Texas Hoops vs. Oklahoma State:  Post-Mortem

who’s the ref with highlights and a chili bowl haircut? that guy is such a pheg. The cheerleaders stocking are always a nice addition as well.

oh, the game. it seemed that James touched every single loose rebound. Love the way he crashes the boards. hate the way how slow dex goes to the rim once he catches it. Quit dropping the ball down to your waist big man while doing a slow step over….jeez.

If losing Balbay means we get Dex back, then we just pulled off the trade of the century. First game that’s given me hope since December. I like the 7 man rotation a lot.

We still have major issues at the point, but we had those with Balbay anyway. We can’t get our best 5 on the court, although Barnes did get Bradley a few possessions at the point last night, so maybe he will tinker and see what happens. Not sure it can happen at this point, but it’s clear our best 5 are James, Johsnon, Hamilton, Bradley and Pittman.

Mason can be serviceable at the point if he can learn to drive and kick out. A few more games playing the bulk of the minutes might enable him to do this. He has always done a solid job of protecting the ball, he needs to just relax now and see if he can get just a little creative. He has plenty of help with the ball when Bradley and Hamilton are on the floor with him.

I think the time has come to go ahead and start Jordan and let him log his 30 mins. He has earned it with his play the last few weeks. Brown can come off the bench, that way we won’t have to use Lucas even for spot minutes. Only Lex and Chap get spot minutes if matchup dictates. Seven man rotation with spot mins. for two bigs. Perfect setup. Now we just need to build on this and finally showing improvement game to game for the first time in 2010.

This teams keeps lifting me up and dragging me down. I hope we don’t take two steps back at this point. A close loss in aggieland would equal one step back, a bad loss would equal two steps back, and any win would be about three steps forward, and would vastly improve confidence going forward.

Yes, Rafferty was a breath of fresh air. Does CBS allow him to do a few ESPN games to warm up for the Dance?

Again, thanks Trips. How are the dirty diapers going?

I wonder if Dexter’s success could be attributed to the lack of foul calls (early in the game specifically). He threw that ‘bow early in the game. It could have easily resulted in an offensive foul and then he doesn’t get the easy bucket and confidence that comes with it. I mean, he was only called for 2 fouls the entire game. Was this a case of favorable officiating (letting the big men play under the basket)? Or was his success really a product of Balbay’s injury?

Even before Dexter went off in the second half, I thought it had been his best game in weeks. He aggressively rebounded, particularly when James was on the bench. That was really nice to see.

I poured myself a nice stiff drink with about 13 minutes left in the game, expecting to need it. I was pleasantly surprised that we shut the door.

So assuming OSU loses to KU, and @ A&M, they will have dropped 3 straight before a must win against Nebraska to end the year. If they go 0-1 in the B12 tourney, do they make the NCAA tourney? Can a sub-.500 B12 team make the dance this year? Is the Pac-10 perceived as “down” because the B12 pummeled them or did they perform similarly against all OOC competition? Is the B12 really as good as it’s #1 conference RPI indicates?

Also, I noticed last night that in our half-court offense, we’re completely unwilling to pass the ball from wing to wing, no matter how open a man is. In particular, on a play where Mason was playing point, he had moved toward the right wing, and Bradley was in the left wing. Bradley’s defender completely left him to help clog the lane, so Bradley slid into the corner. Then Mason drove into the clogged lane, seemingly specifically so that he could pass to Bradley in the corner.

Why did Mason penetrate to dish the ball rather than simply making the pass? I’m not complaining. I think Mason made the right decision, but I can’t remember seeing Texas attempt that pass. Based on Bradley’s defender leaving him when the ball went toward the right wing, I’m led to believe that OSU had noticed this in film.

My apologies if I’m revealing my ignorance.

Damn seems like I missed a good game by most of the players. Looking at the box scores and write ups Jordan had a good game, nice stats for a inexperence freshman.
Brown looks like he had a terrible game and Mason had a great game defending. Hope Barnes stays with Mason who appears hot, well two good games but better then Brown who looked terrible sitting on the bench.
Did we stay in front of OSU pressing m2m . I saw a highlight in the bar at LAX where an entry pass went to ?? and the player throws it out and gets it right back and scores. That was good to see almost spilled my Patron and Lime.

