Texas Longhorns vs. Texas Tech Mini-Post Mortem: Random Thoughts Edition

I’m not liking that I’m getting suckered into the thinking that Jai can be a key contributor one day.

Jimmer Fredette of BYU with 47pts on 16-28 shooting tonight.

Texas is up 30 late, Hamilton jacks up a “look at me” shot about 5 seconds into the possession. Barnes pulls him — doesn’t even look at him, just pulls him.

Hamilton sits down, and from the TV in my hote room l in Lufkin, it appears that he sorta understands and isn’t pouting.

I like the fact that Barns didn’t get in his face — Hamiltonknew why he got the pine time and seemed to accept it.

srr50, great point. Compare that with what Barnes did to Joseph when he got called for charging when we should have held for the last shot. It was almost a tribute to Bob Knight.

Hope you’re feeling better soon. Wouldn’t be writing if I had the flu.

I hate to crap on a long, well thought out post that I ,mostly agree with, but Tech sucked. Not sure you take anything from this game other than we beat the crap out of a team that we should beat the crap out of.

I apologize for the redundant use of crap.

And yes, Cory is going to go off next year when Kabongo shows up.

I’m very impressed with CoJo and Thompson, and just as improved with the improved play of Brown and Hamilton. It would be nice if this team would make a really nice run in the tournament this year, and decide to play together one more year with the incoming freshmen.

Hook ’em!

oops, just as impressed with the improved play of Brown and Hamilton.

dick, I was funning about Jai. It was meant to be an indictment of Tech more than anything else.

N.I. Thanks. I’m riding that window between downing half a bottle of Nyquil and head hitting the floor.

java, right on. Can you imagine a team of Joseph, Kabongo, Hamilton, Thompson with Brown coming off of the bench. JH is probably gone, but stranger things have happened.

Yes, I have. More than once. I also imagine Wangmene with softer hands, hook shot, and a turn-a-round jumper.

It’s fantastic!

Ain’t complaining, and I’ll admit to not knowing much about basketball, but is it not odd for TT to have 6 more FG attempts than us when we outrebounded them 39-23, had 6 steals to their 3, and had only 1 more turnover than them? Something’s not computing in my basketball simpleton’s mind.

Anyway, nice win.

Tech shot the 3 point shots because they could not generate easy shots vs the UT D. A 3 point attempt is better than a turnover. UT shot relatively few 3 point shots because their offense was generating easy shots.

Barnes’ new offense permits D specialists such as Balbay and Hill to play more minutes because it hides their O limitations. I like that Barnes really focused on running the O (from a practice perspective) rather than just let guys get their points 1 on 1.

Both Balbay and Hill are excellent screeners. Like to see the shooters such as Jordan setting more screens because it is easier to get them a good shot opportunity on the post screen roll. Using Tristan more as a screen outside will actually improve his offensive rebounding because when the shot goes up, his defender will be in no position to get the rebound or block out Tristan (so Tristan has an open path to fly to the bucket and swoop up the rebound).

Anybody notice Gary’s improved ball handling and movement to beyond the top of the circle when running the O? Love it.

Jai has improved. He is playing more aggressively and will definitely be useful against the non elite teams on the schedule. The worse the opponent is, the longer is the horns bench, the more intense is the D and fast breaking. Jai is not bad at pressuring outside and when he does get beat, the horns are excellent at providing help.

Glad to Wangmene looking pretty good.

“Gary Johnson keeps beating everyone you stick in front of him game in and game out, big or small, short or tall. If he was three inches taller he’d be a lottery pick.”

I was saying the exact same thing to a buddy the other day. Its crazy when you see him go to work and then realize he is 4-6 inches shorter than most of the guys guarding him.

Tristan Thompson has probably already stopped taking classes. He’s gone.

Ain’t complaining, and I’ll admit to not knowing much about basketball, but is it not odd for TT to have 6 more FG attempts than us when we outrebounded them 39-23, had 6 steals to their 3, and had only 1 more turnover than them? Something’s not computing in my basketball simpleton’s mind.

We had 35 free throws to their 10. Based on the standard assumption of 0.475 possessions per free throw attempt, that accounts for nearly 12 possessions in difference. In fact, the estimated possessions are 72.6 for Texas and 69.8 for Tech, so there’s room for more shots for Tech. Means that a couple of the three team rebounds for Texas were probably offensive, from just looking at the box score.

Huck.

If not A Beautiful Mind, at least one you’d be willing to go home with when the bar closes.

free throw shooting will be the down fall of this team. that said, still enjoy the effort of this team.

free throw shooting will be the down fall of this team. that said, still enjoy the effort of this team.

We actually aren’t a horrible free throw shooting team this year. Tristan Thompson is a horrible free throw shooter and he’s usually able to bring our average down. For instance, against UConn, we went 14-23 from the line. Thompson went 1-6. Take him out of the equation and we’re 13-17. Not all-time great, but respectable.

If these guys are making their free throws in practice I’d be tempted to de-emphasize foul shooting if I was Barnes. It would also mean guys are overthinking their charity tosses in games. Players like that almost need an idiosyncracy like Karl Malone’s 9 second whispering monologue or Jeff hornacek’s face rubbing, or Mark Jackson’s off-hand aiming to get them out of their head and just let routine take over. Hell, think about banging your girlfriend as you’re taking 3 practice dribbles would work well.

