With an 0-2 start to SEC play and the projected conference record for the Texas Longhorns dropping to 6-12 as the team’s NCAA Tournament odds drop to almost nothing, according to BartTorvik.com, what’s the purpose of the rest of the season for first-year head coach Sean Miller?
Winning a public feud with his players in an effort to set the program’s cultural standards in effort and accountability.
In another remarkable post-game press conference after Tuesday’s 84-71 loss to No. 21 Tennessee in Knoxville,
Miller noted the contrasts between the players who were on the court as Texas went into halftime down by 15 points and the players who were on the court when the Longhorns outscored the Volunteers by a point in the second half.
“I’ll just say this on my end, that tonight was about one thing — we have to be able to put a group of guys on the court who are going to play their very hardest with great effort for the University of Texas. Period. Guys like LaMarcus Aldridge and Kevin Durant, they deserve a team, whether we win or lose, that’s playing the game for each other, playing the game for the great place that we all live at, and playing for the win,” Miller said.
“I just think that sometimes when you get a new opportunity in the pressure of today, you can be clouded a little bit about what’s important. There’s nothing that’s more important than effort and I thought that to some degree that came into play against Mississippi State in our last game. I thought there were times in spite of how good of a team Tennessee has, that guys just really didn’t want to compete.”
In the second half, however, Miller didn’t have any issues with the effort level and togetherness that Texas played with, consistent sources of frustration for the Longhorns head coach over the first 15 games of the season.
“We’re not very good team. We have a long way to go, but what we have to do is we have to be a team that’s connected and plays the game with great effort,” Miller said.
But has Texas made any progress in terms of developing the team’s identity?
“We’re not making any,” Miller said.
Miller teased a continued battle of wills that will include lineup changes.
“We have to establish that I’m playing for the University of Texas. I play for Sean Miller, he’s the coach, what he says goes, this is how we do it. I play for myself. I play for my teammates. Mostly, I’m caught up in the moment, I’m playing a game I love, and I’m going to play as fast and as hard as I can,” Miller said.
“If you can’t play with effort, it’s going to be a very, very hard next couple of months, and I think you’ll see that. Our lineup has to change. I can’t keep playing certain guys. We’re at that point. We’re just going to have to go with whoever is ready to play hard. We have to go with them, because that’s going to be our best bet.”
The extent of Miller’s frustration was apparent in the second half when second-year walk-on guard Anthon McDermott checked into the game with more than four minutes remaining, his first appearance for the Longhorns outside of garbage time in buy-game blowouts.
Remaining on the bench was senior guard Jordan Pope, who was substituted out after Tennessee went on an 8-0 run to start the second half and never returned. The Oregon State transfer finished the game minus-23 in 13 minutes with zero points on 0-of-3 shooting with two assists and one turnover. In the 114 games of Pope’s college career, it was the first time he’s made an appearance without scoring, about the only area his empty-calorie performances can positively impact games.
Already on the bench when Pope was taken out at the 17:04 mark was sophomore center Matas Vokietaitis, who was removed 97 seconds into the second half after committing a bad turnover and returned for only 40 seconds before committing his fourth foul and spending the final 16:24 as an observer.
In 12 minutes, Vokietaitis finished minus-16 while scoring four points on 2-of-5 shooting with one rebound and two turnovers. For a player who often struggles with his emotional maturity, Tuesday’s game against Tennessee marked the low point for the Florida Atlantic transfer at Texas in his body language and his scoring output — even as a freshman last season, Vokietaitis scored more than four points in all but two games.
The most surprising player to see spending the last 13:34 on the bench was junior wing Dailyn Swain, now in his third season playing for Miller after transferring from Xavier. Not only was Swain coming off the best performance of his career in Saturday’s home loss to Mississippi State, he looked like a shadow of himself in Knoxville, careening from his career highs in points (34) and rebounds (14) to committing a career-high seven turnovers in finishing minus-14 in 23 minutes with just five points. Swain did have four assists, three rebounds, and three steals, but the need for Miller to bench the one player on his team who should understand his standards the most deeply was shocking.
“We had a couple guys that just really didn’t want to play, and if you don’t want to play, you’re not allowed in at the end of the game. You can’t be the guy caught up in your own world, your own effort level, things that are happening to you,” Miller said.
“So much about this game is about the team and you have to be able to play defense and offense. I liked our effort so much better in the second half, and one of the reasons our effort level was good is the guys in the game were playing at much greater effort level.”
