I won’t go over the TCU loss in great detail; it was a choked-away lead sure, but more accurately it was TCU beating up Texas for 30 minutes nearly negated by Texas going supernova from three for 10 minutes. If Texas shoots like they did most of the season, TCU wins fairly comfortably. I also don’t think Marcus Carr was as bad as some others do; he missed some shots and the ball sticks with him (as it has most of the year) but he’s also being put into a bad situation by an inflexible coaching staff. It’s game 32, if Carr is still being asked to create off the dribble and pass teammates open, that’s a failure of the coaching staff to use him in a way that fits his volume shooting nature. He missed some tough shots near the free throw line he usually hits, but he’s having to take tough shots because the offense he’s in sucks. Carr played solid defense on Miles in the first half, Miles is just a better player and went off against whoever he faced (while his ankle was healthy) in the second half. Also, Courtney Ramey is once again the primary reason Texas was in this game at all. If I’m Chris Beard, I’m doing whatever it takes to convince Ramey to use a super senior COVID season next year. Beard needs that dude on the floor, especially in light of the massive transfer influx Texas is likely to bring in this off-season.

I thought it would be good to give an overview of the characteristics of a team which is the deadliest obstruction to Texas making a tournament run; many of these will be familiar to those of you who have been reading along this season. Texas has a very defined type, and as such their weaknesses are also pretty much encased in carbonite at this point.

Texas needs to win the turnover percentage battle handily if they want to string together consecutive wins; in most of their losses this season, the opponent turned the ball over less than 20% of their possessions. More specifically, their opponents turned Texas over more than they were turned over in 6 of the 11 losses (the Tech game in Lubbock was a tie). More worryingly, Texas turned the other team over more in 4 of the last 5 losses; if Texas is winning the turnover battle and still losing games against tournament-level teams, then the single-best aspect of their defense isn’t enough to beat the caliber of teams they’re going to face. Here is the complete list of Texas wins where they turned the ball over more than their opponent:

vs OSU

vs Tennessee

at WVU

Texas may not win if it wins the turnover battle, but it will almost definitely lose if they end up on the wrong side of this category.

Texas isn’t a small team, but they’ve shown issues against strong inside presences like Jonathan Tchamwa Tchatchoua & Eddie Lampkin. Christian Bishop can bang with a fair number of bigs if the refs are letting contact go uncalled, but there’s a limit and a skilled and/or strong big with decent feet can keep Bishop out of position. Maybe if Disu was fully operational he might help the math, but Allen & the rest of the team don’t handle size in the paint particularly well.

This is correlated to the previous category, Texas has to limit opponents on their offensive rebounding opportunities. The Texas defense is usually very good at making the first shot tough, but teams who beat Texas on getting second (and third) shot opportunities beat Texas at a very high rate. TCU, Baylor, Seton Hall, and Texas Tech are all these types of teams, they make offensive rebounding a priority.

All of the other three categories have something to do with this one, but simply put: the more NBA-caliber athletes an opponent has, the worse Texas’ chances are, especially if the opponent has a coherent offense which gets their athletes in space.

Interior size? Zach Edey & Trevion Williams will come at Texas in waves.

Offensive rebounding? Purdue is almost as good as TCU & Baylor at it.

Athleticism? Jaden Ivey is a lottery pick and arguably a better athlete than Ochai Agbaji.

I was worried about Texas drawing UCLA as a 3-seed so this is better than that certain death sentence, but Purdue is a rough opponent for Texas. Purdue’s offensive efficiency is the best Texas has faced since Gonzaga, so Texas is either going to have to defend out of their minds - I’m already cringing at the mental image of skip passes to any one of Stefanovic (who has made almost as many threes this season as Carr & Ramey combined), Hunter, Gillis, or Thompson in the corner for open threes - or find an offensive gear they haven’t reliably shown all year. Texas could light up the scoreboard for 10 minutes like they did against TCU and only be up by four. Purdue’s offense is legit.

