With heavy hearts after an unimaginably emotional 24-hour stretch, the Longhorns (11-5, 2-2) took the floor determined to fight for something more than themselves. They took the floor ready to fight for their teammate Andrew Jones, who is currently in the early stages of his battle against leukemia. And while the shorthanded Longhorns, who were without Kerwin Roach II (broken bone in his left hand) as well, had to fight through some of their consistent flaws, their resolve was undeniable for all 48 minutes.
Then, just as it looked like they’d suffer another heartbreak, the Longhorns received a break. Finally.
“Well, we got some real help from someone when that ball didn’t go in because obviously that’s the difference in the game,” said Shaka Smart.
TCU guard Jaylen Fisher’s layup to beat the buzzer somehow didn’t go down, and Texas beat the No. 16 Horned Frogs 99-98 in double overtime.
“First thing I want to say is, I'm really appreciative of people that reached out and sent their prayers and well wishes for (guard) Andrew (Jones) around the country. We're going to need a great deal of that; he's obviously just starting his fight. There's nobody I know that's a stronger fighter than him,” Smart said to open his postgame press conference. “All game long I was thinking about him and what he would say to the guys, to our team, and I'm really proud of the way that our guys followed an approach and a mindset of playing for each other and playing for Andrew. We had a very important ‘why.”
Here are 10 postgame thoughts:
1) The scene after Fisher’s layup missed at the Erwin Center was as emotional of a one as I’ve covered. During the Eyes of Texas, Dylan Osetkowski and Eric Davis, Jr. held Andrew Jones’s jersey, which was at the UT bench all game, and as he walked off the floor into the tunnel, Royce Hamm, Jr. carried the No. 1 jersey triumphantly in the air as Texas fans showered him with standing applause.
“I think an emotional rollercoaster,” responded Osetkoski when asked to describe today. “I think everyone left everything they could on the line tonight for one reason and that was a big win for us.”
Smart hugged Davis near midcourt as the UT head coach couldn’t fight back tears.
“It was just an amazing feeling. TCU is a great team. We battled and it was a dog fight. As you know, we have a situation going on with our team, so it was an emotional game for us. From that standpoint, we really needed this win and also because we were 1-2 in the conference coming into the game. Coach Smart and I have been through a lot. Ups and downs. Highs and lows,” Davis said about the postgame moment. “It was a good win and we just have to keep it going.
Yeah, the Longhorns really needed to beat TCU (13-3, 1-3). But tonight was so much more than basketball. It was about a group of people coming together and playing for something bigger than a game. Even without two of their best players against a favored, desperate, deeper, more experienced team, Texas was going to find a way.
“We said in the huddle during every timeout that we're going to win this game and we found a way,” said Matt Coleman.
Entering the game, Smart had no idea how his team would react after a very emotional meeting last night when he broke the news of the diagnosis. He got his answer, and it was a good one.
“I had no idea … we had a meeting last night in the dorm and at that point we told our guys what the diagnosis was. Leaving that meeting, we had guys that weren't just in tears, they were wailing, so I said, ‘We just have to support these guys and be there for them,’ and we didn't really know what was going to happen today,” the Texas head coach said. “When the coaches left the room, they all got together and the said, ‘We gotta win this game for Andrew, we have to play for him.’ That was their approach and that's a big part of why we won.”
2) The Longhorns, after a very impressive first half that gave them a 43-33 lead at halftime, were tested in nearly every way imaginable. After inexplicably failing to again close out with the urgency and quickness required to get Kenrich Williams, who hit 7-of-11 three-pointers, off the perimeter, Matt Coleman immediately answered with a tough, mid-range jumper out of an ugly offensive set to put Texas ahead 74-73 with 2:08 left. Then following a stop, Davis’s three-pointer put the Longhorns ahead 77-73 with 1:07 left, but a horrendous call on Coleman, which stopped a steal and fastbreak the other way as he played the big man down low perfectly to invite a post-entry feed, gave TCU two free throws to make it 77-75. Texas turned it over. Vlad Brodziansky made a layup off a drive-and-dish that looked too easy to tie the game and force overtime.
That wasn’t all the adversity, though.
It was Williams again burying a three-pointer to put TCU in front 85-81 with 2:10 remaining in the second overtime. However, Texas responded by working the ball inside to Osetkowski. Davis then made a tough bucket to cut the TCU advantage to 86-85. After Alex Robinson found out the hard way what happens when a guard tries to drive at Mohamed Bamba after a switch, Texas called a timeout with a chance to play for the last shot. Davis, after the break, intelligently drove at a big man in a switch, and kicked to Osetkowski in the corner, who nailed the open three-pointer. Texas led 88-86 with just over eight seconds left.
