Back at the Moody Center for a third straight game, the Texas Longhorns host the Kansas City Roos on Saturday in the first meeting between the two programs.
Picked to finish sixth in the nine-team Summit
League, the Roos arrive in Austin with a 1-2 record and ranked as the No. 319 team nationally in the BartTorvik.com rankings after a six-point win over NAIA Evangel in the season opener and losses to Southern Illinois and Iona in which Kansas City allowed over 100 points with KenPom.com’s adjusted tempo for the Roos jumping from No. 321 last year to No. 85 this year.
Led by fourth-year head coach Marvin Menzies, Kansas City is No. 335 in adjusted efficiency as a bad three-point shooting team (26.1 percent) that attempts to mitigate those woes with a low three-point rate, but also struggles to move the ball effectively with the No. 345 assist rate. Despite the weak strength of schedule so far, the Roos are allowing opponents to shoot 48.7 percent from three and 66 percent from inside the arc, the latter number in part because they have a block rate of 1.1 percent that ranks No. 362.
Guard CJ Evans, a Killeen product, scored 23 points on 10-of-14 shooting in the loss to Iona, adding five assists. The 91 points scored by the Roos in that loss 91 points scored was the most in a regulation game against a Division One opponent in almost four years.
In the first two home games for Texas, the pace that head coach Sean Miller wants to play with has overwhelmed Lafayette and Fairleigh Dickinson with the Horns averaging 95 points per game and out-scoring those two opponents 42-6 in fast-break points.
Running a Princeton-lite offense, the Knights jumped out to an early lead over the Longhorns on Wednesday before Texas recovered and smothered FDU.
“I thought they got our attention at the first media timeout, but Tramon Mark and Matas [Vokietaitis] on our end, they combined to be too much for FDU,” Miller said after the game.
Mark scored a game-high 20 points on 9-of-13 shooting, his 19th career game topping the 20-point mark as Vokietaitis hit all eight of his shot attempts in scoring 19 points in 19 minutes. Through three games, the big Lithuanian is pacing Texas in scoring (16.0 ppg), rebounding (8.3 rpg) and blocks (five) while hitting 18-of-25 shots from the floor (72 percent).
“I thought both of those guys on our end were really terrific, and they ended up being the difference,” Miller said.
Miller is especially pleased with the development of Vokietaitis, who missed about three weeks of preseason practice with an injury.
“I think his touch, his scoring ability, is really starting to stand out. So I think for us recognizing how important it is to get a big man like him the ball and to put him in a position, because the other gift he gives our team is the other team fouls him, and he not only gets to the free-throw line, but he can start wearing down the other team’s front line,” Miller said.
As a team, the Longhorns were aggressive attacking the basket and drawing fouls to produce 34 free-throw attempts, but the Texas head coach came away frustrated with only making 19 (55.9 percent).
“Got to convert at a better rate than that, and I certainly think we’re capable,” Miller said.
He was less frustrated by shooting 29.1 percent from distance because of the quality of shots the Longhorns produced.
“For example, Jordan Pope, he missed a couple that we know he’s going to make, right? He’s our team’s best three-point shooter and I thought he had two or three that, man, I just don’t see him miss. That happens. The key is that we took good ones,” Miller said.
Both Lafayette and FDU switched frequently from man to zone defense, challenging Texas to consistently execute against those changing looks.
“That’s a good experience for us, but I think that sometimes our choppy play, we have to learn to be better in that area of recognizing and being a little bit smoother going against either of those defenses,” Miller said.
Miller also praised his team’s ability to take care of the basketball. Outside nine combined turnovers by Vokietaitis and graduate forward Lassina Traore against Duke, Texas has protected the ball well — of the primary ball handlers, all of them have an extremely low turnover rate besides junior Simeon Wilcher, who is taking on heavier responsibilities than he did at St. John’s.
Most notable is the early-season improvement from senior guard Jordan Pope. A preference for taking shots off the bounce normally helps Pope’s turnover rate stay low, but he’s also good at avoiding giving up steals and has elevated his assist rate to 25.1 percent this season with 11 assists and one turnover through three games. Because sample size caveats apply there for Pope, it’s an area to monitor — if he can consistently make plays for this teammates, the upside of this Texas team receives a considerable boost.
Another area to monitor? The effort level that the Longhorns play with, an aspect of the game where Miller is demanding with his teams and normally gets what he expects.
“I thought we played with effort. We were far from perfect, but I thought we had the right mindset for the game here tonight,” Miller said.
Texas is projected to win by 28 points with a 98-percent win probability, providing a challenge for the Longhorns to maintain their effort level and focus.
“You have to respect the game. You can’t cut a corner. Always compete, whether it be in practice, whether it be the last eight minutes of this game or the first four minutes of the game, we have to be a team who roughly looks the same when it comes to our effort. That’s not easy to do,” Miller said.
“I think our depth can help us do that, but when you start to see consistent effort, regardless of the circumstances, then I think you have other things going for you — culture, work ethic, a commitment to something bigger than yourself. So right now, in November, we’re trying to build all of that, not just every day, but regardless of the games that we play.”
Tip is at noon Central on SEC Network+.
