Texas Basketball vs. Mizzou: Post-Mortem

Another conference game against a top 40 opponent, another disappointing outcome. If the way this team is playing surprises you at this point after a 17-0 start, you need to start looking at it this way.

The 17-0 team was a get up in your jersey, play free and loose, wear you down, onions dangling kind of ball club.

The team that took the floor last night was never 17-0. In fact, they happen to be 3-6 in their last 9 games, and they’ve played exactly one solid game in the year 2010. If I was to summarize the team we’ve seen in 2010 I would say this.

It’s an offensive squad that has had most of the confidence to score the ball coached out of them, left with virtually zero identity or structure on that end to fall back on. We run a ham handedly schemed offense comprised of loosely affiliated sets and an overall offensive philosophy called random screening. Random Screening? That’s code terminology for I need Steve Nash, TJ Ford, or DJ Augustin to break down defenders at will and find guys for dunks and wide open 3′s. You know, cutting edge shit.

On defense, it’s a team that seems to be minimally interested in guarding teams and more interested in guarding individual players. Instead of disciplined ball-you-man off the ball defense, we’re playing something called man-you-man loose correlation defense. Don’t believe me? How many times has one of our off ball defenders stepped in to take a charge on penetration in the last two months. Hint, 90% of college basketball teams have taken more charges…in their last freakin’ game. Yes, that’s right, there are teams that take two or three charges per night. We haven’t taken a single helpside charge in, I don’t know, forever.

On the ball is even more of a headscratcher. We had players that used to be able to stay in front of any player with talent south of Maurice Cheeks. We used to force misses and turnovers on the defensive end with smothering on ball defense. Now we simply wait for turnovers and hope for misses.

On the glass we have precisely one guy that we can count on to go get the ball and he’s surrounded by 4 guys that evidently haven’t been taught to put a body on a player and then grab a board.

Foul shooting is an embarrassment. I refuse to get into it.

As for individual players, this is what I’ve got.

Damion James. After being saddled with foul trouble because we can’t seem to protect the rim without fouling, Damion rallied to have a pretty nice 7-14, 18 point, and 11 rebound game. I’ve said it before but the kid’s an all-timer as far as Longhorns go. No one plays harder and no one’s as willing to bring it every night as he is.

Dexter Pittman. Hammerin’ Hank rose up, nuts in the face, and yoked one tomahawk style with his piece on Dex’s tentative play. I’m of the opinion that Dex has gone Mark Wohlers in the cabeza and while it’s mostly his fault, the coaching staff has done him zero favors.

First off, they don’t work the refs on his behalf in an effort to protect him. Instead, they went the better part of the season wasting 3 quarters of Dex’s minutes with the lane clogging, self checks Balbay and Mason on the floor. Hell, it took Barnes 5 months to admit we were playing 3 on 5. Dex Pittman thanks you.

Even more disturbing, is that the coaching staff seems to have zero ability to design ways to get the big man the ball in spots he can be successful. Name a game or a time when we used a simple, albeit confounding for this staff, splitting the basketball atom type offensive tactic like reversing the basketball.

It’s a simple concept, really. You swing the ball from one side of the court to the other in an effort to make Dex’s post defender go from playing helpside, under the bucket defense, to having to fight around Dexter Pittman to a half front position before Dex can catch the ball and dunk. You can accomplish it with a skip pass, use it in conjunction with your ball screen game, hell just use it because it works.

Picture Jason Glynn reach blocking Tommie Harris in a 3 technique, but don’t allow Jason Glynn to use his hands to do it. It takes roughly the same athletic manuever for the post defender.

You needn’t read the Da Vinci code to acquire this Holy Grail of post offense. Just watch any one of the 300 Division I basketball teams that make ball reversal a core part of their offense. Only a handful of those teams have a player as big and talented as Dexter Pittman.

That typed. Dex played horrible, tentative, take my ball and go home basketball. You can’t have him on the floor cutting off driving angles when he’s playing that way.

Jordan Hamilton. Perhaps the biggest indictment of this coaching staff is the time it took to get Hamilton to play this type of basketball. Here’s a kid with the talent to play four positions on the floor and our reason for not using him earlier was because the kid didn’t understand what we wanted from him? I don’t buy it.

All of a sudden the light comes on and the kid is playing confidently, within the flow of the offense. Maybe I’m just jaded by the staff, but I don’t understand why it’s taken so long for him to become a cog on this team, while bleed for the program kids like Balbay and Mason play like shells of their former selves for the last two months and steal minutes.

At this point and after watching Hamilton play well against one of the premier pressure teams in college basketball, I’m all for giving Hamilton the 1 spot or at least some point forward responsibilities. Flank him with Bradley and Brown for ball handling outlets if an opponent moves their best on ball defender to Hamilton. Protect these young guards with a zone if you’re worried about defense.

If Jordan’s drawing the second or third best defender he can do work on the perimeter provided he plays unselfishly. JH was getting to rim consistently against a 6-1 waterbug and he happens to be the teams 1 or 2 best finishers. Aside from being one of our better ballhandlers and passers, he’s also our second best rebounder.

