In a battle of top six teams, the No. 6 Longhorns (11-4, 5-3) had long stretches' of the game when they looked the part and went shot-for-shot with No. 2 Baylor (17-0, 9-0). As Texas had momentary lapses and ran out of gas late, Baylor's elite consistency reinforced a clear message: it is the class of the Big 12 after a 83-69 win in Austin. Here are 10 postgame thoughts:
1) The Longhorns biggest issue tonight: Baylor is simply better than them. On a night when Texas had a B- performance, Baylor, unquestionably in a college hoops tier of its own with Gonzaga, delivered an unflappable A-grade effort.
Texas fought. It competed. And UT took the floor in the second half intent on delivering a loud message, which it did. But Baylor kept making shots, and kept playing better, more aggressive defense than its counterparts. When the Longhorns ran out of gas late in the second half, a relentless, elite basketball team was ready to pounce.
“Just tip of the hat to Baylor and the way that they attacked, particularly after we took the lead in the second half. I thought our guys did a terrific job coming out of halftime that four or five-minute stretch for us. That's how you have to be. But that's how you have to be over 40 minutes. And Baylor makes it tough for sure. I don't know if I remember a game between two highly ranked teams where both team shot that well from the field. But obviously a big difference there is that we turn the ball over 17 times. And we were 3-fo4-14 from the foul line. So, you just can't have those two things. In addition to some of the defensive breakdowns we had.”
Texas is not in Baylor’s tier. Only one other college basketball team is. The Longhorns are good, but Baylor is elite. Baylor never acted like it wasn't in total control of the game. While UT's poise and aggressiveness wavered, Baylor's was about as straight of a line as a college team's could be. That was the difference.
2) As it happened, I felt Adam Flagler’s key three-pointer was an early dagger. Davion Mitchell immediately followed one dagger with another. With 7:44 remaining, Courtney Ramey made a three-pointer to cut the Baylor lead to 65-59. Following a Baylor timeout, Texas defended well in the half-court.
But Flager hit a deep, standstill three before the clock could expire. Jericho Sims was then fouled. He missed both free throws as his struggles at the line continued. Mitchell, who was the best player on the floor and scored 27 points on 11-of-16 shooting (5-of-7 from three-point range), followed with another three. Suddenly, the Baylor lead was back up to 12.
“Moving forward, we have to be better, like, point blank,” said Andrew Jones about his team’s defense.
3) That sequence followed Greg Brown catching a body as he cut from the opposite corner, received a Jericho Sims pass, and threw down a vicious dunk on Jonathan Tchamwa Tchatchoua.
As you can see in the clip, Brown mean-mugged his victim for about three seconds as he began to backpedal down the court. Almost immediately, the freshman was whistled for a technical. Baylor promptly made both free throws and followed with a layup on the ensuing possession to push its lead back to 59-51.
I get it. Texas can’t afford to get a technical in that position, and especially against a team as good as Baylor. The Bears are good enough without any help. Smart said after the game it’s a teaching moment that can’t happen. Andrew Jones, basically, said the same and his young teammate has to avoid that. Again, I get it.
But we hear everyone talking about playing with emotion and aggressiveness. So, a guy can’t show a little after that dunk? These guys aren’t robots. That might have been the dunk of the year. And he gets a weak technical for staring at the defender after snatching his soul? There were some assaults happening on drives in the paint late in the second half that weren’t even whistled as common fouls. Brown didn’t even say a word. Heck, he didn’t have to.
The problem for Texas wasn’t the technical. Rather, the issue with Brown was he wasn’t nearly good enough for his team. He scored just five points, played only 19 minutes and somehow the guy who led the Big 12 in defensive rebounding percentage only grabbed one rebound. For both Brown and Kai Jones, the physicality of tonight’s game appeared to be a little too big for them.
“That's because those guys are still learning that a game like tonight the intensity level, the aggressiveness is another notch higher than maybe other games that we've had,” responded Smart when asked about the ineffectiveness of Brown and Jones. “And when those guys get the ball around the basket, they've got to find a way to go finish. Those guys have to put more of an imprint on the game on the offensive glass when they're in a game. We had eight offensive rebounds. Jericho and Andrew had five of them. Those other guys, they've got to go grab the ball.”
4) I don’t believe this game can be described only with the statistics, but certain ones do tell a lot of the story.
