Well, we beat the Q1 out of Texas… and bumped ourselves up to #15 in the NET in the process. I was confident we had the ability to win coming in; but I wasn’t expecting the absolute shellacking. It didn’t even feel as close as the 19-point final differential. This is the kind of game that shows where the potential of this team can be. While I don’t expect a completely linear ascent, I do think this team still has room to grow, and that’s exciting.
Every single player in the core rotation attempted a three in the game. All but Sam Lewis and Devin Tillis – two of our better shooters – made one, which resonates with my early season thoughts that when you have so many shooters, it’s okay if a few have an off night. Outside of ball rooms, this team has cooked from deep. Malik Thomas played less than half the game and scored 11 points… and we finished with 88. Chance Mallory played a near-perfect game from an efficiency standpoint, going 3-3 from the floor, 2-2 from deep, 8-9 from the FT line, with 3 rebounds, 3 assists, no turnovers, and a block! He was the game’s leading scorer, at 16 in just 20 minutes. Basically, this was a great showcase in our first true road game of the season against major competition of the diversity of weapons we have and ways to score points.
The game also marked some improved defense, especially in the first half where we held the Longhorns to just 27 points on 37% shooting and 14% from deep. We had a very clear strategy in this game that worked well, and was a variation from what we’d done normally; so we’ll get into that as well as showing how our Center duo was able to slow down their 7-footer.
Lots to talk about and mostly a ton to be encouraged by, so this should be a fun one. Let’s get into it!
Flexible Rotations
One of my biggest pet peeves as a fan is when a coach pre-determines how they want to use their players in a game and don’t deviate from that plan, even when game flow is dictating otherwise. Maybe a player is your trusted veteran, or a player you want to reward for a great week of practice… but the primary goal still has to be winning games; and you have to be willing to adjust when those plans aren’t working in the moment. It’s got to be a fluid thing.
One of those new external pressures is NIL investment. The more you pay to bring a player in, the more pressure is felt to play that player and for them to have impact. So, when Malik Thomas – our prized transfer pull along with Thijs De Ridder – only played 18 minutes in the game, that might draw some looks. Personally, I loved that Odom was willing to go this route and the impact it had on the game. Not because I’m sold we won’t need/want him on the floor a lot more in the future, but because he was willing to make the decision based solely on what this game wanted/needed and nothing else.
I’d also note that, awesomely, Thomas didn’t sulk or appear frustrated with his reduced playing time. Optically, he was very positive and supportive of his teammates from the bench and then, later when he got more time in the second half, was still engaged and contributed toward helping to keep the lead intact – which we’ll talk about in a bit. He played just 7 minutes in the first half and then 11 in the second – starting both halves but coming out of the game pretty quickly in both; spending more time helping to close down the second half.
First, why did it seem like we made the decision to play Thomas less? Well, we outscored Texas by 19 points in the first half of the game, and the seven minutes Thomas was on the floor, we played them evenly. While that isn’t always conclusive; and there weren’t that many glaring things that happened during that stretch, it was just a testament that Odom likely had been mulling over some of these thoughts and then saw the team was playing well; and felt confident enough to ride that.
Thomas has been our worst perimeter defender over the early season, as I’ve previously documented. Playing him with Dallin Hall has been a difficult lift for the defense at times, here’s a look with the starters at the beginning of the second half where Thomas struggled playing off of the ball. His positioning between the ball and his man was pretty flat here, and then when the pass went out to Weaver (#2), Malik’s recovery makes his momentum too difficult for him to react to the drive. He just gets blown by – getting a foul on Sam Lewis in the process.
Here’s another look with bad switch communication early on with Devin Tillis, then he does a decent job of scrambling to a new man after the long blocked shot; but his frantic little jump on the ball fake allows him to get blown by again for the driving layup.
He’s just really struggled to stay in front of his man this year! It’s the first step quickness but it’s also that he’s not fundamentally sound with how close he gets to the defenders and how aggressive he is with his momentum given how his change of direction/retreat defense is on the slower side.
