You’re going to be stunned to hear this, but I spend a lot of time watching basketball. Sometimes I’m sitting in a chair, sometimes I’m at my desk, sometimes I’ve got a laptop pulling video, the environment really varies. Over the years I’ve started noticing patterns, and one pattern in particular seems to work for me: lying on the couch. For whatever reason, when I watch a game while lying on the couch I tend to not get too high or low during games, I’m just watching. If I’m sitting up I tend to get into the emotional flow of the game more. I do not have an explanation for any of this, or really even a reason to bring it up. It’s weird, but it works. Maybe next time Texas goes 6+ minutes without a field goal, stretch out on your couch or bed for a few minutes. It might help? Or maybe you’ll just get in a nap, which is never a bad thing. Naps are amazing and adults should get to have more of them. Vote #BWG2024 and I’ll mandate afternoon naps at all jobs.

This season has been more physical than many of the recent years, nowhere moreso than in the Big 12 Conference. This conference is about a hair removed from being “no blood, no foul” as a guiding principle; there were entire possessions where a guy would get into the paint and get poked/slapped/shoved repeatedly with no fouls called. I’m not saying the sport has to call every bit of contact in every possession because entire teams would foul out - Brock Cunningham is reading this at home and already on foul #4 - but refs need to call fouls at a higher rate than we’re seeing. Dudes are getting flat mugged in these games and the refs are checking their Instagram stories. This isn’t a complaint about it being one-sided for either team; whether it was Brock, Matthew Mayer, or whoever, they were beating the crap out of each other and the teams combined for 33 fouls. There were 40 fouls called in the Houston Baptist game, am I supposed to believe the Huskies are more physical than the Bears? Freedom of movement is supposed to be a point of emphasis in the college game and it seems as if the refs in the Big 12 think that means defenders have the freedom to move their arms into the spleens of offensive players.

In completely unrelated news, Bishop had one of his best games as a Longhorn. It’s funny how that works. When Bishop doesn’t have to worry about fouling out, he can bully-ball opponents and swat shots without concern for negative consequences.

I realize the irony in me complaining about physicality while writing about a team whose coaching staff is at their best when the physicality is at its worst. Chris Beard teams tend to win games where they’re allowed to rear-naked choke opposing guards in the paint, so I’m in the quandary of advocating for a style of play which doesn’t benefit the team I root for; this season has had its share of conflicts of interest, I guess.

I don’t know a better way to frame this: James Akinjo is who I wish Marcus Carr was. He’s able to blow by other guards well enough Texas had to aggressively trap him in PnR situations, otherwise he was going to live in the paint like he did the first time Texas & Baylor played. Akinjo had two fewer assists (7) than Texas had as a team (9). He’s also an aggressive defender, he got so far up into Carr on some possessions they might as well have been wearing the same shirt. He’s a really fun player to watch, and I hate that he’s playing for the coach most known for how often he brings up his collection of SS knives in casual conversation.

Except it kinda was? This loss was actually heartening to me because Texas managed to get it to OT on the road against a team with more talent and more on the line. There have been a few games against good teams this year where Texas couldn’t execute down the stretch or hold the other team scoreless on key possessions; they did both against Kansas enough times to force overtime. Maybe some of it was because Kansas was on its 4th game in 8 days, but I don’t put a lot of credence in that. If it was fatigue, Kansas’ shots would have been coming up short and Agbaji & McCormack’s misses were usually long. A fatigued Kansas team wouldn’t have won the rebounding battle on both ends of the floor, but they did. Texas played Kansas about as close as they could and they did it on the merits. There haven’t been many examples this season of Texas overcoming a talent gap like this, so it makes me feel a touch better about their chances in March. I’m not going to predict a run or anything, but facing a top-4 seed isn’t an automatic out in my eyes if they can play like this.

How many games this year has Texas only been in it because Ramey was hitting shots, 12? It feels like at least a dozen; without him hitting from three, Texas goes into the half down by at least 10. Combine that with his defense on Agbaji both games this season and there will be no Courtney Ramey slander in the comments section this week.

