Texas had a mixed bag this week, losing a hard-fought game against the Villanova Wildcats and beating a decent mid-major in the Texas State Bobcats. Their first measuring stick game showed that Texas isn’t quite a top-ten team, but also that they’re not that far off. Some questions I had were answered in the affirmative, others in the negative; they’re a good team, not a great team. They have things they do well and things they do poorly. In other words, the last week was like most of my performance reviews. Maybe that’s why Texas got a 1% raise in the rankings.

I have a personal theory - okay, maybe it’s more of a hunch - that a significant chunk of the unexpected results happening this season are a consequence of COVID rattling everyone’s preseason practice schedules, which isn’t exactly a mind-blowing notion. The thing I think is maybe getting a little lost in the “everybody is rusty because they practiced less” is that it’s disproportionately impacting younger teams and/or teams with massively different rosters who haven’t had time to gel a la Kentucky (298th out of 357 in KenPom’s ‘minutes continuity’ metric) and Duke (215th). I also think it’s part of what is causing Kansas State (223rd) problems, aside from them just generally being shitty enough to lose to a D-II team at home (imagine if KSU had played like that against their original opponent, Butler). Texas Tech (254th) had trouble with Abilene Christian (17th) tonight, even being behind 36-35 with 8 minutes left in the game. I bring this up because Texas is on the other end of this spectrum (13th), and they came up against not just a talented team but also one that is largely the same as last year (5th). That continuity always matters to some degree, but this year it matters even more. It’s possible this will lessen in importance as the season goes on, but with abbreviated schedules and games being canceled left & right - over 400 if memory serves - the bad losses that do make it into the record books can take on outsized importance this season.

Quick aside, here is the minutes continuity rank for each Big 12 team at this moment:

Villanova’s offense is designed to stress defenses at every position and Jay Wright is putting out another team very capable of stressing even the best defenses. Between their ability to score all over the floor, consistently on-point passing, pump fakes that Jerry West uses when he runs out of Viagra, the diverse skillset of many of their players, and a point guard who will likely be on an all-Big East team at the end of the year, this is an offense that will make most schools look silly. In that light, Texas wasn’t bad defensively. They held the Wildcats to 1.01 PPP, lower than Virginia Tech did in Nova’s only loss, and they gave a solid first impression in one of my lingering questions: Texas defended the three well against a team that likes to shoot them. The Longhorns held Nova to both fewer attempts and a lower make percentage than their season average by switching intelligently and keeping their man in front of them. The most open threes Nova got were when a guard got into the paint, saw a weakside help defender, and passed to that guy’s assignment on the perimeter. It’s - I’m not calling it a flaw because it’s an acknowledged risk of sending weakside help - a consequence of the defense Texas is running, and one they’re going to get burned on from time to time by good point guards. And yes, most of this paragraph is applicable to Baylor as well, hence why I was interested in seeing how they did.

Texas was solid offensively, and were it not for a couple of painful turnovers in the last 3-4 minutes they hung in there. Texas executed its offense well against a team which switches nearly everything and has the roster to do it. Nova isn’t littered with future lottery picks, but they have plenty of guys who can ball at a high level and their defense shows as much. This looked like a chalk Elite Eight game in December, which should hearten Texas fans even if they came out of it with a loss.

The final score isn’t indicative of how this game went, though to the credit of this Longhorns squad it wasn’t that competitive. This wasn’t like Texas nursed a 3-point lead for most of the game and exploded for a run at the end; they nursed a 10-point lead for most of the game and exploded for a run at the end. It’s totally different! Maybe the way to look at it is that this game kept threatening to turn into a big Texas lead off and on and in the last 6-8 minutes the law of averages finally showed up to push the lead well out of contention. The Bobcats fought like hell, getting it as close as 7 midway through the second half, but Texas is just that much better than a decent mid-major program going through some off-court coaching struggles. I never felt like the lead was in danger of evaporating, which is maybe best described by saying I spent a decent chunk of the second half being mildly annoyed rather than mean-mugging the TV.

I was more this Witcher

than this Witcher

Texas kinda sorta fucked around and still didn’t get anywhere near a Radford. Gotta enjoy the little things.

That sound you’re hearing in the distance is Jones’ draft stock soaring; he’s showing burst all over the court, and his ability to catch & finish a lob is nearing Jaxson Hayes territory. Enjoy him in burnt orange while you can because if he keeps showing out like this he’s going to be getting discussed as a possible lottery pick.