Avery Bradley. He looked a little out of his element handling the ball against the Mizzou pressure. Last night revealed the key to Avery taking the proverbial next step in his game. Point blank he needs a better handle to truly be elite. He needs to get that thing on a string to maximize his athletic ability and elite shooting touch. If he does it, the sky’s the limit. Otherwise, he’ll remain a nice complementary scorer that relies on other players or transition to get open looks.

Balbay. Worst game I’ve seen him play in a Longhorn uniform. He looked totally outmatched on both ends. Aside from his 4 turnovers, his inability to threaten any area outside of 3 feet with his offense is among the saddest and sometimes funniest things I’ve seen in division 1 college basketball. It’s simply astounding to watch a major college division 1 guard pass up open 10 footers like they were 30 foot heat checks.

Gary Johnson. I was really disappointed with GJ’s effort because this was a matchup size-wise that should have been right in his wheelhouse. He did very little as a defender and rebounder in his 27 minutes of action vs. frontcourt competition he should be killing.

J’Covan Brown. The point guard duties in this game weren’t for the faint of heart, or head for that matter. Mizzou’s pressure has a way of making virtually every dribble contested, and every pass you make a mental exercise akin to game-theory. If you add a lack of experience at the point to the mix, it’s surprising that Brown played as well as he did. He had just 1 turnover and made a couple of solid drives to the goal. It’s a productive performance Brown can build on.

Alexis Wangmane. I thought Lexi brought it in the short time he was in there. Kid played hard and competed with two big offensive boards and a couple drawn fouls. Maybe he needs some of Dex’s minutes because at the very least he plays hard and plays above the rim.

Justin Mason and Clint Chapman. Meh. What else can you say that hasn’t already been said about these two?

Overall, there’s no guarantee this team makes the tournament. They need to win two of the remaining five games @Tech, OSU, @TAMU, OU and @Baylor. OU and @Tech would be the logical choices for those wins, but Lubbock is tough and OU is a rivalry game. I guess I’d feel better about things if I knew this team had an identiy it could fall back on. But it doesn’t.

Thoughts?

Article Tags:

Damion James, Dexter Pittman, Jordan Hamilton, Missouri Tigers, Rick Barnes, Texas Longhorns

60 Responses

The Clapper said:

February 18th, 2010 at 8:56 am

Well said. This team is poorly suited for Barnes’ strengths as a coach. Strengths that don’t include adapting his style and scheme to talent.
Bob in Houston said:

February 18th, 2010 at 9:01 am

I think they’ll win at Tech, and the home games. But I can’t count on it.

They could win them all or lose them all.
Magnificent Bastard said:

February 18th, 2010 at 9:04 am

I think this team HAS an identity… (sigh)
The Clapper said:

February 18th, 2010 at 9:04 am

Well said. The team is poorly suited to Barnes’ coaching style, a style which does not include adapting his scheme to the team’s talent.
EPLonghorn said:

February 18th, 2010 at 9:11 am

Hey Trips…..I’m about 99.99% sure that UTEP would handle Texas at this moment. To all the people who mention the fact that Barnes is a great recruiter….IT’S EASY AS HELL TO GET A KID TO COME PLAY FOR YOU AT THE UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS (in any sport). And now that the Big 12 is at the point where it can be considered one of the top two or three conferences in the country, it’s time we hire a complete and total “coach” in the X’s and O’s sense to take our program to the next step. Yes Barnes got us to where we currently are, but how many of you think he can get to the basketball equivalent of where Mack Brown is right now??? I sure as hell don’t think he can.

And for those of you who say we aren’t a basketball school….I really can’t think of a time when UT Athletics has dominated in so many aspects, and its time for the people in the basketball section of our AD to meet the standards are other sports are achieving.
Vasherized said:

February 18th, 2010 at 9:12 am

I got nothing.

/shakes head with monotone giggle.
Greg Davis said:

February 18th, 2010 at 9:18 am

I loves me some Rick Barnes!
nordberg said:

February 18th, 2010 at 9:20 am

Remember back when we wore down good teams with our depth, and won every game against those good teams by 10-20 points? That was fun. Too bad we can’t do that anymore, because….. um, because why exactly?
milksteak said:

February 18th, 2010 at 9:24 am

The highlight of the game for me really was the announcers. Wait wait no, opposite.

Admittedly my basketball knowledge is really limited compared to a lot of you guys, but even I was 100% they had no idea what they were talking about. 9 minutes into the game I muted the sound and put on music.
mashtun said:

February 18th, 2010 at 9:27 am

According Chip Brown’s last article, Barnes had to “break” two players who’s habits he didn’t like. That turned into a collapse for the entire team. Maybe it was a mistake to take such a firm hand and destroy the offensive looseness and joie de vivre that the team had for the first half of the season. It seems like he’s lost the team. He continued yesterday to play Mason and Balbay at the same time for long stretches, though the team seem strangely liberated when Mason was injured during the last game.

