Rush The Court

Texas entered the season as a widely-acknowledged potential challenger to Kansas’ streak of 10 straight conference championships. The Longhorns returned most of its talent from an NCAA Round of 32 team, including sophomore rising star Isaiah Taylor and senior Jonathan Holmes, both of whom were expected to integrate with elite recruit Myles Turner to make the jump to national contention. Although Taylor was sidelined with a wrist injury early in the season, Rick Barnes’ team appeared to be living up to those expectations. Texas used its stifling defense (still ranked 23rd nationally) to handle most of its opponents with ease, their lone losses coming at home to Stanford in overtime and on the road at Kentucky where the Longhorns played the Wildcats even for much of the game. Flash forward to conference play and Texas now sits 1-2 in the Big 12 with a non-competitive road loss to Oklahoma State and a 21-point blowout defeat to Oklahoma at home. What’s the matter with Texas?

1. The schedule is getting tougher. According to Ken Pomeroy’s rankings, Texas played the 181st-best (worst?) non-conference schedule of 351 teams in college basketball. With three games in conference play added, the Longhorns’ strength of schedule rises to become the 74th-toughest. This is what you’d expect to happen when the Big 12 appears to be one of the toughest conferences of the last 15 years. The Big 12 lists six teams other than Texas among Pomeroy’s top 50, which may not be good news for the struggling Longhorns. Texas is now 2-4 against top 50 teams with early wins over Iowa and Connecticut followed by losses to Kentucky, Stanford, Oklahoma State and Oklahoma.
2. The stars are struggling. Taylor and Holmes both made the decision to return to Austin this season and were expected to be key figures in the Longhorns’ offense, but neither player is living up to the hype. Taylor, presumably still recovering from his November wrist injury, has shot an icy 9-of-35 in conference play. His true shooting percentage is a meager 32.4 percent in the three games since his return to action. Holmes has no ready-made excuse. The senior has scored just 18 total points in league play, managing only two buckets in the losses. He is 5-of-24 from the field in Big 12 play and, in order to allow Barnes flexibility with his lineup, he is stuck on the perimeter where he has attempted 14 three-pointers. Even though he’s shooting 37.1 percent from distance on the season, his career 32.0 percent mark suggests that number will come down. He needs to find more offense inside the paint in order to be successful.
3. The rest of the offense isn’t much better. Texas has four players (Cameron Ridley, Connor Lammert, Prince Ibeh and Turner) who are 6’9″ or taller. Those four big men are a combined 13-of-40 (32.5 percent) on two-point field goals — many of which should be near the basket — during conference play. The Longhorns are a mediocre three-point shooting team this season (34.6%), so it would seem Big 12 teams are taking advantage by forcing Texas into tougher shooting situations inside the arc. With all that size, the smarter move would be to pound it inside to get foul opportunities — the team hits a solid 72.5 percent from the line so easy points are available.
4. The defense just isn’t the same. The same four big men also powered the Longhorns to one of the best defenses in the country during non-conference play, blocking 19.3 percent of opponents’ field goal attempts this season. But despite that number rising in conference play to 22.7 percent, the other aspects of the Texas defense has gotten worse. The Longhorns are allowing Big 12 opponents to shoot 46.2 percent from inside the arc, for example, compared with 36.9 percent on the season. Jeff Haley of Burnt Orange Nation emphasizes that some of this is attributable to variance as teams like Oklahoma State knocked down more of their jump shots than usual, but there’s more at play here. Opponents are simply getting to the rim more often against Texas — making five percent more of those easy buckets during league play.

The easy explanation is that perhaps Texas just isn’t quite as good as we thought they were. The evidence is piling up: the Horns have had a difficult time against the better teams on their schedule; their star players aren’t performing very well in Big 12 play; their big men aren’t delivering in the paint; and their stout defense is looking penetrable. The result is that Texas has already lost a home game in league play and there are land mines at every turn in this league. Still, Rick Barnes is sitting on a mound of talent in Austin, so if, at some point, Taylor and Holmes figure it out and the big men return to form, Texas will be a dangerous team in February and March.