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A Look at the Texas Bracket

Posted by Trips Right on March 15th, 2009 under Basketball


You gotta believe.

    Minnesota

First spare me the “we can’t look past the Gophers” asshattery. I get that. I’m sure Barnes and company get that. Part of the fun this time of year is analyzing the gauntlet. Minnesota is certainly no push over, but our matchup with them is certainly favorable for a few reasons, but none is bigger than tempo. The Gophers will do what Big 10 teams do. They’ll run motion offense and try to lock you up defensively.

This bodes well for Texas for one reason. Minny’s personnel includes two covers for Dexter Pittman allowing Texas’ hoss to stay on the floor because he has someone to play on the defensive end. Ralph Sampson III and Colton Iverson are players that Dex can handle in the paint, and they won’t be able to hurt Texas by pulling Pittman away from the bucket for their own offense or in the screen roll game. If they try to do it using the high ball screen, their stud guard Lawrence Westbrook doesn’t possess the skillset necessary to really exploit Texas shooting the basketball if Dex doesn’t show, which decreases the guard’s ability to turn the corner. That’s huge. It means Texas has answers defensively, and when the court is flipped, they can go to work by pounding Dex inside as the Gophers chase AJ Abrams around the arc. Gary Johnson and Damion James will be the best athletes on the floor so they should be able to dominate the baseline and weakside glass.

The key is Texas remaining patient attacking the interior to open things up on the perimeter. You know, just like it’s been for the entire year.

    Duke

Okay, keep in mind this is one of the top 8 teams in the country so when I say the matchup is good for Texas remember I’m talking in relative terms. This game is going to boil down to who can impose who’s style on the other. Can Texas keep Pittman on the floor chasing Singler or Henderson on the perimeter hedging ballscreens set by Dexter’s assignment Lance Thomas? If so, Texas can really bludgeon Duke if they are, wait for it, wait for it………….patient.

On the flipside, if Duke can somehow neutralize Pittman with Thomas, some one man zones and various forms of help, then Duke is fine. If they have to go to Zoubek to counter Texas, then they’ve traded an athlete for a stiff and it really hurts what they try to do on both ends of the floor.

Where this all gets tricky is Duke’s perimeter defense. If they want to use some soft m2m everyone else uses against Texas, then the Devils will be playing a style they aren’t comfortable playing. It’s a style they had to go to on the road at Wake because they couldn’t keep Smith and Teague in front of them. If they do that against Texas, the Horns can compete in the turnover category, which means the Dukies would have to either outrebound the Horns to make up the possession difference, or they’d simply have shoot the ball signficantly better than the Horns. Which is an outcome that is certainly possible if not probable. The point is, Texas has a solid chance in this game. They can compete athletically and Dex Pittman has a cover in Thomas and Zoubek.


Nobody makes me bleed my own blood.

    Villanova

Texas already knows they can beat the Cats after a 9 point win in the Garden earlier in the year. In that game the Horns did a good job of recognizing shooters on the perimeter holding Fisher, Stokes, and Reynolds to 6-21 from the field. They chased this group off of jumpers and funneled them into the teeth of the defense leading to 7 blocks. Balbay and Pittman are bigger contributors than they were back in December so it’ll be interesting to see how Villanova counters. I love this matchup if the Horns get that far. The Horns have bodies to throw at Cunningham to wear him down and put fouls on the talented senior frontcourt player. Outside of Cunningham and Pena, the Wildcats are rail thin inside.

    Pitt

Sorry, I got nothing for you. By far the worst matchup Texas would have against a 1 seed. Pull for the an early Pitt upset.

Or come back and mock me if Texas is one and done.

Check out Gerry Hamilton’s story on Texas seeding here.

Gerry’s a guy that is as dialed into the Texas program as someone not on the Athletic Department payroll can get.

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16 Responses

  1. CrazyJoeDavola said:

    March 15th, 2009 at 3:50 pm

    Good run-down.

    I have to express some irritation with my fellow posters who have gone full Eeyore here. Sure Duke – provided we get there – would be tough. But March has shown us over and over how weird things can get.

    The other thing is, as always, we’re intimately familiar with our team by this point. Most of us, though, haven’t followed opponents much at all, so we have a lot less knowledge of where they can be exploited.

    You have to automatically subtract about 10% of any judgment of Duke due to the screen of national adulation for that program. They’re just as capable of coughing up a hairball as anyone else at this stage.

    Of course we’d be an underdog to the Devils, and rightly so. But that doesn’t mean we should just shrug our shoulders and quit now. Dude, it’s a challenge. That’s what the players and coaches – if not the fans – relish.

  2. ousniffsware said:

    March 15th, 2009 at 4:01 pm

    Only 1 team will win the thing, thats why I am pro trying to win your conf and the conf tourney. They do not preclude you from winning it all and you keep the hardware forever. When you are happy to get the tourney you are just like all the sorry teams filling the gym up and going ape just to get in. Wow wee whoopee so did 64 other teams.