“It was posited on this kickass little blog that the ability to guard Muonelo would be the deciding factor determing whether or not Texas could keep their big personnel package”
Ok nice call, I will pat the next stripper I see on the ass for you and tip her in your name to the god of nudity.

“If we’re truly getting back to basics defensively, it may not be as unlikely as we think.”
It we can play defense well it would be great to win out ,even 2-1 would be great heading into the Dance.
“not raping and pillaging Eurasia” Say “Kevin” I stopped in Arizona on the way out to Cali and saw your name on a stall wall that said that TR would not be forgotten for a 100 years ? Of course it was a Gentlemens club in the big “P”.

Damn traffic heading into Lax and then delays missed the game. It would have been good to see a solid game from the players.
Say , dare I ask ? Fuck it. How was Barnes during the game, what grade did he earn.? Was it an A or a D.

Well this was comforting. I unfortunately missed the game last night as I had obligations to go to the Rockets game. If you want to talk about stagnant offenses, just watch Aaron Brooks dribble around the top of the key for 14 seconds before jacking up a 3 or make an ill-advised pass. That said, dude has talent and can go off for 24 and be your leading scorer. I felt like I was watching J’Covan in Jai’s body.

Kevin Martin is playing scared like Mason and jacking up shots like Jordan Hamilton. Where’s the stat-geek friendly uber-efficient Martin?

How Hilton Armstrong is getting minutes ahead of Jordan Hill is beyond me. Adelman also seems committed to Jared Jeffries and for some reason thought it would be a good idea to stick him defending D-Ho for extended minutes. Huh?

Battier is studly from 3 point land. Wish we had one of those.

Where was I? Oh right, the Horns. We’ll know much, much more about them after their battle with the sheep farmers. The Ags are coming off a tough road loss to Baylor. This game may very well be for a bye/no bye in the Big XII tourney. It’s gonna be a tough one.

Welcome back defense. Hope you can stay a while.

Loved the Pittman sequence when he slid over from the helpside, altered the shot, turned & tipped the ball back to the glass and then went up a third time as the ball sailed over his head and snatched the bisquit away from a Cowboy that already had two hands on it. Haven’t seen that type of………wait………wait for it………..dexterity from him in a while.
I think it was Franklin that said Wright has really focused on his conditioning once again the last couple of weeks.

Got a little nervous as the three burnt orange jocks fell to the court when Anderson pulled the fake hand-off and reverse layup late.

Winning out is outright greed Trips. I’ll take a road split and unlike seasons past, the positive affirmation of two conference tournament wins.

" I saw a highlight in the bar at LAX where an entry pass went to ?? and the player throws it out and gets it right back and scores. That was good to see almost spilled my Patron and Lime."

If I recall, that was J’Covan to Dex, back to J’Covan, back to Dex. It was a thing of beauty.

How was Barnes during the game, what grade did he earn.? Was it an A or a D.

I’d give him a B sartorially. He has ditched the tie, but kept the suit for the last couple of games.

He seemed to chew on the refs almost as much as J’Covan. We looked like for a while that we had never seen a mid-court press, but eventually got around that by getting Hamilton involved out front.

Pathetic crowd, seems a lot of ticket holders have taken the stance of a lot of folks here and moved on to baseball season.

I agree about Raftery. Knight is terrible, IMO.

I think ou is a given but who knows. I would love to beat aggy and baylor but would honestly rather beat baylor. i hate scott drew.

SMH — Barnes was the same as he’s been. I didn’t see him go off when Hamilton eagerly launched a 23-footer with a hand in his face, but Barnes wasn’t in the picture, either.

Jordan also launched a 26-footer about 20 seconds into a clock because he could, and it banged off the back of the rim and, IIRC, set up a fast break the other way.

But he played D and picked up fouls.

If they play D like this, they have a chance to win these next three, and we’ll see after that.

Did the staff purposely extend Hamilton to full court defense at times? Obviously he disrupted and stole a few inbounds passes after buckets. Could this be a trigger for better defensive focus?

