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Sweet 16: Texas vs Xavier - Friday at 8:45pm on CBS

Pancho

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ztejas

ztejas 43411

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Just now, shadow_operative said:

xavier's got more size (talented size at that) than penn state, and again they've got sean miller who's won in this round four times already. they're a really good offensive team, definitely better and more varied than penn state. this was the team i most wanted to avoid from our bracket.  

That's fair. Penn State had been hotter than fish grease, though. 

I don't think we come out shooting like we did against PSU again. I actually think we handle Xavier easily. They haven't played anyone like us all season. 

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DanTheHorn

DanTheHorn 4917

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8 hours ago, Rockethorn1978 said:

Since this tourney started I felt Xavier was a team that was way over seeded and not a 3 seed. Mainly because there conference is overrated.

other than that I haven’t even seen them play and have no idea. Fuck them though.

You mean that shitty overrated conference with 3 teams in the sweet 16. 

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Rickylovesweed

Rickylovesweed 14262

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4 hours ago, shadow_operative said:

Xavier can really shoot (no.3 3-pt shooting team in the country with three guys shooting 40% or more and another at .375), they've got a ton of experience (16th nationally in d-1 experience), and they've got size (26th in america in avg height) including a talented 6'11" big man who is one of the aforementioned 41% three point shooters. they've also got a really good coach who's already been to the Elite 8 four times.

in other words, Xavier is a legit national title contender, and this could be our toughest game of the season. i'm obviously on the record as saying that we can do better than rodney terry, but if we win this game, draw up the contract that night. just don't tell anyone about until after we've won the whole damn thing. 

I think the Carr and Disu pick and roll is going to give Xavier all types of trouble. Nunge is pretty awful in pick and roll defense because of his size/immobility. 

I posted this in another thread but Kennesaw State abused Xaiver in pick and roll. Watch Nunge here. This is a game where we need Carr to hit some 3s because he's going to find open looks from Nunge getting stuck in these situations. 

 

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Rickylovesweed

Rickylovesweed 14262

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I know Texas likes to play kind of fast but I think the best strategy in this game is to slow it down. 

1) Xavier's offense is all about getting quick looks. Their offense is a lot less efficient when you get them deep into the shot clock and minimize transition buckets. 

2) Our best offense against Xavier is going to be putting Nunge into pick and roll defense. 

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  • Pancho changed the title to Sweet 16: Texas vs Xavier - Friday at 8:45pm on CBS
Rickylovesweed

Rickylovesweed 14262

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21 hours ago, honolulu horn said:

You look at Rickylovesweed over there and it's just all about posting about Xavier's weaknesses as a basketball team.

Thing is Xavier is pretty weak at everything other than moving the basketball (I.e. assists) and shooting the 3. 

It's amazing what hitting 3s can do for you. 

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Rickylovesweed

Rickylovesweed 14262

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18 hours ago, huge said:

I like our chances in a faster paced game. We definitely have the edge in depth.

LFG

There are advantages and disadvantages for both teams running in this game. It's the most interesting part of this match up. 

Regardless of if Texas runs, they need to attack the rim and get Xavier in foul trouble. 

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High Plains Drifter

High Plains Drifter 11032

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On 3/19/2023 at 4:36 PM, SKA the boss said:

Xavier has some flaws. Like all high scoring teams, they are good shooters until they are not. Ask Colgate and Pedo State. 

Five of Xavier's losses were to Indiana, Duke, Creighton, Butler, and Nova. They common thread? Those teams have good defenses that average fewer than 70 points allowed per game. The Horns do that too.

By comparison, Xavier allows 73 per game. Obviously Carr, Rice, and good Hunter have to show up, but they aren't a scary defense to face.

The starting five can ball, for sure, but there's not much depth there. We're clearly ahead in this department. Attack that seven footer from the get go. 

 

Solid. This pretty much sums up my take. Live by the three, die by the three when you face a team that can defend the three (see pedo state).

