The University of Texas at Austin Athletics
University of Texas
20-12, 8-10
Texas Tech
13-19, 3-15
| Team | 1 | 2 | F |
|---|---|---|---|
| Texas Tech | 26 | 27 | 53 |
| Texas | 30 | 35 | 65 |
Men's Basketball tops Texas Tech 65-53 in Phillips 66 Big 12 Championship First Round
03.11.2015 | Men's Basketball
Texas reaches the 20-win mark for the 15th time in 17 seasons under coach Rick Barnes.
Longhorn IMG Radio Network audio highlights
KANSAS CITY, Mo. – Cameron Ridley recorded a game-high 14 points to lead Texas over Texas Tech, 65-53, on Wednesday night at Sprint Center to advance to the Phillips 66 Big 12 Championship quarterfinals. Ridley shot 5-of-8 from the field, grabbed eight rebounds and added two blocks.
Kendal Yancy had 13 points and five assists against zero turnovers, while Isaiah Taylor added 12 points and dished out seven assists in a game-high 35 minutes. Jonathan Holmes finished with nine points and eight rebounds.
Texas (20-12, 8-10 Big 12) improved to 4-1 in Phillips 66 Big 12 Championship first round games under coach Rick Barnes and reached the 20-win mark for the 15th time in 17 seasons during the Barnes era.
The Longhorns used a 26-11 run in the second half to build their largest lead of the night, 61-42, with help from Texas' big men, who scored 24 of the team's 35 second-half points.
Connor Lammert, who led the Longhorns with nine rebounds, scored all seven of his points in the final 20 minutes. Texas finished with a 39-24 advantage on the glass and outscored the Red Raiders (13-19, 3-15 Big 12) by an 18-3 margin in second-chance points.
Recording 17 assists against just nine turnovers, the Longhorns have sported a 1.6-to-1 assist-to-turnover ratio over the last four games (56 assists against 35 turnovers).
With the score tied at 12 and 11:32 remaining in the opening half, Texas used a 10-2 run over the next four minutes to build a 22-14 lead. Yancy paced the Horns with five points in that stretch, while Taylor had three assists. Despite leading for nearly 17 minutes of the opening period, Texas led by only four at the break, 30-26.
Coming out of the locker room, the Texas frontcourt came out on fire, scoring the first 14 points as Lammert and Ridley combined for 11 and Turner capped off the streak with a traditional three-point play, to build a 44-31 advantage with 14:20 remaining.
In the second half, Texas scored 10 of its first 21 points off second-chance opportunities, which helped spark an 18-6 run to take a 53-37 lead. The big men scored 24 of the first 29 points for Texas in the second half.
Gotcher Toddrick led the Red Raiders with 12 points on 4-of-6 shooting.
Texas will face No. 13/15 Iowa State on Thursday, March 12 in the Phillips 66 Big 12 Championship quarterfinals. Tipoff is scheduled for 6 p.m. Central at Sprint Center, and the game will be televised nationally on ESPNU.
Texas Basketball Postgame Notes
Texas 65, Texas Tech 53
Phillips 66 Big 12 Championship First Round
March 11, 2015
Sprint Center (Kansas City, Mo.)
Attendance: 18,972
Team Notes
With the victory, Texas advances to face No. 2 seed Iowa State in the quarterfinals on Thursday. Tip is set for 6 p.m. CT, and the game will be televised on ESPNU.
UT improved to 45-37 all-time in conference tournament play. The Horns are 24-18 in 19 appearances at the Phillips 66 Big 12 Championship.
Texas improved to 22-16 in 17 appearances at the Phillips 66 Big 12 Championship under Rick Barnes. The Horns improved to 4-1 in Big 12 First Round games in the Barnes era.
The Longhorns reached the 20-win mark for the 15th time in 17 seasons under Rick Barnes.
UT has won 14 of the last 15 and 20 of the last 22 meetings against Texas Tech (82-54 lead in the all-time series). Texas improved to 33-4 against Texas Tech in the Barnes era.
Texas improved to 149-22 against in-state foes during the Barnes era.
UT posted a +15 rebound margin (39-24), including a 17-7 advantage on the offensive glass. Texas has posted a double-digit rebound advantage in 16 of its first 32 games this year.
The Horns registered 17 assists against nine turnovers during the win. Texas has committed less than 10 turnovers in each of its last four games.
Texas set a team season high in steals (8).
