Shooting From the B12 Tournament: CHAMPS

Bring on the Madness

45-54

49-65

68-80

84-88

74-84

73-85

91-86

Texas has made 7 Big 12 tournament finals, bringing an arsenal of players to the final game like Royal Ivey, PJ Tucker, Brandon Mouton, LaMarcus Aldridge, Kevin Durant, DJ Augustin, Damion James, J’Covan Brown, and Tristan Thompson. They all lost.

Texas had two players on the all-tournament team in ‘06. It was a loss.

Texas was up 32-10 on Kansas with Durant going off. It was a loss.

Not today.

Texas made their first tournament finals appearance in a decade and broke a string of losses that exemplified just how-close-yet-how-far-away Texas was to taking control of the conference; it’s one thing to make the finals six times in a tournament dominated by Kansas and Iowa State, it’s another to get there and lose time and time again. The Final Four squad lost in the first round. The Elite Eight teams lost in the final. None of them could get over the hump.

This team did.

This. Fucking. Team.

Micro Level: Texas Tech, W (67-66)

Fuck Tech

That’s the tweet. I know I’m supposed to come up with insightful analysis, but I really enjoy Tech losing. Their brand of basketball is not an appealing one; they spend the majority of each game trying to win in the most annoying ways possible. They set a million illegal screens off the ball and they run underneath driving players trying to get charge calls from overworked refs; if Tech could draw 40 charges in a game Chris Beard would probably collapse into a two-hour orgasm on the sideline. Their offense is as bad as Texas fans thought Rick Barnes’ offense was back in the day and if they don’t get bailed out by Edwards balling out or McClung being the best terrible shot maker in the conference then they struggle to score. A portion of my reticence to jump on the Chris Beard to Texas hype train is knowing I’d have to watch this 30+ times a year instead of 2-3. It is effective college basketball in the same way you can have a doctor who knows how to really get up in your guts for a colonoscopy; yes, I appreciate you know what you’re doing, but I’m still laying here with a camera crammed up my ass and I’m not looking forward to the next appointment.

Matt Coleman

I’ve mentioned it before, but to me the yardstick for Coleman is the missed free throws his freshman year against Tech in Lubbock that could have salted away a win against an eventual Elite Eight team. He was not up to the moment, and when they got back to Austin he stayed up late working on his free throws. He’s up to the moment now; Shaka Smart said in the postgame he had zero doubt those two free throws with 1.8 seconds left were going in, and while I wouldn’t say zero I would have put it at like 20%. It’s one of the signs of progression from a freshman to a senior, these moments. Coleman is having his own Keenan Evans run right now.

AND THAT HESI

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@Bitterwhiteguy NSFW

Jase Febres

You know what’s fun? Having a senior come off the bench and hit 5-9 from three while playing solid on-ball defense. Febres is a hell of a weapon to activate in the last month of the season, and he’s one of the reasons Texas is hitting its stride again.

Greg Brown’s Moment

There have been a lot of hot takes about his bench meltdown, and I’m sure if Texas was still losing there would be a lot of “SHAKA HAS LOST THIS TEAM” nonsense like we were hearing after the West Virginia Ramey/Jones showdown. This ain’t that; Brown is a young player who wears his heart on his sleeve and he let his frustration get the best of him. He hasn’t given up on the team, he’s just - as Jase Febres said in the post-game interview - 18 years old. It’s a teaching moment, not a sign of impending doom for the team or a sign of him being selfish. It’s a cliche but he might care too damn much. The coaches talked to him, the players talked to him, and he understands he screwed up. He had a moment, and he lost his starting spot in the next game as a result.

Micro Level: Kansas, W (0-0)

CALLED IT

I spent a non-trivial amount of time on the PWF podcast talking about how I was concerned about popping positive tests with little or no time to spare before March Madness, and I specifically pointed out Kansas not having any pauses this year meaning they were the biggest viral vector remaining. Lo and behold, look who caught the rona. I’m not glad they caught it, but I am glad it happened before they played Texas so the Longhorns aren’t exposed like Oklahoma is right now. The tournament being played at all is dumb, and it’s par for the course that the conference spent the last three months crossing their fingers & knocking on wood instead of doing something as simple as moving the tournament up a week to allow for a gap so teams like Kansas aren’t scrambling to stay eligible for the bigger tourney.

Micro Level: Oklahoma State, W (91-86)

This Game Was Fun as Hell

Sometimes basketball is beautiful.

This contest was two athletic, talented teams playing an uptempo style, running off makes & misses, slashing to the rim and hitting clutch threes, showcasing at least three 1st round picks surrounded by high-level college talent. This was an Elite Eight or Final Four level game, and I hope everyone soaked in the moment. That game was going to be a classic regardless of outcome, and as much as I’m happy Texas won I’m just as happy I got to watch it. Okay, I’m a little happier Texas won. Okay, a lot; still, it was wonderful basketball to partake.

