Texas Basketball: 2010 State of the Union

first time i ever wanted bb to take my mind of football.
jcovan brown for mvp!

Good writeup, Trips. I love the idea of Jordan at the two, Shawn at the three, GJ at the four, and Tristan at the “five.” It’s nice having three 6’7" versatile at the 2-4 that can all run, shoot, and rebound. You can put JCB or CoJo at the point. This lineup absolutely requires zone, but that seems like the optimal defensive alignment with this group anyway.

Shawn Williams at least becoming a viable player on this team is absolutely mandatory. It allows Jordan to interchange between the 2 and the 3, instead of just staying at the 3, giving us both increased size in the backcourt and depth that isn’t solely comprised of a guy who shoots at an elementary school level and a garden gnome.

Run and gun is this group’s style. That doesn’t mean we have to play man; just utilize an aggressive, trapping zone and get down the court quickly. Hell, even take some bad shots in the halfcourt to get the tempo of the game up. I really hope Rick can let this team open it up like he did with the Kevin Durant squad. Those guys never stopped anybody on defense, but they had a shitload of fun playing the game and gave the fans a hell of a season to enjoy. Last year’s team had all the pieces on its surface, but Rick overcoached to the max and ruined the team.

Parlay a solid regular season into a five or six seed going into the tournament. Crush the first round opponent and beat the second. Make it competitive against the one seed in the Sweet Sixteen and carry that momentum into the next season. If CoJo, Tristan, JCB, and a newly selfless Hamilton can form a solid young nucleus that can mesh with Myck, Julien, McClellan, Holmes, and hopefully Daniels and a big like Pelle, I can see us getting back on track in time to start picking up commits from guys like Cameron Ridley, L.J. Rose, Rashaad Sulaimon, Julius Randle, the Harrison twins, etc.

Good stuff. Sweet 16? I’m lowering my expectations to please qualify for the tourny.

Someone posted on another board that they got to watch practice last Friday. Said that Chapman wasn’t participating. Why is that?

02/19/11: BEAT NEBRASKA!

Still scarred from last year. Apparently. Having a hard time getting up for this season (first time in years).

Appreciate the effort, Trips.

So happy to have basketball and Trips’ write-ups to look forward to.

I also just got DirectTV and ESPNU, so I’ll get to catch a few more games than I did last season. Hopefully they will be more fun to watch this year.

Hook ’em!

best college basketball writer on the internet…welcome back

Nice review, Trip ! Thanks !

Great writeup Trips, color me mystified on this years group. After being horrible last year and losing 3 players to the NBA, one would think we would be Greg Davis bad this year. Chemistry is a funny thing, though.

Defining roles and playing to them is key. That is where I am lost. What are the roles? What should they be? Obviously, we (as fans) need more data to determine that, but Barnes better have it figured out better than he did last year or that seat could get warm.

From what I have seen of CoJo, he is the x-factor. It is an immediate upgrade at the 1 over the craptastic 3 headed monster of Brown, Balbay and Travelocity. Brown is a creative 2, not a 1. Not in any way, shape or form. Can CoJo defend? Can anyone on this team other than Balbay? Speaking of, if he plays anything other than defensive stopper 10-15 mins. a game, we are in trouble. His role is easy. Play D, give CoJo a rest.

Brown and Hamilton’s development are the y-factor. If they have improved, and they would have by leaps and bounds in any other program but ours, then we could be good. They certainly have the talent and each brings a unique skillset that poses matchup problems on the offensive end. Of course, they present matchup problems for us on the defensive end. Hopefully, their IQ on d has gone from a 7 year old equivalence to a 12 year olds. Brown has the ability to be a decent on ball defender at the 2. Hamilton has the ability to be an above average off ball defender at the 3 with his length. But both of them have to commit to learning how.

As far as the bigs, Chapman for all his talent has just not developed. Recurring theme, imo. I don’t doubt GJ has extended his range to 3 land, his shot improved tremendously last year, but his ability to be a defensive liability is severely underrated. At least Brown and Hamilton have the ability to get better on that end. I’m not sure GJ does. Tristan? Don’t know, I haven’t seen much tape. I hope he can board.