Want to see Dex do that against that balding bitch from aggie before I believe it’s for real. Dominating the last couple of guys on Okie St.‘s bench doesn’t really mean much. His attitude certainly looked better though.

J’Mindfucked looks awful. Just pissed and frustrated. If he can’t even make his free throws, we might as well just play Mason 40 and take our lumps.

Hamilton has (mostly) figured it out. He should be our second leading scorer from this point forward.

Avery guarding Frodo was not fair. I thought the kid was going to cry when he got yanked late in the 2nd. If AB could take anyone off the dribble, he’d be a lottery pick this year.

Damion needs to take more than 9 shots in College Station. At this point I’d like to see him taking 15-18 per game. Some NBA team is going to be very happy with him as a 3/4 off the bench.

Jai Lucas is the worst player I’ve seen get substantial run in a Texas uni during the Barnes era. What does he do well?

DJ getting a bs third foul early in the second half took him out of his game.

Mason, like Bradley, James and Johnson, played tremendous d. He also had a beautiful drive in the paint kick out to the corner for wide open 3 by Bradley at the 9 minute mark. We need more of this. Add in zero turnovers and I was pleased with his play.

Bradley played tremendous last night, but the effort on the Defensive end of the court led to a much needed victory. Hats off to Barnes and the players.

You are correct, Bob. He took an ill advised Brandy Perryman length 3 which led to an easy transition bucket the other way. Barnes didn’t look pleased as he immediately jumped up from his chair. JH also appeared that he didn’t have the want to when James took an ill advised 3 with 2 and half to play. He had his hands on the ball and needs to secure it. However, a strike against Barnes for not chewing James’ ass for that shot at that juncture in the game.

Hamilton is improving and at least he is showing some effort on D. He has a long way to go on that side of the ball and he still needs to learn better shot selection. Give him time, As Sky points out, he still needs the experience.

Brown doesn’t deserve to log any minutes if he can’t play d and doesn’t take care of the ball. I also didn’t like the fact that he appeared to be sulking on the bench. He has a lot of work ahead of him if he wants to contribute in Austin.

This was a much more organized and focused game for us. However, I still feel like this is the worst we should ever look. Too much talent on this team not to score in the 80’s and up night in and night out.

Mason was my star of the game. His D was AWESOME!!! I’ve said that he’s still a big key to us heading into the tourney. Even though he went 0-fer, and had to be goaded by the crowd to shoot an open 3 once in the first half (they were treating him like Baklava was his middle name), I can live with his misses as long as he takes the shots. As an old coach once said, " you miss 100% of the shots you don’t take". He was efficient with the ball. I like.

To further drive this point about Mason’s shooting home, I’ll take Mason’s 0-5 over a 4 of 15 performance from J’Covan any day and twice on Sunday. JB was 0 for 6, BTW.

Damion was his solid self. Agreed, he needs to shoot more (but not 3’s). For my money, he’s the best player in the Big 12. I’d even say the country. I do wish that Barnes had chewed his butt for that late-game 3 he took way too early in the shot clock. He knows better than that. His mid-range jumper has become a deadly weapon. And it’s clutch. He hits so many big shots to keep us in games or give us a little extra cushion. It just amazing. He had a sequence last night when he got a rebound, ran down, scored, and ran back and got a block in about a 7 second span. You can’t teach that! His motor is amazing. He’s a weapon need to use it more often. His rebounding is stellar. His D is awesome. Best player in College ball.

Jordon was a ever-more-pleasant surprise for me. As someone said, he’s becoming our best freshman, and I love AB, but JH is improving game to game. I’ll point to this as an example of his maturity. Late in the game, after DJ took and missed that 3, JH found the ball in his hands all alone in the corner. Again, the shot clock was still pretty full, but he didn’t take the shot. He passed it back out up high and they worked more time. Very mature move. I know he was tempted to take that shot. Hamilton’s ball denial ( I don’t care if that guy sucked) was a thing of beauty. The two inbounds steals were great.

I, too, like the 7 man (with some spot duty when foul trouble mounts) rotation we had going. I hope we can keep building on that and maybe change that chemistry grade we got.