Timmy Allen forced a turnover with 1:25 left in OT, had an open run at the rim, and Jalen Wilson had an excellent tie-up on the shot that sent the possession back to Kansas. I don’t know if I can come up with a much better example of the athleticism gap Texas deals with against the best teams this year than that moment.

The refs got the call right, it was after the buzzer. Having said that, we’re all aware of my long-standing “if it rules, it’s legal” ethos so that shot should have counted. It was ridiculous and therefore awesome and therefore Kansas won in regulation. Change the record books IDK IDK IDK

The things I said about Courtney Ramey go just as much for McCormack. Most of Kansas’ offense this game was either McCormack post-ups & free throws or Jalen Wilson points off rebounds. Kansas loses this game without those two doing what they did.

Some of it was the Texas defense, but he was clanking open shots as well. He looked off from the start of the game and never once looked like the destroyer of worlds he’s been most of the season. That might have been the worst Senior Night performance I’ve ever seen from a prospective All-American.

The loss to Baylor locked Texas into 4th place, so the Kansas game was more about March Madness seeding than conference standings. We’ll get into this more after the season is over, but my preseason range for Texas was best case 1st, worst case 5th; Texas finished on the lower end of that spectrum and was 2 games ahead of TCU for 5th place. Not great, but the floor never fell out, either.

If Texas wins their first tournament game, Chris Beard will double his lifetime conference tourney win total. He is currently 1-4, the only win coming in the 2017-2018 season against Texas where Mo Bamba was still coming back from injury and Jacob Young (!) went 6-7 from three. (In case you’re wondering, that game constituted nearly 25% of Young’s made threes on the season. Excuse me while I stare at the sun.)

Beard’s Big 12 tourney record, by year:

2021: #6 seed, 0-1 (L, Texas 67-66)

2020: #5 seed, 0-0 DNP COVID

2019: #2 seed, 0-1 (L, WVU 79-74)

2081: #2 seed, 1-1 (W, Texas 73-69; L, WVU 66-63)

2017: #7 seed, 0-1 (L, Texas 61-52 (this was literally Texas’ only win away from home that season, I will now stare at the sun some more))

For whatever reason, Beard does not do well in the conference tournament. It’s not like he’s the type of guy to throttle back to save his guys for the NCAA Tournament, he just has a history of very short stays in Kansas City.

Texas is on a two-game losing streak and facing a TCU team who looks as fearless as I’ve ever seen from a Fort Worth squad; if Texas loses their first game in Kansas City, I would expect the Longhorns to be a 6 or 7 in the NCAA Tournament. That means they’re likely playing either an underperforming high-major squad (UNC, Notre Dame, or the team that scares me the most, Memphis) or a good mid-major squad who has some aspect of their game that could give Texas trouble (Wyoming, Davidson). That also means if Texas gets past that game, they’re facing a 2 or 3-seed (Villanova, Kentucky, Wisconsin, to name three). For Texas to avoid the 6/7 lines, I think they’ll have to beat TCU and maybe even Kansas. I don’t think there’s a realistic way for Texas to get up to a 4 and I don’t think there’s a realistic way for them to fall to 8. If you’re looking for non-Texas rooting interests, teams like Saint Mary’s, Alabama, Ohio State, and LSU losing early in their respective conference tournaments probably helps keep Texas from falling too far.

Wednesday, March 9th - Saturday, March 12th: Big 12 Basketball Tournament (ESPNs)

Thursday, March 10th: vs TCU, 11:30 AM CT (ESPNs)

Friday, March 11: (hopefully) Big 12 semifinal vs Kansas, 6 PM CT (ESPNs)

Saturday, March 12th: (hopefully) Big 12 final, 5 PM CT (ESPNs)

Please remember to check out Pretend We’re Football and/or our Twitter account. My next recap will come out after the first weekend of the NCAA Tournament. I have a Patreon if you want to tip me, though this blog will go idle for awhile when the season ends.

Writing tunes provided by Ann Yazkova.