Part II of the Obese Hoops Preview: Why Texas Will Cut Down the Nets

exciting read. This year will be approximately 9-10 times more fun to watch then last year.

Bravo !! Excellent article ,a little homey but very good. You must be listening when Trips burps out his articles and swings around on his frigging stripper pole. Standing ovation bravo. See you in Indy.

Nice work! Great humor. Well thought-out.

“Mangino at the buffet….” hahahaha

Last year, a lot of the complaints about Barnes centered around him being too tough on the guys and not having a player/coach guy to be the interface to the team and keep them loose. From what I have been reading, this years’ team has quite a few jokesters who keep the mood light in spite of the competitive nature that Barnes breeds. I really don’t see us having a problem with guys pouting about playing time, which was my biggest concern heading into this season. These articles I have been reading give me that same relief as you.

Even if it took you the entire goddamn summer and fall to write this series, you should be proud of the results.

Shawn Williams is starting to come on, which is at once a good and a bad thing.

From Orangebloods:

Hoops: Longhorns get final dress rehearsal with Gonzaga
One week after scrimmaging Davidson in Austin, the Longhorns hoopsters headed to Denver for a closed scrimmage Saturday against Gonzaga at the Denver Nuggets’ practice facility at the Pepsi Center.

Here are a few nuggets from the scrimmage as the Longhorns prepare for their season opener Sunday at 1 p.m. at the Erwin Center against UC-Irvine.

–Texas won the scrimmage, according to the source I talked to. It was an impressive showing for some (J’Covan Brown, Shawn Williams and Avery Bradley) and a wake-up call for some others (Dexter Pittman and Gary Johnson).

–Dex, who has battled through an ankle sprain recently, got all he wanted from Gonzaga 7-footer Robert Sacre. Sacre was more physical than Dex and threw some forearms into Pittman’s chest (and even tripped Varez Ward on a screen). Sacre was a good wakeup call for Dex that he’s going to occasionally run into someone as big and strong as he is.

–J’Covan Brown is making a strong, strong push for minutes at point guard and showed some good stuff against Gonzaga. Even though he’s still got a lot to learn on the defensive end, he really sees the floor well, plays with a veteran’s pace and can score. If UT wants to get the most out of Pittman, Rick Barnes is going to have to surround Pittman with shooters. J’Covan can shoot it.

–Dogus Balbay got some work against Gonzaga, and the starting job at point for Sunday is down to three players: Varez Ward, Balbay and J’Covan. One source said Barnes could change his mind "five times between now and then." It’s a good battle.

–Another player really making a solid impression is freshman wing Shawn Williams. One person I talked to said Williams is probably being overrated as a shooter and being underrated as an all-around basketball player who does little things like move without the ball, play help-side defense and make the extra pass. Watch out for Williams.

–Damion James is doing exactly what Barnes wants from a rebounding standpoint. James is truly gifted in that he will rebound "out of his area" and just go get the ball. It’s a lesson that Gary Johnson and Dexter Pittman are still learning. Coaches want Johnson and Pittman to "go get" more rebounds this season.

–Lexi Wangmene has really bought into his role as a physical post presence who will set screen after screen, play physical post defense, block shots and go get rebounds. From this standpoint, he may have a more clearly defined role than Clint Chapman and Matt Hill. Wangmene isn’t really even concerned with offense. He’s all about defense and rebounding.

–Chapman can play inside and outside, but he and Gary Johnson need to focus less on offense and more on defense at this point. Chapman is behind Wangmene at this point.

–Matt Hill may also be a little ahead of Chapman simply because Hill, too, is so focused on defense and rebounding, while Chapman is a little more offensive minded. And let’s be honest, most of the offense on this team is going to come from the perimeter and wing positions or from the center (Pittman). So the team’s other big men need to be very careful about thinking offense first (Johnson, Chapman).

–One source inside the team said, "We forgot just how physical of a presence Lexi can be. It’s nice to have him back (after his knee injury last season)."

–The best and most consistent players in camp so far have been Avery Bradley, Damion James and Varez Ward.

–What impresses the coaches most about Avery Bradley is how much he wants to be coached. He’s constantly asking questions to make sure he gets things right. Even after getting a butt chewing from Barnes in practice, Bradley will thank his coach for ripping him. On more than one occasion this "thank you sir may I have another" mentality from Bradley has completely disarmed Barnes and made him laugh.

–Barnes continues to be really happy with the leadership of Dexter Pittman, Damion James and Justin Mason. Practices are heated. Players are going at each other. But those guys continue to lead.

–J’Covan and Jordan Hamilton, maybe the two best offensive players of the freshmen class, showed some good stuff against Gonzaga one second and then had defensive lapses the next. "They are both learning just how consistently hard they have to work," one insider said..
Tell Trips to redshirt this

Gerry Hamilton is saying J’Covan gets the start at point guard. Jordan Hamilton is coming on, but won’t crack the starting lineup before Sunday. It’ll be Brown, Bradley, Ward, James and Pittman.

I can’t believe we’re going with a three-guard lineup with Hamilton on the team. Expect that to change soon.