All in all, anywhere from 15-25 wouldn’t surprise me. We could be a 4 seed or miss the tourney completely. I would be happy if we just played better basketball than last year record be damned.

That’s “anywhere from 15-25 wins wouldn’t surprise me.”

Great review of last year and our prospects this year. And why it is so.

The collapse last year, the trend in Barnes’ tactics (OK, some are not trends, simply facts in how he will coach come hell or high water … or talent… or offensive scheme… or coaching to win vs developing players for the NBA…) It’s hard to get too excited about the season. But at least it got my mind off Mack Davis for awhile. Thanks.

Love the hoops posts, Trips, but I don’t see Jordan as a guy who can run an offense.

I don’t remember Draymar Green’s game, but you say he facilitated the MSU offense at times. Why do you think Jordan can do that? Most of his drives last year ended with him forcing an awkward shot, and almost none of them ended with him creating an easy shot for a teammate. He has good ball handling skills for a tall kid, but he struggles to get past his defender.

I also don’t remember how Grant Hill was really used in college, but I can see how Jordan would be able to bring the ball up and force his man to pick him up at the 3 pt line hopefully opening up room for teammates to move and Jordan to hit cutters/guys popping off screens with a pass, but that doesn’t sound like our offense at all.

Like I said, I haven’t seen a lot of point forward skills from Jordan, but it’d be great if we could use him like that, so tell me what you’re seeing/thinking.

I love Hamilton as a shooter, tolerate him as ball handler, and hate him as a defender. He’s not shown me the effort and to be honest we need his scoring so much I don’t want him pressuring the ball and getting in foul trouble.

That’s one thing I’d like to get rid of on the team, the on ball pressure that results in players being blown by or picking up cheap reach-ins when we don’t have enough scorers on the bench.

Most young college players are in love with their own jump shot and will take in time and time again if you let them. I say we play zone to help with rebounding and to protect our scorers, problem is that is not the style of play Barnes likes and i’m not optimistic he’ll adapt.

I’ll be happy with making the tourney and winning a game and getting so momentum back. I hope we start ok but not too hot as the expectations will grow again for a team that isn’t that great.

I’m a Dogus fan, and he can operate in a half-court offense as long as he surrounded by scorers (and not Mason and/or Pittman). Force-feeding Dogus/Mason with Pittman was like [insert colorful war blunder reference here].

If Johnson really can make threes, he would go on the list of players who have developed and expanded their games under RB. Johnson was layups only when he got to Texas.

With Jai & Nkwopara, we probably have the best multi-sport garden gnome tandem in college sports, IMO.

After last year I thought I would never give a shit about our basketball program again – then the football season happened.

Thank god for basketball and Rick Barnes!

After last year’s sharp fall from grace, I cringe whenever I even think about Texas Basketball this year. This after being extremely excited for it last year. 2010 has been the worst Texas sports year we have had in a while.

Bob,

Johnson has absolutely developed under Barnes. When GJ got here, he was so uncoordinated and awkward you had to wonder how he ever made a high school team… On top of that, as you mentioned, he couldn’t shoot… Yet, due to a lack of intelligence, he was a black hole on offense.

Now he’s got some good moves in the post, he can shoot from just about everywhere, he passes, and he’s still the max effort guy he’s always been. Gotta love the guy at this point.

NY Horn- that made me laugh. So true

texasengr: And he appears to enjoy playing defense.

I think the more appropriate Nietzsche quote for the basketball program – hell, for the athletic program pretty much in general these days – is: “if you gaze into the abyss, the abyss gazes also into you.”

I am greatly appreciative of the dearth of posts regarding how studly our guys look out on the practice/intramural courts this year.

Oh, also, between Nkwopara and Lucas, we’re 2/9ths of the way to completing the Fellowship.

