Longhorns Update: No Surprises This Year

Unfortunately, this has also become a rallying cry for the Texas men’s basketball fan.

The highly-regarded Texas men’s basketball program – ye of many great recruiting classes, lots of top 10 rankings, and plenty of NBA-caliber players - now has zero Sweet Sixteen appearances in four of the past 5 years. And don’t forget, they are 0 – 6 in Big 12 championship games.

So the question becomes this – how can this Longhorn’s program consistently under-achieve? I don’t think this is much of a surprise anymore.

It think would be fair to say that the Longhorns got a questionable 4 second-ish call with 10 seconds left in their game against Arizona. But they shouldn’t have been in a position in which this was the critical, game-deciding call in the first place. “Flat” would be a complimentary description of their first half performance, and “uninspired” would be appropriate for the second half.

Derrick Williams, the Arizona All-American, was only able to put down 6 points in the first half due to some great defensive play by Gary Johnson. Williams picked up his second foul with about 5:00 left in the half and hit the bench. The Longhorns needed to take advantage of this – and didn’t. Arizona actually extended their lead before half time. Arizona had 18 points off the bench by half time – half of their scoring. The Longhorns team that was the best Big 12 three point defense EVER gave up 57 percent shooting to Arizona, a team not known for their threes or their bench depth for that matter. Texas averages 12 turnovers per game – and they had 10 in the first half alone. The NCAA tournament is not the time for this type of thing to happen.

Even if we chalk it up to a lousy first half, the Horns were out-coached by second year Arizona coach Sean Miller, who looks like he just graduated from college. Not quite – he’s 42 years old, which in the coaching ranks is still a youngster. Rick Barnes was once again caught on camera looking like a deer in the headlights, falling out of his typical bench rotation while the stunned Horns struggled.

The big deciding factor is “what happens at half time?”. Can a coach address the issues of the first half, make the necessary adjustments, and find the right motivation for this players?

The answer in this case? No. Plain and simple. And we have seen this time and time again.

The Longhorns successes of late have rarely come down to good coaching decisions. More often than not, it has been a player stepping up. Against Arizona, it was J’Covan Brown. Against A&M, it was Tristan Thompson. In years past, it was Kevin Durant, or Damian James, or Dexter Pittman. Good coaching would involve getting Jordan Hamilton to not only score 19 points a game, but to understand his role in the defensive side of the game. Once again, he was caught with his man putting up a three pointer with Hamilton defending him from another zip code.

I truly appreciate all that Rick Barnes has done to put the UT program on the map. He has done a phenomenal job of recruiting some incredible players that have proven to be NBA quality. But at this stage in the development and progression of the Longhorns program, one has to wonder if he’s the guy that can lead the Horns to a National Championship. In his 13 NCAA tournament appearances, 8 seasons have ended before the end of the first weekend. The past two seasons, in which the Horns imploded with two totally different teams, give the fans and alumni alike plenty to ponder. There is but one constant between those two teams – one person, and one person alone.

Fortunately, as they say, the game goes on, and surprises abound in the tournament. We have a few Cinderella stories – #12 Richmond, #11 Marquette, and #11 VCU (who played their way into the tournament). Eighth-seed Butler continues to remind of us of why we love March Madness. Matt Howard now has two buzzer beaters in two games.

Fare thee well Big East. You started with 11 teams -  a full 17% of the field. You should now have at least 3 left, right? Louisville lead the fray to depart the tournament before the Sweet Sixteen. They were followed by #1 Pittsburgh, #2 Notre Dame, #6 Cincinnati, #9 Villanova, #5 West Virginia, #6 Georgetown, #6 St.Johns, and #3 Syracuse. Nine of those seeds were in the top half of the draw. I suspect that Charles Barkley was right – the Big East truly wasn’t deserving of 11 teams getting tournament bids. Maybe it really is the “Little East” this season. They do still have Connecticut and Marquette. For my money right now, the Naismith Player of the Year has to be Kemba Walker of UConn. One word – wow. Herculean effort.

Week one is in the books, and what a fine week of basketball it has been. On to the Sweet Sixteen – sadly, without the Longhorns – again. No surprises there.

Photo credits: Wikipedia