I think it’s clear that Barnes has mis-handled the team, its personalities, egos, and talents. He didn’t respect what he had at the beginning of the year and decided to take that apart in order to reconstruct a stronger, better unit. But now either he can’t figure out how to put the damn thing back together or he destroyed its structural integrity by dismantling it.
skymonkeyhorn said:

February 18th, 2010 at 9:35 am

Trips,
This article is truly Trips Right.
Well written and hard hitting. Hitting the nail on the head and other good shit but I have to catch a plane.
You are so right about identiy and confidence.
Your evaluations of the players are insightful and honest. Here I was cussing you for your soft posting about our team and you come out with a blockbuster. Well done.
I do not know if JH at the 1 spot would be good for his cabeza or huevos, I would not trust you know who with that task.
Ag_in_TX said:

February 18th, 2010 at 9:42 am

Honestly, I think y’all win three of the last five. The Tech game this weekend is the iff-iest.

It’ll be a short tournament if Barnes doesn’t get this thing straightened out.

Damn, I’d love to see Turgeon coaching y’alls talent – in maroon, of course….
Nickel Rover said:

February 18th, 2010 at 9:42 am

Good write-up, the lack of team identity is really one of the killer issues to me for this squad. I’m pretty sympathetic to people who suggest that this team start shooting for big offensive performances and hope that they get enough hands in faces to keep the opposing score down.

The team needs a connor Atchley pretty bad, as bizarre as that sounds. Atchley could play the pick’n'pop, protect the basket without fouling out, and consistent set great screens. I’m not sure if this team has more than one of that kind of role player (GJ) and Barnes has always had them before for his stronger squads.

Without a strong identity it’s not clear if the various talented components are feature guys or supporting guys. There are several guys who could make a claim to the throne.
srr50 said:

February 18th, 2010 at 9:51 am

What this team needs is Royal Ivey.

The past month makes me miss Varez Ward even more.
texoz said:

February 18th, 2010 at 9:54 am

Explain to me how J’Covan Brown, Justin Mason, Avery Bradley, and Dogus Balbay had ZERO free throw ATTEMPTS in a game with 48 attempts?

Hell, throw in Hamilton and you’ve got 6 attempts.

I’m going to say that Barnes is the main part of the problem for two reasons,
1) tell his guards to drive to the hoop like their season depended on it, which it does
2) work the damn officials to the point of getting a technical, or even thrown out. Make us believe that you care, Rick. More importantly, make your players care about what they’re doing.
Craig Biggio's Dirty Uniform said:

February 18th, 2010 at 9:56 am

We need 2 out of the 5 to even make the tournament?

Excuse me while I go throw up.
Savage Henry said:

February 18th, 2010 at 10:04 am

As bad as it is right now it wil be worse next year. Much, much worse. Who the fuck will ever grab a rebound. I’m guessing at least on of the freshman will leave. The only reason last year was tolerable was because we were looking forward to this year. Now we have the talent and we still can’t put the ball in the hoop or rebound or play defense.

Rick needs to hire a assistant that didn’t play for him at one time.
alincoln said:

February 18th, 2010 at 10:14 am

Worst coaching job at Texas in a Big Sport since Mackovic 97 or Pender 97-98.

What happened to those coaches?
skymonkeyhorn said:

February 18th, 2010 at 10:17 am

2) work the damn officials to the point of getting a technical, or even thrown out. Make us believe that you care, Rick. More importantly, make your players care about what they’re doing.
Does anyone remember the last time Barnes got a T. He did have a moment in the Mizzo game where he was talking to a ref his buddy Hightower I think it was.
Lowdenswain said:

February 18th, 2010 at 10:19 am

Rick Barnes is my favorite and most respected Longhorn coach of all time.

He gets to fuck up 2 more teams before we move on.
skymonkeyhorn said:

February 18th, 2010 at 10:22 am

Rick needs to hire a assistant that didn’t play for him at one time.

You must mean a free thinker, or something outlandish like someone versed in the X” and O’s would be nice. Do the other “coaches ” have input other then the big guy with great guns?
Aggie Lurking said:

February 18th, 2010 at 10:23 am

Wow. Just wow. WTF happened to this team?
Prepare for a College Station mudholing.
Nickel Rover said:

February 18th, 2010 at 10:23 am

I’m pretty sure Barnes got thrown out of the Xavier game in 2003 by Ed Hightower after a huge FT disparity became ridiculous with a no-call on a foul on a Boddicker 3.
texoz said:

February 18th, 2010 at 10:28 am

Ed Hightower need to be stung by a swarm of 1,000 angry cocksicles.
ballrific said:

February 18th, 2010 at 10:28 am

I mentioned on another thread, as shitty as we’ve played, just making 70% of your fucking free throws and we’d have 2-3 less losses., even with playing like complete dung. This 50% shit is getting old, quick.
Savage Henry said:

February 18th, 2010 at 10:32 am

I don’t remember many bball games years later but that Xavier game made me want to rip my TV out of the wall and throw it off the balcony.