Field goal percentage
Texas: 54.9%
Baylor: 58.6%
Three-point shooting
Texas: 45.5%; 10-of-22
Baylor: 52.4% 11-of-21
Free throw shooting
Texas: 3-of-14
Baylor: 4-of-4
Turnovers
Texas: 17
Baylor: 12
Points off turnovers
Texas: 14
Baylor: 20
Baylor played with more poise and confidence on offense with better ball movement. On defense, it played with more aggressiveness; being the No. 1 team in the Big 12 in steal percentage definitely showed. Texas, despite long stretches of poor offense bailed out by great shot-making, shot the ball extremely well against a great defense. But it needed more possessions and more made free throws.
5) On a night when Texas again switched a lot of ball screen action around the perimeter and was intent on Sims defending guards, the senior big again answered the call with very impressive on-ball defense. And on a night when going after rebounds in the paint meant more contact than most Pac-12 football games, he had a game-high nine rebounds and tied a game-high with three offensive rebounds.
But man… the free throws are a major issue. Sims regressed even more at the line and finished 2-of-8 from the charity stripe; his confidence is heading in the wrong direction, which is a major problem for Texas because he has by far the highest free throw rate of anyone on the team. He works at them. I know he does. I’ve seen it after a recent loss. But Texas has to at least get 50% or better out of him. It’s a shame because he’s often been good or better defensively, on the glass, and is chipping in with some quality paint touches too.
6) Mitchell and Jared Butler scored 48 efficient points, and nearly outscored the trio of Jones, Matt Coleman and Courtney Ramey. The Texas trio scored 50 combined points led by Jones’s 25 on 10-of-16 shooting (4-of-9 from three-point range and 1-of-3 at the free throw line).
But Coleman in particular was bothered by the physicality and aggressiveness of Baylor’s guards, which resulted in five turnovers including a few when handles were ripped away from him. Ramey handled the game’s environment a little better. At one point, he aggressively stuffed Mark Vital on a putback attempt after Vital tossed Sims like an edge rusher bullies an offensive tackle. I can’t recall a guard stuffing Vital like that.
Ramey then stared down Mitchell at one point in the second half when Texas took a 47-45 left and Baylor took a timeout. The Longhorns came out of halftime intent on delivering a punch, and did after their aggressiveness on defense led to a breakaway dunk for Andrew Jones to put his team in front with 16:26 remaining. Texas never led after that.
“You got to find a way. You got to deal with physicality. You're going to deal with them keep coming at you,” said Smart when asked about Baylor’s physicality bothering Coleman. “And obviously, as demonstrated by the beginning of the half and some of the other stretches that we had, we have it in us. But has to be way more consistent. And then we've got to value the ball better, and make more free throws.”
In the end, Baylor’s guards, even with Jones’s great night on offense were better and especially on defense.
7) Credit goes to Baylor for its excellent shot-making. That said, the Longhorns need to defend much better on defense. Texas didn’t guard the ball well enough, didn’t communicate well enough on action away from the ball, and at times lacked the aggressiveness and urgency required to keep Baylor from free driving lanes. There were moments when Texas elevated its defense, but not nearly enough to slow down a great offense.
“Yeah, not even close. Not even close,” responded Smart if the defense failed to meet their standards. “I was concerned about that because, well, most importantly, Baylor. But secondly, we've not been as good as we need to be on defense. And then we've also, you know, just not played as many games as we had scheduled and not practiced as much as we needed to. So, I knew, even if we found a way to win this game tonight, we've got to get way better on defense, and it starts with flying around and helping each other.
“Baylor… they obviously they run good stuff and spread you around. But more than anything, it was Mitchell and Butler tonight, just making big-time plays, and then they, as a team, their shot-making was incredible. Now, on our part, there's a lot of things that we can do better. But when they were able to go get high quality shots, or even tough shots, obviously to shoot 59% from the field. That’s tough.”
8) Kai Jones played 23 minutes and scored four points with three rebounds, a turnover, two blocks and a steal. A couple times during the game, his lack of urgency on defense led to a quick sub. Following an excellent second half against Oklahoma, Jones was again too inconsistent. Texas needs more from him moving forward if it’s going to become the team it wants to be.
9) Donovan Williams and Jase Febres didn’t play as Smart went with a tighter rotation against Baylor.
10) Up next for the Longhorns is a Saturday road trip to Stillwater to face Cade Cunningham and Oklahoma State. This feels like a pivotal point in the season for Texas considering all it’s gone through in recent weeks, two close losses, and then pouring a lot into tonight only to have Baylor remind it who is the best team in the league.
“I told those guys have Baylor is ahead of us right now. That's a fact. You know where they are in the season, right now as a team with their development, the way they're playing. Now, they're ahead of a lot of people. But that gives us one option if we want to be able to beat teams like that later in the year. And that is get better,” Smart stated. “And that's been a focus over the last two days when we've kind of got back whole as a group is that we flat out have to get better in a lot of areas. And there's only one place where that occurs. And that's practice.”