 

 

 

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YGIFS

YGIFS 19449

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I'm not jinxing shit.  And I'd gladly piss you guys off for knowledge of my powers.

Sunday tip-offs are 1:00p & 4:00p-CDT.  If San Diego State upsets Alabama, they're gonna get the later game.  Otherwise, I think Alabama versus whomever gets the earlier game and we get 4:00p with MIA/HOU winner.  Plan your yardwork accordingly.  i am.  

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YGIFS

YGIFS 19449

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Holy shit, $100?  As a college kid in 1990?  That's like a surly 1% now paying $500 for a ticket, then reselling it for $1000 online, taking the profit, getting a hooker, paying her $500, killing her, taking the $500 back, and buying back the ticket for $1000 and seeing us win the game Friday night.  I love it.

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Hookem2147

Hookem2147 21199

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How Texas discovered Jabari Rice (From The Athletic)

Spoiler

Texas assistant coach Bob Donewald Jr. got a call last spring from an old coaching friend, who told him there was a player he needed to look at in the transfer portal: Sir’Jabari Rice, from New Mexico State.

Donewald had never heard of Rice, and he scoffed at the idea. “I got 100 guys I got to look at.”

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Donewald pulled up Rice’s stats from New Mexico State. They were good — 11.9 points, 3.1 assists and 5.1 rebounds per game for a No. 12 seed that won its first-round game — but nothing eye-catching.

“I don’t have time to look at everybody,” he told Casey Owens, who had been his assistant with China’s Shanghai Sharks in 2009-10 and worked with Rice at NMSU.

Five days later, Owens called again.

“You look at him?”

“Casey, come on,” Donewald shot back. “We need dudes.”

“He starts yelling at me on the phone,” Donewald said, relaying the story last week in Des Moines, Iowa, where Texas won a pair of games to advance to this week’s Sweet 16 as a No. 2 seed.

So, to satisfy his friend, Donewald asked Texas’ video guy to bring him two New Mexico State games. He watched those. Then he asked for three more. Then he called Owens back.

“Holy s—.”

“Man,” Owens said, “I told you! You should have listened to me.”

Donewald went straight to former Texas coach Chris Beard and told him he’d found them someone, and Beard, too, was skeptical that a player with those numbers from the WAC would translate to the Big 12.

“This kid’s different,” Donewald remembers telling Beard. “He’s a winner. He’s about winning. And his skill set is off the charts.”

Donewald could see that Rice made all the right basketball plays. His IQ popped off the screen. Donewald dug in. He read more about him and saw that he’d been an All-WAC selection three times, and in his final season at New Mexico State, his scoring average had ticked down because he’d sacrificed to get Teddy Allen his shots in his one season at New Mexico State.

Donewald called Rice, and his pitch was short and sweet: I’m recruiting you to come off the bench. If that’s a problem, then let’s just move on.

“Coach, I don’t care if I start or not,” Rice told him, “but you’re gonna have me on the floor at the end of the game if you want to win.”

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A few days later when Donewald and Beard visited, Rice looked Beard in the eyes and told him that he didn’t care if he started, and if he had seven or eight guys ahead of him, “then we’re really good.”

Boy, was he right.

Texas does not have seven or eight players better than him this season. Rice is the team’s second-leading scorer (12.9 PPG) and last week he made seven 3-pointers in an NCAA Tournament win against Colgate. He has the most feared shot fake in college basketball, and he plays starters minutes while happily coming off the bench, which earned him Big 12 Sixth Man of the Year honors.

“He’s their best player,” Owens said.

Texas played 11 games decided by six points or fewer this season. Rice, as he predicted, was on the floor when the buzzer sounded in every one of those. The Longhorns won 10 of them, including Saturday’s Round of 32 win over Penn State that has Texas headed back to Kansas City, where two weeks ago Rice scored 17 points in a Big 12 tournament championship victory over Kansas.

Two more wins in Kansas City, and Rice will be headed to his hometown, Houston, for the Final Four.

