A look at Texas Men’s Basketball win 89-75 over Oklahoma State
This game was not going to be a low scoring game like the last one 17 days ago up in Stillwater, Oklahoma. OSU played fast and tried to spread Texas out on the court like peanut butter on a slice of bread.
Texas knew this according to Marcus Carr who said, “We just had a great scouting report. Our coaches did their job to an extreme level … they gave us the game plan and we were able to go out there and execute.”
Maybe OSU thought they would spread Texas out to create an opportunity for an open man in the paint. To some extent that strategy was effective as OSU scored 30 points in the paint. Texas forced OSU to shoot off-balance from the perimeter in three-point land 26 times and they hit 8-26 (31%) of those shots.
About half way through the first half, OSU’s John-Michael Wright pulls up for a three-point shot, Timmy Allen who appeared to give Wright too much room, leaps like a leopard and blocked his shot. How many three-point shots have you seen blocked?
Marcus Carr turned out the lights in the first half hitting 12 points on 4-7 field goals, 2-2 three-pointers, and 2-3 from the free throw line. On his last play before the half, Carr enters into double digits in the first half. Carr would end the night with 21 points.
Early in the second half Jabari Rice showed signs of wreaking havoc, but settled back down and scored eight points on the night. We did discover something about Rice. When he gets the ball he will try to squeeze through lanes that may not exist at the moment to try and to the basket — usually drawing a foul.
The second half could be called the Allen Project. Timmy Allen put up 14 points, half from the free throw line and only had one foul, one block and two steals. It appeared Texas was starting to become a magnet for offensive fouls. Then Texas turned up the heat and started getting fouled.
In the first half, Texas went to the line seven times and made four. The second half, Texas goes 20 times to the foul line and makes 19.
Imagine this, Carr shoots a three-pointer then gets called for an offensive foul while he was falling to the ground. How does that work exactly?
Let’s talk about Brock Cunningham. We normally get to the Moody Center before a game a couple hours early to avoid traffic. We do a walk around, check out our spot on the press box row high up in section 122 and watch players shoot around.
You can tell some of the plays that will be called in the game based on a player practicing certain shots. Cunningham, usually after Marcus Carr does his, is shooting from three point world.
When Brock Cunningham hit one of his three-three pointers on his way to a career high 15 points, we tweeted out, “Ok, I knew this was going to happen …”
Senior Dylan Disu balled out for Texas scoring 12 points, eight rebounds, two blocks, and three steals, all while playing 20 minutes total, or half the game.
This game and basically the last seven Big 12 Conference games have been great practice to sharpen Texas who travel to face the No. 4 Tennessee Volunteers Jan. 28 (Sat) 5 p.m. in Knoxville, Tennessee. The game will be televised on ESPN and broadcasted on the Longhorn Radio Network, and on Sirius XM 83.
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