Back at it.
Texas returns to the court tonight after being spared a trip to Lexington (though again, we were going to name it Texington after the win and it was going to be so dang rad). They play Baylor. Which would be really exciting were the Longhorns not coming off a jarring collective bout with the coronavirus.
Shaka Smart’s been getting the headlines about this, because he’s the guy who talks to the media, and because the things he said to the media and the way that he said them implied that he, personally, was justifiably rattled by his serious bout with the coronavirus and justifiably has some questions about why college basketball is happening in the fashion it is happening right now.
But Shaka Smart wasn’t the only one infected or quarantined. Brock Cunningham missed a substantial amount of time. Jericho Sims, Kai Jones, Greg Brown, and Courtney Ramey each missed a game. At one point, Smart said he led a workout with only two players available due to testing and contact tracing.
So, while the rest of us maybe had some impression of grit and tenacity and talent as Texas nearly beat a good Oklahoma team last week despite missing three rotation players and their head coach, and while grit and tenacity and talent were certainly on display, the takeaway for Shaka Smart was evidently more, “Why are we doing this?” And while I’d imagine both of those threads are present in the Longhorn locker room psyche, it’s tempting to inaccurately blot out the latter with the former in our psyche. This is a team that, of course, wants to play. It’s also a team that, for all its youth and health, even in the coaching ranks, just underwent a stark reminder of the risks this virus presents, risks that are augmented for players, coaches, and staff of all kinds in basketball settings, where travel is necessary and social distancing is difficult.
All of this just goes to say that we aren’t really getting Texas vs. Baylor tonight, the Big 12’s second-best team trying to knock off the leaders. We’re getting Texas emerging from a very hard off-the-court couple weeks only to play one of the two best teams in the country. A team that, to be fair, had its own extended stint of coronavirus-related pain earlier this season.
The Game
Texas vs. Baylor, in Austin
The Time
6:00 PM Texas Time
The Television
ESPN
The Opponent
Baylor. One of the two best teams in the country. Have missed games at times themselves, and have missed their head coach for a stretch, but haven’t had to limit their rotation substantially. Seven players have played in all sixteen games.
It starts with Jared Butler for Baylor. A contender to be the runner-up for a lot of player of the year considerations nationally, Butler’s shooting 45% from three, averaging 16.8 points and 5.4 assists per game, and enjoying a reputation as a solid defender.
He’s good.
So is MaCio Teague. So is Davion Mitchell. So is everyone Baylor puts out there, and as a team, the Bears are good on both ends of the floor. They don’t have the notches in the belt Gonzaga has. But they’ve been comparably impressive.
What Texas Needs to Do
I don’t know. I don’t know the answer to this. Texas would need to sweep Baylor to be back in the Big 12 title race, if that’s the goal. Texas would need to play Baylor within single digits or thereabouts to maintain their grip on a projection of not having to play Gonzaga before [round of that tournament in which there are eight teams left], if that’s the goal.
I don’t think those are the goals.
I think the goals are to get through the game and reboot. Find out how well those who’ve been sick can operate in a game setting right now. Play the best they can, of course, but regroup and move along.
On the Court
Baylor’s strong everywhere, but their guards are especially strong. They’re the best three-point shooting team in the country. They’re in the top five at forcing turnovers. Their bigs are good too—the team grabs offensive rebounds at a top-five rate—but their defense is more predicated on forcing turnovers than forcing missed shots or limiting possessions to one chance.
There are two ways to look at this:
On the one hand, Texas’s guards have their work cut out for them. The ball must be protected. The perimeter defense, almost always good, needs to be great. While most nights Texas can get away with having one or two of the Matt Coleman/Courtney Ramey/Andrew Jones triumvirate clicking, they’ll probably need all three hot to compete with Baylor (which also means all will have to be available—not, to my knowledge, a sure thing).
On the other, there might be an opportunity for Jericho Sims and Kai Jones and maybe even Royce Hamm to do some damage inside, and opportunity for Greg Brown and Brock Cunningham to do what they do so well and extend possessions with offensive boards.
To win, Texas likely needs all of these things to happen.
But again, realistically, we’re more interested in finding out who’s healthy, and seeing how focused this team can be after a trying few weeks (while recognizing that it is entirely understandable—reasonable, even—to not be entirely focused on basketball right now).
Hook ‘em.
