Some Thoughts On Texas’ Win Over Kansas

Speaking of Matt Hill, it doesn’t show up in the boxscore, but Hill’s play has really been a boon for this club. Matt’s probably the team’s best positional defender and we’ve talked about how good a helpside defender he is from the big forward spot. Hill’s presence on the floor allows Texas to pressure a little more on the perimeter and takes pressure off of Tristan Thompson from having to jostle with opposing players in the post. With Hill defending the opposition’s best post player, TT can patrol the lane and be the one of the premier erasers in the college game.

Amen. TT is a shot blocking machine coming from the weak side. Young Chris Owens. I also thought they called some absurd fouls on Matt yesterday.

I love the way this team just grinds it out, plays their game, and doesn’t panic. I really liked our chances at the half.

If we can get that kind of play out of JCB consistently, this could be a fun season.

Just thrilled to see a team (and staff) that actually learns from it’s losses. After losing to UCONN because of our inability to rebound we pound the B12’s two best rebounding teams on the glass.

If Johnson’s hitting his jumper that game never gets out of hand.

Corey Joseph is the Rock. The freshman is absolutely solid in every facet of the game. Drops down from the perimeter for 9 big boards, none bigger than the one with the shot clock winding down.

lowden, great point. We can afford to have an undersized 4 on the floor because we rebound so well at the 1 through 3 spots. Joseph is a big part of that and it’s my bad for missing that fact in this game. Nice catch.

After watching the A&M game and this game, and seeing the sheer number of fouls committed early in the game by both of those teams, I got the feeling that both of those coaches had watched the Texas team and realized that the only way to beat us is to slow us down. I think they both realized that they didn’t have the talent to slow us down through good defense, so they told their players to be as physical as they wanted and not to worry about fouls until later in the game since our free throw percentage had been so poor all season. Well, it backfired on both teams when we actually started making those easy points.

Sailor and Brian,

Isn’t it interesting that this team is basically made up of glue guys and we didn’t have a single glue guy last season?

I have to be honest; I gave us no chance to win this game. I lot of credit has been given to Todd Wright (as it should be) for the physical transformation of our players, but Barnes should also be credited for the team being so mentally strong. The poise of CoJo and TT is senioresque. More Findley Prep players please.

25-31 overall from the free throw line. That is beyond huge. We scored 51 points in the 2nd half at KU. Let that rattle around for awhile.

Good early thoughts. Hill plays to his role perfectly. I never thought from watching him for 3 years that he could be this good of a help defender. He always hedges the perfect amount, GJ could learn a lot from Hill.

Trips, I’d love to see a breakdown of the last 5 minutes and how we built the lead and more importantly closed it out. I saw some interesting things in that stretch. I’m sure SR will pay OT for that.

Also, if Barnes doesn’t address this Hamilton situation and make up with Jordan, it will be the biggest mistake he has ever made. JH has tried so hard to be a good teammate and do what Rick wants him to do. The only thing that can derail this thing now is Barnes getting adversarial and alienating the players. I think he’s too smart for that, but we’ve seen the bad side of Barnes ruin a season before, so I am a little worried.

Lastly, Happy B-day to Raylee! What an awesome week you have had. Whoever thought that a child’s birthday would be more cause for celebration than a road win over Kansas?

Has there been anything more said about the argument with Hamilton? I didn’t think it was a big deal. Hamilton dribbled the length of the court, got himself against the sideline, picked up his dribble, and then passed it to our worst free throw shooter. Pretty bad stretch of decisions there that Barnes was right to use as a “teaching moment.”

I’m sure Hamilton was glad to see TT make both of those free throws, though.

To Barton’s point, any additional info on the Barnes-Hamilton brewhaha. I’m hoping it was just one of those heat of the moment things that is really a non event. But given the implosion last season, that kind of display makes me nervous. Hopefully they work it out.

Trips, I saw that play you’re referring to with J’Covan snapping the ball back to the ref. The ref looked at him like, WTF? Thought for sure he was going to get “T’d” up. I’d have to watch it again, but I think J’Covan didn’t look at the ref after he through the ball to him. I think that might have saved a technical, along with Gary’s politicking.

There should have been a foul on the KU player then, and a few other times they tomahawked us on fast break layups. I think there were four or five times that KU somehow managed to get only ball while raking from behind. They’re good, but not that good.

Could not agree more with the Hill evaluation. He is exactly what they wanted Conner Atchley to be a few years ago but with a hell of a lot more upside.

Barton, I’ll break down the last five minutes here in a little bit. It’s interesting, but I noticed KU went to a triangle and two when we had Balbay and Hill on the floore late in the second half. We ended up gettting a bucket and a foul by using Balbay in the short corner. Then, out of the timeout Reed got lost forgetting what defense they were in and gave up a wide open, walk up 3 to Joseph. Self promptly went back to man.

Also, thanks for the kind words for Raylee BC.

Art, the 51 points were awesome, but I think just running our stuff and chipping away at a porous KU defense was the difference. We never panicked, and just kept taking good shots within the offense. KU did the opposite after their fool’s gold 18-2 run.