So, knowing that Texas is a slashing team (we’ll get to defensive strategy later but it also ties into who they decided to play), and knowing that this is what Thomas has been bringing to the table; you need him to be hot on offense and in good game flow in order to be playing him. While he did have our first bucket of the game, he also wasn’t there early on. His drives were meeting resistance, and he missed a couple of early shots, including this one that felt forced and a bit out of control on the fast break:
So, that’s really it. The score was tied 7-7 early, and I think Odom just decided to proactively try to mix it up, having noticed some of Thomas’s defensive struggles over recent games… and then liked what he saw.
The switch in minutes distribution allowed for a few things; most notably more Devin Tillis minutes at the three with either both PGs or with Jacari White at the two. That lineup had some really neat benefits that helped us to run up the score during the middle of the first half. Here’s a look at that benefit, below. Texas was a really good transition scoring team coming into this contest; but we held them to just a handful of buckets all game. Having Tillis back there for defensive balance while playing the SF (with Ugo and TDR crashing the offensive glass) gave us some plus positional size. It allowed him, for example, to go straight up and disrupt this fast break opportunity – and then TDR pushes right into transition with the crazy body control three at the end by Jacari:
Here’s another look, below, from this same core three (White, Tillis, TDR 2-4) but this time with Hall at the point and Grünloh at Center. This time Jacari brings the ball up the floor and Tillis gets an extended look from the wing. He’s going to make that shot the vast majority of the time, but was having an off shooting night. Never fear, this time Hall crashes down on the offensive glass (we’re still top 5 in the country at OR%). That’s a more impressive rebound that it appears, because it’s the 6’8″ 220lb, very athletic, Dailyn Swain that Hall seals off pretty effortlessly. Really nice relocation and availability by White for the crazy 4-point play.
White is just such a bonkers shot maker off of the move because of that awesome body control – but he was flame-throwing early in this one.
This lineup flexibility also gave him (White) more opportunity to make plays with the ball in his hands, too. Here he is with the same trio, but with Mallory and Ugo again. This time White brings the ball up the floor himself, initiates the ball screen with Ugo, and finds him for the sweet lob.
We’ll see some more ways in which this rotational flexibility helped us in later sections, including the defensive one, but these are some good looks at how we were cooking with this core three that got to run more together.
Now, what ended up being even cooler about all of this was, once Thomas came into the game later in the second half, he was very fresh and Texas was pretty fatigued. So, a lot of his Malik Thomas-y type stuff, like this drive through contact:
And this just weaving through the defense with all of the creativity:
It all became way more effective than it had been earlier in the game because, by this point, Thomas was hungry and chomping at the bit to get into the action and Texas had been dealing with our pressure for 25-35 game minutes.
And he found the outside shot, too:
It actually ended up becoming a great way to ice the game – and what a luxury to be able to bring in a scorer like this on fresh legs to help deal the knockout blow.
After the game, Sean Miller talked about how impressed he was with our depth and how there’s very little, if any, drop off. That’s great… if you’re willing to use it… and we were. I’m not writing this suggesting that this needs to be the way forward; re: that we should consider always leaning on the other guys and bringing in Thomas as the closer. That actually misses the point entirely. It’s that we have legitimately so many options we can turn to in many different ways/situations, and it’s nice to see that we’re willing to use them. You can play Thomas early and lean on him if he’s scoring. Maybe turn to Chance over Dallin earlier in those situations. Or, you can pivot early and then bring him in later… but the most encouraging thing is that Odom appears very plugged into all of these thoughts and not hesitant, at all, about trying out the options, given what the game situation calls for.
Defensive Adjustments
One thing that’s been very clear about this team is that they take their scouting report very seriously and are willing to alter what they do significantly to account for that. On the podcast with Devin Tillis, TDR talked about how important the scouting report was and how much it helped him when he shut down Nick Martinelli for Northwestern. This is another thing that excited me as a fan and an analyst; tailoring your play to your opponent’s weaknesses rather than just trying to execute your stuff as well as you can regardless of the opponent.