Hey Trips, good to look up BC and find the best BB writer still at it but put the greek shit on the back burner. Leave that crap to Sailor/Scipio/and Henry etc.
Keep that great edge that you have to explain what is happening on the court.

Interesting year coming up. A year that will either cement Barnes at UT or start the process of burning Barnes at the stake. This team is long on talent but not used to running Barnes schemes (or lack of one). If RB stays true to his patterns of running a tight ship and skull frigging (I will be kinder and gentler this year) then we will add another year to the past two years of BB frustration.
A couple of things for Barnes is that the team can run at least 10 players up and down the court, maybe only 7-8 quality college players if one of the wangChapHill trio starts to produce. The team has scorers, 5-6 shooters and length but I just do not see RB running a zone.
 Mano to mano and half court pick and roll is his method of operation and he is stubborn. Maybe someone talked to him about being a little more flexible and play to the players strengths and minimize their weak points.
If Johnson is hitting 3’s at a good rate then this is another weapon for RB, oh! GJ will also be maybe the 7-8th player that Barnes has produced to his catchy phrase " be all you can be"…..

A package of Tristan, GJ, Williams, Hammy, Joseph will run into some substitution problems.
Tristan and GJ will have the WangChapHill gang
Williams gets tired Hammy moves to the 3 and Brown goes into the 2 spot.
If RB uses Dog with Joseph I will streak the Drum the first game after he does it and piss on his leg
Joseph goes out then Dog should play with Hammy or Brown at the 2 spot..

All the roles will be changing and I think the team is versatile enough to hang with it but then I thought that last year we could handle it
I think that Barnes is going to use his seniors Chapman/Hill the first 10 games to see if they can produce .
I am thinking that we run out Chapman ,GJ, Hammy, Brown, Joseph.
Tristan first big in, Dog in for Joseph if RB learned anything about Dog/Mason last year.
Brown out Hammy to the 2 and Williams at the 3 spot.
GJ out Wang in.
Having Tristan,Wang, Williams, Hammy, and Dog is an interesting package, An up tempo package.
Tristan, GJ, Hammy, Brown, Dog is up tempo also, Hell as I look at it your right this should be an up tempo team 75% of the time and a zone 50% of the time if not more. Same thing we should have had last year to cover our behinds.
 We will see what Greg D., oops I mean RB will run out .

If RB uses Dog with Joseph I will streak the Drum the first game after he does it and piss on his leg

All games are televised, so I can hardly wait.

Trips -

Not trying to poke a stick in your eye but you were very high on Jai Lucas transferring here.

How did so many smart hoops guys (you, Billy Donovan) miss? Or can he perhaps improve dramatically?

As always, great stuff.

Someone with more basketball X’s and O’s knowledge than myself please explain the harm in occasionally playing Dog and Joseph together. Joseph has combo-guard skills, no?

Most combo guards can hit a 16 ft jumper.

I also think people need to kill all this “we are so talented” talk. We have mayber 3 future NBA players 2 of which are freshman. None of them are considered high ceiling players (all-star quality).

I’d place us as the 4th best team in the conference talent wise with no low post game to speak of.

I think we need a post from Clipper Cooper about his “thoughts” on the upcoming basketball season…

The only person saying that is Huckleberry. Most rational people know this team has a quantifiable ceiling of 8¥~^7* (solve for *).

hey tripps any chance of posting a few football picks this week?

“Most combo guards can hit a 16 ft jumper.”

Compare and contrast with Avery Bradley please. I’ve only seen a few clips of Joseph, and I’m ridiculously uninformed. Last year killed a part of me, I’m afraid.

nordberg: There is nothing wrong with playing Joseph and Doge. At least, nothing more wrong that usual that involves Balbay being present on the court.

Bradley and Joseph have similar shooting abilities and range. Avery is better coming off screens and catching fire, but he’s terrible when he’s not feeling it. CoJo is better shooting off the dribble and creating his own space to shoot, but he’s less dominant when he’s feeling it. He’s also less prone to disappearing, IMO.

