1. Texas made its free throws.
Texas’s free throws have been a problem at times. Last night, they weren’t. The Longhorns made 24 of 31, a clip eight percentage points better than their season number. Some of that is that they had good free throw shooters taking the shots: Courtney Ramey, Andrew Jones, and Matt Coleman—all of whom shoot better than 80% from the line—got 22 attempts between the three of them. But Greg Brown made three of his four, and on a night when three-pointers weren’t falling for the Horns, those counted.
2. Greg Brown had a weird night.
Speaking of Brown, he had some high highs and low lows. The guy made a few spectacular plays. His athleticism, talent, and hustle were on full display. He also got lost on defense more than once.
It was telling how much Brock Cunningham played down the stretch, and as Shaka Smart said after the game, Cunningham needed to be out there. I love watching Cunningham play, but I sometimes push back on him because the amount of love he gets from the Texas media often makes me uncomfortable thanks to its racial undertones, which then extend to the treatment Brown receives (you hear a ton about Cunningham’s “hustle,” you hear a ton about Brown’s “athleticism,” and while the ratios of hustle-to-athleticism are different between the two, Cunningham’s an extraordinary athlete and Brown plays his ass off). Last night did demonstrate the reality that Cunningham’s a more polished defensive player than Brown, and while Brown might be a lottery pick, you really would rather have Cunningham on the floor in the closing minutes of a game right now.
Brown’s potential is astronomical, he’s a great player already, and he’s a ton of fun. He also isn’t as reliable as he’ll eventually be in crunch time.
3. While we’re talking about the media…
I don’t want to become a media blogger, so I’ll try to leave this in this blog post, but it was relieving to have Jay Bilas on the TV call instead of Fran Fraschilla. Bilas handled the revisitation of the Andrew Jones/Ramey spat reasonably. When players did dumb things, he stated it plainly and didn’t turn it into an opportunity to flex how much he could rip a 19-year-old. Generally, I like Fraschilla, but he’s been a headache to listen to for a while now this year. And the contrast was striking.
4. Shaka Smart is cool.
It’s a bummer the broadcast had to start when it did, because it would’ve been fun to see more of the Senior Night stuff. Felt like it showcased the love piece of Smart’s coaching.
5. That was an enormous win.
The lid’s off the win bucket. Texas might be back. And heading into a four-game road trip to close the regular season, there’s reason to be confident in the Longhorns again. Maybe not to contend for a Big 12 tournament title—that’s still Baylor’s to lose, last night’s struggles and all—but to compete with anyone not named Gonzaga or Baylor, which was the highest reasonable ceiling even at Texas’s peak. Winning this game on Saturday in Lubbock’s going to be hard. Texas Tech is good and has a lot to play for right now. But the Longhorns have every reason to believe they’re getting back to themselves, and that bodes well for both their long game and ours.