“I think I can speak for everybody up here and say that it didn't matter how long it was going to take. We just wanted to get out with a win. 49 minutes. 55 minutes. It didn't matter,” said Osetkowski.
Then, Brodziansky calmly, like he was in an empty TCU practice gym, made a mid-range jumper just before the buzzer to force double overtime.
That wasn’t all the adversity, though.
Early in the second overtime, Bamba fouled out, and Texas’s defense was already struggling mightily throughout the game when he wasn’t on the floor. Down 94-90 and without Bamba, it was again the duo of Davis and Osetkowski that tied the game. Another TCU layup, two more Osetkowski free throws to make it 96-96; Fisher makes two free throws, Coleman responds by splitting the ball-screen defense to make a nifty layup to make it 98-98.
3) The play of the game, though, wasn’t Fisher’s missed layup. Okay, it was. But just as important was the play Davis made to fight for a rebound right before that off a missed jumper. It was a play all too familiar to Davis, but for the wrong reasons. This time, he wasn’t going to be denied.
“No,” said Davis when asked if there was any chance he was going to let TCU get that rebound. “Last year, I had the same situation happen. Same guy, actually. He got the rebound, and that was the deciding factor. I was watching film, and coach kept playing it, and I really didn’t get it until the game realizing it’s me and him; it’s a battle. I wanted it. I didn’t want a repeat of last year. It was a crucial moment and that’s what the team needed me to do.”
Davis was alert enough to pass the ball to an open Jericho Sims, who was fouled and stepped up to the line as a 39.3 percent free throw shooter. He made the first, and missed the second.
“When he got fouled, I started thinking about all the extra work he’s put into his free throws,” stated Smart. “And I just said, ‘Man, I hope that pays off.’ Sometimes it does, sometimes it doesn’t. But for him to make one out of two, we’ll take that.”
But on a night when Texas was playing for No. 1 in burnt orange, one point was enough as the 99-98 score and one-point advantage would stand. How appropriate.
4) In 49 minutes, Coleman finished with 17 points on 6-of-10 shooting (0-of-3 from three-point range and 5-of-6 at the free throw line), 12 assists, three steals, and five turnovers. Describing the freshman point guard from Virginia as a high-usage player doesn’t do his performance justice. Basically, he, especially for the first 35 minutes of the game, was Texas’s offense. And he also had to chase around two of the best playmaking guards in the league, and maybe the fastest in Fisher.
So yeah, he got tired some to end regulation and in the two overtimes. But he kept plugging away, and there wasn’t a better playmaker on the court.
“A lot that went into it was playing for something bigger than myself. For Texas, it’s bigger than basketball right now due to our teammate,” the freshman point guard said.
Early in the game, Coleman repeatedly darted around the floor ripping loose balls away from TCU players, and getting into the paint to throw lobs to teammates, including at least three to Sims. His coach wanted him to play with more joy, and Coleman responded by flying around and making plays with a big smile on his face.
“That’s the guy we recruited,” said Smart.
5) Perhaps the key strategy moment of the game came when TCU elected late to get out of its zone defense and begin to play man-to-man. The Longhorns, late in the second half and throughout parts of overtime, really struggled against TCU’s zone defense, and needed to bailed out by made jumpers late in the clock. When TCU went man-to-man, it allowed Texas to work the ball inside to Osetkowski.
The redshirt junior went to work with 10 of his 20 points coming in the overtimes. Even as Osetkowski began to establish he was going to be too much to handle near the low block, TCU didn’t double-team him. He finished 5-of-10 from the floor, 9-of-11 from the line and scored 18 points after halftime.
Did Texas get the ball inside to him when TCU went man enough? No. But it did it enough to make TCU pay for questionable strategy.
6) In 41 minutes, Davis scored a career-high 22 points on 8-of-15 shooting (4-of-9 from three-point range and 2-of-2 from the free throw line) with three rebounds, one assist, and one turnover. He stepped up.
In 41 minutes, Sims scored 14 points on 6-of-8 shooting (2-of-6 from the free throw line) with six rebounds, four turnovers, and one block. He stepped up, and, maybe more importantly, grew up in a huge way after watching his classmate Jase Febres do the same in Waco.