Rice never played organized basketball until his sophomore year at Fort Bend Marshall High School. His first love was football, and he only gave it up for hoops for one reason. “Guys were getting bigger in the weight room,” he said. “And I didn’t want to work that hard in the weight room. So I just decided to play basketball. All the heavy lifting and stuff like that wasn’t for me at the time.”

This would be a point of contention a few years later when he got to New Mexico State. Rice had been a quick study on the hardwood. He played JV his sophomore high school year and then varsity as a junior, helping lead the team to a 25-11 record and regional quarterfinal appearance.

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“He had a great motor,” said Gary Nichols, his coach at Fort Bend Marshall. “He could run all day without getting tired. Listened. He followed directions well. Young, eager kid. Understood the game. He was one that I thought had a chance if he kept improving.”

Sir’Jabari Rice has made 36.4 percent of his 3-point attempts on the season. (Michael Reaves / Getty Images)

The next season, starring alongside John Walker III, Rice helped lead Fort Bend Marshall to the 5A state championship game. The parallels to this year are pretty wild. Rice got hurt midway through that season and came off the bench when he returned. His team was on a hot streak, and he was the leading scorer his first few games back. Nichols didn’t want to mess with what was working.

“He really didn’t care,” Nichols said. “He just wanted to win.”

Walker was a high-major prospect and eventually signed with Texas A&M. He had plenty of other suitors come through Houston to see him play. Nichols would try to get coaches to take a look at Rice as well, but the interest was minimal. He looked too skinny, and he also wasn’t a qualifier.

Still unsigned, he played that spring and summer with the Houston Defenders on the Under Armour circuit. That’s when New Mexico State spotted him.

Rice redshirted as a freshman and admits he didn’t take advantage of that year like he should have. He was only 140 pounds when he showed up on campus, and while he put on some weight, he still wasn’t quite ready the next season to be a contributor on a veteran team. You just couldn’t convince him.

“They had two players who played in the NBA in Zach Lofton and Jemerrio Jones during his redshirt year, and Jabari thought he was better than those guys right from the get-go,” Owens said. “It wasn’t an arrogant thing; it was a ‘I’m going to prove it’ thing.”

New Mexico State went 30-5 and made the NCAA Tournament in his first season of eligibility in 2018-19, but Rice was just on the fringe of the rotation — he played in 31 games and averaged 10.9 minutes — and he took a DNP in a one-point Round of 64 loss to Auburn.

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“He was wild, but he was relentless,” Owens said. “He didn’t have a lot in his bag, so to speak. He could drive the ball a little bit, but he would put his body on the line — diving on the floor, taking charges, going in and offensive rebounding, defensive rebounding with big guys. He’d get knocked on his ass constantly because he’s 150 pounds, but he just wouldn’t stop. He’d keep coming.”

All he needed was a little refinement, and Rice was in the gym every night, even when he barely played. Gradually his body improved and so did his game. After making 15.7 percent of his 3s as a redshirt freshman, he made 38.8 percent as a sophomore and averaged 12.8 points per game. He also became a great defender, because not only did he have the length and quickness, he was so competitive that he’d will himself to be great on that end.

“I’ve never been around anybody that hated to lose that much and wanted to be great,” Owens said.

“He’d get so upset when his team didn’t win or he didn’t get the call in a practice scrimmage and it was like, come on, man, we’re all competitive. It’s practice,’” former New Mexico State coach Chris Jans said. “He’d get so mad at me because I was one of the officials and didn’t call many fouls. Deep down I really didn’t care who won or lost a five-on-five drill in a practice situation in October, but he did.”

Rice made the All-WAC first team and led the Aggies to a perfect 16-0 league record during his redshirt sophomore season. The next season (2020-21) New Mexico State was allowed to play only four nonconference games — and only one against a Division I opponent — and had a down year for its standards, ultimately losing in the WAC finals to Grand Canyon. That offseason Jans landed a prized transfer to pair with Rice in Allen, who had already been to West Virginia and Nebraska as part of a circuitous college career.

