This was too entertaining not to post:
At first I was sympathetic to Aggie fans, it would be tough to lose a game that way. Then they started acting like Aggies and threatening a lawsuit over the non-call. Seriously. It didn’t take long to remember there is never a good reason to take pity on them. Now I laugh and laugh and laugh at their despair. (via)
The Houston Chronicle looks at how Memphis and UT match up. They give Memphis the edge overall, but I think they’re off in saying Rose has the edge over Augustin.
Longhorns lean more on Dexter Pittman for defense. Facing a much more athletic lineup than Stanford, might be a game where we need Gary Johnson to shine.
Derrick Rose, DJ Augustin battle for spot in Final Four. DJ got the best of a Rose in a game this summer, hopefully he can do it again with more on the line.
After a big victory over Stanford Friday, the Longhorns now face their toughest test by far of the tournament in the Memphis Tigers. Before the tournament started, I thought the Tigers had a chance to be one of the first number one seeds knocked off. It’s a lot later than I thought but that could still be the case if Texas takes care of business Sunday afternoon.
If the Horns want to hand Memphis only their second loss of the season they’ll have to contain the dynamic guard duo of freshman Derrick Rose and 6-foot-7 junior Chris Douglas-Roberts. Both players are averaging around 15 points and 4 rebounds per game and are excellent on offense and defense. The battle between point guards Rose and DJ Augustin should be an entertaining match-up to watch.
Watch the SI.com video preview of Memphis below:
Below is SI.com’s Luke Winn’s excellent Q&A with Ian Mooney, enjoy…
The Blog’s two-season series of player-and-coach (but mostly player) Q&As has featured such luminaries as Roy Hibbert and Rick Majerus, but we’ve never before interviewed a walk-on. That changed today, as the subject is Texas senior forward Ian Mooney, who shares a name with the former host of WWF’s Wrestling Spotlight and, unlike most walk-ons, had three double-digit-minute games this season, averaging 0.3 points on the season. Mooney wears the No. 22 in honor of his late brother, Brendan, and transferred from St. Louis to Texas after one year as a walk-on with the Billikens. Longhorns point guard D.J. Augustin says Mooney “sets the best screens” on the team, and strength and conditioning coach Todd Wright warns onlookers not to dismiss Mooney as unathletic because of his stocky Irish frame. “He might look like he’s been drinking for three days, or that he just fell off the potato truck,” Wright says of Mooney, “but he can really jump. Seriously, he’ll throw down dunks.”
We caught up with Mooney in the Horns’ locker room before their Friday practice:
Luke Winn: You went from being a walk-on as a sophomore, to a scholarship guy last season [when a gap was left by Daniel Gibson leaving early], back to being a walk-on. That’s an interesting back-and-forth.
Ian Mooney: I just take what comes my way. I had a scholarship fall in my lap, and now I’m back to just doing what I do, walking on.
LW: Did you earn the full ride last year by harassing Kevin Durant in practice? [Coach Rick Barnes had said that Mooney guarded Durant “better than anyone.”]
IM: I think they kind of had some extra [scholarships] lying around last year, but I’m fine with the Durant angle.
LW: And you’ve already graduated?
IM: I graduated this past summer in corporate communications. It’s like communication studies in corporate situations — doing sales presentations, things like that. And I’m in grad school now, for advertising, which is pretty tough. That’s fine, though — I’d rather do advertising than be taking basket weaving or doing the Leinart plan.
LW: What’s the University of Texas equivalent of a ballroom-dancing class?
IM: I took a semester of piano once, and that was my fine-arts credit. I don’t know if that was as bad [as ballroom dancing], but our homework was singing in class and practicing our stuff.
LW: You’ve seen some serious time in a few games this year [against TCU and St. Mary’s in January]. How did that come about?
I think coach [Rick Barnes] just kind of got frustrated with some of the guys, and gave me a shot. We were playing against TCU and they had undersized big men, and our guys were having trouble with it. Coach gave me a shot, I did well, and found a couple more minutes the next game, which was cool.
[Note: In order to conduct this interview, Mooney took a break from playing a white-board game with teammates Matt Hill and Damion James that was essentially Pictionary for movie titles. Mooney is the one drawing in the photo below.]
Where did you come up with that game? And which movies did you draw?
IM: I brought it over from high school [at St. Michael’s in Austin], but it just started today because we’ve been bored like crazy. We just needed to pass the time. I did Courage Under Fire — you see, the lion without the heart from Wizard of Oz, and then the fire? It’s supposed be be flip-flopped, but it’s there. Then I did Camelot, drawing camels in a parking lot. [He also did Honey, I Shrunk The Kids, with a pot of honey and some small stick figures, and Hill drew Next Friday by using a calendar.]
