Non-Conference Holiday Thoughts From a Grinch
Some thoughts as the non-conference schedule winds down
My wife and I have been planning a trip to Africa for the last couple of months. The breadth & depth of choices are daunting; as you may or may not be aware, Africa is a big place. Like, definitely bigger than Texas, I think. (Being a product of the Texas public education system, most of my geography classes were a series of photos of places with quizzes on whether they were bigger or smaller than Texas, with a bonus question at the end as to whether any of them was better than Texas. The bonus answer was always no & if you answered yes you were sent to detention. Yeehaw!) We’re usually adept at planning our own vacations regardless of location, but this time around we chose to work with a travel agent who specializes in the probably-bigger-than-Texas continent. Or rather, we tried to work with a travel agent, because said travel agent was an older woman who didn’t really know how to work with emails. She was slow to reply - usually only to one of us despite us both being cc’ed - and since she became Facebook friends with my wife we quickly realized her turnaround time was directly related to whether or not said travel agent was on vacation herself. When she finally got back to us on the dates we had booked plane tickets for based on her previous quote, the price of the trip had doubled for reasons she couldn’t really explain, but when we dug in we figured out it was in part because she wasn’t following any of the itinerary we laid out. So we tried another place.
And another place.
And another place.
We finally found a group that does group tours for better prices, and the groups are small enough we’re never going to be in a bus with 40 strangers for a week at a time, but the cost of this trip is climbing to the point we may be smuggling blood diamonds home to make up the difference between our original budget (farcical, apparently) and the current one (would you like champagne with your endangered species). I’m sure I won’t care about the price when I’m staring a wild hippo in the face from a probably-smaller-than-Texas distance, but right now I feel like I’m walking around downtown Houston during peak West Nile season wearing a citrus necklace to attract every starving mosquito in a roughly-Texas-sized radius. The next international trip we do, I’m planning the whole thing. I may end up booking a tour flying drones in an eastern Ukraine/western Russia trench and I get an AK47 round to my earhole from a Russian prisoner/Wagner soldier, but at least I won’t have to deal with another goddamn travel agent. That profession is filled with unserious people who are probably getting paid to read the same Trip Advisor forums I am.
I’ve been watching some of Texas this season, though not all of it because in order to pay off the Africa trip I’m not subscribing to Sling for the next 85 years, so I don’t have LHN and it’s not worth finding a pirated feed of Texas playing half its tissue-soft non-conference schedule. My general rule of thumb is that any game played against the bottom half of KenPom is entirely optional to watch, which is why Texas’ non-conference schedule is effectively over despite having 3 more games left to play. If they drop any of the last three games the team is in a bigger world of hurt than they may already be, plus it’s the holiday season so practice some self-care and watch something else. Anything else.
Okay, maybe not Knights of the Zodiac; I watched that yesterday because Netflix said there was a 90% chance I’d like it and I’m not sure which of us should be more appalled by that prediction. Imagine if you gave Marvel writers a second lobotomy & told them to write an action-comedy for four actors you’ll never hear about again and, somehow, Sean Bean & Famke Jannsen, both of whom I’m just going to assume owe massive gambling debts to the producers of this movie. The movie is what an 8-year-old who just learned about Athena would write when their ADHD medication ran out. Just terrible. And yes, of course Sean Bean died; he may be the uber-wealthy Professor X knock-off in this universe but he’s still Sean Bean.
The best thing about this movie was a random guy on Youtube saying he saw part of it but was confused & getting this reply:
How TF, indeed.
Also, I would be remiss if I didn’t complain about this non-conference schedule. I would be tearing Chris Beard a new asshole about this schedule if he created it, so Rodney Terry gets the same; this might be the worst non-conference home slate I’ve ever seen for Texas and season ticket holders should be yelling at CDC about it. It is the Knights of the Zodiac of scheduling.
I watched all of Louisville, UConn, Marquette, & LSU, and I watched parts of Rice. My views are based on those, so a small sample size caveat applies to all of what I’m about to say. I’ll start with the negatives and end positive, which is different than my usual review which starts negative and ends negative. This is the kind of growth you get from a blogger when they write twice a year.
Cons
Ithiel Horton
People who have read me for long enough know I have a soft spot for people who do weird shit defensively. There was the season where freshman Kai Jones would go for steals that were two strides beyond even his reach, then fall over like an escaped deer who found itself on the Rockefeller Plaza ice rink, as one example. Horton’s defense isn’t so much weird as it is…well, have you ever played Mario Kart with someone who thought the secret to the game was trying for every possible secret shortcut even if it meant they ended up off the map half the time? That’s Horton when he’s not on the ball; he constantly tries to cheat by running under screens or taking a shortcut, when what he’s really doing is leaving shooters open over and over again. That is when he’s not just lost.
