It's been 12 years since the Baylor basketball team defeated the Texas Longhorns in the Frank Erwin center.
This game reminded me of a game back in 2004 when Buckman tried to drag a severely depleted squad to victory at Colorado with a 20-20 game and failed. That team only made the tournament on another gritty road game taking Oklahoma St. in Stillwater.
That's now two games in a row in which the Baptists have bested the Horns. Hand me my sack-cloth I'm ready to despair and mourn the pre-season expectations as Dr. Trips has advised.
The number one issue in my mind is the complete demise of Dexter Pittman. What will really cost him money is not his lack of points or even the fouls. It's the rebounding. He played 29 minutes against Baylor and grabbed 1 rebound. That reeks of Roy Hibbert and it will scare teams away.
For all the complaints about free throws, and certainly many were missed late in the game. The team shot 62% for the game. I mean, that's pretty poor but I would have guessed 40% without looking at the numbers. James got to the line for 14 attempts and knocked down 8. I'm not sure if fatigue was a factor but it's hard to blame this one on James who already produced a 20, 19, 2, 4 (with 4 TO) and nearly hauled the lifeless body of the Texas backcourt across the hardwood to victory.
Awiggo on BON points out that the team is fighting for, at best, probably a protected #2 seed while a 4 or 5 seed seems like a better expectation.
Also, if anyone is really actually feeling down because of the team, I invited you to peruse the comments of Trips Right's post-mortem where ipowers makes his glorious return and receives from Dr. Trips a few extra diagnoses. It's enough to bring a smile to Ransom Stoddard stuck in a room with Bill Little.
At any rate, it seemed to put Dr. Trips in enough of a frenzy to go ahead and do another post-mortem on the Kansas v. KSU game and enrich us further with something to read after another dismal game. Thanks ipowers!
Final thoughts on the game...what on earth happened with Mason and Balbay? I actually was forced to listen on the radio but I was angered to hear and see in the box score little in the manner of attempted offense from Turkish Delight or Justin Mason. Were they stymied by the zone or did they voluntarily withdraw back into the foreskin? All the talk after the Tech game was how they had been instructed to seek out offense to lead the team and then we get a game like this. It's frustrating.
For some perspective I offer a new Bill Simmons column on levels of losing.