LW: I heard last week about the team’s obsession with Rock Band in your home locker room …
IM: We first got it started with Guitar Hero. One of the managers brought it in, and then we convinced him to get another guitar — and then we made him keep the guitars in the lounge, because we were playing it so much. Then Rock Band came along and the next thing you know, we had a band. D.J. is good at drums, because he played in middle school, and Clint [Chapman] is probably the best at guitar. Justin [Mason] is on the mic. He sings the classic rock. Very adequately.
The Longhorns controlled the first half and dominated the last ten minutes in route to a 20 point win over Stanford Friday night. Texas used a 20-3 run to turn a 1-point game into a 82-62 victory.
DJ Augustin was the player of the game for the Horns, leading the team in scoring with 23 points and dishing out 7 assists. When he took over the game and the tempo in the middle of the second half is when Texas went on their run. But equal credit for reversing the momentum should go to Rick Barnes, Dexter Pittman, and the other bigs playing defense down inside. The switch to a 2-3 zone defense and Pittman’s big body frustrated Stanford star Brook Lopez, and without him the Cardinal had no offensive threat.
The team now advances to the Elite 8 where they will face the Memphis Tigers Sunday at 1:20pm on CBS.
The NCAA is trying a new set up for tournament games in football arenas and the games in Houston and Detroit this weekend will be fans’ first look at it. In order to get more fans in the stadiums, the courts will be set up at the fifty-yard line instead of tucked away to one side like the normal football stadium set up. When the Longhorns face off against the Stanford Cardinal Friday evening at Reliant Stadium they’ll also do it from 27 inches off the ground.
The set up will allow them to sell more tickets and will look good on TV, but seems far from optimal for the players and coaches in the games. Both the location and elevation could actually affect the outcomes of these very important games. It could change things for shooters and on loose balls near the sideline.
The big drop just a few feet out of bounds is incredibly dangerous. Players are definitely worried about hustling after the basketball and falling off the edge, as evidenced by quotes like this one from Villanova’s Scottie Reynolds: “What if we go for the loose ball and dive off the court? I mean, that’s the thing I was scared about.” It seems like a lawsuit waiting to happen.
The large empty space behind each basket also may cause depth perception issues for shooters, something that would be a very bad for the guard-oriented Longhorns. There will be very few fans behind each basket, and each will be backdropped by large black curtains. On how the shooters would cope, our own AJ Abrams said, “There’s going to be an obvious depth perception [problem] just from the goals, but nothing you can’t handle. Just go out and get a couple shots up and get the feel of it and that’s what it’s all about.”
Hopefully AJ can get comfortable during warm-ups and comes out firing during showtime. And maybe that homecourt advantage means we’ll have Texas fans lining the court to catch any Longhorns that go flying off the ledge. The best outcome is that nobody will get hurt and the final score of the games won’t be affected. We’ll find out Friday evening.
After playing well in hostile territory in the first two rounds, the Longhorns come home to Texas for the Sweet 16. On Friday the Horns will take on Stanford in a 2 vs. 3 match-up in Houston. The Cardinal pose the biggest challenge in the tourney yet for Texas, particularly the giant Lopez twins down inside.
The 14 feet of Lopezes in the paint means the Longhorns need a big game defensively from the likes of Connor Atchley, Damion James, Gary Johnson, Alexis Wangmene, and big Dexter Pittman. On the offensive end Texas needs another hot shooting night out of junior guard AJ Abrams, but open looks won’t come as easily as they did in the previous two games.
Watch the SI.com video preview of Stanford below:
How Texas remained durable after Kevin Durant. Every single other player is better the season, especially Connor Atchley.
16 to 1: Ranking the Sweet Sixteen. Drinking the Forty puts the remaining NCAA Tournament teams in order.
Men’s NCAA Tournament: Texas-Stanford preview. The Dallas Morning News gives a slight edge to the Horns.
DJ Augustin is a leading man of March and a mama’s boy. Texas’ All-American point guard calls home every night.
After taking care of business on Friday, the Longhorns take on Miami today at 1:15 pm in the second round of the NCAA Tournament. To get past the Hurricanes Texas will have to keep shooting the ball well from outside and stop Jack McClinton from going off. McClinton is an excellent scorer and had 38 points in their first round win over Saint Mary’s. If he does that again the Hurricanes have a good chance of pulling off the upset today.