Coleman regressed a bit against the Bobcats, but he was a grown-ass man against Nova. Coleman is in complete control of this offense, whether it’s initiating the plays or being the deep threat we hoped Andrew Jones would be (they’ve both taken 29 threes, Coleman has made twice as many as Jones including some high leverage shots) or when he’s diving into the lane, there are precious few moments where Coleman looks flustered. His on-ball defense is solid, it looks like he’s getting the primary point guard as his assignment more often than not and he’s acquitting himself well. If he can maintain this level of focus & production all year, he’s going to enter the discussion of where he fits in the best point guards Texas has ever had. He’s not TJ Ford - who is - but he’s at least at Isaiah Taylor level if not passing him right now. He’s got balls the size of J’Covan Brown’s, which I do not say lightly. There is no stage too big for him this year, which is a sizable improvement from the freshman who cracked at the free throw line against Texas Tech.

Texas isn’t going to be the Runnin’ Horns this year and their tempo is still fairly slow, but I noticed one piece that I think is part of why the team feels faster: their average offensive possession length is significantly shorter this year. Their average offensive possession is 16.7 seconds, which ranks 133rd in D-I. It’s the defensive possession length (18.4 seconds, 274th) that is dragging this metric down and it’s doing it because Texas is forcing other teams to run multiple actions over and over to find an open shot. Think about how many opponents got off quick shots on Texas this year. Can’t think of many, can you? Me neither; Texas is pushing the ball at a decent rate on offense this year, faster than any previous Smart team. So hey, for once a coach actually meant it when they said they’d play faster!

I’m still teasing out why Texas is so effective at defending the perimeter; the simplest answer is they play very sound on-ball defense, which keeps opponents from pulling up on them in moments like iso situations. The length of the team probably helps as well, having guys like Kai Jones and Greg Brown flying at an open shooter tends to either drive them off the arc or force them to dribble to the side and re-set, which isn’t a skill a ton of college players reliably have in their arsenal. It may just be that simple, though I’m waiting for teams to try to test the aggressive help defense more often. (I suspect Baylor will this weekend.) It seems as though Texas’ defensive priorities in a possession are, in order:

I imagine they’re hoping they can smother the possession before they even get to step 4, because that’s where the open three is most likely to manifest. They’ll let a guy pull up for a long two before a three, and they’d rather a guard tries to attack the rim than shoot from the perimeter. It’s not a terribly complex defense, but that’s why it can work most of the time. It applies pressure to the ball without being a full-court defense, so it has some of the aggression Shaka Smart wants without exposing the holes a press can have. Put it another way: an offense can find holes in the existing defense but it will take them 15+ seconds to get there even with minor defensive miscommunications, whereas in a press the holes are 3-5 seconds away if it’s not run perfectly. It’s flexible in its simplicity, and the current roster is mostly guys who can do it well enough to be effective even if they’re not perfect.

If this team can continue to limit its exposure from the perimeter, it makes it harder for the best teams to go off and narrows the window for upsets from lesser teams. I’m a fan.

I could galaxy-brain this and come up with reasons why losing to Villanova are good for Texas long-term, but losses still suck. It’s an understandable loss, a loss that provided us with more data on where Texas is as a team right now; they lost a close game to a team which very well could be in the discussion for a 1-seed. So maybe Texas is playing like a 3/4-seed right now, which is an inarguable improvement from any Texas squad in the last 8 years. None of it feels fluky or unsustainable, they’re not riding a crazy hot streak from deep or racking up numbers against a bunch of scrubs; they’re just a very solid team rooted in sound defense and an offense that is run by experienced guards. If anything, I’ll reiterate what I said last week that this team is capable of more. I don’t know that I’m going to roll out Lance Blanks’ statement that this team’s “over/under is a Final Four”, which…we don’t have time to get into all the ways that statement is gibberish. He gets excited when Texas is decent, so Texas being good has him over the moon.

As I type this, there are seven teams in D-I who are ranked in the top 20 of both defensive and offensive efficiency:

That’s pretty good company. Oh, and for the moment, KenPom has Texas projected to finish in sole possession of second place.

I know it’s only happening because Texas has a combined score barely ahead of three other teams (look at the score & ranking on the AdjEM column) but it happened and it’s worth enjoying while we can. A second-place finish in this conference is a team playing for a protected seed in March Madness.

I used it three times in this piece and not a single time was ironic or slathered in sarcasm. This team is enjoyable to watch and it isn’t even hitting its potential apex; we’ve all been in purgatory for a few years with precious few times where the team showed an extended run of quality, so maybe try to soak it in while you can. *checks schedule*

Okay, maybe start after Baylor.

Sunday, Dec 13: @ Baylor 2PM CT (ESPN)

Wednesday, Dec 16: vs Sam Houston State 7PM CT (LHN)

Also, please remember to check out Pretend We’re Football. The next episode will probably be online Saturday.

Writing tunes provided by Calibre.