Ed Hightower is worse than AIDS!
Groundhog Day said:

February 18th, 2010 at 10:33 am

Good write up, Trips. Very good to point out our weaknesses on D as well. I’m really enjoying the Fire Rick Barnes bandwagon. Outside of James, our three most talented players are freshmen two of whom haven’t played organized basketball in two years. What do you people expect? As long as these 3 guys stay together another season or two, sky’s the limit for this team.

For those who are jumping up and down regarding our talent level. Please point to another team that has won the NC with a freshmen backcourt outside of Syracuse in the last 25 years? Hmmmm, I wonder why that is. Experienced and steady guard play are essential to fielding elite college hoops teams.
Art Vandelay said:

February 18th, 2010 at 10:37 am

“2) work the damn officials to the point of getting a technical, or even thrown out. Make us believe that you care, Rick. More importantly, make your players care about what they’re doing.”

I’ve been screaming about this for over two seasons now. This team needs a common enemy. Dale Snitterman?

I really enjoyed the game last night. By game I mean courtside at Mavs/Suns followed by a visit to one of Dallas finest shake joints.
milksteak said:

February 18th, 2010 at 10:44 am

Watching Rick Barnes glumly sit on the bench with his head in his hands for the majority of the game makes me ill. Mizzou started the game off 11-1 and Rick didn’t have a single word for anyone on the floor. Do you think Mack, Will Muschamp, or Duane Akina would have done the same? I realize it is a different sport, but come on.
ballrific said:

February 18th, 2010 at 10:48 am

hightower=the suck
EggNog said:

February 18th, 2010 at 11:00 am

ballrific is right about the FT shooting. The guards are scared to get to the line and scared to miss. After the A&M CC game (and during the game), Barnes asked his guards to stop shooting jumpers and attack the basket. The other thing that has cost us is stopping run outs. We don’t have a player that drops back after a shot. Teams have been abusing us by at least 10 points a game because nobody drops back. That would have prevented another 2-3 losses. Watch the losses again, you will see that those two things are the biggest difference between 6 losses and 2 losses (maybe even less).

Barnes may have just recently mentioned the 3 on 5 business, but it wasn’t that he just noticed. It was a calculated move because the other two he wanted to put out there haven’t played hoops in a year and were slow/hesitant to play real basketball. Hamilton’s play the last couple games is anything but an indictment of the coaching staff, it is one of the few success stories. I simply have no idea how you can watch the first 25 games or so of the season, knowing that Hamilton was refusing to play with the team (not unable but refusing), and think he earned a spot on the floor. His style of play was best described as comical. You could do nothing but laugh at him, and announcers on TV actually did so. His game he was trying to play would not have put him in the NBA. The only guys that get drafted on pure potential are big men or guys with insane athleticism. Hamilton is neither. On the 2010 and 2011 draft boards I have seen, Hamilton isn’t listed as a top 120 player (two rounds this year, two rounds next year). Dex is listed, James is listed, and Bradley is listed as a lottery pick this year. Hamilton doesn’t even crack the second round for 2011.

Once Hamilton decided that shooting a contested shot with 30 seconds on the shot clock and no other player touching the ball EVERY time down the court was a bad idea, he started looking all world. He had to get out of those bad habits. It was apparent from his play on the floor that it wasn’t a struggle trying to do what the coaches were asking, it was outright refusal. If Hamilton plays like he did the last couple games from here on out, our ceiling is much higher and his pro prospects are going to appear. Kudos to the staff for making sure this kid learned how to play basketball.

As far as ball rotation goes, when we look our best we rotate the ball. When we look our worst we don’t. That can be said about any team at any level, but it has been a problem for us. I think that 11-3 spurt that Missouri started with put us in a hole the players felt they had to dig out of individually. We played too much one on one ball, and we had our best stretches when we were piling up assists.

The layup line drill they ran against us was embarrassing, but not too shocking with only Johnson and James out there. I still would point to the run outs that we don’t try and defend and the FTs as the two biggest and easiest things that are costing us games.
Groundhog Day said:

February 18th, 2010 at 11:05 am

Great write-up, Trips. I particularly enjoyed the weaknesses you pointed out regarding our Defense. There have been some other good comments on here as well.

However, the Fire Rick Barnes crowd is hilarious. Outside of James, our three most talented players are freshmen; two of whom haven’t played organized basketball in two years. Did you guys expect Barnes to roll out the basketball and win the NC with 3 freshmen playing major roles?

Michigan’s fab five team went 25-9 in 91-92 and entered the tourney as a 6th seed and I see no Webber’s, Howard’s, or Rose’s among this group. Yes, that team got on a run and went to the finals but they entered the tourney at 20-8. In fact, can anyone name one team outside of Syracuse with McNamara, who played with future all star named Melo, name another team that won a NC with freshmen guard play in the last 25 years. HMMMMM. Do you think there is a coincidence? Experienced and steady guard play are recipes for success in college hoops.

