#2 Texas vs #17 Illinois 6pm on ESPN - Game Day!

[shadow_operative 15932]

TTU records under Beard:

2017: 18-14

2018: 27-10

2019: 31-7

2020: 18-13

2021: 18-11

Chris Beard's teams have always taken their losses in the regular season. only once at Tech did he not lose double digit games. when it comes to the tourney however:

we're going to be fine. if tyrese hunter hits his FTs we're 7-0. we didn't lose to marquette by 25, we lost a close game to a really good, physical, and athletically gifted team, on a night where Rickety Cricket was unconscious from deep and our best FT shooter blew the game at the line. we got tired, and our level of play went down with our endurance. it's happens. and yeah, it sucks, and i'm bummed and upset, but this is a great opportunity to be a learning experience for these guys. we didn't suck tonight, but we did falter when it counted. learn from it and grow, and all is well.

now, we're still easily one of the better teams in America, and anyone who is fuming and cussing and pissed off at this loss should probably skip all of conference play and just wait for the tourney to arrive. we've got some more losses coming, as we play in the toughest conference america. we'll take some lumps along the way, but until i see the bottom fall out, i've got faith in Beard and our team to be competing at a very high level in february and march.

 

Edited December 7, 2022 by shadow_operative

[Degenerate Gardner 4085]

If I never see Michael Meyer again it’ll be too soon. Can’t believe his reincarnated form haunts us too.

[Slacks 6819]

9 hours ago, MotownHorn said:

Wait. You saw #30 not defend worth a damn?!?!?!

Put it this way... I was watching with a buddy who also doesn't get to watch much Texas basketball, and my buddy was enamored with 30 being tall, so we watched him... I kept mentioning he wasn't using his size very effectively to stop Illinois.

That's not why I think we lost, but that was what I saw.

I saw beer, too.

[MotownHorn 1759]

9 minutes ago, Slacks said:

Put it this way... I was watching with a buddy who also doesn't get to watch much Texas basketball, and my buddy was enamored with 30 being tall, so we watched him... I kept mentioning he wasn't using his size very effectively to stop Illinois.

That's not why I think we lost, but that was what I saw.

I saw beer, too.

He’s 6’6” and he was guarding guys who are 6’9” and 6’10” 

[SL Xpress 7513]

15 minutes ago, Slacks said:

Put it this way... I was watching with a buddy who also doesn't get to watch much Texas basketball, and my buddy was enamored with 30 being tall, so we watched him... I kept mentioning he wasn't using his size very effectively to stop Illinois.

That's not why I think we lost, but that was what I saw.

I saw beer, too.

I think it's rough sometimes for those of us who dedicate enough man hours following Texas basketball that could be used to build a hydroelectric dam instead, to welcome more casual fans who are trying to check out what's going on with this team.

As an explanation for who #30 is, his name is Brock Cunningham. He was recruited out of Austin Westlake by the previous coach, Shaka Smart. He wasn't a particularly highly rated recruit, although he was recruited by some strong programs, including Gonzaga. He's in his 4th year, but he's one of those players that it feels like he's been around much longer. He's listed at 6'6, so he's not actually all that tall for a basketball player, particularly the role he was playing last night, defending against 6'9 and 6'10 players, generally being the post defender for the most part during his time on the floor, since other players like Mitchell, Disu, and Bishop often weren't on the floor with him. Which is perplexing to me many of us, but beside the point.

He's not particularly athletic. He's improved his shooting from the 3 point line, but he doesn't look for his shot enough to be a significant threat. Mostly he's a glue and hustle guy. He's on the floor (I mean that in the literal sense) more than anyone else. He's sneaky about grabbing offensive rebounds. He commits hard fouls. There seems to be a polarizing element on the board where some people love him, and some people wish he didn't see the floor nearly so much. 

He's pretty quirky, which people either find charming or off putting. I'm in the former category. He's graduated and is now earning a master's. I'm sure he'll be back for his Covid year next season, so you'll have plenty of time to root for him.  

Edited December 7, 2022 by SL Xpress

[IlliniMike05 12]

12 hours ago, Skipper said:

Absolute bullshit.  They won't call fucking anything against them.  It's ridiculous.

Hahaha, what game did you watch? TSJ's and-one to put Illinois up 7 in OT was literally the only 50/50 call Illinois got all night. If they didn't get skullfucked on four block/charge calls, this game doesn't even go to overtime. 

[dieucla98 2942]

22 minutes ago, IlliniMike05 said:

Hahaha, what game did you watch? TSJ's and-one to put Illinois up 7 in OT was literally the only 50/50 call Illinois got all night. If they didn't get skullfucked on four block/charge calls, this game doesn't even go to overtime. 

