With Northwestern losing to a tanked Minnesota team in Indy, and with Texas showing some serious stones to come back from 11 down in the 2nd half and win- I'd say we'd better be Dancing or we have been hosed. Nice job Longhorns. I guess I am the lone one who cares and it is 11:27pm here where I live! Texas is a football school. But this game, this win means something huge to one Texas Ex. Thanks Rick Barnes, for getting it done.
Like Rick said, if you believe you should be in the Big Dance over the NIT, you have to play like you deserve it. Tonight they did and their ticket is punched.
FINALLY! Knew that this team had it in them to do this, but they just kept refusing to do it so many times this season. I was just so damn happy last night (and so pissed when the site just went kaput till now). I am sure we will make the dance now, and we deserve it. R.J.
The 5 turnovers must be the season low or close to it. ISU had 14 turnovers. Those stats and the Longhorns' excellent FT shooting are the ball game. Texas FG% was miserable....again. I wish Barnes could find some consistently good shooters. This has been a problem for the past few years.
Nice win. I missed the game, woke up at 3AM and forced myself to not look at the score as I knew I'd be unable to get back to sleep if we had lost. Unless I'm wrong, it seems as if only an incredibly poor showing against Mizzou PLUS several tourney surprises could be the only thing that keeps us out. I was looking at different bracketology lists and every team but one has a lower current RPI than Texas. Texas' RPI will not drop - even with a loss and I can't image any of the other teams might climb ahead of us. Heck, a couple of sites have teams with RPIs 20-30 spots behind us as being on the bubble. One more thing - on a related note - I wonder how much psychology factors into Selection Sunday. Pretty much every talking head has stated that Texas is now in. Even if the committee found something that it doesn't like about Texas are they almost backed into a corner as far as including Texas?
Proud of this of this young team! While other teams in the conference were "supposed" to make it to the dance, this team some how got it done, arguably Barnes' top 5 coaching jobs. If he really pulled what has been reported in the locker room at halftime in putting two acronyms on the whiteboard NCAA or NIT and calling the team out: "what is it that you guys want"......well, that's pretty damn cool how the team responded.
It wasn't so much shot selection as it was that they missed some very easy shots (point blank) early on and couldn't hit anything from outside until the second half. One problem they seem to have is that if they miss shots early, the movement in the offense grinds to a halt and it gets reduced to someone going one on one as the shot clock winds down, which is never good, unless it is brown at the end of the game. Props to Chapman, who did a really solid defensive job on Royce White. A solid win especially in a situation where they have repeatedly come up short this season. Maybe things will even out and they win some more close games. The Horns can definitely beat mizzou but the guards must play solid on ball defense and prevent wide open lanes to the bucket and they must get back in transition.
Hook "Em. Given that the first half they played like dogshit and started out the second half bad, I was impressed that they rallied and made the key shots when needed. The Horns did make me wanna pull my hair out. They can look like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde in the same game or same half for that matter. My 1 question is why does it take so long for J'Covan to get going? Is is that whoever guards him in the first half has fresh legs, but tires in the second half and Brown takes over after wearing down his opponent?
They may have missed some easy shots early, but they were throwing up some crazy shots when they fell behind by double digits early in the 2nd half. It's no coincidence that they started hitting shots when their ball movement improved and they had better looks. Chapman did an admirable job on White, but I think Kabongo's defense on Christopherson was even more significant.
I have been saying that the streak of consecutive Tourney appearances is why we needed to get in no matter if we go one and done for a month now. You can't tell me that is not a good recruiting tool every time they flash that statistic up on national tv, especially with the prestige of the other Universities we are mentioned with. All time consecutive streak we are ranked 12 and about to catch some noteworthy basketball schools. The Link The current consecutive list has us tied for 5th and look at the basketball powers on this list! The Link I would say we are in good company, not bad for a supposed football school.
I fully agree with the sentiment on the Big Dance over NIT, never cared NBHorn7. However, one minor note of perspective- fair or not. When you start talking prestige of universities, there are higher level criteria than participation in x number consecutive NCAA tournaments. Michigan State rates in NCAA tournaments, but Northwestern ranks far higher as a university and they haven't been dancing, well since the very first one anyway. We are Texas. And if South Florida gets in over us, well let them get a job with their degree. Now as good gang graffiti goes, you will see what I wrote as internally supportive, and externally hostile. As is the following thought: Screw Missouri!!! And Hookem Longhorns!
Prestige was meant entirely on a "basketball" criteria not an academic one as referenced by my two links and the fact this is the basketball forum.