“I think that after the Baylor game, even though we took a loss, it was a big step for me. This game, playing 41 minutes, was an even greater step,” Sims said about his performance against TCU. “Like Matt said, we were just out there trying to play for someone who couldn't be with us.”
As for Febres, he started red-hot from three-point range, but finished with eight points in 30 minutes. However, he made multiple standout plays with his effort on the glass and his alertness.
In a game that, literally, was decided by one point, consider this: Febres, after a mistake when Texas led 62-52, sprinted down the floor to chase down a breakaway layup and followed Williams, who made 1-of-2 instead of getting an easy dunk.
Jacob Young played just nine minutes but provided a key spark in the second half with a three-pointer followed by a drive-and-dish to Osetkowski for a make with the foul.
7) TCU, one of the best offenses in the country, scored 1.18 points per possession and after a sluggish first half it had its way with Texas. While Bamba, who finished with 10 points on 4-of-6 shooting with nine rebounds, five blocks, one assist and two turnovers, bounced in and out of the game with foul trouble and his aggressiveness fluctuated as a result of that, TCU capitalized by driving at Texas repeatedly. Plus, not having Roach, Texas’s best on-ball defender around the perimeter, really stung as well.
So, it’s tough to blast Texas’s defense, but through Big 12 plays it’s still not performing at the way it needs to, especially in defending dribble-drive, ball-screens, and having the urgency required to closeout on shooters aggressively.
8) Offensively, Texas began the game with perhaps its best stretch on that side of the ball all season. Of course, the Longhorns fell into stretches where they dribbled and passed around the perimeter without structure and movement. However, they played to their strengths enough, made shots, got to the free throw line, and scored 1.19 points per possession, which is one of their best outputs of the season.
While the Longhorns still have too much freedom and not enough forced organization in the half-court, what we saw tonight is what they look like near their best – attacking, pushing pace, making the drive-and-dish inside and out, and shooting with confidence.
Texas finished 56.7 percent from the floor, 75.9 percent from the free throw line (22-of-29), an outstanding 75.8 percent on two-point shots, and 33.3 percent from three-point range (9-of-27).
9) Considering the way this game played out, would Texas have been able to recover if Fisher’s layup went in? Not just for the upcoming road game, but for the season. It would have been the ultimate soul-crushing, gut-punch loss imaginable.
10) This weekend, Texas plays at Oklahoma State on Saturday. The Cowboys lost 86-82 at Kansas State tonight, and are 1-3 in the league with the lone win coming against Iowa State in overtime.
Then, just as it looked like they’d suffer another heartbreak, the Longhorns received a break. Finally.
“Well, we got some real help from someone when that ball didn’t go in because obviously that’s the difference in the game,” said Shaka Smart.
TCU guard Jaylen Fisher’s layup to beat the buzzer somehow didn’t go down, and Texas beat the No. 16 Horned Frogs 99-98 in double overtime.
“First thing I want to say is, I'm really appreciative of people that reached out and sent their prayers and well wishes for (guard) Andrew (Jones) around the country. We're going to need a great deal of that; he's obviously just starting his fight. There's nobody I know that's a stronger fighter than him,” Smart said to open his postgame press conference. “All game long I was thinking about him and what he would say to the guys, to our team, and I'm really proud of the way that our guys followed an approach and a mindset of playing for each other and playing for Andrew. We had a very important ‘why.”
Here are 10 postgame thoughts:
1) The scene after Fisher’s layup missed at the Erwin Center was as emotional of a one as I’ve covered. During the Eyes of Texas, Dylan Osetkowski and Eric Davis, Jr. held Andrew Jones’s jersey, which was at the UT bench all game, and as he walked off the floor into the tunnel, Royce Hamm, Jr. carried the No. 1 jersey triumphantly in the air as Texas fans showered him with standing applause.
“I think an emotional rollercoaster,” responded Osetkoski when asked to describe today. “I think everyone left everything they could on the line tonight for one reason and that was a big win for us.”
Smart hugged Davis near midcourt as the UT head coach couldn’t fight back tears.
“It was just an amazing feeling. TCU is a great team. We battled and it was a dog fight. As you know, we have a situation going on with our team, so it was an emotional game for us. From that standpoint, we really needed this win and also because we were 1-2 in the conference coming into the game. Coach Smart and I have been through a lot. Ups and downs. Highs and lows,” Davis said about the postgame moment. “It was a good win and we just have to keep it going.