Mr. Orange and Hoya, I’m checking with some folks who would know what happened with JH and Barnes behind the scenes. I’ll let you know if I hear something.

Texoz, he was like WTF, you’re right. Brown was fouled though. Just a weird no-call.

While I’m not sure how much credit Barnes should get for the mental toughness the Horns showed, the Todd Wright conditioning factor can’t be overstated. I think the replay shows it. Most of the Jayhawks’ front liners were gassed with about 10 minutes to play. You’d have thought THEY were the ones who had expended the effort to come from 15 points down, on the road.

I’ve got to thank you, Trips. I watch baseball only from a strategic perspective. Football, I can think in X’s and O’s when I want. Jumpball? I went to Texas during the Leon Black years (what could Gregory hold… 4000 fans?) We just assumed roundball was not in the state DNA.

I’ve read your stuff, but the one you wrote last week claiming a fevered brain went straight into my brain cosmic-mind-meld-like. I started seeing BB plays in my noggin. And they made sense!

I watched the A&M and KU games with a whole different level of engagement and grokking. All thanks to you. The wife is a KU grad with a dad who coached basketball all his career, so it got hairy around here yesterday. My old brain said, “Down double digits to KU @ Phog; we’re toast.” But my new Trips Right brain was saying, “Don’t give up, we’re gettin’ ’er done, esp. if GJ can find his shot or someone gets hot.” My wife said, [unprintable].

AK, great point on Wright. Our guys look markedly different in terms of body type than they did a season ago. Namely JH and JB.

OldTimeHorn, great stuff. I got a chuckle out of your wife’s retort. I can only imagine what was said. Thanks for reading.

Never thought for one second that this team was going to win that game given the history of the programs and the coaches. I love being the dumb ass who didn’t see the potential of this team. Complete turnaround from last years club.

I’m hard pressed to think of a bigger regular season win in Texas bball history. The Wacker squad who beat UofH early in the season ranks up there. Last year ‘s dismantling of Michigan st was an impressive win. But those wins were the zenith for those particular teams. After yesterday’s win, my expectations are high for this team now. We’ll see how the team plays as a frontrunner. Huge challenge for Barnes, one he’s been unable to overcome in the past.

As such, I am worried about the possible carryover from the Hamilton blowup at the end of the game. I didn’t tape the game, so I can’t see the replay. Those who have and can watch it again, can you confirm that Hamilton was yelling at barnes for the way barnes grabbed him after the pay was whistled dead. I thought I saw Hamilton say " why did you grab me like that, coach?". Hopefully, it will be handled in-house. But given barnes’ reputation as a hardass, this could evolve into a problem if not dealt with immediately.

Apparently most of the team was up all night with TRob (whose mother passed Friday). That’s not an excuse, just might explain why they looked so tired in the second half. Alternating between the best defense in the country and the worst for 5 or more minutes at a time is pretty common for this squad so I’m not sure what the real culprit was but it’s gotta be hard to play 40 minutes against a great team so soon after a tragedy like that.

That is not to take away from the toughness Texas showed in that game. Most teams would have given up after the first half b*tch slap but Texas wasn’t going down without a fight. Great win.

Barnes and Hamilton are fine.

The T on Brown was utter horseshit and the one on Hamilton wasn’t much better.

But Trips I disagree on the first half play with Brown. He got fouled, threw the ball at the ref fairly hard yes, but you can’t call a tech for throwing the ball too hard at the ref. That is what he is supposed to do on a dead ball. He didn’t say anything I don’t think.

neon, i read about that young man’s losses the past several weeks, and i cannot imagine myself at his age handling this as well as he is. my heart goes out to him in these losses, and my respect for him as a man of courage and strength is without question.

Meant to mention that, Neon.

That has been a tough few months for that kid. Thought about him a lot yesterday. I lost my mom around his age and I’m not sure I could have played a D1 hoops game the next day (assuming I had been good enough to play D1 hoops). Hopefully, he can find some fun in the game this year. Condolences to him.

We scored 51 points in the 2nd half at KU. Let that rattle around for awhile.

Bill Self definitely noticed… something to the effect of “51 points in one half, in our building,” like it had been desecrated..

Yer welcome, Trips. I always wanted to be Right brained.

There is no problem with the Hamilton situation, IMO. Here’s a quote I posted on the open thread from http://www.Texas Sports.com from JH after the game. Whatever they said to each other, it’s apparently not an issue. Oh, and Brown has stepped up his game substantially since his public dust up with Rick and time on the pine that resulted. The quote:

"They came in on fire," said Jordan Hamilton, who had 17 points for the Longhorns. "Then we came out in the second half and we played hard and coach (Rick Barnes) always said we are going to win this game."

Not to jinx us, but we are 44 for 53 at the line in our last two games. That’s 83%, which is insane and we won’t keep up that pace as a .am. But it shows how tough this team is mentally to step up that phase in two critical games It’s just a huge confidence builder in an area of basketball that is figuratively a mental highwire act, especially for us.

