By Steve Habel, Senior Contributing Writer
AUSTIN, Texas — The first three years of the Shaka Smart regime at Texas have not gone as planned or expected, but the likeable and hard-working coach has a plan to get the Longhorns on track this season: seven seconds to shoot and end-to-end defense to limit the opposition’s chances to score.
Smart, who is 50-50 in 100 games on the bench on the 40 Acres, wants his team to run the court and look for quick shots on offense, and he will return to the “havoc” style of defense he employed with great success at Virginia Commonwealth in his stint there before coming to Austin.
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The Longhorns tip off their 113th season of intercollegiate basketball Tuesday when they host Eastern Illinois at the Frank Erwin Center. Texas holds an all-time record of 1,768-1,072 (.623) in its previous 112 years of competition.
“What we are talking about on offense is trying to attack and get a good shot in the first seven seconds, but we don’t want to force a bad shot,” Smart said. “We were fourth or fifth in the Big 12 last year in that stat, and we are aiming to be No. 1 this season.”
To use either strategy Smart has planned, the Longhorns have to have quality depth, and they have to put the ball in the hoop, two aspects with which they struggled in 2017-18. Texas was 19-15 last season, 8-10 in the rugged Big 12 Conference, and was defeated in the NCAA Tournament’s first round by Nevada in overtime.
“There’s a responsibility to playing that strategy, but there’s no question that we want to get out and run,” Smart said. “We feel we have a level of depth right now to sub some guys in to continue to play at that level. But to be successful with that attack, you have to be unselfish and you have to be able to share the basketball. The ball has to be passed quicker.”
Junior point guard Elijah Mitrou-Long put Smart’s plan in even more succinct terms.
“It’s good to have plays, but basketball is an up-and-down sport,” Mitrou-Long said. “The first seven seconds, you get that ball, push it up and get a layup. Why do you need to run a play?”
The Longhorns return four starters from last year’s team: sophomore point guard Matt Coleman, sophomore forward Jase Febres, senior forward Dylan Osetkowski and junior guard Kerwin “Snoop” Roach II.
Osetkowski, who has dropped 15 pounds but added muscle since the end of last season, had the highest scoring average in 2017-18 among the returnees, at 13.5 points per game, followed closely by Roach (12.3 ppg) and Coleman (10.2). But make no mistake: Roach’s play on both ends of the floor will have the biggest say in the Longhorns’ overall success.
“Snoop, at times, has been spectacular on defense for us,” Smart said about Roach. “He’s had games where he’s done a phenomenal job on players who went on to become NBA first-round picks, lottery picks, but he needs to continue to gain a level of consistency there.”
Coleman is expected to take another step forward while playing the point. Smart said Coleman needs to not be so nice, to get in his teammates’ face when they make mistakes and to be “intolerant of giveaways.”
“He’s such a man of the people — he’s stubborn in his niceness,” Smart said of Coleman, “but he’s moving in the right direction.”
Texas needs to score more points, having finished next to last in points in the Big 12 last season after being dead last the year before, when the Longhorns finished 11-22. Coleman’s ability to score and distribute the ball will be huge parts of any success.
“This is what we’ve all waited for, to make a statement from the jump,” Coleman said. “The time is now. It’s here. Texas is a really good basketball team. That’s all.”
Part of that mentality is having the confidence to look past some failure, and learn from the hard times.
“If one shot doesn’t go in, don’t get hung up on that,” Osetkowski said. “Shoot the same shot over and over again. Don’t get discouraged on that. Shoot that same shot over and over. Have that same mindset on each shot, each possession.”
Junior guard Andrew Jones and sophomore forwards Jericho Sims and Royce Hamm, Jr., round out UT’s returning lettermen. 
The newcomers include Mitrou-Long (who sat out last season after transferring from Mount St. Mary’s), sophomore guard Blake Nevins, and freshman forwards Brock Cunningham, Jaxson Hayes, Kamaka Hepa and Gerald Liddell and highly-touted freshman point guard Courtney Ramey.
Of the new players, Mitrou-Long (who was a first-team All-Northeast Conference as a sophomore after averaging 15.0 points, 5.2 rebounds, 4.4 assists and 1.6 steals in 34 minutes per game), Hayes (a 6-foot-11 bruiser with huge upside and a ton of preseason touts), and Liddell (a first-team all-state player from Cibolo who was ranked as the 41st overall prospect in the nation by 247Sports) have the biggest opportunity to make impacts in the early season.
“The last five-and-a-half weeks have been about us installing winning habits,” Smart said. “The process continues as far as establishing winning habits and preparation and bringing an infectious intensity to the floor.
“Most importantly is just letting it rip when you go play, not playing not to lose, not being afraid to miss, falling back on the habits we’ve developed over the summer and in the preseason practices.”
Texas, which was picked to finish in a tie for fourth in the preseason Big 12 rankings, needs to get off to a quick start build some momentum before its heads to Sin City for the Continental Tire Las Vegas Invitational Nov. 22 and 23. The Longhorns will face No. 8 North Carolina in the opening game and either No. 21 UCLA or 10th-ranked Michigan State in the second contest.
The Longhorns’ non-conference schedule also contains games Friday against Arkansas at Fort Bliss in El Paso, versus No. 24 Purdue Dec. 9 and Providence Dec. 21, parts of a six-contest Nov. 30-Dec. 28 homestand.
Four Big 12 teams begin the season ranked in the Associated Press top 25, led by No. 1 Kansas, the 14-time defending Big 12 champion. Kansas State is ranked 12th, West Virginia is 13th and TCU is 20th.
Hamm sprained his medial collateral ligament (MCL) over the weekend and will not play in the opener. Jones, who missed most of last season while battling leukemia, is available to play but not yet at full strength.
Roach also will miss the game because of a violation of team rules from the summer. He also missed both of the Longhorns’ scrimmages this fall and is champing at the bit to get into action.
“Snoop has been terrific over the summer to move forward as a leader,” Smart said. “He’s by far the most experienced guy on our team, and the most knowledgeable about what we need to do to create success on both ends of the floor.”
Texas played its first varsity basketball contest March 10, 1906, and has fielded a varsityteam in every year since then with the exception of the 1907-08 season.
The Longhorns have made a total of 34 all-time NCAA Tournament appearances and have a 35-37 (.486) overall record in the NCAA Tournament games. Texas has advanced to the NCAA Tournament in 18 of the last 20 and 26 of the last 30 seasons.
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