Here’s a prime example from the Marquette game.
If you slide forward to the 12 second mark of this clip, just watch the dude. He’s planted in the paint and kinda swipes at the baseline pass to Kolek, then is theoretically supposed to guard #23 Joplin. Brock is on Kolek in the corner, gets beat on a baseline drive, and Kolek passes to the corner where David Joplin gets a better contest from Brock Cunningham - who again WAS ON THE GUY PASSING TO THE GUY IN THE CORNER - than from Horton who still has two feet in the paint. I saw this in real time and just started laughing in that way you laugh when you’ve just slammed your knee into the coffeetable.
Bonus fun: start that clip from the beginning and watch Horton on offense get in the way of a diving Abmas!
It’s not like Horton is a freshman, he’s been in college for 5 years which is approximately 0.6 Brock Cunninghams. Horton needs to not get more than 5 minutes/game unless he’s raining threes on the opposition, because he’s probably giving up twos on the other end of the court.
Ron Holland isn’t here
I’ve been watching more G League this season, partly because it’s a cheap ticket - you can get in & out of a Frisco Legends game with a good seat for ~$35 before concessions - and partly because I wanted to see what Ron Holland was like against better competition. The answer is that he’s one of the best players on a G League Ignite team full of future NBA players, and that his particular skillset probably would have opened things up for this squad. He plays hard, sound defense, he has the mobility to guard multiple positions, and he’s a pretty great slasher. He’s only hitting 25% from three in the G League, but he’s getting closed out on by guys who are spending time on NBA rosters instead of Big 12 players so I think it’s fair to guess he’d be making a higher clip at Texas. I don’t think he would’ve been KD or anything that superlative, but I’ve found myself almost every game thinking “Ron Holland would’ve helped Texas here”. I know that’s going way out on a limb, saying a likely top ten NBA pick would have helped Texas. You’re welcome for this insight. He might be 3 seed lines difference on this squad, and it sucks that he decommitted so late in the process that Terry & staff had to come up with all manner of backup plans.
As an aside, if you’re looking for a good bang for your buck and there’s a G League franchise in your town, you should hit up a game. They basically never sell out, and you can watch guys who are in the top .02% of the basketball talent spectrum get absolutely worked by a guy who is the 9th man in the Spurs’ rotation. I went to the Spurs/Mavs game (mostly to see Jabari Rice’s pump-fake in person, alas he was in sweats the whole game) and saw a dude from Seton Hall whose name I dare not spell without looking casually drop a clinical 34/23 on the Mavs’ G League roster while not playing most of the 4th quarter. This is a guy who is averaging 7.6 minutes for the Spurs this year. The Spurs. And he’s making future NBA players look like chumps. Also, I saw Greg Brown - yes that one - pick up three technicals in a single game, all for defensive three seconds. I have never seen that before and may never see it again, it was incredible. He spent chunks of the second half watching his feet as he stepped in and out of the paint, this was worth the price of admission.
The Non-Conference schedule
Just reiterating that it was scheduled by someone who is either terrified of their team being low-key ass or thinks fans will pay to watch anything, and I’m pretty sure Terry isn’t the latter. Coaches only really control ~8 games in their schedule any more and basically every one of those was against teams you have to pay to come to town. Texas’ non-conference SOS is currently 287th and that will probably drop some in the final 3 games. Stop scheduling like you’re afraid to take a L in November; do you know who is going to penalize Texas for losing to UConn by 10 on a neutral floor? Nobody. It was fun getting excited for playing Gonzaga before Texas got their shit kicked and then returned the favor at home, yea? Pick better games.
Pros
Dylan Disu is back
It’s one game and he still looks about as rusty as you’d expect from a guy playing his first meaningful minutes in the better part of a year, but the best way I can describe his influence is that the team just looks like it makes more sense now. This isn’t anything against Shedrick & Onyema who have their place in the rotation somewhere, but their games are not his and the sometimes-janky feel of halfcourt possessions where they’re forcing a low post touch for either of them is a relative inefficiency to Disu’s ability to pop further out and cause opposing bigs to have to leave the paint. I don’t know if he’ll be the Disu of last March this year - he looks closer to it than he did coming back from his last major injury, so here’s hoping - but if he is then this team has the profile of one much less worried about what side of the bubble they’re on than what they might be with him only a shell of himself.