Give this team a year or two and hope they stay together. Great things are in store for the horns.

MilkSteak,

I’m sorry, but I had to let out a laugh with your Akina comment. You obviously forgot the 2007 experiment quicker than I did. Do I need to remind you about Bobino, Derry, Killebrew over Muck, Norton and Kindle?
Groundhog Day said:

February 18th, 2010 at 11:08 am

Very well said, Eggnog!
Trips Right said:

February 18th, 2010 at 11:14 am

On the runouts, the main problem is that we’ve been using Balbay along the baseline as a screener to attack zones and even some m2m because Balbay doesn’t threaten the arc at all with an ability to shoot. It’s actually a shrewd move by Barnes because if Balbay is screening, it forces Balbay’s defender to “play” somebody and not just sit in the lane.

The downside is that our point guard is in no position to get back on defense and stop the ball if he’s on the baseline. The problem is further compounded if the other guard happens to be driving to the goal, leaving zero players in the position to rotate back on defense.
texasengr said:

February 18th, 2010 at 11:17 am

I don’t know what to think anymore. I’ve watched this team religiously the past 2 seasons.

The thing that has remained constant in our losses has been turnovers.

Team, our TO’s to their’s, FG%, FT%
—————————————————–
K-State: 18 to 18, 37% FG’s, 41% FT’s (road)
UConn: 19 to 19, 44% FG’s, 56% FT’s (road)
Baylor: 18 to 20, 39% FG’s, 61% FT’s (home)
OU: 11 to 11, 41% FG’s, 37% FT’s (road)
KU: 17 to 10, 37% FG’s, 74% FT’s (home)
MU: 17 to 10, 46% FG’s, 53% FT’s (road)

I think it’s pretty clear that turnovers have killed us the last two games. I’m surprised we shot as well as we did last night. It ‘felt’ really bad, particularly at the end when we desperately needed to make a 3.

Our field goal shooting doesn’t seem to be impacted by going on the road, but our FT shooting does get significantly worse. This problem might be reduced on a neutral court…

I’m not going to lie, I’ve absolutely HATED watching Pittman play the past several games. It’s like he can’t do anything right offensively (he played some great defense against Nebraska, however).

I’d start Wangmene for a game, at least. He’s going to be the man next year, right? See if anything changes inside Dex’s head. We’ve got nothing to lose. Dexter is worthless to us in his current form.
EggNog said:

February 18th, 2010 at 11:20 am

Every time a new lineup is out on the floor, someone needs to put their hand up and say “every shot that goes up, I’m sprinting down to the other end”. Those run outs are not only easy points that are the difference in score between us winning and losing, they are confidence buckets that gives the opposing offense mojo and starts the crowd going crazy.
texasengr said:

February 18th, 2010 at 11:25 am

I wrote that in a hurry, and I realize it’s dripping with ignorance. I’m not claiming to be an expert by any means, this team is just soul crushing and I can’t wrap my head around it.
Monahorns said:

February 18th, 2010 at 11:32 am

The run-outs are absolutely solvable. One or two guards should be dedicated to getting back on D plus anyone else who is obviously not going to get the rebound. Just sprint back.

Balbay being on the baseline shouldn’t affect this. As soon as he sees the shot go up, he sprints to the other end. His man may be ahead of him for a little bit, but by the time the shot hits the rims, a defender grabs it and makes a pass, Balbay would have recovered.

It is Bball stupidity by the players, coaches, and probably both.
Bob in Houston said:

February 18th, 2010 at 11:32 am

That’s why they’ve been getting killed on points off turnovers. So many of them occur because of bad ball handling that keeps the ball in play, as opposed to traveling, offensive fouls, throwing the ball out of bounds.

This is a tough spot for Barnes. I keep going back to the understanding that the best five for offense is far from the best five for defense. The offensive five would love to get back to freelancing style that beat up bad teams, but they can’t afford to give up easy buckets on D. And the defensive five can’t score enough to overcome what it offers.

It is distressing, in the trying-to-watch-this-stuff sense, to see that Balbay can’t even play defense like he did two months ago. Like Trips said, it is an entirely different team that seems to play to its weaknesses (like the constant failure to reverse the ball) and lets other teams play to their strengths. Even with all that, they could have won the game last night, and have the raw talent to win every game they play the rest of the year.

I don’t begin to understand what must be happening in practice.
dedfischer said:

February 18th, 2010 at 11:40 am

I keep wondering why Barnes doesn’t post up that Hamilton kid against the 6’4″ dude guarding him every game, but I haven’t watched very much. Of course, I guess that doesn’t really work against zone defense.
Hank Dudek said:

February 18th, 2010 at 11:48 am

Good write-up Trips.

I don’t know if Barnes got JH to learn what a good shot was or if the public shaming by the color guys in the last few games caused him to re-evaluate “the situation.” Either way, it is a huge step to see this guy pull his head out of his ass and start playing ball especially when I thought it was time to go Calipari on him at the end of the season.

