The Longhorns seed their second conference home win against the Bulldogs.
The Texas Longhorns have another opportunity to secure a resume-boosting Quad I win in defending the Moody Center court on Saturday against the Georgia Bulldogs.
With only one win in three conference home games, there is increased pressure on the Longhorns to secure a victory on the Forty Acres with the program’s NCAA Tournament odds back under 40 percent, according to Bart Torvik, but consistently making winning plays has been an issue for head coach Sean Miller’s team.
At the forefront of those problems is the inability to defend without fouling. In Wednesday’s 85-80 loss to Kentucky in Lexington, Texas was called for 23 fouls that led to 30 made free throws by the home team, including several critical late-game mistakes that helped produce the final outcome.
“This is a Texas problem,” Miller said. “We have a virus called fouling, and it has plagued us from the opening tip of the first game until tonight. It’s not the officials, it’s not Kentucky. We will foul the living shit out of you.”
In the home losses to the Bulldogs and Aggies, the Longhorns also suffered from other mistakes, ranging from poor defensive rebounding and situational defensive awareness in the shocking overtime defeat by Mississippi State and a range of regression in blowing the chance to beat Texas A&M last week.
“I think there are times this year where we’ve played very well at home, but we haven’t made the necessary plays down the stretch of a couple games that, quite frankly, didn’t allow us to leave with with a hard-fought victory,” Miller said on Friday.
Another area of emphasis is better three-point defense — the Horns rank 237th nationally in allowing opponents to shoot 34.9 percent,
“We’re doing a good job limiting attempts, but we’ve had big halves where, man, that team just is on fire in the first half or second half from three. And I think being able to defend the three-point shot is something that I know we can do better as well,” Miller said.
Against A&M, Texas allowed 6-of-10 shooting from three in the second half, including three threes by Rylan Griffen within the first four minutes of the second half as the Aggies went on a decisive run out of halftime from which the Longhorns never recovered.
Like Texas A&M, Georgia plays at a high pace with the top adjusted tempo in the country, although the Bulldogs do have some remarkable aspects of their statistical profile, including a poor assist rate, mediocre three-point shooting, and an inability to close possessions with defensive rebounding.
It’s a guard-centric lineup for head coach Mike White’s team, led by Cal transfer Jeremiah Wilkinson, UTSA transfer Marcus Millender, and Blue Cain. In the frontcourt, center Somto Cyril has another remarkable statistical profile, scoring 52 of his 72 baskets this season on dunks.
Tip is at noon central on SEC Network.
Category: General Sports