I’ll echo, if we had to lose Balbay to get Pitman back, that was the trade of the year. We’ve got to have Pitman going forward. Several guys on the team can do what Balbay does. Some of them a good bit better. But no one can do what Dex does.

The things I noticed about the offence were these:

1) Played the Hi-Lo post game – Hey! What a breakthrough!!! Did this several times to perfection. Several times Mason would flash to the elbow from the baseline and then pass to an uncovered Pitman as his man had come to help on Mason. Loved that.
2) as texasengr stated, we didn’t give up on the first post if we got a quick double or didn’t like or spot. We did some post/re-post. Haven’t been able to do that much previously because the initial entry pass is usually so poor that the other team is laying it in before we can say ‘Re-post’.

Liked the effort. Like the game plan (haven’t said that in a while either). Hope we can continue to build and make a splash in the big Dance. We’ve got the talent. We’ve just got to keep brining it together.

Trips, great write-up and I appreciate your enthusiasm. We need more guys like you on the site that really love hoops and the Horns.

Not to be over simplistic but I thought the key to this game was the foul trouble Anderson got in, and the foul trouble that Dexter didn’t get in. The refs were very poor at times (two awful calls against Bradley, and not calling Moses for an assault over the back late in the game were as bad as it gets), but they were fair with Dexter and that was huge.

For those of you that haven’t jumped into the live open threads during a game you need to check it out. Pour yourself a cold one, log on and let it fly. Good times (doesn’t say much about my social life… but then again I’m 11 years older than Nordberg).

Great comments from everyone. Pretty basketball savy group on this here blog.

Ballrific, agreed on James and Pittman. James is my favorite Longhorn of all times…he brings it every night.

Barton, great post. Hamilton is the key to our season. He’s an absolute difference maker as a skilled 3. If he can defend with energy and let the game come to him on offense, he can make us a top 10 team. Jordan also gives us legit size to take some pressure off of James on the glass. Jordan could be 15 and 8 guy if you give him 30 minutes per.

uthookem, thanks for the kind words. Dirty diapers are the devil. Everything else is rockin’. Raftery has done some games opposite Bilas as color guys and I think it hurts his broadcast because they seem to try to one up each other. He was great last night going solo.

 texasengr, great, great point on the foul calls. They let Dex play and you could almost see the shackles come off. It also helps that not only is Balbay not on the floor, but we’ve done some little things to pull help away from Dex mainly involving our high low game with James.

 Skymonkey, make it rain for me somewhere in my honor bro. Vasherized uses rolled up silver dollars. Don’t do that. Good game to watch. Looked like we brought on defense for the first time in a while.

jc25, Rockets are struggling. Put Aaron Brooks on this Texas team and we’re top 5 and a 1 seed.

Lowden, greed is good says Gordon Gecko. No, I’d take a split as well.

srr50, looks like Barnes worked the officials more which is nice. Jim Calhoun picked up a strategic technical in the first minute against WVA this Monday and the Huskies proceeded to go on a 26-6 run and got every call the rest of the way cruising to victory. Greatness.

Savage, we matchup better with Baylor. They give up easy offense which is in our wheelhouse. I think they’re better than the aggies, but not for us. We better bring it mentally this saturday or we’ll get run.

BIH, yep, if we have that kind of energy on defense we can beat anyone. Hell, we already have a shooter’s chance to beat anyone if we play like jags on defense.

ctex, agree on Damion getting more shots. He needs to work the Labeaux kid on saturday. As for Dex, he better be watching that first aggie game on a loop because davis killed him. The aggies don’t have a defensive matchup for Hamilton. He could go off.

Groundhog, great thoughts. Don’t really have anything to add. Agree on all points. Thanks for taking the time.

3 from the corner, the repost only took thirty games. I literally screamed repost at the TV. The hi low is a nice touch as well. Damion is killing it from deep and we need to use his ability to threaten the arc to free up Dex.

Art, thanks for the kind words. We can still get back into the mix nationally if we can grab some identity with this suddenly shorter bench. Great point on Anderson that I missed in the write up. Getting him in foul trouble was huge. It’s also a testament to our kids’ willingness to pound him inside making him a post defender. It’s something we absolutely could have done at Mizzou with similar results.