Chendall Weaver
Tim Preston and I still text from time to time, and there’s one thing we both agree on: Weaver needs more minutes. As much as Horton is a whiff in the transfer portal, Weaver looks like he could be a real asset to this team down the road. His athleticism is great and his motor is top-notch. His main flaw in my eyes is that he plays at 95 MPH all the time; if he learns how to change up speeds instead of engaging warp speed on every play, he’s going to murder defenses. That dude can get to the rim whenever he wants regardless of the opponent, and that’s a rare skill. As Brock Cunningham is about to earn his AARP card and thus retire Cunningham Mountain, allow me to present Weaver..uhh Waterfall? Sure, let’s go with that; doors are open at this majestic & exclusive natural wonder WAIT WEAVER WONDER no that’s worse, isn’t it. Weaver Waverunner? Now I’m just forcing it. Okay, I’m open to alternatives if you have them. Anyway, I really like his game and his potential.
Dillon Mitchell
I was surprised when I saw him getting all-conference honorable mention, and I still don’t think he’s that guy, but having said that I do see solid improvement. He’s more involved than last year when he would spend portions of games just sort of floating, he’s clearly worked on a few moves that are his go-to’s, and he’s not a liability from the first dribble. I still don’t think he should be shooting outside of ~15 feet and I don’t think he should be trying to score one-on-one against a set Big 12 defense, but that’s an improvement from his 5 feet range last year. The game looks like it is slowing down for him; maybe instead of being a 1 & done lottery guy he follows more of a Jericho Sims progression path, which would be great for Texas the next year or two.
Tyrese Hunter, Max Abmas, & coaching adjustments
I’ve seen a fair number of complaints about Hunter from fans this year, enough that I went back & rewatched the Marquette game to just watch him (and Weaver/Horton when Hunter was off the court, because I can’t have ice cream without punching myself in the face first). I don’t really see the problems I’ve seen complaints about; he should’ve finished at the rim better than he did, but he wasn’t as passive as some were making him out to be and he was getting to the rim in the first place. It’s possible he had some terrible performances in the games I missed, but the ones I’ve watched he’s been doing decent things, and more to the point I think he’s been getting more comfortable with Abmas as the season has progressed. The coaches seem to have finally run out of patience with Abmas running point - and I agree, he can’t reliably take on high-major defenders starting from the point position - and they’ve been giving the ball to Hunter more at the start of possessions. I think this is a good adjustment because 1) it allows Hunter to get comfortable and be in his more natural role as distributor & 2) it allows Abmas to play a more AJ Abrams-like role running through screens and getting open looks he might not be able to create himself. I think the staff is figuring some things out, which is good considering how much harder the games are about to become.
A different kind of problem
After a couple of decades watching Texas teams be stout defensively but treat offense like it’s the thing they have to do between defensive possessions, it’s kind of nice to watch a team that’s able to get buckets but not really prevent them. Maybe this is just a rationalization - it’s definitely a rationalization - but at least it’s something new to diagnose instead of “this is the 12th year in a row we must remind them, they need to use their hands when they shoot”.
Overall
This team (HOT TAEK) pretty clearly isn’t as good as last year’s team, and I don’t think they’ll contend for the Big 12 title even with a healthy Disu. Right now Kansas, Houston, Baylor, and Oklahoma are all a step or more above this team, and BYU might be but I haven’t seen any of them so I’ll defer to others there. The teams I’m sure Texas is better than are UCF, OSU, KSU, and a WVU team that might be trying to somehow take the heat off Kenny Payne at Louisville with their spectacle of failure. It seems unlikely Texas finishes better than 5th or lower than 10th in the Big 12, and if they end up 9-9 in conference with that weak-ass non-con resume they’re probably sitting around an 8-seed or so depending on who they beat. Maybe they can catch fire a little bit, win a couple of unexpected games and sneak up to a 6 or 7, but this feels very much like a transitional year for Terry and his staff. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve promised the safari company I’d send them 6 pints of plasma by Xmas.
p.s. I may be looking for a new home for this blog on account of the Substack owners refusing to ban literal Nazis; if I do re-home the site, I’ll send out a note to everyone beforehand.
Great to see you back!
Jeez, BWG, by not watching LHN's non conference game broadcasts you missed Brock Cunningham getting into it with the TAMU-CC head coach in the second half. Also some absolutely devastating Brock takedowns of the upstart Islanders players without getting whistled. Thought I was watching hockey.
Re your observations about Mitchell, I have noticed that, this year, he is going balls out every game, every minute he's on the court. Not just in the high visibility games like last year.