Texas Basketball: Evaluating 3 scorching hot players ahead of Big 12 play

Marcus Carr, G

By far the hottest Longhorns player in the last few games is senior guard Marcus Carr. The fifth-year guard is coming off one of the craziest games of his collegiate career where he registered 41 points on just 19 field goal attempts. The very fact that Carr averaged more than two points per field goal attempt is absolutely mind boggling.

What’s more is that Carr had great offensive performances in each of the last four games. He has scored no fewer than 17 points in each of the last four games, two of which he put up that 41 spot and 28, respectively.

Carr is finding so much offensive success for a few reasons.

One of the factors driving Carr’s success of late is the fact that he’s found the three ball. He shot an insane 10-of-15 from beyond the arc in Texas’ win over Texas A&M-Commerce. And in the last four games, Carr is shooting an impressive 19-of-31 from deep.

Carr is getting more open looks from deep and just finding more room to get high-percentage shots off since sophomore guard Tyrese Hunter took more of a backseat to Carr in the last few games. Hunter is turning into more of a pass-first guard of late, highlighted by his eight assists and just six field goal attempts in the win over A&M-Commerce.

Last but not least, Carr is benefitting from the free-flowing basketball that Texas is playing of late. Texas is moving the ball better against some of the more questionable defense it faced in the last few weeks. In fact, two of the three games where Texas posted its best team assist percentages of the season came in the last two weeks.

Carr is clearly the benefactor of the free-flowing wide-open offensive style of basketball that Texas was able to play in the last few games. The major test for him, and the entire team, will be executing at a high level again with this free-flowing offensive game when the strength of opponent ratchets up to start Big 12 play.