Yeah, the Longhorns really needed to beat TCU (13-3, 1-3). But tonight was so much more than basketball. It was about a group of people coming together and playing for something bigger than a game. Even without two of their best players against a favored, desperate, deeper, more experienced team, Texas was going to find a way.
“We said in the huddle during every timeout that we're going to win this game and we found a way,” said Matt Coleman.
Entering the game, Smart had no idea how his team would react after a very emotional meeting last night when he broke the news of the diagnosis. He got his answer, and it was a good one.
“I had no idea … we had a meeting last night in the dorm and at that point we told our guys what the diagnosis was. Leaving that meeting, we had guys that weren't just in tears, they were wailing, so I said, ‘We just have to support these guys and be there for them,’ and we didn't really know what was going to happen today,” the Texas head coach said. “When the coaches left the room, they all got together and the said, ‘We gotta win this game for Andrew, we have to play for him.’ That was their approach and that's a big part of why we won.”
2) The Longhorns, after a very impressive first half that gave them a 43-33 lead at halftime, were tested in nearly every way imaginable. After inexplicably failing to again close out with the urgency and quickness required to get Kenrich Williams, who hit 7-of-11 three-pointers, off the perimeter, Matt Coleman immediately answered with a tough, mid-range jumper out of an ugly offensive set to put Texas ahead 74-73 with 2:08 left. Then following a stop, Davis’s three-pointer put the Longhorns ahead 77-73 with 1:07 left, but a horrendous call on Coleman, which stopped a steal and fastbreak the other way as he played the big man down low perfectly to invite a post-entry feed, gave TCU two free throws to make it 77-75. Texas turned it over. Vlad Brodziansky made a layup off a drive-and-dish that looked too easy to tie the game and force overtime.
That wasn’t all the adversity, though.
It was Williams again burying a three-pointer to put TCU in front 85-81 with 2:10 remaining in the second overtime. However, Texas responded by working the ball inside to Osetkowski. Davis then made a tough bucket to cut the TCU advantage to 86-85. After Alex Robinson found out the hard way what happens when a guard tries to drive at Mohamed Bamba after a switch, Texas called a timeout with a chance to play for the last shot. Davis, after the break, intelligently drove at a big man in a switch, and kicked to Osetkowski in the corner, who nailed the open three-pointer. Texas led 88-86 with just over eight seconds left.
“I think I can speak for everybody up here and say that it didn't matter how long it was going to take. We just wanted to get out with a win. 49 minutes. 55 minutes. It didn't matter,” said Osetkowski.
Then, Brodziansky calmly, like he was in an empty TCU practice gym, made a mid-range jumper just before the buzzer to force double overtime.
That wasn’t all the adversity, though.
Early in the second overtime, Bamba fouled out, and Texas’s defense was already struggling mightily throughout the game when he wasn’t on the floor. Down 94-90 and without Bamba, it was again the duo of Davis and Osetkowski that tied the game. Another TCU layup, two more Osetkowski free throws to make it 96-96; Fisher makes two free throws, Coleman responds by splitting the ball-screen defense to make a nifty layup to make it 98-98.
3) The play of the game, though, wasn’t Fisher’s missed layup. Okay, it was. But just as important was the play Davis made to fight for a rebound right before that off a missed jumper. It was a play all too familiar to Davis, but for the wrong reasons. This time, he wasn’t going to be denied.
“No,” said Davis when asked if there was any chance he was going to let TCU get that rebound. “Last year, I had the same situation happen. Same guy, actually. He got the rebound, and that was the deciding factor. I was watching film, and coach kept playing it, and I really didn’t get it until the game realizing it’s me and him; it’s a battle. I wanted it. I didn’t want a repeat of last year. It was a crucial moment and that’s what the team needed me to do.”
Davis was alert enough to pass the ball to an open Jericho Sims, who was fouled and stepped up to the line as a 39.3 percent free throw shooter. He made the first, and missed the second.
“When he got fouled, I started thinking about all the extra work he’s put into his free throws,” stated Smart. “And I just said, ‘Man, I hope that pays off.’ Sometimes it does, sometimes it doesn’t. But for him to make one out of two, we’ll take that.”
But on a night when Texas was playing for No. 1 in burnt orange, one point was enough as the 99-98 score and one-point advantage would stand. How appropriate.
4) In 49 minutes, Coleman finished with 17 points on 6-of-10 shooting (0-of-3 from three-point range and 5-of-6 at the free throw line), 12 assists, three steals, and five turnovers. Describing the freshman point guard from Virginia as a high-usage player doesn’t do his performance justice. Basically, he, especially for the first 35 minutes of the game, was Texas’s offense. And he also had to chase around two of the best playmaking guards in the league, and maybe the fastest in Fisher.