We better be paying attention at saturday and defend ,I hope we push the ball and get some easy baskets, Dex better put away his smile and get his monster on.

Jordan Hamilton has averaged 14.0 points per game while converting 20-of-42 (.476) field goals in 23.3 minutes per game off the bench during the last four contests. Bradley needs to attack the rim 9-10 times a game.

Did anyone read the ESPN Mag. about our rotation, Barnes had several eye popping statements about NC and players dreams. A friend told me about it but did not have the mag.

I’d like to see a really focused effort to ge the ball into the new and improved Dex. The two guys who do that best are Jordan and Damion (when he is playing high post). Would prefer Damion playing more in the 15 feet away from the bucket range than the 3 point line because it is easier for him to bound, get to the rim with one dribble, enter the ball to Dex, go to the rim on an alley oop, and he is deadly on 15 foot shots (except when they are free).

When Dex is doubled, there has to be a passing scheme to make the D pay for the double. Maybe Dex takes one dribble to go higher on the lane and pivot so that he can make a direct pass to the open horn on the weakside.

I continue to believe that Jordan and Dex could run a deadly two man O. There are so many possibilities, starting with a reliable entry pass. Dex scored 16 points on only 5 shots. Dex needs way more touches. If Jordan’s man doubles Dex, then Jordan is open for a 3. Dex can set a pick for Jordan and roll to the bucket. Jordan should be able to fake the entry pass to Dex and blow by his defender to get to the paint. Dex can fake the pick for Jordan and dive for the bucket if Dex’s defender hedges the screen. It puts so much pressure on the D.

It would be thrilling if Mason could recover his confidence and just relax. If not, there is no requirement to run the O through Mason even if he is ostensibly the pg. He can run around setting screens, penetrate and finish/dish every so often. When Mason is in the game, better to run the O through Jordan, Damion, or Gary.

Kafka, great stuff. Good point about Mason. The best way to dictate where help is coming from is by screening. If Mason is setting solid screens his man is forced to play somebody.

When I made a post about the 1-4 low sets with Hamilton on the ball, I had Mason as a screener along the baseline in mind. Use him as the second screener on a staggered double for Bradley and I guarantee his man can’t/won’t help in the lane. It’s simply impossible. Then you build your counters off of this certainty.

Where are CA’s dots when I need them?

Too simple, but a great motion scheme with Hamilton on the ball. Would increase our scoring by 10% if not more. But of course it would fall on deaf ears caused by the constant noise of a bus.
Our offensive rebounding would increase but we would be at the mercy of the bunnies. You know that bunnies are really nice at Easter but hard to make for our team. I wonder what our bunny count is for the year, the ones that we missed , has to be above 59% give or take a few.
The shame of wasting two almost great offensive minds. I think you should E-mall Barnes your suggestions, who knows.

Bunny rabbit,

I haven’t read the article but saw the quote you’re probably referring. I take that to mean that he gets great satisfaction out of seeing his players live their dreams after college and most of their dreams revolve around the NBA and making a good living. That to him is more important than any goal he sets out for himself. Pretty selfless quote actually. And if the NBA is not in cards for his players he wants them to be successful in whatever it is they do after college What did MB say after Texas won the NC 2005?

There is a possibility that he is trying to take the pressure off this team by making such quotes in a public forum.

Boss Hog,
Samo Samo, Take your homoerotic fantasy about being the center piece of a circle jerk and continue taking your meds. Please.
I asked if anyone had read or heard about the article since I just had it on hear say. Assuming does not make it a true statement or do you also mind read in your fantasy.
Just like you do, take the pressure off.

Sky,

Easy there, fella. I saw the quote and just giving my two cents that I didn’t think it was a big deal. That’s all. If people want to make it a big deal, then so be it. As Rodney King said, can’t we just all get along?

In the 1st osu game, osu shot 45%. In the 2nd osu game, osu shot 40%. Even though the horns lost their best defender, they still reduced the osu shooting percentage by 5%. Not bad. The horns improvement on D, especially by Jordan and Brown, is really encouraging. Hats off to Barnes for his tenacity and skill in teaching D.