We’re tied for second with West Virginia—a team we’ve beaten on the road, and will probably beat again. Having Baylor in our conference is like having Gonzaga in our conference. We can beat them, but we’ll need to play our best game to do so. Tech almost took them down.
No excuses about a full team in practice or anything else are needed. We got beat by a significantly superior team.
It's not an excuse. There is no team in the country who can go what Texas went through and come back the next day and be at your best. I don't think you realize but almost 3 weeks without a full team and coach is a very long time and Shaka said there was a point where he had only two players available for workouts. That takes a toll on any team in the country regardless of how good you are. Baylor is a great team and arguably the best in the country but I would love to see this matchup with Texas at absolute full strength. You will see just how good Texas is during these next couple of games now that they have a full team available instead of one day of practice.
Rather than blaming this loss on the "partial team over the past 3 weeks", I think the 3-14 from the free throw line had more of an impact. S.Drew is about the biggest D-Bag in college sports, but you have to hand it to him. He has assembled a Championship team.
Tech is a very disciplined team, an offense that knows how to pass, use motion to find the open man. Although Tech is less talented than the Horns by far, ttu may be the better team. We have yet to beat them. The Horns game in Lubbock will tell a lot. Tech may be more suited to beat BU than the Horns. We still get a rematch with each of them. Hopefully, we can earn a split with each one.
Not going to beat many teams that shoot 50+% from the field and from 3. Definitely not the no. 2 team in the nation. Had to play a near perfect game, and we shot really well from everywhere but the FT line, which basically lost the game.
20 points given up on turnovers was a bigger factor. Even if Texas had made 75% of the FT's it only adds another 7 pts.
We're still chasing the defensive identity issue, like we have been since Shaka took over. Transition is difficult for every team, but we end up looking like a bunch of rec league backups every time we lose a ball near the paint and the other team starts running the floor. It's almost a guaranteed 2 points for all of our opponents, no matter how good or bad they are on offense. Even worse when they just set up for a 3 with no one guarding it. This is where Covid and depth are killing us right now. Cunningham and Hamm, as scrappy as we want them to be, are huge liabilities on both ends. So we're stuck with a 6-man rotation like we were when we won the conference in Barnes' first season. Baylor just doesn't have that problem, as they get meaningful minutes from their bench in addition to their stars. The other issue is Greg Brown's head. We haven't had someone that frustratingly talented and dim since... probably ever?
Kentucky had one guy out and the coach and they cancelled their game with us. I think it is a mistake to cancel games and I applaud Texas for pushing forward. We have a great team that has slid back a little with these COVID issues. I am fully confident that Shaka will get the team back on track and ready for the tournament. I must confess that you, Chop, and I are watching a completely different team than most posters on this board who think the team is 1-13, can't play defense and with a freshman starter who can't play based upon their comments. We are watching an 11-4 team that plays great defense, has an outstanding freshman and who have an outside chance of winning the NCAA championship this season.