We seem to add a piece and lose a piece every game. It would be nice if these guys would put the puzzle together at one time so we can solve this mess of a season.
Blake Borron said:

February 18th, 2010 at 11:48 am

On the point of Barnes having another coach step up, I think being at the game would have been encouraging for you guys. I was more than surprised and utterly pleased to see Todd Wright not only helping with player substitutions, but also frequently standing up during game play and calling out offensive sets. Many of these circumstances were the few times we actually got into our offense smoothly.

Much of this is on the players for not attempting to even run the offense, they shouldn’t have to have a coach tell them every time when they basically only run one play (I’m sure many of you have seen the vertical finger cyclone looking deal that Barnes and the players often use to start the infamous A.J. running in circles play). Not blaming players for not executing it well, because I think it’s a terrible play. I am blaming them for not being intelligent enough to get the play started themselves.

Anyway, Wright was so heavily involved in this game that it often looked like we had two coaches on the sideline, or even that Wright was the head coach. He is my favorite UT coach, bar none, because not only is he the best in the country at his job, but he is doing about five other people’s jobs (including Barnes) as well. So, there’s SOME bright spot I thought you guys might find interesting.

Other notes from the game:
-Mizzou Arena was going nuts despite not being filled to capacity, even on the lower levels. Tough, tough atmosphere and it definitely broke the composure of players like Brown and Bradley.
-Missed layups lost us this game. Make our layups and we win, it’s that simple.
-Sub freethrows for above and same result.
-Offensive rebounding looked good. Defensive rebounding was embarrassing.
-I have no problem with Pittman not playing much the rest of the year. He’s dunski.
-Refs were an abomination for both teams. Really killed the flow of the game. Hightower is terrible (FWIW, Nickel Rover, Barnes got intentionally thrown out of that Xavier game IMO, which killed our chance at a much easier comeback than what we had).
-Hamilton’s play was encouraging, as he yet again played perfectly within the offense and looked like one of the few guys (along with James) not phased by the atmosphere. I actually wish he would have shot more this game, but all of his shots were solid. Mizzou fans around me were extremely impressed by his talent. I told a guy next to me than Jordan and Kimmie (English) should just go 1 on 1 the rest of the game.
Patrick Bateman said:

February 18th, 2010 at 12:07 pm

Good stuff Trips. A nice post EggNog. I very much agree that JH’s recent performances should be looked at as a kudos to the staff not a damning of them.

1. The transition D or lack of drives me crazy. Some of it’s schematic with Balbay, but a lot of it is simple desire. A lot of our players simply trot back on defense and don’t run like their hair’s on fire. It’s simple laziness.

2. Ball handling is distressing. I’m disappointed most in Balbay. If he’s not going to score then he has to play great D, protect the ball, get us into sets and at least attack the rim on offense. He’s done none of these things the last 5 games. He was doing these things earlier in the year. He killed us in the first 5 minutes of the game. JCB is still learning but he had a poor game last night. First half particularly. TO’s are down, that’s good but not always telling. He took 4 lousy shots in the first half, 2 quick jumpers that were out of rhythm when we were clawing our way back and then two at the end of the half. These are big possessions that fuel emotions or take the wind out of our sails. He was not good last night, but he was better then Dogus.

3. Pittman is now in full freefall. He can’t dunk a freakin’ ball without traveling. That’s distressing. We can complain all day long about not helping him, but even when we do get him open, he can’t help himself. Play him offside block as a diagonal dish for penetrators in the lane or as a high pick or screen with a dive down to the block.

One small point that hammers home how dumb this basketball team is. Last night was the first time an announcer has commented on it. Saving the ball underneath your own basket is an absolute no-no that most learn early in structured basketball. I had the unfortunate habit of doing this on my JV team as a freshman. After an initial pleading by my coach one practice, I proceeded to save a ball underneath my own basket again. We ran for the last hour of practice and I never did it again. I’ve been very disappointed that we’re 30 games into the season and we do this 2-4 times a game usually giving up at least one basket per half. It irks me to no end as we give up free points by it. That discipline is on Barnes but it’s stunning to me that none of these players have ever had someone coach this. It’s really simple stuff. It’s equivalent of ball faking high to bounce pass into the post. Frustrating….I digress….
houstonearler said:

February 18th, 2010 at 1:08 pm

Barnes is sucking this season. No other way to spin it. He needs to get it together.
skymonkeyhorn said:

February 18th, 2010 at 1:33 pm

Chip Brown has an identity problem figured out check it out .

http://texas.rivals.com/content.asp?CID=1053552
kevwun said:

February 18th, 2010 at 1:44 pm

Chip has some good points except for the Lucas stuff. Mizzou’s pressure would have eaten Jai alive last night. Barnes was right in not playing him.
Gene Claude said:

February 18th, 2010 at 2:14 pm

I know you won’t want to read this…but this Texas team looks eerily similar to a couple of Qun Snyder’s last Missouri teams. No offensive philosophy or effort, lots of athletes but not basketball players. The difference in coaching last night was astounding.