You signed up just to post this shit?

[Horn80 6114]

19 minutes ago, dieucla98 said:

You signed up just to post this shit?

Probably aggy

[Loop 1604 227]

42 minutes ago, IlliniMike05 said:

Hahaha, what game did you watch? TSJ's and-one to put Illinois up 7 in OT was literally the only 50/50 call Illinois got all night. If they didn't get skullfucked on four block/charge calls, this game doesn't even go to overtime. 

[MotownHorn 1759]

14 hours ago, shadow_operative said:

 

 

 

I don’t see Ri….

Oh nevermind 😉

[KingBobo81 534]

It was a fun time at the Garden last night, but if we ever have to see Mayer and Shannon again I may puke. I don’t have any fresh takes to add that haven’t already been discussed - I’d rather take a close L like this now and hopefully see them learn from it/be able to close out tough teams when we have the chance. I really thought when we got it to 10 we might push it to a 15-20 pt win

[hobbes2702 13028]

3 hours ago, IlliniMike05 said:

Hahaha, what game did you watch? TSJ's and-one to put Illinois up 7 in OT was literally the only 50/50 call Illinois got all night. If they didn't get skullfucked on four block/charge calls, this game doesn't even go to overtime. 

Every one of those was a charge. No question

Charging shouldn’t exist in the rules but that’s a different discussion. 

[shadow_operative 15932]

final sequence from regulation last night: tyrese misses the front end of a 1-and-1; jabari fouls their hottest player; we have marcus carr pound the air out of the ball for the final 7 seconds. any one of those things goes differently and we're still undefeated. i simply can't bring myself to be too upset over a december loss where everything had to go wrong for us in the final 20 seconds in order for us to lose, and against a really good team no less. 

if i am going to blame someone for the loss it's not going to be marcus carr, it's going to be Beard for not reining him in. we played some odd lineups down the stretch, and the decision to have carr as the ball handler on the last play was just a bad one. i'd legit have rather had arterio morris with the ball in his hands. so again, there's a lot to learn from this, and a lot of season left. i'm still upset about the loss and how it happened, but it's part of the process. learn from it and grow. that's all we can do. 

Edited December 7, 2022 by shadow_operative

[Rockethorn1978 6072]

4 hours ago, IlliniMike05 said:

Hahaha, what game did you watch? TSJ's and-one to put Illinois up 7 in OT was literally the only 50/50 call Illinois got all night. If they didn't get skullfucked on four block/charge calls, this game doesn't even go to overtime. 

Lmao if Illinois doesn’t get the game of Mayer life who averages a super impressive 5ppg before last night you’re right it wouldn’t have gone to OT. A squirrel finds a nut every now and then but let’s see who ends up where by seasons end and I’ve got money Texas is ranked and seeded higher than Illinois. Bookmark this.

[shadow_operative 15932]

seriously though, you've got to be one stupid, homeriffic SOB to think that *any* of those charges were bad calls, much less that illinois "got skull fucked" on 80% of them. 

[Brian Fantana 6677]

30 minutes ago, shadow_operative said:

seriously though, you've got to be one stupid, homeriffic SOB to think that *any* of those charges were bad calls, much less that illinois "got skull fucked" on 80% of them. 

Can I take his side just because it'll make Loopy mad and generate content?

[IlliniMike05 12]

4 hours ago, dieucla98 said:

You signed up just to post this shit?

Yes.

Thank you for your question.

[IlliniMike05 12]

6 minutes ago, Brian Fantana said:

Can I take his side just because it'll make Loopy mad and generate content?

You can take my side because it's the truth. The charge on Dainja was Exhibit A in why the block/charge is the worst fucking rule in sports, made worse by college officials never knowing how to call it and bizarrely defaulting to calling a charge far more often than they should. 

38 minutes ago, shadow_operative said:

seriously though, you've got to be one stupid, homeriffic SOB to think that *any* of those charges were bad calls, much less that illinois "got skull fucked" on 80% of them. 

I don't think Jay Bilas is an Illinois homer. Take it up with him.

[SL Xpress 7513]

8 minutes ago, IlliniMike05 said:

You can take my side because it's the truth. The charge on Dainja was Exhibit A in why the block/charge is the worst fucking rule in sports, made worse by college officials never knowing how to call it and bizarrely defaulting to calling a charge far more often than they should. 

I don't think Jay Bilas is an Illinois homer. Take it up with him.

Help me out here. 

You found this site. Became outraged that Longhorn fans didn’t have the proper perspective on the game, and this is your way of educating us on how wrong we are. 

Is that about right?

[Pancho 44688]

1 hour ago, IlliniMike05 said:

Yes.

Thank you for your question.

