The 4 Boardsman, defenders of the glass, are key to Texas Men’s Basketball success
Texas Men's Basketball has averaged 35.2 rebounds per game this season and have outrebounded their opponents by +1.8 rebounds per game.
The guardians of the boards with the most rebounds are Dillion Mitchell with 183, Brock Cunningham (88), Kadin Shedrick (65), Max Abmas (61), Dylan Disu (51), and Ithiel Horton also has (51).
Then, why is rebounding such an issue? Against Houston, both head coaches, Kelvin Sampson for Houston and Rodney Terry for Texas, pointed to the fact that rebounding was the determining factor for both the win for Houston, and the loss for Texas.
Sure enough, Houston out rebounded Texas 47-36. We looked back at the seven losses so far this 2023-2024 season. In the loss to BYU, they out rebounded Texas 32-24. Against UCF, Texas pulled down 22 rebounds and UCF yanked down 37.
The three point loss to West Virginia (76-73) shows a one rebound difference (32-31) with West Virginia on top. For the loss at home against Texas Tech (78-67), Texas out rebounded Texas Texas 38-27, however Texas could not get balls to fall through the net and only hit 41.3% versus 52.8% by Texas Tech.
In the Marquette and UConn losses, the story is the same. Marquette pulled down 37 rebounds to 30 by Texas, and against UConn at Madison Square Garden Texas pulled in 29 rebounds to UConn's 40 rebounds.
Last season, Texas lost nine games all season, currenty have dropped seven, and have 10 games left in the regular season, potentially five more to win the Big 12 Championship, and six more to win the NCAA Championship.
Rebounding is a critical factor in Texas' success. Head coach Rodney Terry said during media availability before the TCU game, “I gave our guys a comparison of last year's team and this year's team, and I gave them comparisons of Big 12 stats, numbers in with our offense and with our defense. You know obviously, we had 10 teams in the League last year and we have 14 this year.
Oh boy, it is borderline right across the board where we were last year. We are talking about rebound right now; we were talking about rebounding at the same time last year with last year's team. We're actually a plus this year as opposed to a minus with our rebounding team last year, if you can imagine that, right.
“I just say to our guys it's really important that you stay locked in, you stay dialed in.”
Last year around this time, Texas had dropped just four games before going on a run that landed them in the Elite 8.
The Boardsman, defenders of the glass, and rim gladiators that will need to rebound like Dillion Mitchell, who has secured 183 so far in the season, is Kadin Shedrick, Dylan Disu, and Zerik Onyema who combined have just 173 rebounds.
Texas takes on TCU in Fort Worth. Last season, Texas fell to TCU, again in Fort Worth, by a bucket (75-73) during the regular season, then beat them in the Big 12 Championship series.
In order for Texas to stop TCU's fast-break scoring, they will need to have more offensive rebounds, or better, scoring.
Tip off is 1 PM and will be aired on ESPN2.
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