Texas Basketball: 3 takeaways from lethargic loss to Kansas

Poor defense and turnovers kill the Longhorns

Terry and his staff definitely made some adjustments to try and prepare for this unique Kansas offense heading into this game. Texas tried to shut off the dynamic scoring duo of freshman wing Gradey Dick and senior forward Jalen Wilson.

Essentially, the Longhorns tried to force Kansas to find other sources of scoring.

And as we mentioned in the last part of this list, Kansas was definitely able to find some secondary scoring in this game. Kansas came up with 22 points from the reserves, which is a season-high in a conference game for the Jayhawks this season.

While Wilson did go just 1-of-7 shooting from the field, Dick and some of the other Jayhawks players were able to pick up the pace on the offensive end. Dick registered 21 points on an efficient 7-of-11 shooting from the field, 2-of-3 from beyond the arc, and 5-of-6 from the free-throw line.

Texas seemed as if it was focusing so much attention on limiting what Wilson and Dick were able to do in the settled half-court offense that it forgot about defending some of the cutting lanes and the drive to the basket.

As a result, Texas gave up a whopping 88 points. That included an insane 50 points in the paint and 19 second-chance points. Texas wasn’t boxing out well near the basket on either end of the floor. The Longhorns also struggled to defend Kansas in transition.

Most notably, though, the turnover bug bit Texas in this one. Despite Kansas only forcing around 11 turnovers per game in conference play this year, Texas committed 16 turnovers. This was really costly and helped Kansas ultimately seal this win.

For most of this game, the players on the floor just didn’t look to be in sync. This caused some bad turnovers that were completely avoidable (i.e. Carr stepping inbounds before he was able to make an inbound pass, Hunter missing cutting teammates, and Dillon Mitchell losing the handle in transition).

I also want to say that this wasn’t my favorite game from Terry and the Longhorns staff. I think playing freshman guard Arterio Morris more than they did would be wise given his on-ball defensive chops. Morris could’ve helped with some of the perimeter and help defense issues that Texas dealt with in this game, largely thanks to Hunter and Carr getting caught off-guard when their man was cutting or when they had to switch or fight through a pick.

Another issue I had with the defensive gameplan was the lack of preparedness that Texas showed on that end of the floor. It didn’t look like Texas was ready at all for the off-ball cutting, two-man game, and/or pick-and-roll plays from the Jayhawks.

And given how Kansas runs cutting plays or the pick-and-roll on more than a quarter of its offensive possessions, which is the second-most of any Big 12 team this year, that’s pretty surprising that Texas looked like it was caught off guard by these maneuvers so often on defense.

I also would’ve liked to see less iso-ball from Texas in this game. One aspect of this game that hurt Texas was distributing the basketball. Texas boasted a season-low six assists, while Kansas got 16 dimes on the night.

It seemed like there were multiple times in this game when Texas just abandoned set plays on offense and just let either Carr, senior shooting guard/wing Sir’Jabari Rice, etc. play in isolation.

There were some real matchup advantages that Texas had in this game that weren’t milked. Texas didn’t get much off-ball movement around the basket or around the perimeter. And this team wasn’t able to ever harness momentum when it was going on scoring runs. That traces back to the iso-ball issue I was talking about before.

When Texas beat Kansas State last weekend, it didn’t overcomplicate anything with major adjustments on the road. Terry and the Longhorns played solid defense through and through and relied on their seniors late to shoulder the load. I like that strategy more so than what the Longhorns did on this night.