The Gap Year: Gonzaga
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Despite having it circled on my calendar, I honestly didn’t intend to write about this game. It was obviously the first big test for Texas and the first data point on how or if Texas had improved over last year, but there was no real plan for putting internet pen to internet paper. I’ve spent more energy watching Charleston than Texas to this point - you try finding CAA games on TV - and the offensive stats from the first two Longhorns games didn’t exactly lead me to believe this was going to be that noteworthy of a game in terms of changing perceptions, regardless of whether Texas won or lost.
The 99th Percentile
If you haven’t watched the game, you absolutely should. Don’t play on your phone while it’s going or anything, just sit and watch, because that performance from Texas is the type of performance you’ll see maybe a dozen times in your life. The top-5 opponent shot 47% from three, 50% from two, 71% from the line, grabbed 28% of their offensive rebound chances, and lost by damn near 20 points. The arena was raucous at a level the Drum rarely ever reached and was that rowdy for probably 35 of the 40 game minutes, the refs (mostly) kept their whistles in check, and the hoop looked like an ocean for the Longhorns. Just an all-around incredible scene, and it should be appreciated as such. That’s a 1%er game for Texas, and I’ve only come up with two games in the past ~14 years that compare in terms of burnt orange dominance over an opponent of that quality: Texas winning by 25 in the Phog in ‘21 & beating UNC in Jerry World in ‘09. Gonzaga mostly played well and it flatly did not matter, that game wasn’t in doubt after halftime. Enjoy that game, because it is a rare breed, and I don’t mean that as shade at Texas because there’s not a college fanbase on earth who should expect that kind of performance from their team all the time.
Ball Pressure
One of the reasons Fran Fraschilla gets a lot of good games to call is that he puts in the work beforehand; I’ve seen him at AAU tournaments, I know he visits practices regularly both before and during the season, and he’s got a ton of contacts in the business so he hears a lot of info even if he’s not there to see it himself. It pays off in games like last night, where he mentioned that the Texas ball pressure on Gonzaga’s guards was disrupting their offense before they could even initiate it. He was dead-on accurate, and it’s a point of vulnerability with this year’s Gonzaga squad; when your offense is reliant on a post presence playing the role of Bearded Jokic, denying him the ball does wonders for grinding the offense to a halt. Timme was able to reliably get good post position against just about everyone, but the guards were reliably unable to get him the ball and their guards aren’t good enough this year (more on this in a bit) to make Texas pay for being that aggressive at the point of attack. Texas correctly assumed Hickman, Bolton, & Smith couldn’t create on their own. (I think this was basically what Baylor did to them in the title game, but I’d have to go back and watch.) It was great scouting by Texas and Fran saw it immediately.
Shooting
My personal conspiracy theory that I’m going to hang onto until somebody pries it from my cold, dead hands is that Chris Beard went to a South Austin psychic in August and was told he gets 20 made threes every three games and it’s up to him to how they’re apportioned. There is no logical explanation I will accept on this matter, thank you for respecting my privacy. After two games against Northern Arizona & UT-RGV, Creighton comes to town, so I’m expecting Texas to go 2-14, 3-14, & 15-20 from three, respectively.
Texas came into the game 0-6 on guarded catch & shoot threes and left the game 6-15, so they were 6-9 on guarded catch & shoot threes against a team who had been allowing less than 30% from three coming into the game. That’s one sign of how uniquely great a performance this was, players with a lifetime sub-33% mark from deep were raining threes with a hand in their face. Tyrese Hunter is now shooting 40% from three on the year. STOP THE COUNT!
My one extremely minor complaint: Marcus Carr was basically radiating I’M GOING TO BE THAT GUY TONIGHT from the tip and they stopped going to him; he had 11 points in the first 14 minutes of the game and didn’t take another shot until 2:30 into the second half. From six minutes left in the first half to the end of the game, he was pretty quiet until the result was a given. When a guy like Carr is on - especially with how poorly he’s been shooting to start the season - you keep feeding him. Leave Assault Charge on the bench and keep your streaky shooter streaking.
Tempo
See how much fun running up the court is? Getting athletes into space is what this game should be about, and Texas did it. Please keep doing this; it will benefit the team and the fan viewing experience. Gonzaga’s transition defense is worse than their half-court defense, get them in transition and win a marginal gain. Plus, it’s more fun, and my steadfast opinion of “if it rules, you should do it” applies here.
Speaking of..
“What Kind of Pussy Shit is That”
A modest proposal for Texas and ‘The Corral’: free jorts to the first 500 students in line. Buy a thousand, get the first 500 students jorts that fit, donate the rest to a local shelter. You’re welcome.