I expect there will be a lot of fun stuff to talk about with this in the future but, in this game, it showed itself in the way we defended ball screens on the perimeter. As we’ve discussed at length, our standard way to defend ball screens is to have our guard chase over the top of the screens, run the offensive player off of the three-point line and into the mid-range or toward the Center, who plays drop coverage. This is the core philosophy of the defense designed around limiting three-point attempts and layups. But it appears there’s a threshold – because Texas is a terrible three-point shooting team across most of their guards, and their Centers are really non-shooting threats entirely (PF Camden Heide is very good at 60%). All of their starting guards, Jordan Pope, Tramon Mark, Dailyn Swain, and key bench contributor Chendall Weaver shoot under 30% from deep. So, we made the adjustment to play under the majority of ball screens on the perimeter, while letting our Centers sag even more aggressively off of their man on the perimeter.
Let’s take a look at this in action. Here’s one of the early clips in the game, below. One of our core defensive matchup ideas is that, after a make or after a defensive rebound, our guards will match up with the closest in their sphere, allowing for quick pressure of inbounders/ball handlers while not getting beaten in transition. This is a whole strategy that helps with our offensive rebounding that we’ll likely cover in the future, but in this case it leaves Dallin Hall matched up on probably Texas’s best player, the 6’8″ ultra-athletic slasher, Dailyn Swain (#3). You see at the beginning of the clip after the Thomas make, TDR takes the ball, and then Hall communicates the coverage to Thomas (who is a little late getting to his pick up). I’d just written about Hall’s struggles chasing over screens and picking when to do so – but here, watch how soft he plays under when Thomas and his man cross his face initially, and then when Grünloh’s man sets the ball screen, watch how deep Johann remains to disrupt all of the cutters and notice the deep under angle that Hall takes to effectively cut of Swain’s driving angle – not worried about the three at all. Dallin’s strength helps him here as he bodies Swain’s drive and gets a good contest on the turnaround jumper which Lewis swoops in to rebound.
I expect this will just be an adjustment for this game or for future opponents with such poor outside shooting from their guard play. That being said, it’s very different from their core defensive philosophy, so seeing them embrace it for most of the game was cool. It also took some of the pressure off of players like Hall’s recovery.
Let’s check out another look. This time, Hall is guarding Swain again. It’s a good opportunity to introduce the defense on Matas Vokietaitis (#8) who is Texas’s 7’0″ 255lb Center averaging about 15 ppg. He was held to 7 in this one on 2-7 shooting from the floor; a really nice defensive effort we’ll focus on in a bit. It was clear that another one of our areas of focus was keeping him from beating us. Although we typically trusted both of our Centers just to get that done, here’s a great look at Hall collapsing down and double teaming the post dribble, leaving Swain entirely alone. This forces a pass out of the post to the perimeter, Sam Lewis contests but they’re really just comfortable letting Swain and his 23.5% three-point rate take the shot.
So, again, another difference based on deciding to allow the deep shot from guards; being able to help on the interior presence.
Here’s another look, below, and this time I want you to watch Sam Lewis for the entire possession. Lewis has turned into a pretty darn good perimeter defender for us with his length and athleticism and tied for the lead on the team with 6 rebounds in this one. He’s become valuable enough that even when he’s not shooting well (unsarcastically 2-8 from the floor and 0-4 from deep in this one), he’s still offering us a lot in other ways. He starts off on Swain, a much better size matchup, and notice the extreme under and retreat angle he uses to navigate the first ball screen – simply turning and running under the wide gap left by Grünloh, cutting off the drive and absorbing it easily. Then he proactively switches with Hall and takes Tramon Mark (#12); shuts the drive down in the lane and forces the kick-out. TDR, clearly attuned to the scout, does a nice job of running Heide (#5) off the line, and Lewis stands firm there to help bother that dribble, as well. From there, Lewis keeps great depth to discourage Mark from driving, and still uses his length to get a good contest on the three-point attempt from the 20% shooter.
That’s one disruptive defensive possession from Sam Lewis! It’s also a great example of how mindful our players were of who they were guarding and what their capabilities are.
Okay, let’s explore just a couple more. This one you see virtually the entire team go under ball screens throughout this possession… to the point where Hall actually almost takes too extreme of an under angle toward the end, but ends up getting a fine contest on a mid-range jumper that we rebound easily.
