With a 3-5 record in SEC play that places them 13th in the conference heading into Saturday’s road game against the Oklahoma Sooners, the realities surrounding the Texas Longhorns under first-year head coach
Sean Miller are coming more sharply into focus — the Longhorns are an elite offensive team with a struggling defense plagued by a fouling virus, an illness that often presents as terminal.
In a trend as repetitive as a broken record, Texas’ 88-82 loss at Auburn on Wednesday featured familiar sights like a strong enough offensive performance to take a 14-point lead in the first half that gave way to 18 fouls in the second half as the Longhorns blew their advantage because the Tigers went 22-of-28 at the free-throw line.
“They put our guys in a position to foul and and we fouled the shit out of them,” Miller said after the game.
The comments by the Texas head coach echoed his sentiments after last week’s 85-80 loss to Kentucky in Lexington.
“This is a Texas problem,” Miller said. “We have a virus called fouling, and it has plagued us from the opening tip of the first game until tonight. It’s not the officials, it’s not Kentucky. We will foul the living shit out of you.”
In that game, the Longhorns sent the Wildcats to the free-throw line 35 times, four more free throws than the Tigers received on Wednesday, but the fouling problems were so bad at Neville Arena that the free-throw rate for Auburn was more than 20 percent higher than Kentucky’s.
“You describe the foul, and the team that I’m coaching will commit it,” Miller said last week.
On the Plains, that included one of this Longhorns team’s favorite varieties of fouling — fouling a jump shooter, the type of undisciplined incompetence that leaves Miller exasperated on the sidelines every time.
The individual and team defensive breakdowns were bad enough on Wednesday that Texas couldn’t stop Auburn star forward Keyshawn Hall in the second half. After limiting Hall to six points on one made field goal, a three on which he was fouled and converted the four-point play, the Longhorns gave up 25 points to Hall after halftime, including sending him to the line 14 times, where he made 11 free throws, in addition to hitting 6-of-8 shots from the floor.
“We had no solution man to man, guarding individually, guarding as a team. We just really could not stop them in the second half,” Miller said.
Auburn scored 54 points on 68.4-percent shooting in the second half, scoring on 85.7 percent of its possessions — Texas only got four stops in the entire 20 minutes.
The Horns are now No. 124 in adjusted defensive efficiency, plagued by an opposing free-throw rate that ranks 309th nationally, the No. 316 forced turnover rate, and a block rate that slots 294th.
Those deficiencies are what separates Texas from being able to consistently beat good teams on the road.
The Sooners are not a good team — under fifth-year head coach Porter Moser, Oklahoma is tied with LSU for the worst SEC record at 1-7 with seven straight losses since starting conference play with a win over Ole Miss in Norman.
Not all of those losses have been lopsided, including a one-point home loss to Alabama, a one-point road loss to Missouri in overtime, and a four-point home loss to Arkansas on Tuesday, but as the losses have piled up, it’s put increased pressure on Moser’s job security with only one NCAA Tournament appearance in his tenure, which came last year despite a 6-12 conference record.
Like the Longhorns, the Sooners struggle on defense, particularly forcing turnovers, while playing with a slow adjusted tempo and settling for one-on-one basketball offensively, though the team’s adjusted efficiency is solid at 45th nationally.
Oklahoma is led by guards Xzayvier Brown and Nijel Pack, the latter a familiar name from his two years at Kansas State. Both average 16 or more points and three or more assists per game with Pack shooting 43 percent from three.
In the frontcourt, the Sooners rely on Mohamed Wague for rebounding and Tae Davis and Derion Reid for baskets — both average double-digit scoring.
With Texas desperately needing a road win as one of the last four teams in the NCAA Tournament field in Joe Lunardi’s most recent Bracketology, the Longhorns do have a history of recent success against the Sooners, winning the last six games in Norman and eight of the last nine overall.
Texas heads into the game with a 54-percent win probability, according to Bart Torvik. Tip at Lloyd Noble Center is at 1 p.m. Central on ESPN2.