Rice had heard about Allen’s reputation as a scorer — his nickname is “Teddy Buckets” — so in his first pickup game with the Aggies, Rice made sure to get on the other team and picked Allen up full court and was jawing back and forth.

“He’s not afraid,” said Allen, who respected Rice right away after that day. “Just a competitor. Ready to step up to anybody. You don’t want to have a losing record against Bari on a practice day because you won’t stop hearing about it until you win.”

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Rice sacrificed his scoring so Allen could thrive and slid over to point guard even though that wasn’t his ideal position. When Jans left for Mississippi State last spring, Rice went into the transfer portal and Texas showed interest, Rice said some people were in his ear telling him he shouldn’t go to Texas. But Allen, the brother of Texas wing Timmy Allen, was convinced that’s where Rice should go and put him on the phone with his brother.

Rice had been roommates on the road with Teddy and says he’s like family, and he hit it off right away with Timmy.

“Once we showed him what we’re about,” Timmy Allen said, “then it was wraps.”

The Texas coaches fell in love right away because his competitiveness was obvious from the jump. He also worked on his body like never before, finally convinced it was important to add weight to be able to bang with the players in the Big 12. He arrived at 152 pounds and is now 172.

“Now I love the weight room,” he said.

What the Texas coaches had to work on next was changing his mindset. “He was almost unselfish to a fault,” Donewald said. “Early on, it was like, dude, you’re passing up shots. We were on his ass. Shoot the ball. He’s like, no, I want to move it. No dude, we need a shooter off this bench.”

Rice has been that, knocking down 36.4 percent of his 3s. Where he’s improved is in his ability to get to the bucket, using a shot fake that he’s always had but never used like he’s using now. He learned it from Walker, his high school teammate, and it has become a talking point on Texas’ television broadcasts. Donewald believes the praise he’s received for it has made him use it even more.

“It’s literally the best pump fake I’ve ever seen,” Texas big man Christian Bishop said. “Every single day I still fall for it. When we play other teams, it’s really funny because like, if he goes up and pump fakes, if we just look at the basket, our defenders look and start boxing out and he gets a wide open lane, easy layup. It’s literally a strategy for us that only we know.”

There’s plenty of video evidence. On Saturday, Rice faked out Penn State star Jalen Pickett so bad that he turned and looked up for the ball.

Rice has scored 44 baskets this season set up by his shot fake. Rice is a good enough shooter that opposing defenders should hard close on closeouts, but some end up short closing just so they don’t get embarrassed and now he’s able to take advantage of that with easier spot-up jumpers.

Rice has a sense for how teams will guard him because he’s a film junkie. After Texas beat Colgate, Longhorns point guard Tyrese Hunter said Rice was already informing him what he knew about Penn State and Texas A&M because he’d already watched tape the possible second-round opponents.

On the day of the Colgate game, he came to Donewald and asked him if he thought Colgate would short close, which is what he saw on tape. Donewald asked him how many games he’d watched. Four, he said. His plan was to shot fake the first time he got the ball and then let it fly. A few hours later he buried a career-high seven 3s.

“That’s how pros are,” Donewald said of Rice’s preparation.

Rice reminds him of Chicago Bulls guard Patrick Beverly, who Donewald coached in Ukraine 15 years ago. Beverly also hated losing practice drills and would yap after winning anything in practice. But it’s endearing to those who get to know him. Owens watches every Texas game and believes Rice will make it in the NBA if a team gives him a shot. “It’s exciting to see a kid that really nobody had ever heard of on the cusp of being able to make a career out of playing basketball,” Owens said.

Jans still keeps in touch. At Rice’s graduation last spring, Jans’ wife Sheri told Rice she would come to one of his games wherever he ended up. She lived up to her promise, spending several days in Austin and attending the Creighton game at the Moody Center on Dec. 1.