And then, one more below, and this one was pretty cool. Defending the early possession, TDR switches a ball screen with White, putting him on Swain and leaving White on the 6’8″ Nic Codie. White is attempting to front him in the post, but we never actually have to worry about the mismatch, because Ugo can play so deep in the lane due to his man not being a shooting threat. We know this, and just have him sag of extremely, making the pass into the mismatch switch look unappetizing. Tillis does a nice job sliding and staying in front of Weaver, which is something I would worry about with him defending the perimeter and was encouraging to see, and then De Ridder does a really nice job of sticking close to Swain and actually blocking his jump shot. Watch Jacari play tough under the bucket and actually push his man out of bounds, which causes the ball to go off of Codie, giving us possession despite the block.
That’s a group of five guys knowing what they’re supposed to be doing, staying locked in, and using what they know about the other team to limit our disadvantages.
Defending The Center
I referenced this earlier, but the job that Grünloh and Onyenso did guarding Vokietaitis was commendable. He is the team’s second leading scorer and had scored in double digits in every single game… until this one, including 15 against Duke. Not only has he been a quality source of points, but he’d also thrived at getting the opposition’s bigs in foul trouble through his strength and persistence. While he did do the latter to Grünloh, putting four fouls on him and ultimately limiting him to just 17 minutes, he was held to 7 points on just 2-7 shooting from the floor… and this was after scoring their first two baskets of the game. From Texas leading 4-0, Vokietaitis didn’t score from the floor again.
This was one of those matchups where I thought you could tell the difference between Johann and Ugo on the defensive end from the ease in which they stood up to the matchup. The strength bothered Grünloh a little more, meanwhile, Ugo is used to banging with Hunter Dickinson. Nevertheless, here’s Grünloh standing up to the post move and bothering the shot, despite conceding some ground:
Here’s another one that was probably Grünloh’s best defensive footwork and best at keeping Vokietaitis uncomfortable. He does a nice job with his mobility, stays in front of the pivots, and eventually forces an awkward, weak hand, hook from distance over a good contest:
Johann did get in some foul trouble in the second half, as the strength gave him a few problems and got him too far under the hoop, forcing some fouls. You see here that he he’s doing decently to fight, but when the ball reverses, he gets sealed too deep in the lane and has to foul:
But, the luxury of having a defender like Onyenso on the bench is that he can just pick up the torch. Onyenso is really good at denying post entry passes without fouling – this was something that stood out to me even watching him at KSU. It’s because he’s very strong, but then quick and long. Here you see him doing a nice job of standing up to Vokietaitis, eventually engulfing him and punishing the attempted force from the bad passing angle – which leads to a runout and trip to the foul line for TDR.
And here, below, Ugo’s fronting ends up causing Texas just to throw the ball out of bounds – pressing a little too hard to try to squeeze something in there:
It’s a bad pass, but it goes to show how they were trying to force something and how easily Ugo could cover up down there.
All-in-all, while we did send the occasional perimeter help off of bad shooters like was saw from the Hall clip earlier, we mostly let both of our Centers play this matchup straight up, and they were largely successful. It’s nice not to feel like we have to send help, it’s nice to collectively do a better job on a big like this than anyone had to this point in the season, and it’s nice to have a backup who represents a defensive upgrade over a player like this – but also not having your starter be anywhere near a liability because….
Johann Grünloh
Grünloh really shined on the offensive end; scoring 15-points in just those 17 minutes. It’s time for him to get a little bit of the spotlight. It was his movement and his shooting that really carried the day. I’m noticing that he’s a much more difficult cover for more traditional Centers who might struggle to move with him and who get pulled away from the hoop with his range – which bodes well for him actually being a harder matchup as we face stiffer opposition, as opposed to when we face some of these more under-sized but quicker teams.
But it’s his good hands and fluidity of movement. Here after slipping this pick and roll, many less skilled bigs would struggle to punish this kind of space, having to put the ball on the floor after reading the defense. I can think of many in the recent past for us who might have travelled here. I love how on the catch, he turns, surveys the floor, but in continuous movement is able to put the ball on the floor to quickly punish the rim.