6 hours ago, IlliniMike05 said:

Hahaha, what game did you watch? TSJ's and-one to put Illinois up 7 in OT was literally the only 50/50 call Illinois got all night. If they didn't get skullfucked on four block/charge calls, this game doesn't even go to overtime. 

 

 

6 hours ago, IlliniMike05 said:

Hahaha, what game did you watch? TSJ's and-one to put Illinois up 7 in OT was literally the only 50/50 call Illinois got all night. If they didn't get skullfucked on four block/charge calls, this game doesn't even go to overtime. 

 

Hi.

You’re more that welcome to post here. We have a few fans from other colleges that do so I’m sure we’d welcome an Illinois fan such as yourself. (My aunt went to Illinois!)

Don’t be a dick bro. We talk smack yes, but you signed up to pick a fight. We don’t have time for that shit. Talk college ball with us and we will with you and let’s hope we meet up again in Houston in April. 😎

[tx 3 putt 76863]

You can build on December L’s 

[realgreggym 835]

We lost because they were tougher than we were.

[BurgleBro 787]

Problem with Beard Ball is that bad ass 10 pt lead does evaporate when the motion offense fails.  

Credit Illinois.  

 

I want more Rice, dude is a baller. 

Arterio needs to go up stronger. 

Brock is still the shit. 

[shadow_operative 15932]

we played pretty poorly overall yesterday and yet we absolutely still should have won that game. the number of correctable things that we did wrong was quite high, and yet we still went toe to toe with what looks to be a S16/EE level team. the more i'm removed from watching the game, the more encouraged i feel. beard has earned all of our collective confidence in his ability to correct our issues from the illinois loss. until i see that we're repeating the same mistakes over and over, game after game, i think i'm going to look at that loss more and more as learning experience, and less as a super disappointing loss that we really should not have let happen.

[shadow_operative 15932]

4 hours ago, shadow_operative said:

jabari fouls their hottest player;

seriously you guys, jayden epps is a total beefcake. 

[ztejas 43411]

11 minutes ago, shadow_operative said:

we played pretty poorly overall yesterday and yet we absolutely still should have won that game. the number of correctable things that we did wrong was quite high, and yet we still went toe to toe with what looks to be a S16/EE level team. the more i'm removed from watching the game, the more encouraged i feel. beard has earned all of our collective confidence in his ability to correct our issues from the illinois loss. until i see that we're repeating the same mistakes over and over, game after game, i think i'm going to look at that loss more and more as learning experience, and less as a super disappointing loss that we really should not have let happen.

Last night elevated some concerns that I have about this team but it's still too early in the season to worry about them being anything major that will get in the way of them making a nice run in conference and then in March. I wouldn't say we have bigger red flags than any other team in the country does when looking at strengths and weaknesses holistically. 

It also reinforced for me that this is a very good basketball team. Texas was down 44-40 with 17 mins remaining and was then up 56-46 with 8 mins remaining. Mediocre teams don't do that against a team like Illinois that looks to potentially be a good tournament team. 

[Slacks 6819]

On 12/7/2022 at 7:01 AM, SL Xpress said:

I think it's rough sometimes for those of us who dedicate enough man hours following Texas basketball that could be used to build a hydroelectric dam instead, to welcome more casual fans who are trying to check out what's going on with this team.

As an explanation for who #30 is, his name is Brock Cunningham. He was recruited out of Austin Westlake by the previous coach, Shaka Smart. He wasn't a particularly highly rated recruit, although he was recruited by some strong programs, including Gonzaga. He's in his 4th year, but he's one of those players that it feels like he's been around much longer. He's listed at 6'6, so he's not actually all that tall for a basketball player, particularly the role he was playing last night, defending against 6'9 and 6'10 players, generally being the post defender for the most part during his time on the floor, since other players like Mitchell, Disu, and Bishop often weren't on the floor with him. Which is perplexing to me many of us, but beside the point.

He's not particularly athletic. He's improved his shooting from the 3 point line, but he doesn't look for his shot enough to be a significant threat. Mostly he's a glue and hustle guy. He's on the floor (I mean that in the literal sense) more than anyone else. He's sneaky about grabbing offensive rebounds. He commits hard fouls. There seems to be a polarizing element on the board where some people love him, and some people wish he didn't see the floor nearly so much. 

He's pretty quirky, which people either find charming or off putting. I'm in the former category. He's graduated and is now earning a master's. I'm sure he'll be back for his Covid year next season, so you'll have plenty of time to root for him.  

Thanks. This jives.

It's unfortunate that I don't get time to watch much ball any more.

He seemed like he knew where to be, but didn't do much once there... Maybe I caught a bad stretch (2H and OT).