A desperate Longhorns team faces a desperate Sooners team in Norman.
Someone is going to leave the Lloyd Noble Center late Wednesday with their first conference win.
The Texas Longhorns (11-5) head to Norman to face the Oklahoma Sooners (13-3) in the Red River Rivalry with both teams at 0-3 in SEC play. Tip is at 9:00 p.m. Central on SEC Network.
The recent slide for the Sooners under fourth-year head coach Porter Moser has been more pronounced than the poor SEC debut for Texas — Oklahoma exited the non-conference schedule ranked No. 12 in the country as one of four unbeaten teams nationally before suffering loses to Alabama, Texas A&M, and Georgia.
With homecourt advantage worth about 30 percentage points in win probability, the frustrating loss for the Sooners came against the Aggie, an 80-78 defeat last Wednesday that saw Oklahoma blow an 18-point lead in the second half. Texas A&M was playing without star guard Wade Taylor, but Zhuric Phelps picked up the slack in the backcourt, scoring a career-high 34 points, including 28 in the second half, culminating in the go-ahead three with 19 seconds remaining.
The inability to slow down Phelps blew a hot shooting performance by Oklahoma, which made 54.3 percent of its field goals and 14 threes on 58.3-percent shooting from beyond the arc.
The scoring ability of the Sooners is a concern for the Longhorns — Moser’s team ranks in the top 25 nationally in adjusted offensive efficiency because they rank in the top 50 in three-point shooting percentage and two-point shooting percentage while converting at the line at an 80.9-percent rate, eighth in the country.
“Porter’s teams never beat themselves,” Texas head coach Rodney Terry said on Monday.
“We’ve got to go play against a team that has had a really good season to this point right now, probably his best team in my mind, because they have a really good shooting team. They’ve got a team that has made 10 threes in eight games this year, so big-time shooting team, a team is not going to beat themselves, really good free-throw shooting team, well-coached team.”
Forward Jalon Moore leads Oklahoma in scoring at 17.4 points per game on pace for a 50-40-80 season that speaks to his high-level offensive efficiency. Moore is also the team’s second-leading rebounder. The leader in assists and second-leading scorer is standout freshman guard Jeremiah Fears, although he is also susceptible to turning the ball over with a 4.3-to-3.7 assist-to-turnover ratio.
A pair of 6’10 senior forwards, Sam Godwin and Mohamed Wague, are both dangerous on the offensive glass, but it’s on the other end where the Sooners really struggle, ranking 319th in opposing offensive rebounding rate — the Horns need to create some extra possessions by regularly rebounding their own misses on Wednesday.
Texas will also have to battle through the absence of junior guard Chendall Weaver, who will not be available for a second straight game due to a hip injury, depriving the Longhorns of a strong rebounder and defender in the backcourt.
For Terry’s team overall, the adjustment to the SEC has been an adjustment to the league’s physical brand of basketball that puts a premium on defensive rebounding and winning 50-50 balls. After struggling to come up with loose balls in the 20-point road loss to the Aggies, the Horns have improved in that area, but still gave up 17 offensive rebounds and 17 second-chance points in Saturday’s home loss to the Volunteers.
“We’ve work really hard at trying to get better with our block outs and finishing possessions with physical block outs. That’s been the toughest part there. I thought we won the 50-50 game against Tennessee — we were first to the floor, we played Texas competitive basketball in terms of trying to win that part of the game, and I think we’ve improved in that area from from the first game of conference play,” Terry said.
Terry often emphasizes the need for guards to help out as rebounders, but the Longhorns also need more from senior forward Kadin Shedrick, whose 13.3-percent defensive rebounding rate is five percentage points behind Weaver’s. Against the Vols, Shedrick didn’t have a single defensive rebound in 32 minutes and only scored four points on three shot attempts from the floor.
Senior forward Arthur Kaluma struggled scoring in that game, too, recording just four points after setting his career high with 34 points in the loss to Auburn, putting extra pressure on a bench that didn’t feature Weaver and only managed nine points on 2-of-12 shooting as Terry used an eight-man rotation.
The scoring slack was picked up by freshman guard Tre Johnson, who scored a game-high 26 points on 11-of-17 shooting, including 10 straight points for the Horns in the second half. After a dunk with 11:33 remaining, however, Johnson took only two shots over the next two minutes before he was forced to take two late threes as Texas went into desperation mode.
One of the best parts of Johnson’s game is his ability to play within the flow of the game instead of regularly forcing himself on it, and teams are certainly keying on him in important moments, so the challenge for Terry and his staff is to find better ways to get the star freshman the ball in dangerous spots on the court during crunch time.
With a projected score of 77-75 and Texas entering Wednesday’s game with a 42-percent win probability, according to BartTorvik.com, that aspect of the game within the game could determine whether the Horns remain winless in conference play.
Texas has a five-game winning streak in Norman and has won eight of the last nine against Oklahoma overall.