To learn more about McClinton and the rest of his teammates, watch the SI.com Film Room Preview below:
Dexter Pittman had his first double-double as a Longhorn against Austin Peay but that wasn’t the thing I was most impressed with on Friday. The one play of the day that made me jump up out of my seat was Big Dex’s one-handed recovery of a loose ball. The ball was bouncing near the free throw line and Pittman bent over, palmed the ball with his left hand, and then tossed an outlet pass to DJ Augustin to start the break.
Apparently I wasn’t the only one impressed with it, Austin-American Statesman write Kirk Bohls spent half of his Saturday article discussing Dexter’s hand size:
The first thing you notice about Dexter Pittman is his huge hands.
OK, the second thing.
It’s hard to overlook the fact that when Pittman walks into a room, there’s much less space for everyone else.
However, after his tremendous size, which is literally diminishing by the meal, the most conspicuous thing about the 6-foot-10-inch, 295-pound-and-falling sophomore center is his truly mammoth hands. The biggest hands you’ll ever see on a human.
In Texas’ practices, he shows them off by catching the basketball with a single hand. He especially loves to taunt diminutive teammate A.J. Abrams with his hands, because the flashy junior guard has been Pittman’s primary tormentor regarding that ongoing battle of the pounds. […]
But no one was kidding Pittman about his hands — hands so large they could double as catcher’s mitts.
They come in handy when he’s trying to secure rebounds or block shots. He gives Texas a physical presence down low, something it needs since its best reserve post player, Gary Johnson, continues to sit out with a severe ankle sprain. Johnson remains questionable for the Longhorns’ second-round NCAA tournament game Sunday against Miami.
“I think I have the biggest hands in the country,” Pittman said. “Sometimes I will palm A.J.’s head. Or I’ll cover his whole face with one of my hands.”
He also puts them to good use on the court.
In the Longhorns’ 74-54 rout of 15th-seeded Austin Peay in the first round, he had a career-best 10 rebounds to go with 11 points, in his first double-double at Texas. He grabbed seven rebounds in his first seven minutes Friday. The breakout performance came in his first NCAA tournament action; he never got on the court in Texas’ two 2007 postseason games.
Even more impressively Friday, he actually palmed a loose ball laying on the floor of Alltel Arena, and quickly flicked it to a teammate.
“Did you see him snatch that ball with one hand?” Texas assistant Ken McDonald gasped. “Like it was a tennis ball. Now that’s coaching.”
I’m not sure how much Pittman will be able to contribute through the rest of the tourney, it will depend on the match-up, but if he continues to improve I’m excited about what he’ll bring in the next two seasons. Big Dex at a stronger, lighter 280 pounds could be a force in the Big 12.
The opening round game of the 2008 Men’s Basketball Championship turned out about as well as the Texas Longhorns could have hoped for. A nice, comfortable 74-54 win against an overmatched Austin Peay team moves the Horns on to round two against Miami. AJ Abrams was the leading scorer for Texas, he definitely had his three-point stroke working on Friday.
Texas got out to a huge 19-3 lead early and never let up against the Governors. The defense was active and the big men inside gave the undersized scorers for Austin Peay no room to make anything happen. Connor Atchley, Damion James, and big Dexter Pittman controlled the paint and blocked six shots during the game. Texas kept their 15 to 25 point lead throughout the game, and while the starters didn’t get a ton of rest late the second half was relatively easy and everybody should be ready to go Sunday against the Hurricanes.
Availability of Gary Johnson still a game-time decision against Miami. I’ll be surprised if he plays, hopefully ready for Sweet 16 if the Horns make it.
A great day of basketball yesterday with some fantastic finishes and upsets. I would have loved to have been in Tampa yesterday to watch all those top seeds go down in dramatic fashion. Now on to round two of the tourney, where it’s less about the underdog and more about watching good basketball. Only one match-up today really jumps out of me but it should still be a good day to sit on the couch and be a college basketball fan.
