By Steve Lansdale
AUSTIN, Texas — Guards Matt Coleman and Andrew Jones scored 11 and 10 points, respectively, and the Texas men’s basketball team held top-ranked Baylor to 34 percent shooting, but the Longhorns fell, 52-45, to the Bears Monday at the Frank Erwin Center.
The victory boosted Baylor’s record to 22-1 overall and a perfect 11-0 in Big 12 games, while UT fell to 14-10 overall and 4-7 in conference games.
Texas head coach Shaka Smart said [s2If current_user_can(access_s2member_level2)]that while he was pleased with is team’s defense, he was disappointed that the Longhorns could not muster more of an offensive threat in a game in which UT shot a combined 30.5 percent from the floor. Specifically, Baylor connected on 6 of 16 shots from the three-point line, while the Longhorns hit just 3 of 17 shots from long range.
“I thought, overall, that our guys defended with great intensity,” Smart said, “but obviously, when we shoot that poorly, the margin for error is paper-thin, and you can’t let them get free for any of the looks they want to get.
“This goes against our formula, getting outshot from three, and they beat us by nine points at the three-point line.”
The Longhorns hung tough in the second half, getting outscored by just a single point after the intermission.
Texas forward Jericho Sims came up a point short of reaching double digits in scoring, but led both teams with a game-high 14 rebounds. Smart said he is pleased with the progress the junior forward has made on the offensive end, but acknowledged that ample room for additional improvement.
“Jericho has gotten better with his assertiveness, to seal and get the ball,” Smart said, “but he’s still got some room … we’ve got to keep working with him to grow in that area. His first couple of years, he wasn’t assertive at all in that area — in that way, he has made progress. If they’re going to switch a smaller guy on to you, you’ve got to be extremely aggressive on your seals … He felt like, especially in the first half, he was getting held. (I) said, ‘hey, man, if they hold you, you’ve got to seal even harder.”
Smart was quick to credit Baylor after the game, especially for the Bears’ defensive effort, and rightly so, but the Longhorns also proved stingy on the defensive end. Guard MaCio Teague’s 11 points made him the only Baylor player to crack double digits in the scoring column.
“I thought our guys’ mental engagement was very, very good,” Smart said. “Tonight, we didn’t shoot the ball well enough, (and) we had some turnovers that cost us at some important times. Our guards got in the lane really well, but we didn’t finish enough in there.
“The key is to respond. I thought our response after our last game was really good. We have to come together — obviously, we have an extremely, extremely important game coming up on Saturday, and our guys know that — we just talked about that in the locker room. That’s where all of our focus has to be.”
The Longhorns will be bacak on the court at 1 p.m. Saturday at Iowa State in a game that will be carried on ESPN2.
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