Texas Basketball: 2 studs, 1 dud from resolute road win over OK State
Dud No. 1: Tyrese Hunter, G
One of the more unfortunate storylines coming out of this win over Oklahoma State for the Longhorns was the down offensive performance from the reigning Big 12 Newcomer of the Year and sophomore guard Tyrese Hunter.
I had high hopes that Hunter would continue his solid offensive output after finding a spark for the first time in a while in the 13-point loss to Kansas State on Jan. 3. Hunter looked like his old self against Kansas State, thanks to an insane 29 point outburst where he shot an efficient 8-of-16 from the field, 5-of-9 from beyond the arc, and a perfect 8-of-8 from the free-throw line.
Yet, Hunter fell back into the offensive struggles we saw from him in the last six weeks or so against the Pokes this weekend. Hunter shot a poor 1-of-8 from the field, 0-of-3 from beyond the arc, and 3-of-4 from the free-throw line as he had some real issues finding his shot against a tough Oklahoma State defense. The offensive woes from Hunter resulted in just five points on the afternoon.
An awesome play to hold the defense around the free-throw line for Tyrese Hunter to get good positioning to hit the nice floater. pic.twitter.com/HRez5mhHxS
— Hook'em Headlines (@HookemHeadlines) January 7, 2023
On a positive note, the lone field goal make for Hunter in this game was a nice one from inside the arc.
Yet, this is the sixth time in the last eight outings that Hunter scored in the single digits.
To make matters worse, Hunter had some issues facilitating the offense too. He didn’t register a single assist while turning the ball over three times. This is the first time in Hunter’s career that he’s turned the ball over more than twice in a single game without picking up a single assist.
And while the defensive contributions from Hunter weren’t all that bad, he still didn’t make much of a pronounced impact on that end of the floor either.
It’s not a great sign for Texas that Hunter had such a minimal impact on the yet another game in the last month. Hunter is an important player and we’ll need to see more out of him, especially on the offensive end, when Texas hosts a solid TCU Horned Frogs team at the Moody in Austin on Jan. 11.