His ability to run the floor and get out ahead of these kinds of players is invaluable, as well. I included this next clip, below, because of how Grünloh beats his man down the floor and is rewarded by the sweet no-look pass from Devin Tillis. But, also, this clip weaves in a lot of the other themes we’ve talked about. This was a rare instance where we ended up going over a ball screen, and you can see Hall get caught on it, chasing Jordan Pope (#0). Grünloh does a nice job of picking up Pope and deterring any shot, though, and, while Hall initially switches onto Vokietaitis, representing a mismatch, watch he and Devin Tillis proactively initiate a switch between them away from the ball to negate that. Tillis is the one who would have had to call for this, because Hall is looking at the ball and then reacts to Devin’s communication. I love that basketball IQ from Tillis! Despite it still being a mismatch, Tillis pulls that backyard rip on the ball from behind, forces the steal, and then runs the break; with Johann helping to punctuate!
This next clip, below, is another look at his hands and how well he catches hot passes without breaking stride or losing momentum. Watch the crisp bounce pass from Hall that Johann easily gathers and dunks…. But, it’s also a good look at his passing and how he helps to probe a defense – firing that cross-court pass to Tillis, and then taking one back before swinging right over to Hall and then moving really quickly into the slip screen. That’s a lot of pressure a 7’0″ player is putting on a defense to move and react from the perimeter.
I kept the clip rolling for the bonus block at the end, too, helping to take some of the pressure off of Tillis’s perimeter defense. Another thought I had about Grünloh’s blocks is that they’re really efficient because so often he secures the ball right afterward rather than swatting it into the second row.
All of that is great, but his outside shooting is starting to come online too… and they often seemed to come at pretty opportune moments in this game (although when isn’t a three opportune?). Watch this clip and, first of all, how cool it is to have a 7-footer calling for the ball because he’s open for three, even more so how he intuitively slides down into the corner to improve the angle on Mallory’s pass to him.
The points speak for themselves, but when you’re watching that play, note how much Vokietaitis (#8) really wants to be staying close to the lane, especially helping on TDR who is trying to seal for a lob pass. He wants to be down there protecting the rim but Grünloh is forcing him to make a decision. He chose incorrectly, and gave up the maximum amount of points. There’s literally no close out attempt or contest on this shot because of that desire to stay close to the rim and/or doubt that he needed to be that concerned about Grünloh’s shot. That’s a huge asset for our ability to open up the floor, especially with a PG like Mallory.
Here’s another look, this time from above the break, but punishing Texas’s desire to double team TDR in the post. This time Texas was able to send Lewis’s man to at least offer some representation of a contest, but it didn’t matter.
This should be a positive balance for us all season as opponents are going to have to pick their poison. Do they want to leave a, likely, overmatched PF guarding De Ridder one-on-one… or do they want to gamble and let Grünloh attempt an open three? Texas erred on the side of gambling in this one and he made them pay 2 out of 3 times.
This last one made me downright giggle with glee because it’s our own German 7-footer taking the Dirk Nowitzki!!!
He was feeling it! It did draw the foul, though, and the handle was fluid. He just covered so much ground throughout that play with his strides and then his pivot back to his fadeaway – it’s a lot to be able to stay in front of and then contest even for their own 7-footer; and he couldn’t without fouling.
This team is so balanced already, but if Johann Grünloh starts playing like this on the offensive side of the ball… look out. Keep in mind, he came in with the reputation of being a true stretch 5 that teams needed to account for and guard… but in the first six games of the season, he’d hit just 1 three in 11 attempts. In the past two games, he’s hit 4 in just 5 attempts. It’s crazy to think that this team has scored 80 or more points in every single victory and is just starting to polish off some new weapons. It allows us to have such a high floor because we can have guys with off nights, like Tillis and Lewis had in this one, and have weapons to spare to turn to.