“This year will be approximately 9-10 times more fun to watch then last year”

Dipping my junk in scolding hot candle wax would be more fun than watching last year’s team.

I’m very worried about interior D.

I love the brown, bradley, ward, james, pittman lineup. Still find it hard to believe brown actually starts the first game though; surely they given mason the start.

Should I be concerned that this “final four team” beat an unranked Gonzaga team by three points?

At least you wouldn’t have had to use much wax, nordberg.

I am excited about basketball.

oc,
Gonzaga was a scrimmage. They played three halves. Damion James played very few minutes. It does not matter. I wouldn’t care if we lost by 10.

General, you’re not a little worried that Pittman got completely worked over by Gonzaga’s bigs? His whole offseason focus was supposed to be defense (where he’s been a huge liability), and the first sign we get is that he didn’t play well. Not suggesting this is indicative of his whole season or anything (maybe his ankle was an issue, maybe he half-assed it, who knows), but it’s not the best piece of news.

I don’t think we can really worry about a scrimmage that we won that none of us saw.

“Should I be concerned that this "final four team" beat an unranked Gonzaga team by three points?”

In preseason, you should only be concerned with injuries.

After preseason but before conference time, you should only be concerned if you don’t see improvement. That’s overall improvement, not linear game-to-game improvement. I fully expect ‘2 steps forward, one step back’ for a while.

This team will be good. Just enjoy.

Dude this is rad. Thanks for the read.

but ut sports and recruiting rumors are a fairly significant and integral part of my life…

I’m not gonna be concerned about anything until about February.

My lack of concern for Dexter’s defense goes like this. He is not a great team defender because he lacks judgement on when to contest and when not to, but he got better as the season progressed last year as he gets minutes. That progress will continue.

Dexter is an underrated man to man post defender against other big guys. I will address this a bit in the next post, but where we need him defensively the most, he is pretty damn good.

I also am much less concerned with him getting in early foul trouble because we need to figure out how to deal with it, and, uhh . . we might be a better overall team offensively when he is off the court (A horror that I was not willing to voice in my offensive preview because I don’t want to have to defend it without seeing these guys play).

I am also confident that Coach Barnes will figure it out defensively, so I don’t lose sleep over it.

I spit water on my desk reading:

“then what is Jordan Hamilton going to do when Barnes tears him a new asshole for giving up the baseline?”

Great read.

As agonizing as last year was (the Arkansas game kind of sums it up for me), it was enjoyable to watch a TEAM that played so hard. They just lacked the skill players and your preview gives me real hope that this year will be different. I can’t wait.

I’d giving anything to have been standing there when Bradley disarmed Rick by thanking him for his new asshole. Classic. It seems Bradley is picking up the TJ/KD mantle as the kid all the recruits want to follow.

Rick Barnes is a good coach. But if you think he gets MORE effort from his guys than Bill Self, you’re only fooling yourself.

I not only think that, I don’t think that it is all that close.

Agreed, and I’d throw about 5 other teams/coaches into that mix pretty easily.

I’ve loved what Barnes has done at Texas, but at no time have I ever viewed them as a max effort team that played exceptional defense and/or got the most out of their guys. Seems like over the last five years or so, KU has scored 80+ on Texas nearly every time they’ve played (two exception that come to mind are the ‘06 and ’08 losses in Austin). It’s not that they aren’t good and don’t love Barnes and sell out for him, but they just don’t stand out in this way.

Kansas has had the more talented team in each of those contests. I would also opine that Bill Self is a stronger offensive and defensive x’s and o’s guy.

So, how do you account for a Texas win if you have more talent and are better coached?

snowman, i have some longhorn innuendo i’ll sell you for $10 a month

Texas scored a shit load of points at ease against KU during the losses of 06 and 07 and KU fans go on and on about Self’s defensive coaching prowess. So I wouldn’t use head to head results to back Self’s case either.

When Barnes’ teams have had the personnel play to man to man defense, this exemplifies the max effort talked about here. When we have to play zone, nobody can make their teams look like they are putting forth great effort playing zone. Cuse doesn’t, it’s just effective with the right personnel.

do you have a $100 for a whole year option?!?!

General: You really think KU had more talent in 2006? The year we had five new starters compared to you guys with Aldridge, Gibson and Tucker, plus seniors in Buckman and Paulion. I’d say you had us by a sizable margin that year and the fact that we came back and won in Dallas a couple weeks later was all about effort to me.

’08 – Absolutely. Damion James in particular…think he out-rebounded our whole team in the second half.

Again, I’m not arguing that Barnes doesn’t get a ton of effort out of his guys, just that the effort he gets isn’t leaps and bounds above what several other elite coaches induce.

dick: Fair point, but again, Texas has done that scoring a few times, whereas Kansas has done it nearly every time. And I think we’d all agree that Durant is more of an anomaly than the norm. In fact, I just checked it out…

Over the last 5 years they’ve played eight times:

Kansas has scored 80+ in six games (90+ twice)

Texas has scored 80+ in three games (which accounts for both Durant games and two losses)

Not trying to prove anything with these results – just saying that the claim isn’t backed up when you actually look at what’s gone down.