“I gave him a hard time, I’m spending (money on) hotel, tickets and food for her to go to the game,” Jans said, “and she already watched you play for four years.”

Rice told Jans before Selection Sunday he was looking forward to hearing Mississippi State’s name called and was hoping they were in the same region.

“I’m thinking, well, I’m not sure I necessarily want to play him,” Jans said. “Jabari is one of those guys that you love playing with; you just hate playing against. He’s just got that edge and he’s gonna fight ya until there’s zero on the clock. He feels like he’s gonna win every time, and the only times he doesn’t is when time runs out.”

Nichols, his high school coach, went to watch Texas beat Oklahoma State on Jan. 24, and he told Rice after that he wouldn’t see him again the rest of the regular season but that he wanted to see him in April in Houston.

Rice looked at him confused, then it dawned on him. The Final Four is in Houston. Rice lit up. “Oh yeah, Coach!”

And that’s why he picked Texas. He heard the doubters, but says he wanted to win a national title and cut down nets, and he’s done whatever he could to make that happen.

“He bet on himself,” Donewald said. “Thank God.”

Edited by Hookem2147
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CTC2

CTC2 2791

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16 minutes ago, Rickylovesweed said:

People haven't talked about the Freemantle injury enough. 

Xavier's record without Freemantle (10-5 and 1-3 against Kenpom top 40 teams). With Freemantle (17-4 and 5-3 against Kenpom top 40 teams). 

If we are focused and took preparation seriously it’s not even going to be close. 

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Rickylovesweed

Rickylovesweed 14262

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4 minutes ago, CTC2 said:

If we are focused and took preparation seriously it’s not even going to be close. 

Xavier is definitely still capable of winning but this simply isn't the same team without Freemantle. He was their best rebounder and led the team in EFG and TS. They just played a really soft schedule in the absence of Freemantle. 

The 10 wins without Freemantle included Providence x 2 (#45 Kenpom), St. Johns (#82), Depaul X 2 (#137), Butler (#122), Seton Hall (#63), Kennesaw State (#123), PIttsburgh (#62). 

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CashMcCoy

CashMcCoy 3199

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The Sir’Jabari article on The Athletic mentioned that we are 10-1 in games decided by 6 points or less. The only loss was the game @TCU which was frustrating, but this team is still so damn clutch.

Xavier is 10-6 in the same games. The losses include @DePaul, @Butler, and Villanova at home. They have some solid wins too of course, but not as many as us.

Thought this was a good sign going into what most expect to be a pretty close game.

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CashMcCoy

CashMcCoy 3199

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11 minutes ago, Rickylovesweed said:

Xavier is definitely still capable of winning but this simply isn't the same team without Freemantle. He was their best rebounder and led the team in EFG and TS. They just played a really soft schedule in the absence of Freemantle. 

The 10 wins without Freemantle included Providence x 2 (#45 Kenpom), St. Johns (#82), Depaul X 2 (#137), Butler (#122), Seton Hall (#63), Kennesaw State (#123), PIttsburgh (#62). 

Their best win without him was when Creighton couldn’t make shit from outside and couldn’t stop turning it over stupidly. My dad went to CU so I watched the entire ugly ass game, and it was by far the worst performance of the year that they had with a healthy Kalkbrenner.

If he was healthy this would probably be a pick ‘em game. Hopefully we end his replacement’s hot streak and really make them miss Freemantle.

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Rickylovesweed

Rickylovesweed 14262

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2 minutes ago, CashMcCoy said:

Their best win without him was when Creighton couldn’t make shit from outside and couldn’t stop turning it over stupidly. My dad went to CU so I watched the entire ugly ass game, and it was by far the worst performance of the year that they had with a healthy Kalkbrenner.

If he was healthy this would probably be a pick ‘em game. Hopefully we end his replacement’s hot streak and really make them miss Freemantle.

Yeah, conference tournaments are not built for Creighton. They play their starters huge minutes (30+). Playing back to back games is not a recipe for success if you're Creighton. 

 

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