Balbay is Doug Gottleib without the handle or vision. In other words, he’s me.
EggNog said:

February 18th, 2010 at 2:19 pm

That is a weak article by Chip. We played nearly everyone at the point yesterday trying to find someone willing to dribble the ball successfully. A ton of the turnovers we had weren’t bad passes against the pressure, it was poor ball handling. To suggest Lucas would have fixed the problem is not only incorrect, it is absurd. Lucas’ playing time against Nebraska had nothing to do with the 40 point victory. He played big minutes for two reasons: Mason was injured and not suited up, and he came in when we had a 30 point lead so we could rest our other guys. Bradley wasn’t so bad at the point yesterday, and I think that was a good decision by Barnes. Balbay was doing a terrible job of holding onto the ball, and Brown was mediocre at best. The notion of “play the only guy who didn’t play and things would have been 100% better” is lazy analysis and virtually impossible to refute. “Virtually” only because suggesting Lucas as a cure to turnover problems is painfully silly.
Bob in Houston said:

February 18th, 2010 at 2:27 pm

Balbay had a smidge of foul trouble Saturday. That’s why Lucas played. When he went out last night, Lucas didn’t play. Tells you all you need to know.
Bob in Houston said:

February 18th, 2010 at 2:39 pm

Chip’s questions about settling PG before now and not trusting Brown and Lucas at the point last night are decent, but nothing that haven’t been asked here multiple times.

The first one’s almost rhetorical because it’s clear that Barnes wanted to get by with Balbay and Mason because of the issues he talked about last week.

As to Brown, I’m sure it didn’t help Barnes’s stomach when Brown was harassed into an early shot before the half, then, when given the gift of a second chance, ended up with an off-balance turn-around J. Now, one-on-one at the end of the half is a staple at Texas and for many other teams — ND blew a chance at triple OT last night because of it — but it was clear that JCB was not quite as ready as he thought for the MU D.

I hate that they are having to go through November shakedown in February, but until they put more off-the-ball screening into the offense, that’s what we’re going to see.

I am beginning to think that the need for an NBA talent at PG is based on Barnes’s relative lack of interest in offense. I’ve seen him design good plays in EOG situations, so I know he could do it. But I think he’d rather spend those 15 or 30 extra minutes tightening up the D. Right now, of course, it needs the work.
milksteak said:

February 18th, 2010 at 3:10 pm

Groundhog,

I agree with you that Akina was not a good (or even decent) defensive coordinator, but I have seen him fall on the ground enough times trying to chest bump somebody (especially after the arrival of Muschamp) that I can’t doubt his sideline presence. All I was saying is that it probably wouldn’t hurt for Rick to show some interest in the game.
Patrick Bateman said:

February 18th, 2010 at 3:16 pm

Question: Barnes runs a derivative of Mike D’Antoni’s offense, correct?

If correct, have you seen his offenses run without a dominant PG? What have those looked like?

How did his offense do with Shaq (big, burly 5) slowing it down?

Just wondering if there’s a correlation…..
3_from_the_corner said:

February 18th, 2010 at 3:48 pm

@EggNog:

‘Piling up the assists’….are you crazy?!? What game did you watch last night. You picked up on the fact that the Texas game wasn’t on for most of the first half because that stupid Louisville team couldn’t dispose of and undermanned ND team and went into several overtimes, right?!? Assists?!?! The announcers were laughing at our assist-to-turnover ratio well into the second half. It was 12 turnovers to 2 assists DEEP into that game.

My point is we don’t get assists. We play one-on-one ball or screen-and-shoot (while there may be a roll, they ain’t gettin’ the ball). We have no ‘scheme’ or ‘Identity’ as some like to cry about. More about that later.

@dedfischer

Post up Hamilton?!? Barnes can’t even post up Pitman. Why should we try to post up a perimeter player? Last night Damion James had a guy on him that was at least a foot shorter than him. I don’t know if Mizzou intended that match-up, or if it was a miscommunication, or a switch, no matter, we couldn’t exploit it. The ball came to the nearside and we looked at DJ with his single, diminutive defender, and then quickly decided that it was ‘Too Easy’?!?… I don’t know…, but we decided that now’s the time we need to reverse the ball, and sent it to the other, overcrowded side. It was INFURIATING!!! The lack of patience and ability to give a good entry pass is a crime. It’s pure coaching. What are you working on in practice if not these things (and free throws). I’m pretty sure that they don’t need to be running horses ’till they puke at this point in the season.

I propose a new rule for this team:

No one gets to take a shot without a hustle stat. For example, if you get a rebound, then you get to take a shot. If you get a steal, then you get to take a shot. We’ve got tons of guys that want to shoot, but no one save for Damion James that’s willing to do the ‘drity’ work to win a game. We’ve got to start rebounding better as a team. 2nd chance points killed us last night as we were (as we have been in this position all too often of late) trying to mount a furious comeback with 3-4 minutes remaining.

