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Texas vs. Miami recap

Posted by Trips Right on March 24th, 2008 under Basketball

For 36 minutes on Easter Sunday, the Texas Longhorns dominated and controlled a good Miami basketball team and looked like a squad that would be an odds on favorite to get to San Antonio. As far as the other 4 minutes, not so much. This particular contest had almost the same look and feel as the Longorns’ game vs. Baylor in Waco and I don’t know if that’s a good thing or a bad thing.

Reporter
Damion James’ perimeter game makes Texas tough to defend.

Offense

On offense, Texas went with what looked like a 5 out offensive attack designed to get the big athletic Miami frontcourt out on the perimeter, forcing them out of their comfort zone making them contest jumpshots or guard dribble penetration. The results were outstanding. The Longhorns were able to create wide open looks off the penetration of 4 different players, Augustin, James, Abrams, and Mason, while the fifth starter Atchley was the beneficiary of late arriving Miami forwards hitting 2-5 mostly uncontested shots from behind the arc.

The first half was a near symphony of offensive basketball that would have caused John Mackovic to take a swig of Boone’s Strawberry Hill right out of the bottle. On most possessions multiple Longhorn players would get touches and quick penetration forcing help and recover after help and recover scenarios resulting in wide open jump shots, easy layups, and terrific offensive rebounding position. It’s a style of basketball that maximizes players’ skills and forces the defense to defend more of the floor for a longer duration. And the statistics in this case didn’t lie as most of the Longorns’ 17 assists and 15 offensive rebounds came in the first stanza. When the Longhorns weren’t executing the halfcourt offense to perfection, they were running a secondary break that would make Roy Williams envious. Even getting a push from Damion James who found Mason for a wide open 3.

The results were great as Texas hovered around 50% from the field for most of the game and finished 50% from 3’s knocking down a sizzling 13-26 with all five starters hitting atleast 1 bomb. Be afraid Cardinal, be very afraid.

Defense

On defense, the Longhorns did a great job executing the scouting report for most of the game, treating perimeter shooters differently based on that offensive player’s skill set. Mason and company did a good job of chasing McClinton off of jumpers and contesting the ones he could get off. With Hurdle, the Horns weren’t quite as aggressive in contesting, and instead made it a priority to stay in front of the junior in an effort to keep him from creating for others.

The Longhorn frontcourt enticed the Miami forwards to shoot 15 feet out, and focused on rebounding position and helping on cutting and screening perimeter players.

For most of the contest the Canes were held below 40% and finished at 40% for the game from the field. A late barrage of 3’s gave Miami 9-22, but 4 of the 9 makes came with 4 minutes or less to play in the game. Texas really played about as well as you can play defensively until McClinton and Hurdle went off late as Miami scored 22 points in the last 4:02.

Reporter
Ice master.

Late Game Situations

Again, it was a really strong effort for nearly 36 minutes of the basketball game, but with 4 minutes to go, Texas reverted back to the Waco collapse, failing to do the fundamental things necessary to close out a basketball game. Up 66 to 52 with four to go, the Longhorns failed to effectively ice the game because of the following:

Running their ice offense. Every team in the nation runs a late game offense designed to run possessions deep into the shot clock without turning the ball over. Unless the defense is trapping or pressuring, the ball usually stays in the guards’ hands, and for the majority of the Miami game DJ had the ball in this sub-4 minute situation. The key is to get into your set with enough time to allow for an extra pass and not just a forced shot. Too often, Texas would wait until 7-8 seconds on the shot clock to attack, almost always resulting in low percentage looks by the guard. If we go at 12-14 seconds, bringing in all five players as a threat, the defense is forced to defend more of the court. Instead, they had to defend the high screen and roll and one pass off of it. It’s 5 on two at that point and the results were zero field goals in the last 4 minutes.

Foul Shooting. This one’s obvious, as you’ve got to knock down your throws. Texas failed to shoot a high percentage, and alot of that had to do with Atchley and James taking 7 free throws in the last minute and 30 seconds of the ball game. Just poor game situation management. Our guards have to become available quickly knowing these two aren’t our strongest shooters, and Connor and Damion have to know that winning basketball is getting Abrams and to a lesser degree Augustin at the line instead.

Late game defense. Texas needs to start taking advantage of knowing an opponent has to go quickly. Switching all perimeter screens and forcing dribble penetration by the other team’s best shooters is key. You almost want to play a kind of matchup style 3-2 zone that entices midrange jumpers and limits 3’s and dribble penetration to the rim. If they hit a contested fade away 3 fine. If a guard drives and dishes for a dunk okay. Winning basketball is forcing multiple passes each possession.

Don’t foul. The Horns allowed eight free throws in the last two minutes of the ballgame, and that’s inexcusable. It probably saved the Canes nearly 30 seconds of clock and allowed them to set their pressure defense without using a timeout. Just dumb.

The good news, no great news is that Texas is now 1 of 16 teams alive and kicking in late March. Survive and advance is certainly the most important thing at this juncture, and kudos to the kids for never allowing the Little Rock haters to be a factor in either of last weekend’s games. Now it’s time to take advantage of the friendly confines against some competition that will be a bit stiffer. I’ll have a preview of Stanford and a “way to early” preview of Memphis that focuses on how to attack and how to defend these teams with Texas’ personnel. Until then, any thoughts are appreciated.

