Roach supplies necessary defense
AUSTIN — Mo Bamba and the rest of his Texas teammates discovered junior guard Kerwin Roach was cleared and available to play Wednesday night against No. 8 Texas Tech long before coach Shaka Smart.
That morning, Roach informed the team that X-rays on his fractured left hand had come up all clear. An incredulous Bamba immediately hit up “Snoop” on FaceTime.
“Are you serious?” Bamba asked excitedly. Roach was. Hours later, Smart found out. With a wink.
“I didn’t even know he was playing until a little bit before the game,” Smart said after Roach
scored a season-high 20 points in UT’s 67-58 win. “He had a doctor’s appointment today. The trainer told me earlier in the day he should be good to go for West Virginia. I said great, that’s progress.
“But the assistant coaches started grabbing me and saying, ‘Snoop’s playing, Snoop’s playing.’
“I literally was walking out on the court at the beginning of the game and I turned to the trainer and said, ‘Can Snoop play or not?’ He winked at me. So that’s how I found out.”
Roach, 6-4, who had played with the injury for about a month before missing UT’s previous two games, came off the bench just over six minutes into the contest. He played his typical smothering defense on Red Raiders leading scorer Keenan Evans, who managed 11 points on the night, but took some time to gain rhythm on the other end.
Shake off the butterflies
His first bucket, a 3-pointer from the corner 6½ minutes after subbing in, broke the dam.
“First half, I was kind of nervous,” Roach said. “Really (felt) like a freshman when I went it. But I just settled my nerves on my first bucket and went from there.”
Any lingering concerns washed away immediately. From that point, Roach was as aggressive in attacking the rim as he had been all season.
Tech looked helpless against Roach’s lightning first step and, as a result, ended up sending him to the line for nine free-throw attempts. He made Tech pay for it.
Roach, who played in high school at North Shore, had hit only 59 percent of his tries at the line before Wednesday, an abysmal mark for anyone, let alone a guard. That night, he was 8-of9, by far his best showing of the year on such a high volume.
His ability to defend at an elite level and get to the line will be pivotal Saturday as Texas (12-6, 3-3 Big 12) travels to take on sixthranked West Virginia (15-3, 4-2).
West Virginia is one of the nation’s stingiest defensive teams, ranking ninth nationally in KenPom’s defensive efficiency metric. But it has surrendered an average of 19 free-throw attempts per game in Big 12 play.
Seniors Jevon Carter and Daxter Miles make up one of the conference’s top backcourts. The pair average a combined 29.7 points, 10 assists, five steals and 3.4 3-pointers per game. Roach and point guard Matt Coleman won’t get many moments of respite on either end, especially against coach Bob Huggins’ unrelenting full-court “Press Virginia” defense.
Chance for an upset
“They’re going to come out breathing fire in that game,” Smart said. “They’re going to come out with a level of physicality. So we’ve just got to be ready to match that.”
With Roach back in the fold, Texas has a chance to upset a top-10 team for the second time in four days.
And this time, Smart won’t have to wait for a pregame wink to know just how good those chances are.