Texas Longhorns Rattled In Loss at Kansas State

1. We were rattled by the atmosphere. This happens, especially with young teams. And it was loud and crazy there. This goes to explaining why a well-below average free-throw shooting team started shooting like the Italian army in the Alps. We shot 40 percent from the free throw line, which is hilariously bad. The dudes at halftime do better than that.

2. There were some tired legs out there. James looked like he was out of gas, in particular. The overtime game took more out of the players than it should have.

3. We shot 27 percent from the 3-point line, partially because we NEVER shot from the corner. Also, Hamilton continues to want to shoot after a dribble to his right, regardless of where he is. He needs to start popping from where he stands when he gets the ball.

4. Dogus and Mason against the zone is stupid. I like Dogus. His ceiling, however, is Doug Gottlieb. That's because he can't shoot and does not finish well. That means for him to be useful, he has to have people to distribute to who can score. Mason is not one of those people. If Dogus and Mason are on the floor together then the ball is coming inside. Everyone knows this. So our post players are denied post position and the defense does not have to shift to passes on the perimeter so there is no way for our post guys to improve their position. We have to have a shooter (not a scorer—the Brown sub is useless too) in with Dogus. Like Avery.

5. Dex has lost his confidence. And looks to me like his ankle is worse than he lets on. The most noticeable thing is that he is starting with the ball in terrible position and also moving towards the baseline when he shoots. Which narrows his angle, requiring more touch. And he is not a touch player. The only way to improve his positioning is to have real, live shooters shoot jump shots. Then the defense has to move when the ball swings and he can get re-set.

6. Hamilton is not a very smart player. He still street balls it too much. Barnes really has his work cut out for him. There is a gold mine there, but getting to it is going to be difficult. Hamilton has a tendency to "McGrady" it at times, hurrying shots needlessly and forgetting to check the positioning of the other players on the floor. He did too much of this last night.

7. Avery needs to shoot more. Every night. And if he doesn't want to then he needs to drive. You can see, in flashes, that he can get to the rim. As well as anyone on the team. But he almost never does it. He has to score for us to succeed.

8. James had his first stinker of the year last night. It happens. He is not going to miss right handed lay-ups like that all year. I think he was very frustrated with our guard play. But that's no excuse for him running fast breaks.

9. Our weakside rebounding sucked last night, even when we weren't playing zone. I do not really know why. But we never boxed out on the backside, and we gave up TONS of offensive rebounds. Like 14. That is pitiful. And contributed to giving up at least 20 points. This a fundamentals issue, and one that comes down squarely on the coaches. I hope to hell this is the focus at practice.

10. Last night convinced me that we need to settle on a nine-man rotation. This willy-nilly search for the hot hand, followed by substitutions with seemingly random personnel is not going to work against good teams.

All in all, I'm disappointed but not crushed. We lost a tough conference game on the road against a good team. And if we rebounded and made layups, then we probably would have won. But there were a lot of things to work on and I hope Barnes gets on it this morning.

This article was written by ghostofagroundgame of Barking Carnival

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