Texas vs. Kentucky men's hoops game thread

[Alex Butler]

20 minutes ago, Jordan91 said:

They just don’t take men’s basketball seriously. 

Nope, but I do think Miller is a good coach and will do good things here. He just won’t have the NIL budget and will have to take the IU money ball model and apply it here. 

[LonghornFan4Ever]

2 minutes ago, Alex Butler said:

Nope, but I do think Miller is a good coach and will do good things here. He just won’t have the NIL budget and will have to take the IU money ball model and apply it here. 

Agreed and IU even with all their success under Cig, is still a basketball school at heart.

[Jordan91]

3 minutes ago, Alex Butler said:

Nope, but I do think Miller is a good coach and will do good things here. He just won’t have the NIL budget and will have to take the IU money ball model and apply it here. 

I can’t go through another portal of Wilcher, Heide and Traore. 

[Jordan91]

[ChanmanV]

Once again defending the pick and roll killed us. We probably had 15+ fouls that results from trying to defend the PnR with Matas/Traore and Pope/Wilcher. 

Simeon Wilcher's +/- has got to be awful this season. He's a liability on defense and hasn't scored much for this team. I get Heide was sick but playing Wilcher a lot of minutes is not a recipe for success.

Matas has to capitalize on some of those bunnies he missed in the 2nd half. That was the difference in the game. Swain was great but Pope was gun shy all night. 

[Sundancekid]

Doesn’t KD have some eligibility left? I want to win the Natty this year.

[Dylan J]

Beyond frustrating loss… didn’t get enough from pope tonight..,

too many second chances for Kentucky!

 

swain and weaver were really good but outside of those no one else was consistent enough to win… 

 

hookem🤘

[LonghornFan4Ever]

Just now, Dylan J said:

Beyond frustrating loss… didn’t get enough from pope tonight..,

too many second chances for Kentucky!

 

swain and weaver were really good but outside of those no one else was consistent enough to win… 

 

hookem🤘

They got enough from Pope, just the wrong one.

[davisxcole]

1 hour ago, Jordan91 said:

Maybe we can sign some former players with eligibility left who played NBA ball. Apparently that’s legal now. 

So ridiculous 

[Jordan91]

12 minutes ago, ChanmanV said:

Once again defending the pick and roll killed us. We probably had 15+ fouls that results from trying to defend the PnR with Matas/Traore and Pope/Wilcher. 

Simeon Wilcher's +/- has got to be awful this season. He's a liability on defense and hasn't scored much for this team. I get Heide was sick but playing Wilcher a lot of minutes is not a recipe for success.

Matas has to capitalize on some of those bunnies he missed in the 2nd half. That was the difference in the game. Swain was great but Pope was gun shy all night. 

Matas was shut down because he played against an athletic big that was basically the same height as him. The only threes were hit by Swain. 

[ChanmanV]

27 minutes ago, Jordan91 said:

Matas was shut down because he played against an athletic big that was basically the same height as him. The only threes were hit by Swain. 

The Kentucky guy had a couple blocks on him but there were a number of times he had the guy pinned down or had the jump hook and just missed some easy shots.  You have convert on those or draw a foul when you have the position which he did neither.

[Jordan91]

Just now, ChanmanV said:

The Kentucky guy had a couple blocks on him but there were a number of times he had the guy pinned down or had the jump hook and just missed some easy shots.  You have convert on those or draw a foul when you have the position which he did neither.

He definitely missed some close ones but that’s Matas issue going forward. He’s not athletic and players with height and athleticism will give him trouble going forward. However he did get dominated by a player five inches shorter than him last game, so maybe all defenders bother him. 

[MBHORNSFAN]

12 hours ago, Alex Butler said:

Nope, but I do think Miller is a good coach and will do good things here. He just won’t have the NIL budget and will have to take the IU money ball model and apply it here. 

 

Kentucky spent 22 million on their current roster and they look very mid.

[LonghornFan4Ever]

I'm not giving up on Texas men's basketball just because they're a football first school.  There are too many football schools that have made Final Fours and won natties for me to believe Texas can't be good at men's basketball.  Likewise, we just saw a basketball school win a natty in football.  That showed me right there in the NIL + Rev Share + Transfer Portal era that your past history is irrelevant to today's version of college athletics.  I'm not expecting the program to ever be a Duke or UConn but be a Florida, Michigan, Houston, etc.

Programs like that are obviously football first but have had really good basketball teams at times over the course of their history.  Look at Nebraska basketball this season.  Obviously not a basketball school, but Fred Hoiberg has done a great job of turning that program around.  We'll see if he can get them to the Elite Eight or better in a few months.  Texas can do this.  I believe in Sean Miller and CDC.

Edited 2 hours ago by LonghornFan4Ever

[ChanmanV]

14 hours ago, Jordan91 said:

He definitely missed some close ones but that’s Matas issue going forward. He’s not athletic and players with height and athleticism will give him trouble going forward. However he did get dominated by a player five inches shorter than him last game, so maybe all defenders bother him. 

I disagree that he's not athletic, but yes there will be more athletic defenders that will give him problems. His issue is he's strong but he doesn't know how to use that strength with good footwork. His footwork is awful right now. That's why he travels so much when he throws his shoulder into the chest of the defender. If he just worked on mastering a strong drop step, he would be so much more dangerous. 

Same goes for defense. His footwork is just awful and always puts him in a bad position which usually results in a foul. He's still got a lot of development to undergo. 

Edited 1 hour ago by ChanmanV

[Jordan91]

1 hour ago, ChanmanV said:

I disagree that he's not athletic, but yes there will be more athletic defenders that will give him problems. His issue is he's strong but he doesn't know how to use that strength with good footwork. His footwork is awful right now. That's why he travels so much when he throws his shoulder into the chest of the defender. If he just worked on mastering a strong drop step, he would be so much more dangerous. 

Same goes for defense. His footwork is just awful and always puts him in a bad position which usually results in a foul. He's still got a lot of development to undergo. 

Completely agree.