I’m getting married next weekend. I am 44 years old and this is my first time through this chaos, which has been minimized because my fiancee is remarkable at planning events. This shouldn’t surprise me because it’s how we met in the first place, but her whirlwind of activity is still a sight to behold. She’s simultaneously handling the caterers, exchanging emails with the venue, and coming up with seating charts while I’m sitting on the couch playing Ghost of Tsushima for the second time. I do not deserve her, but please do not tell her that until after the wedding. I GOTTA CLOSE THIS DEAL BEFORE SHE REALIZES THIS IS WHO I AM.

Who am I kidding, we’ve been together 18 years, she knows what she signed up for. I did help with some stuff, like…uhh, hang on. I’ll think of something. Just give me a minute, okay?

Is it possible to hypnotize AJ1 so he thinks every game the rest of the season is against Oklahoma? He may not have as many of the epic Sooner soul-crushing moments as Matt Coleman, but he’s one of the primary reasons Coleman was in position to murder the spirits of that many Sooners in the first place.

Question to the staff: how many times do you need to see a Texas shooter playing with confidence before you let them start gunning every game? Ramey, AJ, and Carr all play better when they play loose and play fast. Enable them to succeed, plz.

Texas started the season 0-2 on games that ended with a margin of 4 points or fewer, then they (barely) hung on against Tennessee to notch their first win. They’ve now won their last two games where the margin was 4 points or fewer at the final buzzer; you can argue about whether the Kansas game was more the Jayhawks wilting or Texas seizing the game, but the Oklahoma game was Texas clamping down on the Sooners late to force OT and ultimately get the win. Regardless, Texas is now 3-2 in those games and they’ll need that ability to close games out more and more over the next month.

(I’m not going to bring up the non-con schedule preventing them from practicing these situations in live-fire drills.)

(I’m not going to bring up the non-con schedule preventing them from practicing these situations in live-fire drills.)

(I’m not going to bring up the non-con schedule preventing them from practicing these situations in live-fire drills.)

A couple of days after the game, Harkless announced he had a season-ending injury during the Texas contest. I have to wonder what in Hades happened to him that was both not bad enough to pull him from the game but bad enough to end his year. Maybe an ACL sprain? Did he get a hernia? Did Christian Bishop punch out his stomach in one big chunk?

This is how my brain works; any time I think of the phrase “I mean, I’m no doctor” this scene plays in my head and I giggle uncontrollably. I watched this movie 15 years ago and it still happens like clockwork. Anyway good luck to the young man.

I TOLD YOU I’D THINK OF SOMETHING

It’s TBD how long he’s gone for (or, considering the point in the season, if he comes back), rumors are flying about the reason he’s gone and they run the gamut from a family death to a bunch of other less savory ones. Most of them are probably bullshit, so take them all with a grain of salt until he or his family say something. (As of this writing, they’ve been quiet.)

Christian Bishop and Marcus Carr combined to shoot 0-12 from the floor, Timmy Allen was scoreless for the first 35 minutes or so; that’s 3/5ths of your starting lineup who shot an aggregate 2-17 from the floor and scored 9 points in 75 minutes of action. There are 200 minutes of playing time in a regulation game so they spent 35% of the available team minutes giving Texas nothing offensively. Dylan Disu was on the court for 5 minutes and almost outscored Bishop & Carr combined. It was a rough day for Texas offensively in a lot of ways, and Carr had his worst game of the year. If Tech could hit open threes at even their normal rate (which is the worst in the Big 12) they win this game in a walk.

Fran mentioned this several times and it was true, the holdovers from Shaka’s tenure kept Texas in this game. Andrew Jones, Courtney Ramey, Brock Cunningham, and Jase Febres all made plays to keep this game within reach. Add this game to the ever-growing list of ones where the transfers didn’t hold their own. I don’t say this to knock going after transfers, rather to say that sometimes having player continuity pays off in big moments and that I hope Beard is working towards a place of better player continuity than Texas is likely to have his first couple of seasons in Austin.

This complaint isn’t specific to this game, and Jay Bilas said as much both in his column and on College Gameday: the referees are letting entirely too much contact go uncalled in college basketball this year. Big 12 games look less like basketball and more like rugby, and while Texas has some guys who can thrive in that scenario (take a bow, Christian Bishop) it still feels like it does a disservice to both fans and to these teams to let all of that go when it’s less likely to be allowed in the NCAA Tournament. Big 12 teams are probably going to be dealing with foul trouble because refs have a quicker whistle in the postseason, and it sucks that teams have spent 4 months playing one way and having to relearn what’s allowed in a single-elimination tournament. Start calling the regular season games like you’re going to call the postseason games, it will make for a better viewing experience as well as not throw a dozen or more high-major teams for a loop when it matters most.