Joseph is similar to AB defensively—same height, same body type, same breakdown stance, good lateral quickness, great effort.

Avery is more athletic, but Joseph can still get up pretty well and dunk without too much effort. He’s not as fast…well, nobody is other than Wall, Rose, Westbrook, LeBron and that level of player…but he’s a much more natural basketball player and I doubt he has the psychological issues that Bradley did with Barnes’ “tutoring.”

Cory’s best facets are his steadiness, versatility, and ability to run a pick and roll or pick and pop. The latter is obviously a requisite component for a well-run Barnes team.

Similar skillset to Chauncey Billups, IMO, though I’m not sure you’d actually see the comparison just from watching him play. More of a technical comparison than an empirical one, if that makes any freaking sense at all.

Someone with more basketball X’s and O’s knowledge than myself please explain the harm in occasionally playing Dog and Joseph together. Joseph has combo-guard skills, no?

I’ll give this a shot. Balbay can’t shoot a lick and everyone knows it, including Balbay. (If Balbay didn’t know it, it might actually be better for purposes of this discussion, but that’s probably for another post, if necessary.)

Last year, it was confirmed that you could play off Balbay and cripple dribble penetration, thereby killing the drive-and-dish option from the offense. Texas reached the FF and EE with this (Ford and Augustin). People played off both Balbay and Mason, which was a major reason why it was so painful to watch Texas on the offensive end last year.

Since Joseph may need screens to get to the basket, Balbay can’t be the screener because the defender will ignore the pick and follow Joseph, at least until his man can recover. If a forward screens, Balbay’s man can still clog the lane and reduce the likelihood of Joseph reaching the point at which he would be a threat to score or dish. Any other guard would be a better option for a screen, because the opponent would have to honor the pick and pop.

HTH.

nordberg,

See for yourself.

BIH and Blake hit the nail on the head. The only way you can effectively use Balbay to play real honest to goodness half court offense is to use him as a screener AWAY from the ball.
It’s the only way you can truly force DB’s defender to guard somebody, or at least be there to hedge or bump the cutter off the screen.

The problem is this has to be done in some motion game or set that doesn’t involve ball screens which is what Cory Joseph does best. CJ is the kind of player that’s going to need a bump to get the basket off the dribble against a solid on ball defender. Hence, we can’t play them together for long stretches or we’ll see a lot of what we saw last season which is stagnation in the halfcourt.

As for Jordan Hamilton and why I think he can facilitate offense as a point forward like MSU’s Green? JH doesn’t need to be curly neal to run offense, he just needs to curly neal vis a vis his defender. Watch tape of Green in the tourney, and he’s able to create offense by getting an iso at the top of the key, back down/or blow by his defender, and then make plays against the helping defense. Hamilton can do that to the extent he’s willing to be a playmaker and not just a shooter.

I like the idea of Hamilton as a facilitator some of the time, but I don’t think this team has enough firepower for him to do it full-time. He is going to be relied on as the top scorer on the team—probably around 15-16 points a game. And there are going to be numerous…I mean NUMEROUS games where he will have to do his Kevin Durant impression and score five or six possessions in a row/get to the free-throw stripe (hope he’s improved there, BTW) just to keep this team in the game.

Many point to the Okie State game as his best game last year, but that is incorrect. While he did score a lot, the shot selection was abysmal and on most nights Barnes would have pulled him after the second attempt. His best game was against Missouri on the road, when he got into a scoring duel with star SG Kim English. Hammy understood the team was struggling and he needed to carry them. He didn’t take bad shots and played within the offense, but still understood he needed to make plays for his team. I was betraying my own university by wearing a UT shirt, and leaned over to the guy next to me to say they should just take the rest of the players off the court and led Hamilton and Kimmie go one on one. He laughed and agreed. Great back and forth to see live.

