong.

The Week In Review

Background information on the statistics is posted here, here, and here.

TEXAS (70) vs TCU (57)

Texas followed up their season sweep of the TCU Horned Frogs by beating them easily in the first round of the Big 12 tournament. The game was close in the first half, in part because the Longhorns turned the ball over eight times. There were no Texas turnovers in the second half, and the game was no longer close. Texas beat TCU by racking up a large true shooting advantage, which was more than enough to cover for the eight extra shots attempted by TCU (where "shots" refers to the composite number FGA + 0.475xFTA).

The Longhorns won this game by aggressively attacking the rim. 15 of the Longhorns' 39 shots were at the rim, and Texas connected on 73 percent of these shots. The Longhorns also earned 32 trips to the free throw line, which was 0.82 free throw attempts for every shot from the floor, and made 78 percent of their free throws. While Texas has not shot the ball well as a team from the free throw line this season, Sheldon McClellan, Myck Kabongo, and Julien Lewis all have done well from the stripe, and against the Horned Frogs these three players combined to take 75 percent of the Longhorn free throws. When guards attack the basket and get to the line, good things happen for an offense.

To go with the added aggression, Texas also shot the ball well from long distance, hitting 5-12 from three point range. Attacking the rim, hitting threes, and getting and making free throw attempts while only turning the ball over in 15 percent of their possessions, Rick Barnes' team scored 1.27 points per possession, which made it their best offensive performance of the season. It may not have seemed that way, but that was in part due to the slow pace that all TCU games are played at, and the large number of fouls involved.

Julien Lewis led Texas with 6.2 Points Above Median (PAM), while Myck Kabongo had a PAM of 5.2 and assisted on 40 percent of his teammates field goals while on the floor. Sheldon McClellan also was efficient, scoring a PAM of 4.5.

Charles Hill Jr. led TCU with a PAM of 2.8. Trent Johnson's team did not shoot the ball well, but had a decent showing on offense by earning some second shooting chances and keeping down the turnovers. Still, they were no match for Texas.

TEXAS (49) vs KANSAS STATE (66)

Kansas State attempted more shots than Texas, and did more with those shots. But the Kansas State offense wasn't the story in this game. The story was the Kansas State D.

Texas' 0.440 true shooting percentage was lousy, and it just wasn't going to be enough to upset the tournament's number two seed. The Wildcats held Texas to this poor shooting performance by doing something that has been difficult to do this season -- Bruce Weber's team contained Myck Kabongo. Angel Rodriguez's defense was impressive, and Kabongo, who since returning to the line-up has attempted more than half of his shots on layups and dunks (Texas Hoop-Math), went 0-1 on shots at the rim. On top of that, Texas' star guard only attempted two free throws. He was simply shut down, as was the rest of the Texas offense. Only 12 out of Texas' 50 shots were at the cup, and Texas only attempted 12 free throws as a team.

Kansas State has also forced turnovers at a high rate this season, and the Longhorns coughed the ball up in over a quarter of their possessions. The only thing that Weber's defense didn't do particularly well was rebound. The Wildcat D was good enough to hold Texas to 0.85 points per possession, which ranks down there with some of Texas' worst offensive performances prior to Myck Kabongo's return.

On offense, Kansas State was also solid. The shooting wasn't anything special, with a 0.516 true shooting percentage, although Kansas State star Rodney McGruder had a fine evening with a PAM of 4.3. Kansas State is mostly a jump shooting team, and they held true to form last night, taking on only 14 of their 54 attempts at the rim. But the Wildcats' offense was effective, going 9-21 from three, recovering 41 percent of their own missed shots, and only turning the ball over in 13 percent of their possessions. We will see how they do in the rest of the Big 12 tournament.