Texas Basketball was finally able to get their first Southeastern conference win on Wednesday night in Norman. A win is always good, but to have that win come against Oklahoma who they beat for the 8th straight time, makes it sweeter. An 0-4 conference start would have been a big hole for the Longhorns to climb out of given their upcoming schedule. Texas travels to No. 5 Florida on Saturday before welcoming a 14-3 Missouri team to Moody Center on Tuesday. Needless to say there are no easy games in the SEC this year and Texas needs to find wins anyway they can. Wednesday night in Norman was a good start.
Texas Needs More Team Basketball
The game against Oklahoma marked the third straight in which Texas had less than 10 team assists. In those three games they averaged over 26 field goals made. That shows there is way too much ball watching and one-on-one basketball being played. This style of play makes it much more difficult to score on a consistent basis.
Rodney Terry may still be trying to figure out his core five but it needs to come together quick. Staggering Jordan Pope and Tre Johnson may be something Terry should look into. Both Pope and Johnson are ball-dominant players which can pose difficult when playing heavy minutes together. With that being said, they are two of the three best scorers the Longhorns have. Taking one off the floor can potentially hurt the offense but more ball movement is needed one way or another.
Lower the Three Point Volume
In conference play Texas is averaging almost 22 attempts from three with 6.5 makes per game. That is under 30% from three, which isn’t going to cut it with that type of volume. In fact the best offensive game Texas had was against Auburn in the 87-82 loss. In that game they shot just 14 threes and made 5 of them. Shooting closer to 15-20 attempts a game would likely be better for the Rodney Terry’s offense.
Luckily for Texas Tre Johnson and Jordan Pope are great in the mid range. They just need to take less threes. Getting Arthur Kaluma more involved consistently would help out everyone else on offense as well. Kaluma showed his high potential against Auburn when he scored 34 points on 12-16 shooting. Every team in the SEC is scoring in the mid 70’s at least so Texas will have to score in bunches to win games. Relying too much on the three point shot can cause scoring droughts which will get you blown out in a hurry. Should Texas find a more balanced offense they can compete with anyone in the conference.
