It’s rare to see Barnes give PT to guys who haven’t earned it. I don’t Chapman would be playing if he hadn’t showed something.

I agree with the sentiment that Ward and Balbay look like they belong. Clint Chapman looks like he belongs . . . in intramurals.

Wangmene deserves Chapman’s minute now.

Kafka, agree 100% with your takes. Love to see your writeups on these threads. Connor should be a counter to overzealous post help. Big men struggle to move and get out on Connor and I think we could deploy in some skip situations across the floor.

ut, mason is going to go down as one of the Longhorn greats. Royal Ivey on steroids (figuratively ofcourse)

Fred, it’s Sydmil Harris syndrome.

CA, I think Barnes is in the process of doing that. Chapman better get his ass in gear, the train’s leaving the station. And great take on Balbay. Great defender. Offensively he needs to have good shooters at the 2 and 3 to be effective. Or we need to trap and run.

Ransom, love your takes. They remind me of phone calls I’d have with my pop. He’d intersperse “that SOB” and “mfer” much more, but you knew you were getting the straight shit. Next year is going to be a crap ton of a lot of fun with Hamilton, Bradley, and Williams coming on the scene. They’ll make the game look a lot easier than it is. Watching the current team play half court offense is like eating soup with a fork, or trying to hit a Charlie Hough knuckler.

The other two can fall where they may.

Also, as down as I’ve been on AJ for the last year, I think the biggest thing that gets to me is that you can tell when he’s going to jack up an awful shot. Everybody knows it’s coming. He starts dribbling, putting on moves, not looking to pass or fit in, he’s just trying to get enough space to get his shot. And it never goes in. He’s probably hovering around 8% on his forced shots.

This sets us up much better to play UCLA next week.

Hook ‘em!

Wangmene should be playing ahead of Chapman. Wangmene is a beast. He has a better touch on his shot right now and is superior as a rebounder and defender. Wangmene also makes it much easier for the horns to press either half court or full court and to play help D half court.

Dex is looking more explosive in terms of his movement and jumping. He is looking more confident and relaxed when he gets the ball. Once he gets into Big 12 play, he will get fewer fouls called on him just because much more contact is permitted in the Big 12 than in Hawaii. Most of the fouls on him in this tournament were ticky-tack.

Gary is definitely a matchup problem. His 15 foot jumper makes a nightmare for your typical power forward to cover (because Gary is just going to bust right by the big defender if the defender tries to contest the 15 foot jumper).

Gary’s driving classic hook vs. ND was absolutely beautiful. He was driving fast diagonally across the lane and then went up so rapidly with the classic hook that there was no way the big guy defending him could keep up.

I would like to see Gary posting up high on the left side of the lane. That will permit him to either shoot immediately or fake the shot and drive from left to right across/down the lane.

My gut feel is that Ward is going to be a big contributor before Balbay. They are both warriors.

Might be interesting if Connor is used to make the entry pass to the post. At least he would be in the right position to make the pass. It would also bring Connor’s big defender out of the middle. If Connor’s defender tried to sink to the middle and help out on the post, Connor could shoot the uncontested 3. If Connor’s defender really gets in Connor’s face, it would open up give and go plays between Connor and the post man.

It was good to see that Barnes was less angry and more business like today in admonishing the troops when they screwed up.