No. 5 Texas, without key players and its coach, came up short vs. No. 24 OU
No. 5 Texas (11-3, 5-2) was undermanned, ended the game with just five scholarship players because of fouls, and played without their head coach. Red River rival, No. 24 Oklahoma (10-4, 6-3), capitalized by hanging on just enough to claim a 80-79 victory in a game that wasn’t as pretty and fun as the score indicated.
Here are 10 postgame thoughts:
1) Everything that sucks about college basketball during 2020-21 was on display tonight at the Erwin Center. Fake crowd noise designed to pump artificial energy into an empty arena failed annoyingly. Typically, UT’s home arena would have been packed and a major factor for Texas. The home team’s head coach was somewhere in isolation away from his team, family, and, well, everyone because of a positive COVID-19 test. Also, somewhere in quarantine were starters Courtney Ramey and Jericho Sims.
Meanwhile, Brock Cunningham was around the team, but couldn’t participate in the game. Matt Coleman only returned to practice yesterday after his quarantine. Acting head coach K.T. Turner joked based on the way Coleman practiced, he didn’t know how many minutes he’d be able to get from him. He also said there were recent days when Texas only had about five guys to practice.
Coleman summed it up well after the game. This isn’t the new normal, but it’s the reality for college basketball players and student-athletes.
“It's been like the new, I'm not going to say the new normal. But it's been like the world that we live in, the circumstances that we have to face every day,” said Coleman about the last week or so. “Coach Smart found out he tested positive. Then you have guys like Courtney and Jericho and then you had guys that had to quarantine during that including myself. So, it's been… you got to face adversity eye-to-eye and find a way to battle up.”
2) Despite playing perhaps its worst half of the year in the first half and dealing with easily the worst officiating of the season, Texas was somehow had a chance to win the game. With 2.3 seconds left after OU’s attempt to purposely miss a free throw failed, Texas, trailing 80-79, had to inbound the ball the length of the floor. The Longhorns elected to attempt a long-distance, baseball-style heave play they’ve practiced, and inserted former high school quarterback Blake Nevins to fire away. There would be no buzzer-beater magic this time, though.
Nevins’s pass went to where Jones was originally positioned, but the sophomore big said the play design, something they’ve practiced often, was to move towards the perimeter after receiving a screen from Andrew Jones, although the screener was on the opposite block before Jones began moving towards the pass after it was let go. So, the very low percentage play failed before Kai Jones could use his size and length advantage to possibly catch and either pass, shoot, or because the way this game was officiated, get fouled.
“Blake was a big-time quarterback in high school. But in practice, when we throw baseball passes, he's the best one to throw. So, we wanted to get him in and make that pass,” said Turner.
I didn’t hate the play as many on Twitter and I’m sure Orangebloods immediately did because Jones had a five-inch advantage on one defender and 10 inches on the other one playing behind him; both didn’t want to foul, were playing to allow the catch to avoid a foul from whistle-happy refs and OU backed off the inbounds passer. If Jones simply held his ground after the ball was in the air, I think the pass was going almost directly to him. But if you want to say attempting something with an actual catch near the opposite three-point or free throw line with maybe a dribble and shot is better, I’m not arguing.
3) In addition to Texas playing its worst half of the season during the first 20 minutes, Kai Jones did as well. He scored just one point on 0-of-5 shooting with four turnovers in 17 minutes. Multiple times, he received the ball deep in the paint only to have his shot blocked. Although he grabbed five rebounds, he was beat for at least four defensive rebounds in the first half.
Credit the sophomore for responding in a big way in the second half. He scored 14 points on 5-of-6 shooting with five rebounds, two assists, just one turnover, two steals and a block. His confidence, aggressiveness, and energy came alive, which included ripping OU point guard Austin Reaves and immediately knocking down a big second-half three-pointer. Texas needs more consistency out of the 6-11 sophomore, especially if Sims is going to be out again. His strong second-half response should give himself and his team confidence moving forward.
4) Considering Coleman played just five second-half minutes before fouling out with 18 seconds left, it’s oddly impressive Texas was able to be within one with 2.3 seconds left. Coleman took over the crunch-time stretch. The senior pounded the rock into the floor too much, but found a cutting Kai Jones for a slam to cut OU’s lead to 78-75 with 1:13 remaining. After a Texas stop, Coleman blew by Reaves for a layup with 37 seconds left...
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