Here’s what to watch on the first day of round two:
(11) Kansas State vs (3) Wisconsin - 3:20pm
Michael Beasley led K-State past fellow phenom OJ Mayo but the Badgers are a lot tougher inside than USC. Prediction: Wisconsin
(6) Marquette vs (3) Stanford - 5:45pm
Winner takes on Texas/Miami winner in Houston. Stanford is a tough team and the Lopez twins (both with girl names, Brook and Robin) and might be a tough match-up for the Horns so root for the Golden Eagles. Prediction: Stanford
(5) Michigan State vs (4) Pittsburgh - 8:10pm
The game today that I’m most interested in, but since it’s head-to-head with the Aggie game we won’t get to watch it. A couple of really good teams that have both been playing well. Prediction: Michigan State
(9) Texas A&M vs (1) UCLA - 8:15pm
The Aggies played well against BYU but tonight’s game against UCLA should be a whole different level. Can they keep it close and be around at the end with a chance of an upset? Probably not. Prediction: UCLA
This time ESPN college basketball guru Joe Lunardi previews the Austin Peay Governors. Sort of. He’s only got 36 seconds of information on Texas’ opening round opponent, and he still couldn’t make it that long without a urine-related joke. No mention of a single player or coach, watch the SI.com preview video for some better analysis.
Here’s the preview of Austin Peay:
Day one was sadly short of upsets, and the evil Dukies were able to hold off Belmont in the final seconds Hopefully our Good Friday of basketball is a day of tons of upsets where everyone but the Horns go down.
Here’s what to watch on day two:
(10) Saint Mary’s vs (7) Miami - 11:30am
The Hurricanes are coached by former Texas assistant Frank Haith, but his team won’t have enough for a strong St. Mary’s team. The Gaels played the Horns tough for a half back in early January and will give Miami trouble here in the first round. Prediction: Saint Mary’s
(15) Austin Peay vs (2) Texas - 2:00pm
Arkansas fans will be chanting “Let’s go Peay!” with all their redneck vigor, but the Longhorns should be able to handle the Governors easliy. Prediction: Texas
(11) St. Joseph’s vs (6) Oklahoma - 6:10pm
The Sooners were struggled against good teams this year and St. Joe’s is a good team. Somehow I managed to pick every 11-seed to win, only one for three so far… Prediction: St. Joe’s
(12) Villanova vs (5) Clemson - 8:50pm
Clemson gave UNC a run for their money three times this year and Villanova was one of the last teams in. Yet, this is my 12/5 upset of the year. Prediction: Villanova
Texas Longhorns NCAA Tournament tickets. Buy or sell tickets for Sunday’s games in Little Rock or the Final Four in SA.
All you need to know about the Horns’ NCAA chances. Bohls thinks Augustin and Abrams will help the team coast to Houston.
ESPN expert Joe Lunardi loves the Horns spot in the South bracket. He thinks Texas has the best résumé in the country and will make it to the Final Four in San Antonio.
Watch his NCAA Tourney preview of Texas below:
I’m not even sure where Austin Peay is located, but the Longhorns will be taking them on Friday in the opening round of the NCAA Tournament. The former school of NBA legends Trenton Hassell and Bubba Wells, Austin Peay has 8,650 undergraduate students at the Clarksville, Tennessee campus. The 15th-seeded team in the South bracket, the Governors are led by scorer Drake Reed and outside shooter Todd Babington.
Check out the SI.com Film Room preview below for more info:
The Longhorns will face the Governors on Friday at 2pm on CBS. Start working on your excuse to leave work early now.
This weekend is one of the best times of year to be a sports fan. Wall-to-wall college basketball on television and everybody has a little something extra riding on the games. March Madness finally begins today.
Here are some of day one’s most interesting games:
(3) Xavier vs (14) Georgia - 11:20am
Can the Bulldogs keep any of that SEC Tourney magic going or are they worn out? A lot of people have Xavier going pretty far and I think they win this one easily. Prediction: Xavier
(11) Kentucky vs (6) Marquette - 1:30pm
Billy Clyde Gillispie’s Wildcats started off the season terribly and I thought he might not survive his first season in Lexington. They went on a late conference run and I think it continues today with the upset. Prediction: Kentucky
(11) Baylor vs (6) Purdue - 1:50pm
One of the games I’m most interested in today. Scott Drew has brought Baylor lightyears from where they were a few years ago, can they get a first round victory? I think so. Prediction: Baylor
(11) Kansas State vs (6) USC - 6:10pm
Probably the premier national game of the day pitting two of the country’s top youngsters. Will Kansas State’s Michael Beasley or USC’s OJ Mayo prevail in this match-up of this year’s top five NBA draft picks? Prediction: Kansas State
(9) Texas A&M vs (8) BYU - 6:25pm
Farmers versus Mormons… fight! The Aggies will go as far as giant freshman DeAndre Jordan will take them. He’s not the best player on their team, but he’s the most important. Prediction: BYU
Loading ...