I doubt anybody remembers it, but I threw him out last season as a suggestion to play PG. We had a bunch of guys who “could” score or jack up shots, but no real discipline or understanding of team roles (entirely on Barnes). I thought playing Jordan at the one would keep him in the frame of mind that A) his coach was counting on him and trusted him B) he needed to be less selfish with the ball and C) his teammates were reliant on him to make an effort to facilitate. I hoped this kind of trust in guy from the team and coaching staff would galvanize his focus and intensify his desire to work within the confines of the offense. But now that we are down James and Bradley, I think we really need Hamilton on the wing to get up some shots. Still think it would be a great idea to tinker with, just not as something to rely on.

Obviously, Trips’ suggestion comparing Hamilton to DrayMOND Green is different than mine to put him at the point. The main problem here is we’re taking away the responsibility we hope CoJo or JCB can take on at least toward the middle of the season and into the tourney.

Blake, for me Hamilton would be a halfcourt, part-time solution asa facilitator to manufacture some points. We’ll butter our bread with CoJo running the show for the most part, but allowing JH to create will take some pressure off CoJo and guarantee JH gets involved in the game for if Barnes needs to play psychologist at point.

How much does Varez Ward’s transfer hurt the team? He only showed glimpses of talent here, but I still remember that Duke game from the Tourney two years ago when he was the best player on the court.

tjarks: None, other than from a depth standpoint. His injury last year was a poor scapegoat for the problems on that team—he would have been a mildly improved version of Mason.

I laughed last year every time we’d lose another game and somebody would blurt, “If only we had Varez! His leadership and diverse skillset would have been invaluable on this team.” Uh, Avery Bradley was the 19th pick in the draft and even he struggled under Barnes. What the hell was Ward supposed to do? He couldn’t shoot. He couldn’t handle. He couldn’t pass. He played one good game against Duke’s horrible defensive scheme (16 points on a bunch of layups) and slow-ass backcourt and all of a sudden he was relevant. Eh. Could have done better with that recruiting choice, in my opinion.

Agree with Blake. I’m sure they liked him because he was willing and able to play defense, but he would not have solved the problems they had last year.

Draymond Green became one of my favorite players to watch last year. He has an impressive basketball IQ without having exceptional skills. He’s big and he’s a load, but not a leaper or quick. He doesn’t really shoot that well. But he had the best A-TO ratio on the team, and was within 20 assists of leading the team. Really like that guy. If Texas had a guy like him, we wouldn’t be talking about possibly missing the tournament if things go bad.

The 1st game is Nov. 8th vs Navy in Austin.

Here is hoping that J’Covan and Jordan matured quite a bit in the off season (especially J’Covan).

The horns have 2 bona fide guards: J’Covan and Cory. Depth at guard is a problem. It would be nice to have the the pre injury Varez that was athletic, could defend, could penetrate, handle, and rebound some, was tough, and was not a total loss shooting the ball. Balbay could be useful if Barnes ran a motion O but that is even less likely than Barnes running a zone D. Maybe Balbay has developed a shot in the off season.

The only way to play Jordan at shooting guard is if Barnes plays a zone (great idea but probably won’t happen much) or Barnes works some matchup magic that does not require Jordan to guard a shooting guard. Lucas is so small, not fast, weak, and not aggressive that it is really going to be a challenge for Barnes to play Lucas against a serious opponent (Barnes will probably meet that challenge, unfortunately).

If Barnes does not coach well, this season could get ugly. One problem with developing guys for the NBA is that it forces Barnes to focus on man D. This makes it tough to hide on D those players with good O skills but poor D skills. On O, the way you hide a guy with good D skills but poor O skills is to play a motion O. I’m not sure what Barnes has against a motion O.

I’m trying to be optimistic but haven’t got there yet.

We all know Rick can mindfuck the best of them, how the fish hold up to Rick’s mental beatings will show how this team goes. If after 15 games the team is playing fast and confident then we are headed in the right direction but that is just about the time when Rick goes to work on young confident souls…

I missed on Jai Lucas because he played X-box with my kids. Seriously, I was probably too close to the situation. He’s a great kid, with a great basketball IQ (ask Rick Barnes) he just doesn’t have the physical attributes to be a difference maker at the guard spot.