Technical Fouls
Every tech called in this game was shit that they could have let slide; the most reasonable one was the Watson shove on Disu but given the amount of contact they let go in the paint all game, it probably should have been a no-call & a quick conversation with both players. Let Hickman chirp at the bench, and Allen didn’t flop. Doug Sirmons, man.
Gonzaga’s Got Flaws
Several writers I read have been quietly muttering that Gonzaga’s guards aren’t quite up to the standards they’ve had in recent years, and the two Bulldogs games I’ve watched bear this out. Hickman and Malachi Smith are good guards but neither will be confused with Jalen Suggs or Andrew Nembhard; Gonzaga’s backcourt is the basketball equivalent of a pitching staff with a bunch of good 2nd or 3rd in the rotation hurlers but no ace. They can run the offense and their natural talent will get them through a number of opponents on the schedule, but against guards like Hunter they are going to have problems. (Cason Wallace and John Calipari are watching this game film with lobster bibs on.) Because of this limitation, Timme is even more important to their success than ever, but because of this specific limitation it’s going to be harder to get him the damn ball than ever. There were what, 5 turnovers that were Gonzaga guards dribbling the ball off their own feet? Maybe that’s crowd noise impacting them, but probably half of the scoring margin was unforced errors by the Bulldogs. Somebody get those guards some rock climbing hand strength machines before they ruin the season.
I’m starting to wonder if Mark Few is falling into the trap Rick Barnes did, where his increased access to lottery talent later in his tenure starts screwing with his roster construction. As much as a player like Chet Holmgren or Suggs is an obvious take if they’re available, he built his program on the backs of really good college players who stayed for 3-4 years. It’s exceedingly hard to maintain the level of cohesion & execution that his systems require when you’re cycling through 1&D players regularly, and how he reacts (or doesn’t) to the increased turnover will likely define if the last 4-5 years of Gonzaga are their program’s peak they never regain, or this year is a temporary dip. I wouldn’t bet against Few…but I wouldn’t have bet against Barnes in 2011, either.
None of that takes anything away from what Texas accomplished last night; in March, this is a convincing win over a probably 2-3 seed on the tournament resume. It’s the type of win that gets Texas nudged over another team for a higher seed if the rest of the resumes are comparable. Playing good teams in November is good, beating good teams in November is better, pounding good teams in November is great.
Small sample sizes are fun, but can be misleading; for example, coming into the Gonzaga game, there were three Baylor players who had each made more threes than Texas had as a team. Or this: is Texas the team who shot 19% from three their first two games, the team who shot 44% in the first half of this game, or the team who shot 35% in the second half? Point being, it’s still early and there’s a fair amount of progression & regression ahead for Texas. We can worry about that later, last night and today is a day for enjoying what was one of the best Texas basketball experiences of the last 20 years. Also a PS5 & God of War: Ragnarok is arriving at the house this afternoon, so let’s shelve any concerns and get to killing some gods already. Texas has killed their quota this week.
Great writeup (as always)! A few random thoughts:
1. I went to the game, and it was the loudest Texas game I've been to (been going for about 33 years (yikes)). It actually feels like Moody is a place where the crowd can affect the game, in a way the Erwin Center never did.
2. I've heard coaches talk over the years about reducing turnovers, and it always sort of felt like just one of those things that coaches are supposed to say, along the lines of "we're going to play fast this year." But last night's game really showed (to me, anyway) how damaging turnovers can be. When I kept looking at the stats during the game, it seemed like Gonzaga was really keeping pace with Texas, or exceeding them, except for turnovers. And I guess it makes sense, since turnovers are simultaneously decreasing the shots one team is taking and (usually) increasing the number of shots the other team is taking, but this game was the starkest example I've seen.
3. One of the things I was most impressed with was that, even with a big lead, Texas (mostly) seemed to keep running their offense and defense. There wasn't a lot of plays where they got over excited and jacked up shots, or at least they didn't string a lot of those kind of bad plays together. Of course, it helps when your shots are going in--that makes everything look better.
Well, from an Arkansas perspective, that Texas wipe-out looks a bit better now.
I agree wit you your point about it being "exceedingly hard to maintain the level of cohesion & execution that his systems require when you’re cycling through 1&D players regularly" but I'd like to hear your take on what differentiates Few's systems from those of coaches who have done/are trying to do a similar integration of older players, transfers and 1&D's.
Coach K, for instance, did a good job of overlaying the 1 &D's, but for a couple decades before that, he had a much higher percentage of 2&D players than Few had.
Musselman may be a closer comparison when it comes to the caliber of players he's had at Nevada/Arkansas until the last couple years (inc. c/o 2023, when he's gotten more five star recruits recruits (5) at Arkansas than the previous 19 years combined.
Would be interested to know if you consider Muss' job of integration any easier since he had that professional basketball background in the G-League where he was constantly juggling the equivalent of in-season transfers.