By Colby Gordon
AUSTIN, Texas — Following what largely can be considered a season-saving win at TCU, the Texas Longhorns have an opportunity to jump onto the NCAA Tournament bubble with two wins in three days, starting with Saturday’s home game at Iowa State.
A road game at Kansas looms Monday, but the Longhorns are in a position to have February be meaningful [s2If current_user_can(access_s2member_level2)] , thanks to their win over the Horned Frogs, which — besides the shooting of guards Jase Fabres and Courtney Ramey — can be attributed to large contributions from freshmen Donovan Williams and Kai Jones.
With Gerald Liddell and Kamaka Hepa out with injuries, both Williams and Jones provided solid minutes to help Texas (13-7 overall, 3-4 Big 12) to the victory.
“The season has had a lot of ups and downs for everybody on the team,” Williams said. “Unfortunately we’ve had some injuries on the team, so Kai and I had to step in and do the best we can to help the team win.”
Though neither put up eye-popping numbers in the box score — Williams did hit one of UT’s 11 three-pointers and had a steal and dunk off the press while Jones actually started the game — their effort and impact of doing the little things was significant in coach Shaka Smart’s eight-man rotation.
“I try to ramp it up and give us that spark that we need,” Williams said. “I think it’s evident that we go into lulls offensively, so Kai and I … when we come in the game our focus is to make plays.”
Both Jones and Williams played key parts of UT’s full-court press against the Horned Frogs, a part of the game the Longhorns just implemented two games ago against LSU.
It’s something the freshmen would like to see continue as the rest of the season.
“I’m a really aggressive player by nature,” Jones said. “I like pressing and playing fast, up-tempo basketball, and I just try to make my presence felt in the game by any means. Pressing (has) been working really well. I think we did a good job of it against TCU. Hopefully we’ll get into it against Iowa State, but every team’s personnel is different and has different tendencies, and that will be the determining factor going forward.”
Jones noted that the press specifically caters to his individual strengths and, in his opinion, the team’s strength.
“That’s how I grew up playing, and that’s the best opportunity I have to showcase my abilities,” he said. “I’m not the strongest or fastest guy on the court, but I have a lot of length and abilities that can help that full-court press. Now we want to start ramping up the press on teams. We have a lot of guys that can do things for us on the press. In practice, we’ve said, ‘We’re going to put the press on teams and see what happens.’ We all think we’re best in transition.”
With Iowa State (9-11 overall, 2-5 against Big 12 teams) below the Longhorns in the standings and mathematical ratings and a road game at Kansas in which they will be large underdogs coming up next, Saturday’s game against the Cyclones marks another must-win for Texas — something that is not lost on the players.
“Every practice, every game we talk about what that game means,” Williams said. “Every game (in the Big 12) is going to be a grind and you’re going to have to scrap and fight to win. Our goal is to make the tournament and make a run in it.”
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