There are a couple of reasons for mild optimism in that Purdue doesn’t force many turnovers - they don’t turn the ball over that much, either, but they’re not elite on that front - and that Purdue’s defense is pretty spare for such a high seed, so it’s not like a win here is completely out of the question. That said, Texas’ record against Q1A teams is 2-6 and Purdue’s NET of 11 is only two spots below Texas Tech. Beating Purdue would definitely be an upset.

KenPom has Texas with a 56% win probability against the Hokies, but I feel like that number might be sandbagging things a bit based off Virginia Tech’s early-season struggles (which feel a bit overblown in hindsight). They started conference play 2-7 thanks in part to their schedule being frontloaded, then they reeled off a 9-2 finish and carried that momentum into winning the ACC tournament which included three straight wins over NCAA Tournament teams (Notre Dame, UNC, and Duke). The Hokies play a tempo nearly identical to Texas so they will be perfectly comfortable in a 64-61 game; they shoot a high percentage of threes and they make a high percentage of those threes, which is what makes them so dangerous. Courtney Ramey is making 35.6% of his threes, Virginia Tech’s team average is 39.3%, headlined by Hunter Cattoor who has splashed 82 threes at a 41.8% clip and Darius Maddox who may have “only” made 40 but he’s shooting fifty-fucking-two percent from deep. FIFTY-TWO PERCENT. FROM THREE. ON 77 ATTEMPTS.

Keve Aluma is the leading scorer and he & Justyn Mutts - I typed Mytts the first time because I was looking at rebounding stats and my brain loves a dumb pun - are both very good rebounders and block a fair number of shots for their size, which would be a concern if any of our guards ever got to the rim. The Hokies don’t turn the ball over all that much, and given the tempo this game is likely to be played at I wouldn’t be surprised if neither team generates a ton of turnovers. While this Hokies team doesn’t scream danger the way some others might at first glance, this will not be an easy game and I’m not even willing to call Texas a favorite. This feels like a coin flip to me.

If Texas makes it past Virginia Tech and Yale upsets Purdue, buy a lottery ticket. The Bulldgods aren’t a great team; they don’t rebound particularly well, they don’t shoot the three very well, and they can’t spell for shit.

Yale has faced Auburn (22-point loss), Iona (14-point loss), and Seton Halle (36-point loss) and not a ton else. All they really do well is shoot free throws and join secret societies, so maybe make a gambling game out of which player is likely to be the Secretary of the Interior in 2040. My money is on Matthue Cotton.

It is very possible Texas gets its first NCAA Tournament win in 8 years(!) this week, the Hokies are a good team playing their best basketball of the year but they are not appreciably better than some teams Texas has notched wins against in conference play. It is a winnable game. Beating Purdue will be a much taller task though, and the particulars of this matchup make me think that the Round of 32 is the ceiling for the Longhorns and getting bounced by the Hokies wouldn’t surprise me at all. If Purdue gets upset by Yale then things open up a bit, but this bracket has Kentucky as the 2-seed and likely Sweet 16 opponent. If for some wild reason Texas makes it past that team, 1-seed Baylor awaits. Texas’ path for a deep run is predicated upon upsets by other teams rather than the Longhorns catching fire, which isn’t outside the realm of possibility - Kansas State made an Elite Eight beating an 8-seed, a 16-seed, and a 5-seed when they should have faced 1-seed Virginia or 4-seed Arizona before then - but I don’t see Texas benefiting from any once-in-a-generation upsets and they’d have to get some nearly as unlikely upsets before they even got to the point of benefiting from something on that scale. If Texas has to face a 3-seed or higher, their season will probably be over.

Friday, March 18th: vs Virginia Tech, 3:30P CT (TBS)

Sunday, March 20th: (hopefully) Purdue/Yale, Time TBD (CBS/TNT/TBS/TruTV)

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 Richard Cleber.