@Bob in Houston…

Well said…The 5 we want out there for defense isn’t quite the 5 we’d put out to score a bucket. This is what being a coach is all about. Managing these minutes and situations and coming up with a solution to provide a win. This squarely fall on Barnes’ shoulders.

Look at Mason’s face when the camera pans along the bench or when he’s coming out of the game. I can just imagine that he’s thinking ‘why’d I ever decide to play ball here’. Mason CAN PLAY BALL. He’s a good player. He’s capable of hitting shots and scoring a good number of points. He was a stud coming out of HS and we ruined him.

As Seniors, James, Pitman, and Mason should be dominating teams by themselves. Throw in the new, young talent that we have (and Gary Johnson) and we should be KILLING TEAMS!

We are going to SUCK OUT LOUD next year without DJ. He is one of the greatest we’ve ever had. I’d put him on par with KD. He’s going to be a superstar in the pros. We won’t get but maybe two rebounds a game next year without him; and those will be by accident. For this team and program, the time to strike is now. There is no ‘next season’ with this team. DJ is a POTY candidate and we are wasting him. Pitman is a force and we are wasting him. We’ve evidently already crushed Mason, Balbay, and Chapman. Barnes has admitted to trying the same thing on several of the freshman. And for what??? WHY?? There are many ways to break bad habits without punishing the rest of the team. That entire mess is PURE BULL in my opinion.

I’d call for a mid-season coaching change, but I wouldn’t give this team to anyone on the bench right now. Barnes definitely needs an offensive-minded X’s and O’s coach – and yes, one that hasn’t played for him previously. I don’t think that Barnes could coach his way out of a paper bag on the offensive end. It’s been singular talents that have gotten us the ‘notoriety’ that we’ve gotten anywhere over his tenure (TJ Ford, KD, Augustin, Gibson and Aldridge) not the ‘system’ propping them up as better than they are. The ‘identity’ that you guys like to wax poetic about comes from a coach that has a system or style. We don’t have that. And when we don’t have one of those kind of talents on our team that I mentioned, we’re going to look awful. Coach K has a style, Bob Knight had a style, Self, Williams, Calipari all have styles. I bet none of them could tell you, HONESTLY, what style of basketball we play. Because Rick Barnes style is: find someone who’s hot or capable of making others hot and ride the sh*t out of them. That’s not a style that lends itself well to in-game adjustments. Rick’s style coming to Texas was defense and scrappy offense. That’s why we hired him. We were enamored with the all the potential of what he might be able to do with the offensive-minded basketball talent we had if he could teach them defense. We thought if we could get a stop every once in a while we might be able to go places. Now, we can’t even play the defensive side of the ball very well anymore (truthfully, we really haven’t for 4-5 years now).

I agree with alincoln, this coaching debacle is on par with Makovic and Penders.

Unacceptable at this University.
EggNog said:

February 18th, 2010 at 9:18 pm

The announcers made note of the 2 to 12 assist to TO number we had, but we finished with 11 assists to 18 TO. We had more assists than Missouri, and the 9 to 6 assist to TO the rest of the way wasn’t bad. “Piling up” assists maybe a little hyperbole, but the difference between 2 to 12 and then 9 to 6 is night and day anyway you wanna slice it.

I watched the game on ESPN360, so I never miss any of the action (or have to watch commercials).
Groundhog Day said:

February 19th, 2010 at 8:29 am

3,

DJ on par with KD? Give me whatever it you’re smoking.
Blake Borron said:

February 19th, 2010 at 10:39 am

“I watched the game on ESPN360, so I never miss any of the action (or have to watch commercials).”

You have to watch commercials on ESPN360, in fact it’s worse because they’re all the same the entire game.

“DJ on par with KD? Give me whatever it you’re smoking.”

Think he was talking about athleticism? Kind of an odd comparison if so because Durant is not the best athlete to roll through Texas or anywhere near it. If he’s talking about player quality I agree completely, the only person I’d put in the same dimension in college is Carmelo Anthony. Maybe Jay Williams on a good day, that guy was unstoppable. What a waste of such obscene talent :-/
EggNog said:

February 19th, 2010 at 11:55 am

Firefox with Adblock and an updated HOSTS file in windows doesn’t let a single ad through on ESPN360. It’s really quite nice.
Blake Borron said:

February 19th, 2010 at 5:05 pm

Really? I have both of those. What is the HOSTS thing you speak of?
EggNog said:

February 19th, 2010 at 10:47 pm

Google “HOSTS”, its the third link. It is a large text file that blocks connection to servers that are known to distribute malware or ads. The site has instructions on how to update the file on your computer and a better explanation of what it does.

Make sure your Adblock is subscribed to EasyList USA also.
The Tortilla Retort — Blog — Two Loops & a Hooey - Winter Olympic Edition said:

February 20th, 2010 at 2:04 pm

[...] Chancellor’s Office released an official statement admitting TripsRight has gone off the Bosque Redondo with Rick Barnes’ basketball team and his last known direction [...]

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Texas Basketball vs. Mizzou: Post-Mortem

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