Texas opens the conference slate against West Virginia on New Year's Day at 11am, so roll out of your bed, ignore your pulsating headache, and get to the Erwin Center for a little hair of the dog, as you get a free mimosa with purchase of a $10 ticket.
This will be the first home test for Texas, as they dominated every team that has come to Austin this season, though that isn't saying a lot, as they played a very weak schedule in non-conference. While it's still nice to not have had to worry about this team's losing games against bad teams, it's still going to be a fight with West Virginia.
The Mountaineers are 11-1 this season, with their best win being against UConn (though the Huskies were severely hampered by injuries). Their lone loss came against Shaka Smart's Marquette Golden Eagles, where they fell 82-71 on November 19th. Since then, they've rattled off eight straight victories. They rank 42nd in KenPom, the third-highest ranking for a team Texas has played this season behind Gonzaga (second) and Seton Hall (30th).
Here's what their starting lineup looks like.
The main driver behind WVU's success is Taz Sherman, a fringe All-American candidate and overall baller who leads the Mountaineers in scoring. The Missouri City, Texas product has been stellar this year with a PER of 24.4 and an eFG rating of 50.3%.
West Virginia runs a five-out motion offense, not super dissimilar from what Texas runs, but they have two guys who can consistently hit threes in Sean McNeil and Sherman, so it will be up to the Texas defense to guard these guys and try to deny them the ball on the perimeter. These two really run the team offensively, and will be the absolute key to West Virginia's winning or losing this game.
Here's what the Texas starting lineup would be ideally:
You'll see here that I put in three forwards as the starters on this lineup, as they ran a three-forward lineup last week with Bishop instead of Disu. But I think at this point, Disu should be able to play enough minutes to get the starting nod (this does depend on his medical situation of course, so we'll see where he ends up minutes-wise). If not Disu, then hopefully Bishop.
What I'd like to see out of this game:
• Lockdown defense against one of the best players they've seen this season.
Taz Sherman is a force to be reckoned with when he's on offense, and Texas has to know that going in. He's not only their leading scorer, but their leading assist man as well - Sherman is an all-over-the-floor shot-maker who can get hot any time throughout a game. He scored 26 against eventual national champion Baylor last season, and has scored over 20 six times this season alone. He has scored less than 16 only one time this year. If Texas wants to win this game and start 1-0 in conference play, they need to put a lot of energy into defending Sherman.
• Forcing bad shots from their sniper Sean McNeil.
Their other primary weapon is shooter Sean McNeil, who, like Sherman, can get hot at a moment's notice, like he did against Kansas last year, where he went 7/7 from the field and 6/6 from three. On the season, he's shooting about 37% from beyond the arc, impressive given he takes over five per game. They need to make it difficult for him to find his stroke. Texas needs to embrace the no-middle concepts of icing ball screens and forcing ball handlers to the sidelines and baselines and deny the ball to McNeil and Sherman as much as possible.
• Better offense – using some of the concepts applied against UIW.
I know that UIW is one of the lowest-rated teams in the country, but it was nice to see Texas get into transition against them a few times and score some buckets that way. I've already talked about this ad nauseum and I'm sure you're as sick of hearing about it as I am of writing about it. Offense has to be better.
• Unleash Disu.
Disu is already third in average PPG on this team averaging just 16 minutes per game. It would be really helpful for this team to have him on the floor as much as possible because of his ability on both offense and defense. He is averaging 2.5 blocks per game as well, which is something this team has been missing all season. Overall, Dylan Disu might be this team's best player, so it would be ideal to have him on the court as much as possible.
@KeenanWomack_OB