AJ Abrams getting a finger on Brandon Rush’s three from the corner… that was effort.

We were older in ’06, but look at those freshman and the rest of the team. That is what 5 guys in The League? Compared to 2 for Texas.

We might have been more experienced, but I don’t know what metric we would use to show we were more talented.

I also did not put Barnes in the elite category defensively. There are some things we don’t do that great and we aren’t multiple. Bill Self coaches team defense better than Barnes for one. Y’alls rotations are smooth and fast, though fairly predictable.

But at the college level, excellent man pressure and elite effort is more than good enough.

I just noticed you were addressing dick.

Carry on.

We’ve got four from that team in the league (Rush, Wright, Chalmers and Jackson), but really only the three freshman were playing consistently that year.

Plus Kaun in Russia making 2.7 mill in Euros and Collins a POY candidate still in college. There was only one rotational player missing from the NC team.

If that is the closest the two teams have come talent wise, then I think I have made my point.

This is the first time I’ve ever heard a Kansas fan argue that their team was less talented. Interesting.

“This is the first time I’ve ever heard a Kansas fan argue that their team was less talented. Interesting.”

I hope this trend continues, at least for 2009-10.

Collins wasn’t on that team- that was when those guys were freshman and Sherron was in HS.

And I know you aren’t trying to say just because he’s getting paid now that Kaun is more talented than Tucker.

I wouldn’t mind it continuing either, as long as we keep winning 75% of the head-to-heads.

Sorry, I was looking at scout rosters and it took me to 2006-2007.

Anyway, if there is only one team that we can argue about talent wise, I think my point is valid.

No worries. Over the last five years I think it’s more even and would probably rate them like this:

04-05: Kansas
05-06: Texas
06-07: Kansas
07-08: Kansas
08-09: Texas
09-10: Texas might have more talent, but out experience at PG & C probably equal thing out

Your point is plenty well taken though, don’t get me wrong.

I wouldn’t mind it continuing either, as long as we keep winning 75% of the head-to-heads.

And KU was favored in…. 75 percent of those games.

Texas has been favored only in the two in 2006.

Just read The Miracle of St. Anthony, anyone who is a basketball fan needs to read this.

We should both be very happy with our basketball program’s present and futures. KU always has the talent that we have this year, sometimes it is just younger. We want to get to that point. We both have great coaches, Rick has had the opportunity to shine with teams of lesser talent than Self has, so it is impossible to say that Self couldn’t have done the same. I guess you could look at his success prior to being at a basketball power house like KU and say he was able to do it there.

08-09? Really? Expound.

Barnes has brought in considerably more talented players than we had before (Sonny Alvarado, Sheldon Quarles?) but he hasn’t had the quantity that the top tier schools have. We went from no real NBA talent to getting guys drafted who are staying in the league and being good contributors to their team. We are now starting to pick up steam and have been putting a guy in the NBA nearly every year the past few years. This team could be the team that really starts bringing the talent in for us.

Barnes’ teams have always had players who are more effort than talent. Our Final Four with TJ had him surrounded with Boddicker and Thomas, two of our most shining examples of guys who played all out. PJ Tucker won Big 12 POY for us, and it had very little to do with talent. I’m a big PJ fan, and he had some talent, but it was his drive that won him that award. Ivan Wagner, Freddie Williams, Royal Ivey all played tough defense for us but only Ivey had enough size to have that carry him to the NBA. Varez Ward seems to be of the same mold. The max effort guys get good treatment from Barnes and it sparks the rest of the team. I don’t know how many games we have played over the years where the opposing coach said that despite a win over us, it felt like a loss because it was so draining. Barnes as the best in the country at getting effort from his players? Maybe. But he is certainly running alongside any other coach that you could argue for.

General – it’s probably pretty close, but remember, last year KU was picked somewhere in the 4th/5th range in the league preseason and started Brady Morningstar.

Starting lineups

Collins > Balbay
Taylor > Abrams (tough call here – on pure talent maybe Taylor, but especially given the Sr:Fr part I’d say Abrams gets and edge)
Morningstar < Mason
Morris Pittman

Pretty damn close, really, but a slight edge to the Horns.

Guess me and the keyboard had a little disagreement there near the end…

Morris Pittman

Typing is hard.

Son of a bitch, it did it again. James is better than Morris. Aldirch is better than Pittman. Fuck.

Hiphop,

That doesn’t really take into account the margins though. Collins >>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Balbay.

That also does little to take into account the lack of depth we had last year.

Hiphop,

We’re not tacitly conceiding that Aldrich > Pittman at this point. I view it as a wash given what each team is asking their guy to do.

Abe Lemons was also one of the great teachers of the match-up zone.

General – outstanding writeup. One of my (few) peeves with Barnes is his inability to me to have anything in the playbook to inbound the ball under pressure. Seems like this has been a nagging – albeit usually minor – issue with him. Comment?

Just updated my calendar with the hoops schedule. Thankfully only a handful of the ridiculous LSN games this year. I guess the Big 12 designation for coverage means the game might be televised subject to the conference TV package? They’re mostly second-tier games.

“Big 12” means they’ll be in the conference package.