1) The Longhorns biggest issue tonight: Baylor is simply better than them. On a night when Texas had a B- performance, Baylor, unquestionably in a college hoops tier of its own with Gonzaga, delivered an unflappable A-grade effort.
Texas fought. It competed. And UT took the floor in the second half intent on delivering a loud message, which it did. But Baylor kept making shots, and kept playing better, more aggressive defense than its counterparts. When the Longhorns ran out of gas late in the second half, a relentless, elite basketball team was ready to pounce.
“Just tip of the hat to Baylor and the way that they attacked, particularly after we took the lead in the second half. I thought our guys did a terrific job coming out of halftime that four or five-minute stretch for us. That's how you have to be. But that's how you have to be over 40 minutes. And Baylor makes it tough for sure. I don't know if I remember a game between two highly ranked teams where both team shot that well from the field. But obviously a big difference there is that we turn the ball over 17 times. And we were 3-fo4-14 from the foul line. So, you just can't have those two things. In addition to some of the defensive breakdowns we had.”
Texas is not in Baylor’s tier. Only one other college basketball team is. The Longhorns are good, but Baylor is elite. Baylor never acted like it wasn't in total control of the game. While UT's poise and aggressiveness wavered, Baylor's was about as straight of a line as a college team's could be. That was the difference.
2) As it happened, I felt Adam Flagler’s key three-pointer was an early dagger. Davion Mitchell immediately followed one dagger with another. With 7:44 remaining, Courtney Ramey made a three-pointer to cut the Baylor lead to 65-59. Following a Baylor timeout, Texas defended well in the half-court.
But Flager hit a deep, standstill three before the clock could expire. Jericho Sims was then fouled. He missed both free throws as his struggles at the line continued. Mitchell, who was the best player on the floor and scored 27 points on 11-of-16 shooting (5-of-7 from three-point range), followed with another three. Suddenly, the Baylor lead was back up to 12.
“Moving forward, we have to be better, like, point blank,” said Andrew Jones about his team’s defense.
3) That sequence followed Greg Brown catching a body as he cut from the opposite corner, received a Jericho Sims pass, and threw down a vicious dunk on Jonathan Tchamwa Tchatchoua.
As you can see in the clip, Brown mean-mugged his victim for about three seconds as he began to backpedal down the court. Almost immediately, the freshman was whistled for a technical. Baylor promptly made both free throws and followed with a layup on the ensuing possession to push its lead back to 59-51.
I get it. Texas can’t afford to get a technical in that position, and especially against a team as good as Baylor. The Bears are good enough without any help. Smart said after the game it’s a teaching moment that can’t happen. Andrew Jones, basically, said the same and his young teammate has to avoid that. Again, I get it.
But we hear everyone talking about playing with emotion and aggressiveness. So, a guy can’t show a little after that dunk? These guys aren’t robots. That might have been the dunk of the year. And he gets a weak technical for staring at the defender after snatching his soul? There were some assaults happening on drives in the paint late in the second half that weren’t even whistled as common fouls. Brown didn’t even say a word. Heck, he didn’t have to.
The problem for Texas wasn’t the technical. Rather, the issue with Brown was he wasn’t nearly good enough for his team. He scored just five points, played only 19 minutes and somehow the guy who led the Big 12 in defensive rebounding percentage only grabbed one rebound. For both Brown and Kai Jones, the physicality of tonight’s game appeared to be a little too big for them.
“That's because those guys are still learning that a game like tonight the intensity level, the aggressiveness is another notch higher than maybe other games that we've had,” responded Smart when asked about the ineffectiveness of Brown and Jones. “And when those guys get the ball around the basket, they've got to find a way to go finish. Those guys have to put more of an imprint on the game on the offensive glass when they're in a game. We had eight offensive rebounds. Jericho and Andrew had five of them. Those other guys, they've got to go grab the ball.”
4) I don’t believe this game can be described only with the statistics, but certain ones do tell a lot of the story.
Field goal percentage
Texas: 54.9%
Baylor: 58.6%
Three-point shooting
Texas: 45.5%; 10-of-22
Baylor: 52.4% 11-of-21
Free throw shooting
Texas: 3-of-14
Baylor: 4-of-4
Turnovers
Texas: 17
Baylor: 12
Points off turnovers
Texas: 14
Baylor: 20
Baylor played with more poise and confidence on offense with better ball movement. On defense, it played with more aggressiveness; being the No. 1 team in the Big 12 in steal percentage definitely showed. Texas, despite long stretches of poor offense bailed out by great shot-making, shot the ball extremely well against a great defense. But it needed more possessions and more made free throws.
