Texas hits the century mark in 100-72 win over Louisiana
On what can only, assuredly, be called an otherwise unnoteworthy day, nay week, on the 40 Acres, the Longhorns basketball team played what will likely be one of their most efficient offensive games of the season as they ran away from the Ragin’ Cajuns in Austin on Wednesday night.
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The Longhorns shot blistering splits of 58/54/94%, stretched the lead to 57-35 at the half and never looked back on the way to a 100-72 win.
To the thoughts!
- We’ll get to Arterio in a minute, I promise, but this was a fantastic example of what this team can be when their offensive identity is ball movement. Texas made their first six catch and shoot threes. They assisted on 23 of their 36 made field goals. They had six players attempt six or more field goals. Awesome stuff.
- Okay, that was long enough. If it felt like we were all waiting for Arterio Morris’ coming out party, it’s because we all were. Arterio Morris, meet the world. World, Arterio. For reasons that seem relatively obvious (young player on a veteran team with three guards who have all been through the gauntlet as college players), Arterio spent the first month-plus playing a role of deference for this team, offensively. Tonight was the Morris many thought/hoped would be the one coming to Austin. He was money from three (5-7). He moved well away from the ball. He did a good job keeping his composure off the bounce. He even wowed the crowd with an athletic dunk off an inbounds play. His up and down play will continue, but it’s exciting to see what he’s capable of.
- I alluded to it earlier, but Texas was excellent in their ball movement tonight. To that effect, of the Longhorns’ 27 points within the first 10 minutes of the game, only two came in isolation looks off the dribble. From God’s mouth to my ears… that’s the kind version.
- This is the less kind version…this team (save for Hunter, Rice and Morris) need to follow the “two dribble” rule. EVERYBODY else, Carr and Allen, especially, need to limit their dribble amounts to two or less in their half-court looks. We are so much better when the ball is moving quickly in our sets. It’s just no comparison. So, stop dribbling, Marcus. Stop dribbling, Timmy. Stop dribbling, Christian. All of you should be able to get to your spots in two dribbles or less. If you can’t, pass the ball and get in to a better position off the catch next time.
- Our rim protection is below average. Both Disu (hopefully he’s okay) and Bishop will work hard and can bang in one-on-one situations, but we don’t have anybody who can block/contest with great timing and reach against the best teams we’ll play. It is what it is. Now, the bigger question will be how we can gameplan around that.
- One way we did that tonight (and have done so a decent amount this year) is by intelligent timing with our swarming on post entries. Louisiana’s Brown is a solid player. Strong, intelligent, skilled. But we were disciplined in our ability to force him to spin away from the basket and then attacked with a third defender immediately on his pivot. I love that look, and Rice/Hunter/Morris do that very well.
- One more *ahem* throwaway game against Texas A&M Commercial Realtors (or something) before conference play. I’m not sure we have the interior game to make the kind of noise we’d all like this year, but when we play like this offensively, we can be awesome.
- Here’s to being awesome.
Thanks for reading, friends.