Zone Offense

It’s been five weeks since Texas put up a terrible performance against the Oklahoma State zone, and a lot of people rightfully wondered WTF this team was doing against a zone. Over the next couple of weeks, they got incrementally better as other teams put up a zone on them; the results were hit and miss, and many fans thought the team wasn’t doing anything to combat seeing a zone. I put a few examples in subsequent recaps to talk about the wrinkles they were putting in to deal with it, and made the point that I’m seeing adjustments. Oklahoma State is a good zone defense, 24 hours ago they repeatedly flummoxed Baylor with both a 2-3 and their 1-3-1 zone confounded Scott Drew in what I can only describe as a delicious irony. Tonight was everything coming to fruition, playing against the team that decimated them and turning the tables. Texas made smart decisions, ran PnR that allowed them to get downhill almost at will, and hit the open man when they got into the paint. Texas was so good against the zone that the Cowboys basically abandoned it at halftime.

We can stop complaining about zone offense now.

Matt Coleman

It did not matter what Oklahoma State did to him. They tried to trap him, they tried ball denial, they tried to switch aggressively. Didn’t matter. Coleman was going Super Saiyan and nobody in the other orange could do anything about it. He scored 30, hit all his free throws, and dragged his enormous balls all over the court for 37 minutes.

There’s a point where you know Coleman is feeling it, he starts getting theatrical. There are foot stomps, large jumps as he comes down the court, the Dwyane Wade-type arms wide open as he dishes to a dunking teammate. He was feeling it tonight. That was a guy who knew he was in complete control; it wasn’t the zone so much as a guy who memorized the Press Your Luck pattern and was about to hammer the buzzer and win a third trip to Cabo. There was no chance, no whammies, he knew exactly what he was going to do to the Cowboys and knew they were powerless to stop it. When the season is over, we’re going to have a conversation about where Coleman ranks among all-time Texas point guards. It may be higher than you think.

I Just Shot Pellegrino & Tequila Out of My Nose

I’m in the middle of writing an earnest, heartfelt ode to Matt Coleman as an apex predator and decided I was a bit parched; I go to take a sip of my drink and thought about yelling out BROCK CUNNINGHAM MOUNTAIN IS FULL and the fluids reversed course at approximately 1,400 MPH. The 1.83 mach stream of bubbly water and 80-proof tequila blanco sprayed across my laptop keyboard and probably more carpet than I care to investigate.

I do not advise you do this.

BROCK CUNNINGHAM MOUNTAIN IS FULL

I was not drinking as I typed this. Life is full of teaching moments.

7 points, 8 rebounds, 3 steals, and the most 48-year-old-at-a-YMCA breakaway layup I’ve ever seen in a high-major game, plus he played game defense against any of the Cowboys he faced. I’m really glad Texas has 2 more seasons of him, he’s going to band-aid a lot of situations down the road.

Jericho Sims

Extremely Normal Online Person @Bitterwhiteguy

All it takes for Sims to crack a smile is to record a 21/14, duly noted.

I know Sims’ career has been a roller coaster, but to see him fulfill all of his incredible potential like this is so gratifying. He’s a quiet monster, like Loch Ness or me at a $15 all-you-can-eat sushi buffet. He doesn’t emote a lot, but it doesn’t matter when he’s going 8-11 from the floor and dunking everything over everybody. Is there a big in the tournament you’re afraid of him facing? I’m not; I think he can take on Garza, Dickinson, whoever at this point. He’s playing with supreme confidence and the team is feeding him regularly. Bring all those fuckers on, I bet they can’t guard on the perimeter like he can.

Free Throws

Sims was 5-10 (which is his average, so okay), and everyone else was 23-26. Coleman was 6-6, AJ was 10-10, Febres was 4-4, the free throws kept Oklahoma State from having a real chance at mounting a late comeback.

Macro Level

This Moment

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@Bitterwhiteguy I just keep watching this

Texas basketball fans have been through a lot the last decade - we started the PWF podcast in the 11-22 season! - and there have been plenty of moments where the fans felt like it was time for Shaka to go. I penned an article to that effect myself ~14 months ago, so I’m complicit in this. If world events were different or his contract was different, he’s probably gone by now. He’s had growing pains as he adjusted to high-major basketball and it involved a lot of bumps along the way, some self-inflicted and some not.

You know who never gave up on him? His players. They love him like a father, and they’re happier than anyone about this success. Read this response from Matt Coleman in the post-game interview:

Wescott Eberts @SBN_Wescott

Matt Coleman on what Shaka Smart has done at Texas.

They know. They all know. They read our tweets, they see the various recaps, they hear the Austin sports talk. They’ve been wanting to prove he’s figuring it out for years, and they finally have incontrovertible proof that he can get all of the plates spinning at once. There is a trophy heading back to Austin that will sit there as a rebuttal to all of us who doubted him, and they still have more chances to prove their case.

I don’t know what the future will bring, I don’t know if this year is a flash in the pan or the start of something special. This may be a one-off year, the exception that proves the rule. But that’s all the more reason to enjoy it, to savor every moment, because it’s here now and it is paying off in ways very few of us outside that locker room believed.

Texas just won its first conference tournament since the Longhorns beat Texas Tech in the SWC in 1995. Go celebrate like it may not happen for another 26 years, because none of us know when this will happen again.

(Theoretically) Upcoming Games:

(I’ll post something when the bracket is revealed.)

Please remember to check out Pretend We’re Football and/or our Twitter account. My next recap will come out after the last Texas game this weekend. Also, I have a Patreon if you want to tip me for tequila-related healthcare expenses.

Writing tunes provided by Gabriel & Dresden.