5) On a night when Texas again switched a lot of ball screen action around the perimeter and was intent on Sims defending guards, the senior big again answered the call with very impressive on-ball defense. And on a night when going after rebounds in the paint meant more contact than most Pac-12 football games, he had a game-high nine rebounds and tied a game-high with three offensive rebounds.
But man… the free throws are a major issue. Sims regressed even more at the line and finished 2-of-8 from the charity stripe; his confidence is heading in the wrong direction, which is a major problem for Texas because he has by far the highest free throw rate of anyone on the team. He works at them. I know he does. I’ve seen it after a recent loss. But Texas has to at least get 50% or better out of him. It’s a shame because he’s often been good or better defensively, on the glass, and is chipping in with some quality paint touches too.
6) Mitchell and Jared Butler scored 48 efficient points, and nearly outscored the trio of Jones, Matt Coleman and Courtney Ramey. The Texas trio scored 50 combined points led by Jones’s 25 on 10-of-16 shooting (4-of-9 from three-point range and 1-of-3 at the free throw line).
But Coleman in particular was bothered by the physicality and aggressiveness of Baylor’s guards, which resulted in five turnovers including a few when handles were ripped away from him. Ramey handled the game’s environment a little better. At one point, he aggressively stuffed Mark Vital on a putback attempt after Vital tossed Sims like an edge rusher bullies an offensive tackle. I can’t recall a guard stuffing Vital like that.
Ramey then stared down Mitchell at one point in the second half when Texas took a 47-45 left and Baylor took a timeout. The Longhorns came out of halftime intent on delivering a punch, and did after their aggressiveness on defense led to a breakaway dunk for Andrew Jones to put his team in front with 16:26 remaining. Texas never led after that.
“You got to find a way. You got to deal with physicality. You're going to deal with them keep coming at you,” said Smart when asked about Baylor’s physicality bothering Coleman. “And obviously, as demonstrated by the beginning of the half and some of the other stretches that we had, we have it in us. But has to be way more consistent. And then we've got to value the ball better, and make more free throws.”
In the end, Baylor’s guards, even with Jones’s great night on offense were better and especially on defense.
7) Credit goes to Baylor for its excellent shot-making. That said, the Longhorns need to defend much better on defense. Texas didn’t guard the ball well enough, didn’t communicate well enough on action away from the ball, and at times lacked the aggressiveness and urgency required to keep Baylor from free driving lanes. There were moments when Texas elevated its defense, but not nearly enough to slow down a great offense.
“Yeah, not even close. Not even close,” responded Smart if the defense failed to meet their standards. “I was concerned about that because, well, most importantly, Baylor. But secondly, we've not been as good as we need to be on defense. And then we've also, you know, just not played as many games as we had scheduled and not practiced as much as we needed to. So, I knew, even if we found a way to win this game tonight, we've got to get way better on defense, and it starts with flying around and helping each other.
“Baylor… they obviously they run good stuff and spread you around. But more than anything, it was Mitchell and Butler tonight, just making big-time plays, and then they, as a team, their shot-making was incredible. Now, on our part, there's a lot of things that we can do better. But when they were able to go get high quality shots, or even tough shots, obviously to shoot 59% from the field. That’s tough.”
8) Kai Jones played 23 minutes and scored four points with three rebounds, a turnover, two blocks and a steal. A couple times during the game, his lack of urgency on defense led to a quick sub. Following an excellent second half against Oklahoma, Jones was again too inconsistent. Texas needs more from him moving forward if it’s going to become the team it wants to be.
9) Donovan Williams and Jase Febres didn’t play as Smart went with a tighter rotation against Baylor.
10) Up next for the Longhorns is a Saturday road trip to Stillwater to face Cade Cunningham and Oklahoma State. This feels like a pivotal point in the season for Texas considering all it’s gone through in recent weeks, two close losses, and then pouring a lot into tonight only to have Baylor remind it who is the best team in the league.
“I told those guys have Baylor is ahead of us right now. That's a fact. You know where they are in the season, right now as a team with their development, the way they're playing. Now, they're ahead of a lot of people. But that gives us one option if we want to be able to beat teams like that later in the year. And that is get better,” Smart stated. “And that's been a focus over the last two days when we've kind of got back whole as a group is that we flat out have to get better in a lot of areas. And there's only one place where that occurs. And that's practice.”
