Connecticut

1.24.10

Posted by Ryan Clark at 4:05PM

#21/NR Connecticut Huskies 88, #1/1 Texas Longhorns 74

Texas gave up far too many easy buckets inside
(Photo credit: Patrick Raycraft/Hartford Courant)

Well, that escalated quickly. The Longhorns fell victim to a second-straight loss on Saturday afternoon, turning a ten-point lead in the opening minute of the second half into an epic meltdown that resulted in a fourteen-point road loss. Texas seemed completely lost and overwhelmed as the game careened out of control, the rowdy crowd of 10,000 fueling the Connecticut surge. So what exactly happened? How did a team that was enjoying a double-digit lead suddenly look like a frightened high school JV team? Fortunately for both this author and my readers, the answers to that question will be short and sweet. What looked good There were very few things that looked good on this afternoon. So few things, in fact, that it’s incredibly easy to chalk up this loss and the final nineteen minutes of it to aberrational play that will hopefully never be seen again from a Longhorn team. Early on, Texas seemed to grasp the simple idea of drive-and-dish that we touched on in the game preview. The Longhorn guards were aware of the defensive presence the Huskies boast inside, and were perfectly content with drawing attention off the dribble and dishing for easy layups or open jumpers. Eight out of the 16 first-half buckets for Texas came off of an assist, with two of the unassisted scores coming on fast breaks. In addition to occasional uses of dribble penetration, there were a handful of times where the Texas ball movement didn’t seem reminiscent of a high-speed Pong battle around the perimeter. On one particular possession in the second half, Jai Lucas lobbed in an entry pass to Dexter Pittman, who was immediately double-teamed by Lucas’ defender and Pittman’s man. Almost immediately, Big Dex rifled the ball back to a wide-open Lucas. The tiny guard missed his three-pointer, so this won’t go down as even a moral victory in the eyes of the biggest Texas homer. But for one brief moment, Pittman did exactly what he was supposed to with the basketball, and the Longhorns were actually set up to capitalize, although they failed to do so. Far too often, Dexter brings the ball down low, typically leading to a turnover against the double- or triple-teams. In addition, Texas normally has only the offensively-challenged Justin Mason and Dogus Balbay waiting on Dexter’s side of the court as a kick-out option, which means there is absolutely no three-point threat for the defense to worry about. In this instance, Pittman kept the ball high and recognized the presence of a three-point threat waiting. If Texas could actually have multiple possessions like this in one game, that outside threat might actually open things up inside for the much-maligned big man. The Longhorn defense looked good in brief stretches, although there was a horrible trend of playing solid defense for 30 seconds before letting a big man make a clean cut for a wide-open backdoor layup. Time and again, Texas would shut down Connecticut with great denial on the perimeter, only to give up the easy, demoralizing bucket. There were far more awful things about the defense on Saturday afternoon, but we’ll get to that in the following segment…

The Longhorns simply panicked in the second half
(Photo credit: Patrick Raycraft/Hartford Courant)

What needed work Unfortunately for the Longhorns, this game wasn’t in the 8-and-under Little Dribblers league, so things weren’t finished after just 24 minutes. Texas absolutely collapsed in the second half, and that means there will be a lot for Coach Barnes to work on before Wednesday night’s game with Texas Tech. The most glaring problem for the Longhorns was a complete lack of transition defense. This was one of our keys to the game in yesterday’s preview, and it is the one thing that the UConn offense does exceptionally well. But even with that information being very public knowledge, Texas seemed to have no interest in getting back on defense to turn the game into a half-court battle. The Huskies scored 20 points on fast breaks, including twelve in a 7:30 stretch of the second half where they turned an eight-point deficit into a six-point advantage.

Texas had no answer for UConn’s transition game
(Photo credit: Patrick Raycraft/Hartford Courant)

As briefly mentioned earlier, the other big problem for the Texas defense was breakdowns late in the shot clock. Great defensive stands don’t mean a damned thing when you only hold a team for 30 of 35 seconds, and that sort of glaring defensive miscommunication is even worse when it results in the wide-open, point-blank looks that UConn was getting. In one of our tweets from the game, it was mentioned that you won’t beat many teams who are shooting 55% from the field. While that’s certainly true, the defensive issues mentioned above certainly didn’t help matters. It would take quite an awful team to have a bad shooting night when they are racing down the court for uncontested fast break points and cutting back-door for open layups that Jim Abbott could sink. The final problem contributing to the Connecticut surge was the Longhorns’ lackadaisical ball control in the second half. Thanks to three Balbay fouls in just fifty seconds, the point guard role was filled down the stretch mostly by Mason and Jai Lucas. While both are serviceable points, they aren’t exactly staunch lockboxes with the basketball, and neither is the man you’d want to lead your team out of a double-digit hole in a hostile road environment. They combined for three turnovers down the stretch, with Jordan Hamilton and Damion James adding four more. Without Balbay on the floor to slow things down, the Longhorns looked absolutely clueless with the basketball. While Texas was busy coughing it up and helping Connecticut to stretch their lead out to thirteen points, the perpetual free-throw nightmare resurfaced to exacerbate the problem. The Horns missed five consecutive free throws as the Huskies were pulling away, and made just 4-of-10 in the second half. While this Texas team is never going to be a good free throw shooting squad, going 1-of-6 in the most critical stretch of the game is just as bad as three dumb turnovers. The road ahead Texas has the good fortune of following up this brutal road trip with a home game against Texas Tech. And while the Red Raiders are vastly improved this season, they are still a much different team away from the confines of United Spirit Arena. A solid, convincing win should help the Longhorns get back on track before a tough home game with the Baylor Bears on Saturday, a squad that has finally added quality defense to its usual array of offensive talents. Tickets still remain for both games, and judging from the typically flaky nature of Texas fans, neither will likely be a sellout thanks to the current losing streak. But this team deserves fan support, regardless of the results of these two tough road games. If you want to save a few bucks on tickets and support your hometown team, check out Bevo’s Bargains through the Texas Box Office. Fans can save $2 per ticket for the Tech game by donating three books to the less fortunate, while military, fire, EMS, and police can enjoy the same discount if they order their tickets in advance. Girl Scouts are eligible for the $2 for the Baylor game, and must also order tickets in advance. We’ll be back tomorrow with more content, as we have more photos to share from this year’s trips and perhaps some notes from the road. On Tuesday, we’ll take a statistical look at the struggles Texas has encountered in its last three games, and discuss how those flaws could be addressed down the stretch.

