Texas scouting First Four matchup from hotel
On Tuesday, the Texas basketball team will step into its charted plane, fly to Charlotte, N.C., settle in at the squad's hotel and grab something to eat and drink before watching the First Four game between Colorado State and Virginia.
But don't think it's a soiree because of the snacks. Texas is treating the first weekend of the NCAA Tournament as a business trip, and Tuesday's game (8:10 p.m., truTV) to determine the Longhorns' first-round foe may as well be a Power Point presentation, albeit with a remote instead of a mouse.
“We've had our watch party already,” Texas coach Rodney Terry proclaimed Sunday at the program's practice facility, where the team gathered to watch the selection show and find out its No. 7 seeding in the Midwest Region. “Now, we've just got to get down to business and lock into the details of what we have to do to continue to get better and put ourselves in the best position to continue on this journey.”
Graduate forward Dylan Disu, Texas' leading scorer in conference play and a first-team All-Big 12 selection, said watching the game serves as an initial scouting report.
“You just watch it not as a fan, but just watching the guy that you'll be guarding,” Disu said. “You see how you would play certain things and kind of get a feel for how the other team's going to play (them). And then, whoever the winner is, you'll start to feel them out.”
Disu and the Texas frontcourt players will keep a particularly close eye on how Colorado State and Virginia utilize their big men on both ends of the court. Virginia, which finished third in the ACC, leans heavily on its guards to run a deliberate offense, but the Cavaliers do have versatile, disciplined, defensive-minded forwards who can jump out to cover the 3-point line and effectively switch onto a guard.
Colorado State, which likes to get out in the open court more than Virginia, boasts burlier forwards in Joel Scott and Patrick Cartier. Neither one is a go-to scorer down low, but both like to crash the glass, and both shoot better than 50% from the floor.
The scouting report looks a bit scarier for Max Abmas and the other Texas guards. Colorado State leans heavily on graduate point guard Isaiah Stevens, who averages 16.5 points and seven assists. Virginia has its own star point guard in Reece Beekman, who
puts up 14.3 points and 6.3 assists a game and recently picked up his second ACC defensive player of the year award.
But Abmas, Texas' other All-Big 12 player, said the competition in the Longhorns' conference has steeled the team for any style of play.
“We're kind of prepared for both of them,” he said. “If you look at who we've played throughout the Big 12 and nonconference, we played against high-level offensive teams, and we played against high-level defensive teams, too. I feel like our résumé throughout the whole season has kind of built us up for this point, whether we play Colorado State or Virginia.”