MarkInAustin

I will not be quick to dismiss TT. As obviously weird as it would be for normal humans to voluntarily spend a year or more out of a finite lifetime in Lubbock, Tech itself is a comparative oasis in churchy sand land. But this is not volunteer work, it is highly compensated by oil and gas money, and could soon make TT a playoff contender. The road through the B12 to the playoffs has been eased by the realignment. Ultimately Okie Lite, Baylor, TCU, Houston and the rest will have to match TT's aggressiveness in NIL. Can the Kansas schools, Iowa St., the mountain schools and the desert brothers keep up with the oil money? Another road has opened for successful recruiting, BTW. Diego Pavia gets another year of eligibility because JUCO guys now get two years in college to match the two spent in JUCO, as I understood the ruling. So JUCO development is now a freebie and JUCO farm systems like K St used to have will now become relevant again. 21 YO JUCO transfers probably will not demand the same level of NIL while still retaining lots of eligibility. We shall see.

Texas simply does not have a gaping hole at WR. Any take there is a luxury item, compared with DT, considering the top returnees and the freshmen recruits. Which leads me to this question: we see that Savea is welcomed to play in the Champ games - would he be welcomed back out of the portal, as well?

57-21 at the half. Rory made more difference on defense in that LaSalle went scoreless for several minutes simply because Harmon stole the ball or disrupted repeatedly. They are ridiculously overmatched against LaSalle and I am shutting this down on my end. Good night y'all.

Very pretty feed Moore to Holle running baseline.

Rory went out with team up 32-12. We shall see if LaSalle cuts the margin. Vic is either perpetually unhappy or has a gastirc ulcer.

Texas is playing LaSalle. As I post this, there are 9 min to go in the second quarter. Texas is leading 24-12. The only remark I would have about this game so far is that Texas is much better on offense AND defense with Harmon in the game. She is the essence of PG on O and pest on D.

I suppose it is obvious that Texas must execute better in the half court offense. In fact, RT called the team on it after UCONN. Now IMO UCONN is really well coached, up there with the best coached teams of recent years. They run their offense patiently and crisply and either find a back door cut or an open three. Very smooth, have been against everyone for three seasons now. Also IMO RT is a good coach. Not in Hurley's class, but as Jordan has iterated and reiterated Texas did not have that class of coach available to it. I think RT is better than the the two coaches since RB left. I think he has a good staff and recruits well. I think he teaches fundamentals and with a willing audience that has worked together for awhile he gets good results. Some have pointed to his overall record as a negative, but in fact he improved every program he joined, quite noticeably. The one real possibility that Texas could have as RT approaches or passes 60 YO is a young up and coming coach. We tried that after RB and it did not work out. But we are not coaxing Coach K our of retirement, or Wright, or stealing Hurley. If you are a critic of RT and actually think you know something about basketball watch a lot of games and find us a young up and coming coach who has led his guys to play complementary ball together for four or five consecutive seasons. Don't whine, educate yourselves and the rest of us.

I think Texas will exceed that prediction, but I don't know by how much. It will depend on injury and recovery. The full complement of eight rotational players has not been available yet. Some of the developmental guys have got some run against the little sisters of the poor, so that a little alternate depth is being created. In the last two games there have been assists, a word that was previously missing. The team has played defense well enough to beat two probable Q1 teams. The offense has only proven complementary against the last two opponents, who put up less resistance than wet papier mache.

Gerry, your take on the two?

Terrible news.

I don't like Vinson's demeanor at all in this game.

I have no problem with Shedrick on an open fast break but that looked like either a discontinued or double dribble. I don't think they call those tightly any more.

Pryor trey

Please keep posting for those of us who do not have access to ESPN+. Is the entire UT squad healthy?

In car appreciating your commentary. Thanx.