Longhorns look to bounce back in Storrs

1.23.10

Posted by Ryan Clark at 10:20AM

#1/1 Texas Longhorns (17-1) at #21/NR Connecticut Huskies (12-6) Harry A. Gampel Pavilion | Storrs, CT | Tip: 3 P.M. CT | TV: CBS

Not a lot of time for a proper game preview this afternoon, as we have to race around the central Connecticut area to pick up fellow travelers, grab some pre-game grub, and head to Storrs early enough to check out the campus. As such, we’ll jump right to our keys for today’s game… Solid transition defense – UConn doesn’t force very many turnovers, but when they do, you can bet the ball will quickly be pushed up the floor. The Huskies also earn a bunch of points by beating their opponents down the court after misses. UConn’s offense has been fairly stagnant lately, but they are able to make up for that recent scoring anemia with these easy transition points. Texas shouldn’t be so concerned with transition buckets that they give up on offensive rebounding chances, but the Horns certainly need to be ready to backpedal down the floor. Drive and dish – The Huskies are the best team in the nation when it comes to blocking shots, swatting more than one in every five opportunities. Against Kansas State, another great shot-blocking team, the Horns had their greatest success when the guards penetrated, drew defensive help, and then dished to a big man on the blocks. When Texas simply tried to force things inside, they were typically bogged down by double- and triple-teams, and the offensive either stalled or turned it over. If the Longhorn guards can penetrate this tough defense, it should open things up against the formidable UConn frontcourt. Weather the crowd – We mentioned via Twitter that Monday night’s crowd was the loudest we had heard in four-plus years of traveling. Texas managed to fight through the crowd and the momentum that comes with it, fighting back from an eleven-point deficit to even take the lead. Today’s crowd could be just as electric as Texas plays its last game with the No. 1 crown. The Huskies have been in a recent backslide, losing four out of seven, and will be playing without the leadership of legendary coach Jim Calhoun. Connecticut also doesn’t have a true “great win” on its résumé yet, and this afternoon’s contest definitely provides that opportunity. If that’s not enough to get a storied Big East crowd fired up, I don’t think there’s much that will. This shouldn’t be a high-scoring, up-and-down game, so any scoring runs that either team can manage will be even more important than usual. If the Longhorns find themselves falling behind as the frenzied crowd starts to froth at its collective mouth, they will simply have to play smart basketball or risk digging a hole they can’t climb out of. One final note… – Connecticut is the fourth-best team in the country when it comes to keeping opponents off the foul line. For Texas, that is outstanding news, especially coming off of a 9-for-22 free-throw performance against Kansas State. But it also means that the Longhorns must be able to knock down their shots against a very well-coached defense. Connecticut will keep the Texas players in front of them, while a steady frontcourt holds things down inside if the Longhorns happen to make it to that second wave of defenders. If Texas has a bad shooting day against this team, it could be a long, ugly afternoon.

Blogpoll Ballot – Week 13

2.23.09

Posted by Ryan Clark at 12:36PM

After a week’s absence in the blogpoll, we’re back in the mix with today’s ballot. Here are our votes, with the official compilation poll to come later today:

Rank	Team

1	Pittsburgh
2	Connecticut
3	Oklahoma
4	Memphis
5	North Carolina
6	Louisville
7	Duke
8	Missouri
9	Wake Forest
10	Michigan St.
11	Villanova
12	Marquette
13	Clemson
14	Arizona St.
15	Kansas
16	Gonzaga
17	Purdue
18	Illinois
19	UCLA
20	Washington
21	Louisiana St.
22	West Virginia
23	Xavier
24	Florida St.
25	Texas

It was an interesting week with losses by half of the top ten teams from the last poll. Only Wake Forest and UConn suffered their defeats at the hands of other top ten teams, while North Carolina, Michigan State, and Oklahoma all lost on the road to unranked opponents. As a result, it was a little easier to ignore the instinct to slide teams up and down based on the most recent results and instead reshuffle everyone based on their complete body of work this season. The middle of the pack all held their own by winning their games this week, but our votes differed slightly from the consensus of last week’s blogpoll, when we didn’t submit a ballot. We chose to slot Marquette ahead of Clemson based on a more robust list of quality wins, although they could quickly take a nosedive with an absolute nightmare of a schedule awaiting them over the final two weeks. The Golden Eagles have to face UConn and Louisville this week before closing the season with a road trip to Pitt and a home game against Syracuse. After that quality in the middle of the poll, things were a bit dicier with the lower rankings. Five of the bottom seven teams lost a game this week, and practically every other team that could have been considered for the 24th or 25th slot dropped at least one game as well. LSU slides up two spots to No. 21 in our ballot, but it’s more a reflection on the lack of other candidates than a rousing endorsement of the Tigers. They are playing in an incredibly weak SEC, leaving a home win over Washington State as their only remarkable victory this year. The full compilation ballot will be released later this afternoon.

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