Texas returns to form - Texas 77 - WVU 50

[Matt Cotcher]

in Texas Longhorns Basketball By Matt Cotcher   

 @mlcotcher
 
FINAL SCORE: Texas 77 – West Virginia 50

1st Half: Texas 37 – West Virginia 23

• Connor Lammert is starting – take that as a sign of the week he had in practice.
• The Mountaineers do an excellent job of making the extra pass on offense. Their shots aren’t falling, but WVU is getting good looks.
• In the first 7:00 of play, Texas is playing with more energy and hustle than they have in the first 2 weeks of 2015.
• Blocks, points in the paint, alley oops…this is a completely different team than the one that was blown out by OU.
• Texas maintained their lead with Isaiah Taylor on the bench (2 early fouls) for most of the half.
• The 3-guard lineup has been effective for the Horns. With extra speed on the floor, Texas is having more success feeding the post.

2nd Half: Texas 40 – West Virginia 27

• The Horns open up the first 5 minutes of the half with six quick fouls and three turnovers. Texas is not nearly as crisp, but is maintain their lead.
• Nice adjustment by Rick Barnes to go back to a 3-guard lineup after the 5-minute timeout. The offense has been night & day better with an extra guard on the floor today.
• This half feels like Texas is doing their best to allow WVU to make this game close. The Mountaineers are not taking advantage of the invitation.
• Dribble penetration has opened up the floor for the Texas offense. Cam Ridley converted easy buckets all evening off passes from teammates dribbling in from the perimeter.
• During an 11-minute stretch, the Mountaineers missed 14 consecutive shots.

Top takeaway

After lackluster play since the Kentucky game, Texas looked like the team from November. A hard week of practice and frequent questions of the team’s heart clearly motivated the Horns tonight. Whether they build off this win is now the question.


The stat story

• 11 Mountaineer players had at least 1 foul by halftime.
• Juwan Staten was 0-3 shooting in the first half. His first made field goal came with 1:00 left in the game (1-7 for the game).
• Texas shot 92% from the free throw line in the 2nd half and finished 31-37 (84%) for the game. Jonathan Holmes’ 11 made free throws is a career-best mark.
• Despite comfortable win, Texas did not shoot three pointers well – 4/15 (26.7%).

Looking ahead

Texas travels to Fort Worth to play TCU on Monday night, and then has 4 days to prepare for Kansas. The Jayhawks come to Austin for a Saturday afternoon tilt. 

 

[Juan]

Jon Holmes said "They tried to punk us."

— Twitter API (@twitterapi) November 7, 2011

 

[Etex Horn]

Winning by 27 over #16 ranked team...works for me.  Good post, Matt.

 

[Matt Cotcher]

Very interested to see if this game is an outlier in 2015 (team was motivated by the opponent) or if the team is re-focusing.

 

[HornSports Staff]

Post-game thoughts from Chris Flanagan:

The Good

- Almost everything the Longhorns did in the Drum tonight.

- First, let's give it to the big boys up front tonight. Cameron Ridley had 19 points, 6 rebounds and 4 blocks. Myles Turner had 16 points, 8 rebounds and was 9-9 from the free throw line. Prince Ibeh put the exclamation point on the performance of the big men with 2 big alley-oops.

- Jonathan Holmes woke up - 16 points, 11 of them from the free throw line, and 11 rebounds.

- Free throw percentage: 84%.

- Almost every time the Mountaineers tried to press, the Longhorns were able to break it. That was key to their success.

The Bad

- Guard play wasn't great tonight. Only 5 made Field Goals on 19 attempts.

-My predictions. Apparently I should either pick Texas to win big or lose big.

The Ugly

- 50 personal fouls. 50. Thirty of those on the Mountaineers. I understand it is a tough job being a referee but the game was already too physical for the refs to control when they decided to start making tougher calls.

Epilogue

When you are in a league with 7 ranked teams and an unranked team at 4-1 in conference (and you only have total 10 teams), you are going to have many highs and lows during conference play. This was a high for the Longhorns. It's not going to last. Texas will be down again and they will lose a game many fans think they should not. That's just the nature of the Big 12 this season.

Enjoy this win, you can take solace in knowing that the Longhorns are not a bad team, they just aren't a great team. 

 

[dillohorn]

About time.

 

[JimR]

Refs were terrible. One guy seemed to make 80% of the calls.

 

[Matt Cotcher]

Refs were terrible. One guy seemed to make 80% of the calls.

The whistles made that game last way too long.