Ogbogu collects coaches’ honor
Eric Davis Jr. will see how he passed on open shots.
Sure, Smart knew things might be different without Andrew Jones, UT’s leading scorer. The sophomore, who’s averaging 15.3 points, will be out for weeks with a hairline fracture in his right wrist.
But Smart probably didn’t expect this. Nor did the players.
“As a collective unit, we’ve got to be a whole lot better than that,” said Dylan Osetkowski, who had a team-high 17 points on 6-of-11 shooting.
Osetkowski opened the second half with a 3-pointer from the left corner — the same spot where he buried VCU — to cut UT’s deficit to four. Osetkowski wouldn’t get many chances after that until it was too late, when he forcefully elbowed a guy out of desperation with 1:27 left.
“Twenty-one. He’s really the go-to guy right now,” Beilein said, referencing Osetkowski’s jersey number. “He really was a force.”
Kerwin Roach Jr. added 11 points, and Bamba had 10 points and 10 rebounds. The 6-foot-11 center shot three 3-pointers, which he has the green light to do. But Bamba simply wasn’t aggres- sive enough down low and hasn’t developed go-to post moves just yet.
Texas shot 36.5 percent overall and was only 5 of 20 on 3-pointers. Davis, a Michigan native playing against the flagship school from his home state, scored only one point starting in Jones’ place.
“We need more from him. We flat-out do,” Smart said.
The Horns were outrebounded by Michigan, 40-31.
“Star Wars” night meant fans got a free T-shirt with Yoda’s image. Darth Vader and a few Stormtroopers stood at attention during the national anthem.
But the UT students got bored early as Texas held a 2-0 lead through the first four minutes. Ten minutes in, it was 8-6.
Finally, the Wolverines (9-3) got going. Abdur-Rahkman scored twice as Michigan had a 24-15 lead. The Horns scored just 20 points in the first half as Smart felt his team got away from what they worked on in practice.
Osetkowski’s hot sec- ond-half start gave the build- ing some life. Bamba hit a free throw with 14:11 remain- ing, and Texas trailed 37-34. But Michigan’s young squad figured out what to do.
“Guys got too deflated,” Smart said. “You’ve got to keep battling. You’ve got to follow the plan on what we’re trying to do on the offensive end.” 60. That number was synonymous with greatness at the University of Texas in the decade of the same.
Tommy Nobis is the gold standard for defensive players on the Forty Acres. Hard-nosed, toughminded and feared by the opposition, he was the guy offensive coordinators circled on game film when it came time to play Darrell Royal’s Longhorns.
The only defensive player in school history to have his jersey number retired left us Wednesday at 74. Nobis died in Atlanta, where he played his entire career for the l NFL team. The Falcons’ firste-ever pick — he went No. 1 overall in the 1966 draft and was NFL rookie of the year— appeared in five Pro Bowls and was a consistent presence on teams that finished with winning records only twice in his 11 seasons.
Long before he earned the nickname Mr. Falcon, Nobis was a twoway performer at Texas who made his most noise at linebacker as a twotime All-American and the unofficial embodiment of big-boy football at Texas.
“Coach Royal told me many times that Tommy was one of the best players he had ever coached or seen,” former Texas coach Mack Brown said in a statement. “He was as physically dominant of a linebacker as the game will ever have.”
During his college years, Texas-Arkansas games were played in bloodfeud fashion and Nobis’ nose was right in the middle of it all. Former Arkansas assistant coach Barry Switzer, who hadn’t heard about Nobis’ passing until I told him in a phone call, recalled Nobis being the fiercest Longhorns player and the one that concerned the coaching staff the most in an era when running the ball was tantamount to being successful.
“He was a great linebacker,” Switzer said. “He was the type of player you were looking for, tough and physical. Tommy was a force to be reckoned with on the field, but (what) I remember most about was that he was also a nice guy, a good person in addition to being a special player.”
Upon retirement, Nobis lived in Atlanta but would venture back to Austin before he took ill. The only time I met him was at the 2009 NFL Alumni Austin Chapter Golf Classic, which benefited local charities. I watched as he and former players like Roosevelt Leaks, Jerry Sisemore and Rayfield Wright exchanged old stories while younger stars like Winfred Tubbs and Brian Jones — the last UT player to wear 60 full-time — watched in awe.
In 2009, Brown asked Nobis to speak to his team before the Fiesta Bowl game against Ohio State. Motivational speaking wasn’t Nobis’ forté, but he agreed to address the 11-1 Horns, who were still getting over being left out of the Big 12 title game after a last-second loss at Texas Tech created a three-way tie atop the Big 12.
Nobis spoke to the team at the walk-through a day before the game. He told them they still had something to play for even though not being able to play for the conference title pretty much ended their chances of playing for a national title.
“I’ll always remember standing out there, and every Longhorn player listened to him intently,” recalled longtime UT radio voice Craig Way. “He had been through the same heartache when they had lost to Arkansas in ’64, 14-13, and they wound up in the Orange Bowl playing Alabama and Joe Namath, who had already been crowned national champions. So they were motivated to win.”
Even in his later years, Nobis had a presence about him. He’s gone now, but memories of his great career aren’t going anywhere.
Texas senior Chiaka Ogbogu added to an impressive list of volleyball honors Wednesday, when she was named a first-team All-American by the American Volleyball Coaches Association. The middle blocker became the second player in program history to earn three firstteam honors.
Ogbogu was one of six Longhorns honored by the nation’s coaches. Sophomore Micaya White landed on the third team, while seniors Ebony Nwanebu and Cat McCoy and freshmen Ashley Shook and Lexi Sun received honorable mentions.
Texas finished 27-3 and rattled off 21 straight victories before Stanford ended the streak in the NCAA tournament regional finals.
Ogbogu left her mark in her final season with the Longhorns with 253 kills, a team-leading .399 hitting efficiency and 174 total blocks — the most in a single season by a Texas player since 1999. She also broke career records for blocks and block assists.
Following the regular season, Ogbogu was recognized as the Big 12 player of the year. She is one of four players in program history to earn AVCA All-America status four seasons in a row, joining Haley Eckerman, Destinee Hooker and Demetria Sance.
Diving: Sophomores Grayson Campbell and Jacob Cornish, along with freshman Jordan Windle advanced to the eight-man final during the USA Diving Winter National Championships.
Campbell took the top Longhorns finish, finishing second with 688.20 points through the preliminary and final rounds. Windle, who represented Team USA last summer at the FINA World Championships, took third in the finals with 661.90 points. Cornish rounded out the Texas finalists with a seventh-place total of 574.50.
Competition continues Thursday in the three-meter preliminary and semifinal rounds.