Horns will have to get tough after defeat
AUSTIN — There are some things Texas interim coach Rodney Terry can abide when processing a loss.
Sometimes smart shots miss. Sometimes the ball bounces in wretched ways that feel supernaturally tilted against your team. Sometimes the officiating crew operates like it’s out to settle a personal score. These things happen, and there’s no use expending energy grousing about it.
What Terry and any coach worth their salt won’t tolerate is a dearth of toughness. It’s still a game of violence and physicality, even more so than it is soaring acrobatics and bombs-away 3s.
Saturday night at Thompson-Boling Arena, Terry watched No. 4 Tennessee beat his 10thranked Longhorns with old-fashioned bully ball.
The Volunteers outrebounded Texas 38-23 with a plus-three advantage on the offensive glass. They planted down low, carved out space with superior size and strength, and turned the paint into a wrestling ring. And Tennessee coach Rick Barnes had the more willing fighters Saturday night in Knoxville.
“We don’t really get outtoughed a whole lot of times,” Terry lamented after the 82-71 loss. “But they really out-toughed us and out-physicaled us tonight in this ballgame. They set the tone early, and we never really adapted and adjusted to the physicality of the game.”
Texas (17-4, 6-2 Big 12) has tussled with bigger teams before and come away victorious.
It took down No. 2 Gonzaga and its star big man Drew Timme back in November. A few weeks later, it overcame Creighton 7footer Ryan Kalkbrenner’s 20-13 double-double in a five-point win, then fended off Oklahoma’s lofty frontcourt on New Year’s Eve.
Tennessee was different. The Vols’ bigs weren’t snaring long caroms. They rooted in the post before Texas could get in position and took advantage of some lax box-outs by their opponents. They opened the game with a 7-1 edge on the glass and generated an early lead with five secondchance points.
“We’re big on playing like grown men,” Vols sophomore guard Zakai Zeigler said after posting 22 points and 10 assists in the win.
More often than not, Texas is going to be the smaller team.
Super seniors Dylan Disu (6-foot-9, 225 pounds) and Christian Bishop (6-7, 220) are as big as it gets in burnt orange right now. Freshman Dillon Mitchell (6-8, 205) can spring up and pick pennies off the top of the backboard, but the wiry former McDonald’s All-American doesn’t yet have the heft or nasty streak needed to slug it out with true bigs inside.
Monday night’s meeting with No. 17 Baylor (16-5, 5-3) at the Moody Center kicks off a potentially troublesome three-game segment that leads into a twogames-in-three-nights road trip to face No. 5 Kansas State and No. 9 Kansas.
The Bears have been on a roll of late, winning six straight after starting 0-3 in conference play. They sank the Jayhawks 75-69 on Monday and bested Arkansas 67-64 Saturday in the SEC/Big 12 Challenge
Texas knows it must be ready to match the Bears’ physicality after Baylor averaged 16 offensive boards and 14 second-chance points in the wins over KU and Arkansas.
“Our league’s really physical in the Big 12 night in and night out,” Terry said Saturday. “But tonight we just weren’t up for the challenge in terms of doing that. I’ve got to do a better job of coaching those guys to be more physical, and they need to do their part likewise. We’re gonna learn a lot from this, We’re gonna get better from this.”