I’m writing half of this on Saturday in a possibly quixotic attempt to get the recap out not long after the Purdue game, so you’ll have to forgive me for rolling in here still buzzing about the Memphis/Gonzaga game. If you didn’t stay up for it or were locked into other games for the first half or so, you really missed a hell of a game. This was a Final Four-level game that happened in R32 because Memphis figured their shit out in February instead of November, and the Tigers pushed Gonzaga to their limits. We got to see how a team with multiple future NBA starters had to counteract their first matchup in months against another team at or near their athleticism level, and the chess matchup was fun as hell. Memphis did a better job of containing Drew Timme than Texas did - which is an admittedly low bar - but Gonzaga made enough modifications in the second half that Timme got rolling and made up a considerable deficit. Chet Holmgren bothered dudes who outweighed him by a metric ton, Andrew Nembhard showcased his prodigious speed, and the Bulldogs did enough to move on. Just a fantastic game all around, go watch it if you can.

Also I would set an animal shelter on fire to have Texas run Gonzaga’s offense.

The thing that worried me the most about the Hokies was its ability to take and hit threes; they were both proficient and prolific at it, for the tempo at which they played. The Texas defensive gameplan was basically “run them off the three point line” with the hopes that the Texas bigs would be able to make shots in the paint tough for Virginia Tech guards. They did exactly that, and they did it well. Credit to the staff for largely removing the biggest tool in the Hokies toolbox; the gameplan gave up a fair number of back cuts and post cuts, but every gameplan gives up something in the hopes it will take away something else. The gamble paid off for Texas.

Without AJ going off in the first half, Texas is probably going home. Without Marcus Carr going off in the second half, Texas is probably in a dogfight to the final whistle. In the tournament, you need your biggest players to play their biggest games; Ramey did decently well and Allen not so much, but Jones and Carr played well enough Allen’s struggles didn’t matter.

I’ve seen some people online saying that winning a game in the tournament means this season is a success; I disagree, but it’s important that we all celebrate something that hasn’t happened in 8 years. Texas is alive past the first two days of March Madness, and you can’t make a Final Four without winning your first game. Enjoy it, it has been too rare an occurrence the last decade or so.

I mentioned the four factors which contribute to Texas losses, so let’s recap:

One of the things I said before the game was that Texas needed to get the best possible game they could from Bishop, and man he really worked his ass off. He was dealing with two dudes who were completely different problems and he put in some serious effort. Edey and Williams are matchup nightmares on their own, combine them and it’s a Bruce Lee Game of Death pagoda scenario for Bishop (and Disu). He lost most of these battles through no fault of his own, it was a hell of an effort.

A lot of people are screaming about the 46-12 free throw disparity, and usually that kind of gap is a sign of flawed officiating. I’m probably in the minority on this topic but to me tonight was not one of those nights; the answer is pretty simple. Purdue has two really good bigs and is elite at feeding the bigs near the basket where they generate contact at a high rate. Purdue has been shooting a lot of free throws all year; they’re #34 in the country, generating free throw attempts on 37% of their field goal attempts. This is what they do, and Texas - stop me if you’ve heard this before - refused to double the bigs for most of the game which meant guys like Bishop and Disu were on an island dealing with the large mountain Zach Edey or slightly smaller mountain Trevion Mitchell running their low post game. Between that and having to guard a human/deer hybrid in Jaden Ivey getting downhill, the fouls were going to stack up. If anything, the free throw disparity was exaggerated because Edey & Williams regularly missed their shot so they got 2 shots instead of and-1s. If those guys finished through contact better, it’s probably something like 38-12. Plus, Texas rarely got to the paint after the first five minutes so they weren’t going to rack up many free throws playing the way they did.

Also, I think it’s worth considering that we’ve gotten so used to the Big 12 “no blood, no foul” officiating that we were in line for a game where Texas got hammered. As good as Purdue is at generating FTAs, Texas is bad at giving them up. They’re #336 in the country, generating FTAs on 39% of the FGAs they defend. It’s one of the areas where it was a bad matchup for Texas and it exploded in their face.

I want to start off this section by being very clear that I have zero problem with how Carr played tonight; he was a monster early on and helped carry the team to the brink of the second weekend. My issue is with how Beard was using (or not using) him. Texas was up 14-8 early in large part because Marcus Carr was cooking. Then Beard took him off the floor, presumably because it’s part of his set rotations which…man, why? Texas was always going to be the underdog and needed high-level performances to overcome a better team & they were getting that from Carr, so maybe leave the guy who is hotter than the sun on the floor? Texas didn’t score another point for nearly 9 minutes, and while Beard put Carr back on the court ~3 minutes into that drought it’s just baffling that he’d pull Carr at all.

The second issue I have is the PnR direction choice; Debbie Antonelli correctly noted multiple times in the game that Purdue needed to force Carr to his left, and they did eventually make the adjustment to shade Carr to his left. However, the bigs kept setting screens to help Carr go left; over and over I’d see Bishop/Cunningham/whoever setup shop on the defender’s right. Why are you doing the defense’s job for them?

I had a third thing but it’s nearly midnight and my brain is fried.

That dude cracked me up, man.

I mentioned the four factors which contribute to Texas losses, so let’s recap:

Texas has been the same basic team for a couple of months; a good team that can beat most teams and hang with the 15 or so above them in a given night, but their ceiling was too low to really have a good shot at a deep tourney run. They won a game in March which is better than Texas fans have seen in a long time, but it was only one win in a place which believes they should win more. Tip your cap to the team because most of them won’t be here next year - I’ll have more on this in an upcoming post - as it is very likely we’ve seen the last of Andrew Jones, Courtney Ramey, and most of the transfer class, and guys like Jase Febres have burned up all of their eligibility.

Welp.

Please remember to check out Pretend We’re Football and/or our Twitter account. I have a Patreon if you want to tip me, though this blog will go idle for awhile when the season ends. I’ll write another piece later this week talking about where things stand in the offseason, then that’s probably it for awhile.

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