Count me among those who are so impressed with Hill. My gosh he just went to war yesterday. And, he must have been fouled about 6 times with no call whatsoever. At around the 3 minute mark in the game, he got a rebound, was absolutely chopped and pushed from behind, and the ref just looked away. Absurd. As absurd as the no-call on the breakaway layup in the first half. Should have been an intentional foul. Kudos to the team for not letting the horrendous officiating get them twisted up

IMO the refs let that game get away from them. There were really bad calls on both sides.

Great writeup.

Texas missed 26 field goal attempts, KU missed 41 field goal attempts. Texas had 15 more defensive rebound opportunities on missed field goal attempts than KU (missed frees were about the same for the two teams), which was the main reason that Texas had a rebounding edge. Texas had a much better shooting percentage than KU on field goal attempts and free throw attempts, which produced way more defensive rebound opportunities for Texas which is why they out rebounded KU. You can make a case that KU was actually the more athletic rebounding team since they had 4 more offensive rebounds than Texas.

When you combine solid offensive sets, good shot selection, stifling defense, and good blocking out on defensive rebounds, it adds up to impressive rebounding statistics.

I saw most of what ya’ll have discussed but I thought the 3 guard ratation and having Doge play the 1 with J Cove at 2 and roatating CJ in was brilliant. I think that line up Doge 1 , Jcov 2 at guards has not been tried to much. This was before the big lead when Barnes went with CJ for FT’s but was instruemental in the comeback freeing J cov for the inside out spot up threes.

Thoughts and prayers to the kid, their family, and the program on the death of his mom. Great character to come out so strong.

Kafka, Good point, but that is a little spin on rebounding. You could also argue that because they shot a worse percentage, they had 15 more opportunities for offensive boards.

That is why you can’t just judge the numbers. I think if you look at the game, we won the boards. Maybe not by as much as the numbers say, but we won our side of the court with great defense, forcing contested shots, and solid rebounding.

Great point about KU having more opportunities for offensive boards. Disregarding free throw misses because it isn’t obvious which were on non reboundable first shots and both teams had about the same amount of free throw misses, Texas had 7 offensive rebounds on 26 missed field goal attempts (27%) while KU had 11 offensive rebounds on 41 missed field goal attempts (27%). If you use offensive rebounding efficiency as an indicator of rebounding athleticism and skill, it seems the two teams were evenly matched. Obviously, the fact that both teams could only snag 27% of the offensive rebounds demonstrates that it is much easier to get a defensive rebound than an offensive rebound. This means that if one team is quite superior WRT to shooting efficiency and is competitive WRT turnovers, they probably will win the rebound battle easily even though the two teams may be be quite similar in rebounding capability.

Sounds like the teams rebounded with similar efficiency when you adjust for number of defensive rebounding opportunities vs the number of offensive opportunities. Texas won the rebounding battle 40 to 33 mostly because they had many more opportunities for defensive rebounds than KU. The reason that Texas had more defensive rebound opportunities was because they shot a higher percentage on their field goal and free throw shots than KU shot.

seriously? my head hurts from even trying to read that.

Did we do a good job on the boards? Ku – check, UConn – no.

bat, it was more than just his mom. this from the news article:

A single mom, Lisa Robinson was 37 when she died of an apparent heart attack around 11 p.m. Friday, coach Bill Self said. She had lost her own mother and father in the past few weeks.

“Thomas lost his grandmother at the very end of December,” Self said. “He lost his grandfather on Sunday and lost his mother on Friday night. For him to even be out there is remarkable.”

Obviously I don’t know what his family situation was, but no way I’d be at school, at a game, at work or at anything except home on the day after my Mom died. I feel horribly for the kid, but I’m not sure if it’s for his personal family losses, or for not having close family ties in the first place.

Stay classy Stiendam.

Good stuff, Trips. I have some thoughts up on the game (and others) at March to March.

http://marchtomarch.fantake.com/2011/01/23/if-youre-gonna-play-in-kansas-you-better-have-jcovan-in-the-band/

Basically agree with what you said. I was excited but skeptical going into the game, but the Texas performance was legit. KU could have played better, but Texas is damn good.

The key for Kansas is getting something from Selby. They need a backcourt playmaker badly. If Texas can get this type of performance from Hill (and/or an Alexi-UNC one) every game, combined with good J’Covan, they’ll be very tough to beat.

Stiendam: Think through it a little. He’s a thousand miles away. He’s a basketball player. He’s with his extended family. They support him and they’re going to play. I understand why he played.

i understand why he played and i respect him for it.

now the question turns to his 9 year old sister. no word on extended family, but i’m guessing she has loved ones to turn to. this must be unbelievable for her. nine years old and bam. from three parental figures to none. and at least one of the three had been close by.

at least thomas wasn’t at home. he’s a sophomore, and he went to kansas from brewster academy in new hampshire, so he’s been accustomed to being away. the sister is extremely vulnerable. she needs a lot of support, and i’m sure she will get it, but this is going to be especially tough on her.