After the first eight days of conference season, the Texas Longhorns are 1-2 in Big 12 play. They are not playing particularly well. After a total stinker against Oklahoma, Texas played a more competitive game on the road against Oklahoma State, but still lost by 11 points.
A simple summary of the game against the Cowboys goes like this: OSU made its shots, and Texas did not.
In case you doubt this conclusion, let's work through the game more systematically. Success in basketball comes down to four simple things, and once you have a handle on these four things you can quantitatively account for game results. You win basketball games by:
1. Maximizing the number of shots you get per possession. Against Oklahoma State, Texas did an outstanding job of maximizing shot attempts, taking 61 field goal attempts and 15 free throws in just 60 possessions. Good work on the offensive glass (Texas rebounded 41 percent of its own misses) and steady ball security (the Longhorns turned the ball over on only 15 percent of their possessions) were both responsible.
2. Minimizing the number of shots your opponent gets per possession. OSU attempted 55 shots from the floor and 14 free throws in 60 possessions. Much like Texas, the Cowboys did good work on the offensive glass, getting to 38 percent of their own misses, which is the highest rate the Texas defense has allowed all season. Additionally, Travis Ford's team protected the rock, only turning it over in 17 percent of their possessions. The Texas defense seldom forces turnovers and the Cowboys generally take care of the ball, so the low OSU turnover rate is to be expected.
OSU was good, but Texas was slightly better in terms of maximizing its chances to shoot. Texas had the equivalent of about 6.5 more shots, when we consider a free throw attempt as about one half of a shot.
3. Being as efficient with your shots as possible. This is an area where Texas really struggled. The best measure of shot efficiency is true shooting percentage (TS%), which combines two point shooting, three point shooting, and free throw shooting in a logical manner. Against the Cowboys, Rick Barnes' squad had a miserable 0.426 TS%. While Myles Turner shot the ball well, Isaiah Taylor and Jonathan Holmes combined to shoot 0-15 on jump shots. Meanwhile the OSU interior defense was stout, blocking six Texas shot attempts at the rim, and holding the Horns to 9-20 shooting on layups and dunks.
There is a difference between bad offense and bad shooting. Bad offense happens when a team fails to execute, turns the ball over, or ends up settling for a bunch of crazy shots. This is different from bad shooting, which is what ended up biting the Texas offense last Saturday against OSU.
4. Making your opponent as inefficient with their shots as possible. Ford's team managed a TS% of 0.560, which is substantially better than the number put up by the Longhorns. This was a result that was essentially driven by jump shooting. As good as the interior OSU defense was, the Texas defense at the rim was even better. Texas blocked 11 of the Cowboys' 21 attempts at the rim, holding Ford's men to 8-21 shooting on layups and dunks. But OSU made up for this by hitting 18 of its 34 jump shots, including connecting on 9-17 threes.
So while Texas took more shots, the Cowboys were much more efficient with the shots that they took. The rule of thumb that a 0.01 differential in TS% is worth approximately 1.3 extra shots, meaning Texas would have needed about 17 more shots than OSU to close this efficiency gap with extra chances.
How Phil Forte hurt Texas
Jump shots were the name of the game on Saturday, and the best shooter on the floor was Phil Forte. He hurt Texas shooting the ball, with most of his damage coming from beyond the arc.
Regular readers of this blog know that I am fond of a number I call Points Above Median (PAM), which measures how many "extra" points a player scores relative to the number of shots he takes. A player with a large PAM total improves his team's true shooting percentage more than a player with a small PAM value. Oklahoma State as a team ended up with a combined PAM of 9.8. By far the biggest contributor to this was Phil Forte, who posted a stunning PAM of 8.6 against Texas.
Forte is an exceptionally dangerous three point shooter, and he hurt Texas mostly from behind the arc, going 4-6 from long range (this accounts for a PAM of 6.2). In order to get a better sense of where these shots were coming from, I went back and watched all six Forte three point attempts.
First half -- 15:27, Made Three. Forte's first three point attempt came on a baseline out of bounds play, against what appeared to be a zone defense. It was a little hard to verify the Texas defense because the telecast lingered on a silly, low information graphic about Georges Niang -- who as far as I can tell does not play for either Texas or Oklahoma State and thus was not in the game -- up until the very moment prior to the start of the action, rather than showing the actual basketball game. Texas guard Isaiah Taylor was knocked down by a screen (just to be clear, it looked to be a legal screen that Taylor didn't see coming), which created space for a Forte catch and shoot off of the inbounds pass. Jonathan Holmes was able to contest the shot, but Forte had his feet set and got the ball away in time, hitting the bottom of the net.
First half -- 4:47, Missed Three. Oklahoma State ran a set play in the half court to get Forte a shot coming off of a staggered screen. The Texas defense was playing man-to-man, with Javan Felix guarding Forte. Felix chased Forte through the staggered screen, and while unable to prevent the three point attempt contested the shot aggressively. Forte's was a little off balance. He didn't quite have his feet set thanks to the quick contest, and drifted away from the rim with the shot. He is a good enough shooter that sometimes he makes these shots anyway, but in this case he missed.