  3. SkymonkeyHorn said:

    March 15th, 2009 at 5:20 pm

    Minny vs. UT will be ugly, minny will kep you on your toes for 35 seconds of defense. If we zone and protect the perimeter at 23feet They will have to hit over 50% to beat us.
    If we protect the ball and pound the middle with Dex,DJ,GJ we may be 2-3 points winners if AJ gets warm and shoots 10-13 shots.

    Dukies will confuse our team with their defense, if James and Mason can shut down Henderson we have a chance to win , maybe 35% or so. Verez should come on strong if Mason is still sleeping. One and done is the word.

  4. Trips Right said:

    March 15th, 2009 at 5:36 pm

    I think Dogus can really bother the Duke ballhandlers. Scheyer, Paulus, and Smith have trouble beating pressure quickly.

    On defense, Duke will have a dillema. Do they pressure Texas’ athletes playing to the Horns’ strengths as penetrators and not shooters, or does Duke play shell, forego pressure, and try to exploit Texas’ shooting weakness?

    Texas has a puncher’s chance in the Duke game.

  5. Bob in Houston said:

    March 15th, 2009 at 5:54 pm

    Oh, I’m sure Duke would fake pressure and hope Texas would shoot.

  6. ponderos said:

    March 15th, 2009 at 6:17 pm

    Another nice Dodgeball reference.

    I do it so much that I created a category for it, craftily named “Another Dodgeball Reference.”

  7. Trips Right said:

    March 15th, 2009 at 6:25 pm

    You can’t go wrong with Dodgeball I’ve found.

    “Necessary? Is it necessary for me to drink my own urine?”–is probably my favorite

  8. ponderos said:

    March 15th, 2009 at 6:35 pm

    They don’t exactly make a “sorry your dodgeball coach got crushed by two tons of irony” Hallmark card.

  9. hippie said:

    March 15th, 2009 at 7:00 pm

    the jimmy V pic is great and all, but given this team, this season, I’d take a sweet 16 over Duke right now, if offered. anyone else?

    good write up trips. i’m thinking K would be slow to back off m2m guard pressure. who was it we killed when they refused to back off our guards? maybe for a half? KU? Duke’s brand of D is our best hope to beat them.

    I’m conflicted though at the thought of Dex showing on screens 30 feet from the basket against them. and or help D (see DaMo, GJ and more recently Connor) has been average at best. this is another part of CA’s game that has regressed this year. with the 2-3 last year, he was really good. it is about 50% good this year with him.

  10. chicka chicka bow bow said:

    March 15th, 2009 at 7:24 pm

    I hope UT can get by Minnesota. If they do….

    Duke is my other alma mater (UT JD) so I was bummed to see that second round match up.

    Texas is going to need Damien James to have a big game and/or AJ to get hot again, each of which can happen. This Duke team is a deceptively good rebounding team compared to past incarnations, and people are underrating Zoubek on the defensive end. He’s a stiff on offense but has been very capable on defense – and if he gets 8-10 minutes, that’s not good for UT.

    I think the x factor is D. James. If he plays well, Duke doesn’t really have an answer for his style of play. Duke will keep AJ down at the beginning of the game, but if they have to start double teaming Dexter or Damian, AJ might free up.

    And for those salivating at a shot at Greg Paulus, he played like 15 minutes the whole ACC tourney. He is out of the rotation. Eliot Williams has become a great on the ball defender, and with Nolan back, UT’s guards we’ll have a hell of a time on the offensive end.

    All that said, we saw against KU how good this UT can be, and Dexter is coming into his own. Duke should win, but UT is more than capable.

  11. bighornfan32 said:

    March 15th, 2009 at 9:30 pm

    “Redick fix your backne, Shelden fix ya head.”

  12. Petey said:

    March 16th, 2009 at 1:18 pm

    Maybe not in the tourney, but I hope next season that Ward and Mason shoot the 3 when they are open.

    I think that the team would be better if they shot open shots more.

    I also hope Harrison Smith gets more PT. He is a good scorer.

  13. dick said:

    March 16th, 2009 at 1:37 pm

    Next season we will have more players that can really shoot.

  14. BatesHorn said:

    March 16th, 2009 at 2:46 pm

    You guys are a bunch of teenage girls with the initials and nicknames.

    Carry on, Suzie.

  15. anonymous said:

    March 17th, 2009 at 10:02 am

    Duke in Greensboro? The refs will see to it that Dexter starts the game with 3 offensive fouls already chalked up.

  16. Texas Longhorns vs Minnesota Gophers Preview | BrianCombs.net said:

    March 19th, 2009 at 5:17 am

    [...] A Look at the Texas Bracket [...]

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