So yeah, he got tired some to end regulation and in the two overtimes. But he kept plugging away, and there wasn’t a better playmaker on the court.
“A lot that went into it was playing for something bigger than myself. For Texas, it’s bigger than basketball right now due to our teammate,” the freshman point guard said.
Early in the game, Coleman repeatedly darted around the floor ripping loose balls away from TCU players, and getting into the paint to throw lobs to teammates, including at least three to Sims. His coach wanted him to play with more joy, and Coleman responded by flying around and making plays with a big smile on his face.
“That’s the guy we recruited,” said Smart.
5) Perhaps the key strategy moment of the game came when TCU elected late to get out of its zone defense and begin to play man-to-man. The Longhorns, late in the second half and throughout parts of overtime, really struggled against TCU’s zone defense, and needed to bailed out by made jumpers late in the clock. When TCU went man-to-man, it allowed Texas to work the ball inside to Osetkowski.
The redshirt junior went to work with 10 of his 20 points coming in the overtimes. Even as Osetkowski began to establish he was going to be too much to handle near the low block, TCU didn’t double-team him. He finished 5-of-10 from the floor, 9-of-11 from the line and scored 18 points after halftime.
Did Texas get the ball inside to him when TCU went man enough? No. But it did it enough to make TCU pay for questionable strategy.
6) In 41 minutes, Davis scored a career-high 22 points on 8-of-15 shooting (4-of-9 from three-point range and 2-of-2 from the free throw line) with three rebounds, one assist, and one turnover. He stepped up.
In 41 minutes, Sims scored 14 points on 6-of-8 shooting (2-of-6 from the free throw line) with six rebounds, four turnovers, and one block. He stepped up, and, maybe more importantly, grew up in a huge way after watching his classmate Jase Febres do the same in Waco.
“I think that after the Baylor game, even though we took a loss, it was a big step for me. This game, playing 41 minutes, was an even greater step,” Sims said about his performance against TCU. “Like Matt said, we were just out there trying to play for someone who couldn't be with us.”
As for Febres, he started red-hot from three-point range, but finished with eight points in 30 minutes. However, he made multiple standout plays with his effort on the glass and his alertness.
In a game that, literally, was decided by one point, consider this: Febres, after a mistake when Texas led 62-52, sprinted down the floor to chase down a breakaway layup and followed Williams, who made 1-of-2 instead of getting an easy dunk.
Jacob Young played just nine minutes but provided a key spark in the second half with a three-pointer followed by a drive-and-dish to Osetkowski for a make with the foul.
7) TCU, one of the best offenses in the country, scored 1.18 points per possession and after a sluggish first half it had its way with Texas. While Bamba, who finished with 10 points on 4-of-6 shooting with nine rebounds, five blocks, one assist and two turnovers, bounced in and out of the game with foul trouble and his aggressiveness fluctuated as a result of that, TCU capitalized by driving at Texas repeatedly. Plus, not having Roach, Texas’s best on-ball defender around the perimeter, really stung as well.
So, it’s tough to blast Texas’s defense, but through Big 12 plays it’s still not performing at the way it needs to, especially in defending dribble-drive, ball-screens, and having the urgency required to closeout on shooters aggressively.
8) Offensively, Texas began the game with perhaps its best stretch on that side of the ball all season. Of course, the Longhorns fell into stretches where they dribbled and passed around the perimeter without structure and movement. However, they played to their strengths enough, made shots, got to the free throw line, and scored 1.19 points per possession, which is one of their best outputs of the season.
While the Longhorns still have too much freedom and not enough forced organization in the half-court, what we saw tonight is what they look like near their best – attacking, pushing pace, making the drive-and-dish inside and out, and shooting with confidence.
Texas finished 56.7 percent from the floor, 75.9 percent from the free throw line (22-of-29), an outstanding 75.8 percent on two-point shots, and 33.3 percent from three-point range (9-of-27).
9) Considering the way this game played out, would Texas have been able to recover if Fisher’s layup went in? Not just for the upcoming road game, but for the season. It would have been the ultimate soul-crushing, gut-punch loss imaginable.
10) This weekend, Texas plays at Oklahoma State on Saturday. The Cowboys lost 86-82 at Kansas State tonight, and are 1-3 in the league with the lone win coming against Iowa State in overtime.
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