Second half -- 13:39, Made Three. Oklahoma State was inbounding the ball underneath the Texas basket, and the Longhorns switched to a zone defense. The ball was passed in, and Oklahoma State went into its zone offense. After some ball movement Forte was able to find space in the zone, and hit an open three point shot. Jordan Barnett was the nearest defender, but he wasn't close enough to credibly challenge the shot.
Second half -- 12:17, Made Three. Again, OSU was inbounding the ball under the Texas hoop, and again Texas set up in zone defense. The ball was passed in, and OSU went into its zone offense. After a few passes, Forte ended up with the ball at least 30 feet from the basket, where he was open to shoot. He fired, and buried the 30 foot shot, because after all he is Phil Forte.
Second half -- 10:25, Missed Three. After pulling down a defensive rebound, the Cowboys headed up the floor in transition. The ball came to Forte on the wing, and he fired a quick three from about 5 feet behind the arc. Holland was there to contest the shot, and Forte ended up missing. It was a tough shot that Forte will make some of the time, but it is the sort of shot that the Texas defense can probably live with.
Second half -- 3:31, Made Three. Ford called a set play in the half court to run Forte off a staggered screen, as he had in the first half. Texas was in man-to-man defense, with Felix again guarding Forte. A very good screen freed Forte from Felix, but Prince Ibeh reacted well and prevented the initial catch and shoot attempt. Forte faked, dribbled once, and reset from behind the three point line, where he nailed the shot.
Summing up, Forte went 3-3 from long range against the Texas zone, was 1-2 against man-to-man, and 0-1 in transition.
Throughout the game, Texas mostly relied on man-to-man defense, and Demarcus Holland and Javan Felix did a solid job of chasing Forte through a maze of screens set up in their path. Forte only got up two attempts from beyond the arc against man-to-man defense. One of these two attempts was a well-contested miss, while the other was a shot where he was prevented from taking a rhythm catch and shoot jumper.
The zone defense got Texas into trouble, even though the Longhorns hardly played it at all. As he frequently does, Rick Barnes switched the Texas defense to zone on baseline out of bounds plays. This is a common tactic used by coaches all across America -- the idea is that a zone defense generally prevents teams from getting easy baskets through screening action on inbounds plays -- but against OSU it led to trouble. In one case, the zone did not prevent Isaiah Taylor from being screened away from defending Forte. If Texas had instead bee playing man-to-man defense perhaps someone would have warned Taylor that a screen was coming. In two other cases, while OSU did not attempt a quick shot off of the inbounds play, Texas remained in zone defense for the remainder of the possession, and eventually Forte found room to shoot.
This zone defense ended up costing Texas by giving Forte clean looks from beyond the arc (to be fair Forte's last made three against the zone came from very far away from the basket). On those three zone possessions, Texas allowed nine points. With teams typically averaging about a point per possession, these three possessions accounted for six extra points for Forte, which was essentially his entire positive contribution from beyond the arc for the game.
Perhaps my personal bias against zone defense is creeping in here -- and even I appreciate the rational for playing zone on baseline out of bounds plays -- but playing a zone defense against a shooter as dangerous as Forte is something that is best avoided altogether. This is particularly true when the Texas man-to-man defense was doing such a good job of eliminating catch and shoot opportunities for the OSU guard.
What should we take away from this game?
While Texas fans were understandably depressed by the Oklahoma game, they probably should feel somewhat better after the loss to OSU. The Cowboys beat the Longhorns largely with jump shots, many of which were contested and difficult. Over the long haul, you won't lose many games this way -- it is just really hard to hit more than half of your jump shots in a basketball game, and it might not happen again against Texas this year. Texas opponents have made 31 percent of their jumpers this season, and no opponent yet has come even close to hitting jump shots at the rate that OSU did over the weekend.
So I wouldn't worry too much about what this game says about the Texas defense. As for the offense, there is more cause for concern, as poor shooting is a problem that will sink the Longhorn offense from time to time. To be fair, every team has nights where it doesn't hit shots -- even the sharp-shooting Iowa State Cyclones will lay the occasional 1-18 three point shooting stink bomb, as they did a week ago in a loss to South Carolina. But Texas, lacking any truly great shooters, is more susceptible to this problem. So Texas will have games where it struggles to hit shots again.
For those looking to overreact about Texas' recent struggles, I am not yet ready to join you. Texas' actual play against OSU was not as bad as the result. (The Monday night OU game remains indefensible.) Jonathan Holmes has shot the ball poorly two games in a row, and Isaiah Taylor hasn't been himself since coming back from his injury. When Holmes and Taylor struggle, the Texas offense is probably going to struggle. It is not much more complicated than that.