By the way, here’s some more tourney talk with a cool One Shining Moment feature that’ll take you back a bit.

Hook ‘Em

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12 Responses

  1. HenryJames said:

    March 24th, 2008 at 7:01 am

    I don’t have much faith in Augustin at the line at the end of games.

  2. srr50 said:

    March 24th, 2008 at 8:00 am

    Our fouling Miami in the last 2 minutes is what really drove me nuts. They were struggling running their offense and we stopped the clock to let them do what they do best — shoot free throw.

    The ice offense wasn’t perfect, but if we just hit 60-70% of our free throws down the stretch and not foul, we win by double digits — easily.

  3. bighornfan32 said:

    March 24th, 2008 at 8:18 am

    do you think we’ll use the same five out offense against Stanford?

  4. Trips Right said:

    March 24th, 2008 at 9:02 am

    Yes, almost assuredly. We can get the Lopez bro’s in foul trouble on the perimeter by forcing them to hedge screens, helping on penetration, and guarding penetration. An early 3 by James and/or Atchley should do the trick. Defensively, Stanford is fucked.

    Our problems will be centered on keeping our own frontcourt out of foul trouble. If we could rebound effectively out of our zone it would be a no-brainer.

  5. El General said:

    March 24th, 2008 at 9:30 am

    The five out offense really plays to our strengths when we have five players capable of shooting 3-pointers on the floor. Also, more importantly, that it allows DJ, AJ, and Mason Room to penetrate, with the off side forward cutting towards the basket for the dish or backside offensive rebounding.

    Towards the end of Big XII play we let teams pack in the middle around our two forwards who don’t get looks on the block when they are stationary, and are easier to block out when they are not in motion.

    I loved watching DJ facilitate the offense and not have to press too much to score. When AJ shoots well, it allows DJ to be more of a creater, and our offense runs much more smoothly.

  6. UTfan said:

    March 24th, 2008 at 9:50 am

    Trips, I agree with your plan against the Lopez twins. We seriously need to get those guys into foul trouble or it would be a long day for us or a rather short stay in San Antonio.

  7. bighornfan32 said:

    March 24th, 2008 at 9:54 am

    I’d love to see either Connor or Damion stay on the perimeter while DJ drives to either finish or pass to a cutting Damion/Connor when the help comes like we saw against Miami.

  8. McLovin said:

    March 24th, 2008 at 10:33 am

    Good write-up.

    The ‘wait until there are 7 seconds on the clock and take a probably poor shot with little chance for a second opportunity’ is endemic in college basketball and something I absolutely do not understand. In almost any game it has me screaming futilely at the TV. You would expect better from this breed of $2MM coaches but apparently not.

  9. Bartoncreek said:

    March 24th, 2008 at 11:14 am

    Mason should get more touches when we are trying to run clock. He makes a lot happen with his ball handling/passing and he doesn’t turn it over much at all. He would look to drive and dish to an open man and that would be better than DJ dribbling the shot clock down to 5 only to have no choice but to force a shot. Unfortunately Mason does not shoot FTs well, but neither does DJ at crunch time, so I don’t know how big a factor that is.

    We played great offensively for the first 15 minutes of the game though. Then the ball movement came to a standstill. Defensively we were outstanding for the first 35 minutes, save the 5 min. stretch in the first half that we went zone. I had Miami scoring on 7-9 possesions with 3 threes against our zone. Our zone sucks something fierce. That is a problem against Stanford. Our zone is so bad that I don’t think we can afford to play it against a good team for more than a couple of minutes.

    Please, please stay out of foul trouble Connor and Damion. That is the key. If they are able to play 32+ minutes each, Stanford is screwed. They just can’t match up with them on the defensive end. That is my feeling at least. I could be wrong.

  10. Trips Right said:

    March 24th, 2008 at 11:26 am

    On Mason, keep in mind he’s usually getting the opposing teams’ 3rd best perimeter defender so putting him on the ball in an effort to create late in a possession has merit.

    That likely means Taj Finger, Lawrence Hill, or Fred Washington on Mason if Stanford wanted to keep the twins on the floor. Against Marquette, it meant Jerel McNeal going for 30.

  11. Bartoncreek said:

    March 24th, 2008 at 11:37 am

    Good point, Trips. I hadn’t really thought of it that way. That is probably a big reason why Mason so rarely turns it over.

    Honestly, when I was watching that Stanford-Marquette game I ended up kind of pulling for Stanford. Marquette is athletic and quick and could give us some problems defensively. When we struggle on offense it really seems to hurt our defense. We won’t struggle on offense against Stanford. I agree with your take on the foul trouble for our bigs being the key.

  12. og 2008 said:

    March 24th, 2008 at 7:26 pm

    This game was eerily similar to one I watched back in ‘83 involving a school a little east/southeast of us. That one involved skillful fouling of deficient free-throw shooters, and the last time Hakeem didn’t get back on defense …

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