Neat Offensive Sets
I wanted to close this piece by looking at a few offensive sets that I thought were cool and should get some love. This first one comes out of horns (fitting given the opponent). Odom called this after a Texas make. It’s well designed to keep the help side defense working and engaged and, ultimately, to force Weaver (#2) to make a decision. We start with an entry pass to TDR with Mallory coming to him to take the ball back. TDR then circles and cuts off of a back screen from Ugo, cutting down the opposite side of the lane. This gets TDR’s defender moving and focused on sticking with him. Meanwhile, Ugo continues across and sets a ball screen for Mallory. Mallory gets his man in trailing position and forces Ugo’s to step up. With TDR low, his man has to stay close, which puts Weaver on the back side in the position of having to either stay with his own man, White, or dropping into the lane to help on a potential pass to Ugo. He ends up taking the depth, Mallory reads the coverage, and fires to Jacari for the three.
It’s a dynamite design, as Odom might say, and Mallory reads it and recognizes where to go with the ball so quickly. Very nice job by him.
Here’s another cool design. This one starts off almost like Sides with Thomas and Lewis running off of pin down screens to the wing. Rather than passing to them, though, Hall fires it up to Tillis, at the elbow extended (and opposite Grünloh), and then Lewis cuts back door off of that action with Tillis getting to show off his passing skills.
My favorite part of all of this is actually Lewis’s finish – not shying away from the 7-foot would-be shot blocker rotating over, jumping into his body and finishing through the contact and beyond the reach.
Okay, last one, below, is one they’ve run a lot this season and did several times in this game; but I wanted to highlight it because Mallory is so good at running it and picking up something from it – plus this finish of him literally posting up Chendall Weaver and powering the finish through his body for the and-1 was special. This is a simple one, but it maximizes Mallory’s ability to make something happen in space, especially if he gets a step. In transition, he passes the ball ahead and then sprints to the ball, taking the handoff going at full speed toward the hoop. It requires the defense to communicate whether they’re going to switch or not very quickly. If they do, normally that will mean that the player has to go from moving the opposite direction of Mallory, to catching up to him going the other way at a full sprint. That’s very hard to do; and usually at least draws a foul. Here, Texas doesn’t switch, and Weaver actually reads what’s happening quite well… but the problem is that Chance is still so good in isolation anyway and because we run it out of transition and by throwing the ball ahead, there isn’t much help defense back there in all of that empty space – it’s a true one-on-one, which Mallory wins.
Simple but elegant, this design. Mallory has drawn a lot of fouls running this so far; but we don’t just run it for him… we’ll run it for anyone bringing the ball up the floor given the right situation. We’ve definitely run it for Thomas, TDR, and Hall so far this year, too… and maybe others I’m forgetting.
In Conclusion
This was an exciting and dominant game against a P5 school on their home floor. It certainly moved us in a significantly positive direction in the predictive metrics; and has raised some eyebrows on a more national level. I was encouraged to see it all come together so positively and see the upside of this team start to move from the theoretical to the actual.
That being said, and this should be encouraging given the outcome of that one, there’s still so much room for this team to get better! Defensive rebounding has a ways to go still, which we talked about last game but showed up later in the second half of this one, too. The team is going to continue to get more comfortable with many of their team concepts, as well.
But, it’s really encouraging to see those returns this early, and it’s also really neat to see how much tinkering is being done and how much variability there will be in how we’ll opt to play. Player-wise, I’m happy to see Devin Tillis carving out a role for himself, and one that doesn’t appear to threaten any Thijs De Ridder minutes. I’m absolutely thrilled from what I’ve seen from Sam Lewis outside of his shooting, which has still been great this season. Most of all, it’s really cool to notice trends as they’re happening in-season like the Thomas/Hall defensive conundrum, or wanting to keep Chance fresh, or worrying that Tillis’s return might mean less TDR or Lewis… and it appears that all of those things are on Odom’s mind as well and are calculating into his decision-making and adjustments.
I’m really looking forward to this game against Dayton tomorrow (checks clock…), er, today. There’s a very real chance we come back down to Earth a little bit – and I wouldn’t be discouraged by that. But, if we can build off of that momentum in Austin and look similarly crisp… the mind races.
Late night or early morning, thanks for reading if you have! Talk soon.
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