But if they’re not, I’d point out that Thompson always can use a little more loft, and that Balbay’s wrist is moving as he brings the ball up to shoot.

Nice work, Trips. Dude sounds like he’s on his death bed but still cranks out a fine product, even if it was inspired by Purple Drank. He’s been mixing codeine with his kids’ Capri Suns.

Huck,

Is the world really going to end in 2012?

It was garbage time, but I was still highly impressed with the CJ to TT alley-oop. In a half second, Thompson demonstrated speed, hops, awareness, and mad balance.

It was a fun watch. Looking forward to the meat of Big 12, which is still a strong basketball conference.

Two questions:

1. Is CJ a candidate to leave?

2. Who’s the better player CJ or Avery Bradley?

lowden swain posting on a basketball thread? That just ain’t right.

When Jordan misses, it is usually because he is shooting too quickly. When Balbay and Tristan miss it is because they are shooting too much with the palm of their hand and too little with the fingers. Balbay and Tristan have fundamental problems with their motion, they put little to no back spin on the shot because they don’t roll the ball of their fingers very much J’Covan’s FT shot is all back spin.

Balbay is shooting .537 on his field goal attempts (leading the team for all the horns with more than one shot on the season!) and .524 on his FT attempts.

Comparing Bradley and Corey is difficult because Bradley really tapered off in the second half of the season, which could also happen to Corey. Comparing their statistics per game, Cory is playing a couple more minutes, about the same field goal percentage, Cory is a bit better shooting the 3, a lot better FT %, better rebounder, better assist, better turnover (prorated for the relative amount of ball handling), worse at blocks, and about the same at scoring. IIRC, Barnes has said that Cory is the best freshman defensive guard he has had.

Sounds like Cory has the edge over Bradley so far. Having said that, IIRC, Bradley’s mid season stats looked better than his final stats so the comparison has to be taken with a grain of salt.

I’ll paste in the stats but probably the formatting will be screwed up.

1. Player GP-GS Min—Avg FG-FGA Pct 3FG-FGA Pct FT-FTA Pct Off Def Tot Avg PF FO A TO Blk Stl Pts Avg
   05 Joseph, Cory……. 16-16 507 31.7 65-151 .430 26-65 .400 26-38 .684 9 52 61 3.8 33 0 51 26 5 17 182 11.4
   00 Bradley, Avery….. 34-32 1003 29.5 159-368 .432 42-112 .375 36-66 .545 33 65 98 2.9 80 2 71 52 18 44 396 11.6

A more qualitative analysis of Cory and Bradley is that Cory can do a good job at both point guard and shooting guard while Bradley could not do a good job at point guard. Even as shooting guards, Bradley rarely penetrated while Cory has significantly better ability to dribble drive and either dish or finish so Cory is the more complete shooting guard.

…But, Bradley is a better on-ball defender by far. It’s not even close.

Yeah I’d say it’s close to a wash at this point, although Doug Gottlieb sure did motherfuck the shit out of Bradley last night on multiple occasions.

So why isn’t anyone talking about CJ leaving?

The stats may say they are similar Kafka, but my eyes tell me CJ is the better all around player.

“The stats may say they are similar Kafka, but my eyes tell me CJ is the better all around player.”

Actually the stats indicated that Cory has the edge, Lowden. Why didn’t you state your opinion before asking who is the better player?

Bob,

“Rick Barnes has called Cory the best freshman defender he has ever coached”, from:
http://texas.247sports.com/Board/21/Connecticut-Player-Report-727257/1

I first heard it somewhere else, probably from a horns game commentator. Maybe you are right, maybe Barnes is right. Since Barnes is an awesome D coach, I’m inclined to think he may be right.

“Yeah I’d say it’s close to a wash at this point”

Not really. Nobody disputes that Cory is far superior as a point guard. Barnes says Cory is the superior defender. Cory is a more well rounded shooting guard in that he can not only shoot but can also penetrate and then either dish or finish efficiently (which were weaknesses for Bradley).

Cory is a far superior ball handler, better assist man, better rebounder, and better free throw shooter. They had about the field goal accuracy and Cory was slightly better on 3 point accuracy. Bradley had a small edge on steals and a big edge on blocks. Overall Cory is clearly the more valuable player for the horns (so far).

Bradley is the better athlete but not the better player.

Handles: CJ > AB
“Clutch”: CJ > AB
Versatility: CJ > AB
Rebounding: CJ > AB
Stroke: CJ > AB
Living up to hype in first year at “next level”: CJ > AB

CoJo FTW

I would lean to Joseph as well, but y’all are some nitpicking motherfuckers.

Joseph’s basketball tool set is much more full than Bradley. Not even close.

Disagree on Bradley. I was a huge fan of Bradley, but if you compare stats from a player last year, to a plyer this year, you have to talk about the difference in teams.

I don’t think Bradley is better, but I think it is close. Probably a wash. Corey plays on a much better and more cohesive team right now than Bradley did last year. Thats the biggest difference to me right now. And thank God for that.

One thing CoJo needs to work on I think is ball handling with his right hand. When defender overplays his left, he is ordinary as a ball handler. Hope he stays, mostly because he will be able to be more of a true 2-guard next year.