That crowd on TV looked like it was 45% Red Raiders and it sounded like it was 65% Red Raiders. If any of you made it to the game, I’d be interested in your thoughts on the crowd breakdown. Congrats to Tech fans for turning this into at best a neutral site game that at times sounded like a Tech home game.

Go follow him; he tweets a fraction as often as I do and it’s almost entirely about Texas sports, that’s a win/win for all of you.

Texas is 8-6 with four games left to play. The smart money is them going 2-2 (beat TCU & WVU, lose to BU & KU) which puts them at 10-8. Even if they win all 4 games left on the schedule and end 12-6, they’re still having to count on both Baylor and Tech falling apart to move up the list. I suppose it’s possible Texas goes 0-4 the rest of the way and they could fall out of 4th place, but in that scenario Kansas State would have to go on a tear and win some really tough road games (KU & Tech) to jump past Texas. TCU has to play Kansas twice in three days and without sweeping those matchups they’re probably not going to jump past Texas. 4th place in the Big 12 seems like by far the most likely outcome for Texas. This also means that if Texas wins its first conference tourney game - and given both Kansas State being a likely 5th place opponent & Beard’s 1-3 lifetime record at the conference tournament, that isn’t a given - Kansas awaits. In Kansas City. With a crowd that’s 75% Kansas fans. Good luck, Longhorns.

On a related note, Tech is in my eyes the leader to end up in 2nd place behind Kansas. They’re tied with Baylor at 10-4 but have both the tiebreaker over Baylor and the much easier final 4 games; Tech is the only team out of Kansas, Baylor, & Tech that doesn’t have any remaining games against the other two. It seems like the smart money is on the top 4 being Kansas, Tech, Baylor, and Texas, respectively.

Marcus Carr has a problem, namely that good teams can keep him out of the paint. His game is dependent upon getting downhill, and if good teams can limit his penetration to off-schedule plays then Texas needs to change things up to get him going. Texas is 27 games into the season, and the pattern is fairly clear: high-level teams make it difficult bordering on impossible for Carr to initiate the offense as the point guard. Guess who most of the games are going to be against the rest of the way? High-level teams. Texas as presently constituted seems like it’s on a predetermined course, where they win two of their last four, maybe win a game in the Big 12 tourney before they get bounced by Kansas, get a 5-7 seed and run into a high-level team in the round of 32 who has the horses to stop Carr at the point.

Here is my suggestion:

Take the ball out of his hands, and give it to Devin Askew.

Sounds crazy, right? What if I told you Askew is better at getting into the paint than Carr? Now imagine Askew generating paint touches and kicking it out to a cutting Carr who has a full head of steam and is attacking a defense that’s out of position. There’s some limited data to support the idea that the offense is better with Askew and Carr on the court at the same time. This data doesn’t include the Tech game today.

The defense is marginally worse when they’re together, but the defense isn’t going to turn into a sieve with these two on the court and I think the offense could be enough better to more than off-set the defensive letdown. If you’re that concerned about the defense, put Ramey out there to shore the defense up. He could also benefit from Askew getting in the lane, for what it’s worth.

Texas has two “relatively” easy games in front of them, vs TCU and at WVU; this is arguably their last chance to run this (or any) experiment. I say give Askew 6-8 minutes in each game with him running point and Carr cutting off the ball; if it works, make it a more regular feature. If it doesn’t work, at least you tried. (Also, if it works then it also probably works next year when Askew is back.) The only way Texas is going to significantly change its future potential is by making some significant changes offensively, and as we’ve seen this team doesn’t beat good teams often when Carr is stuck in neutral.

(Data courtesy of HoopLens, which is run by everybody’s favorite basketball nerd Jeff Haley)

Texas has as few as 6 games left in their season; there are four regular season games, at least one conference tournament game, and at least one NCAA Tournament game. We are getting to the end of things; whatever this season holds, the season is now about 80% complete.

The Texas primaries are open for early voting; if you’re in Texas, go vote. Most of the statewide offices are up for grabs; regardless of the side of the aisle you’re on, go exercise your right to vote. Unless you’re voting for Ken Paxton, then the primaries are in December.

Wednesday, February 23rd: vs TCU 6:00 PM CT (ESPN2/ESPNU)

Saturday, February 26th: at West Virginia 3:00 PM CT (ESPN/ESPN2)

Please remember to check out Pretend We’re Football and/or our Twitter account. My next recap is TBD; I’ll be out of town while the WVU game is happening, so either I’ll write a one-off for TCU or will skip this week. I have a Patreon if you want to tip me for half-assing it next week.

Writing tunes provided by Ann Yazkova.