Led the team in rebounds (9) for the seventh time this year
Reached double figures in scoring (team-high 14 points) for the 10th time this season (first since Feb. 11 vs. TCU, span of seven games) and 32nd time in his career (100 games)
Reached double figures in scoring (12 points) for the 15th time this season (22 games) and 42nd time in his career (57 games)
Reached double figures in scoring (13 points) for the eighth time this season (fifth time in last seven games) and 11th time in his career (66 games)
POSTGAME QUOTES
TEXAS COACH RICK BARNES
CAMERON RIDLEY
ISAIAH TAYLOR
THE MODERATOR: We are joined now by Coach Rick Barnes from the Texas Longhorns, his two student-athletes will be Cameron Ridley and Isaiah Taylor. They will be on stage shortly. Let's get comments from Coach.
COACH BARNES: Good win for us. I really thought that Isaiah was really, really good tonight, maybe as good as he's been all year. Defensively first half, again, I thought Texas Tech put a lot of pressure on our guards getting down the lane in a high percentage area and did a great job not only driving the ball but coming off some throws in there.
Second half I thought we were a little bit better defensively and from the 16-minute markdown to about the 6-minute mark, we were maybe as efficient as we've been all year offensively.
Q. Isaiah, can you talk about that stretch he's talking about in the second half? Ball movement, everyone is hitting, it's almost like everything is clicking. How good was that to see that?
ISAIAH TAYLOR: I think it was great. I think this team still hasn't reached its potential yet. It was good to see our wings filling the lanes, Cam dunking in and just being a defensive presence. We know we can do a lot of great things and that's what we're trying to do in this tournament.
Q. Cameron, seemed like you got a spark from the play when you were on your back and made a pass to Kendal to make the layup and seems like you were the dominant player that you were last March. Can you go through that play and talk about you starting to feel like this is your time of year again?
CAMERON RIDLEY: First of all, all the credit to the guards for looking for me. I just wanted to come out the second half and do the things we do in practice and work on playing harder, dunking in and creating angles for my teammates and opportunities for myself.
Q. Cam, just following up on what Mike was asking, do you feel that March is your time of year, that it's your time to shine?
CAMERON RIDLEY: I'm going to play a lot more aggressive than I have before, because that's what the team needs from me. Any player on this team can come out and have a good game like I had today. It all comes out to us playing together at the end of the day.
Q. Cam, in the second half, did they make more of an effort at halftime to tell you, hey, let's get the ball inside, feed the post more? You guys shot 13 threes in the first half and only six in the second.
CAMERON RIDLEY: That's the way we should play, inside-out and I did a good job of making myself presence in inside, and the guards delivered the ball. And I just worked as hard as I could to get the position I could. Isaiah and Kendal and the other guys got the ball to me.
Q. Your thoughts on the game tomorrow and having another crack at those guys?
ISAIAH TAYLOR: Iowa State is a great team, they can put a lot of the points on the board and it's our job when they go on 8-0 runs, 10-0 runs. Whatever it is we have to stay composed. If we stay composed, we have a good chance of winning. We are looking to come to this tournament to compete and win as many games as possible and potentially win the championship.
Q. For Isaiah and then Cameron, three games ago, conventional wisdom was you had to win three in a row to have a chance at the NCAA Tournament to secure things, how do you feel about your chances now?
ISAIAH TAYLOR: I think we have a good chance to get into the tournament, but that right now can't be a focus. We're looking to win the Big 12 tournament. We have Iowa State ahead of us tomorrow and we're looking to come in and compete tomorrow.
CAMERON RIDLEY: Pretty much the same thing he said, we're focused on this tournament right here and trying to do the best we can this weekend. And when that time comes, we will be ready for it.
THE MODERATOR: Guys, thank you for coming. Good luck tomorrow.
Q. Rick, you've been super frustrated with them because you know that they have it in them, their ability to do that, like they did in the second half. Was it good for you to finally see it?
COACH BARNES: Yeah, and, you know, again, I did think we shot too many threes start of the game. I'm sure Tech and anyone would like for us to do that.
Certain guys, when they're open and they're in rhythm, we want them shooting them. Other guys we want them to pick their spots and we probably shot four of those in the first half that weren't good threes from our point of view and we wanted to get inside.
It goes both ways. Those guys, and Cam said it, they've got to want the ball. Like we threw it into Myles once and he scored, and we tried to go back to them. Connor's brother actually did a great job post defense, and wouldn't let them catch the ball where he's got to make the second, third effort to get it.
Cam did a good job posting deep. Prince actually did but he got called because he got wrapped the guy up. We need those guys to do that for no other reason because we are telling those guys to throw it to them, but they've got to know where they want to catch it. Cam did a really good job of finding people tonight. We knew they were going to double him at some point tonight and he did a good job. And I thought Isaiah's demeanor has been as good as it has all year just in terms of running things for us.
Q. Rick, Isaiah and Cameron were important to you guys this time last year more than anybody, do you see what you saw from them at their best?
COACH BARNES: We need them to be. You guys watched that all year, that's what we want. We want -- consistency-wise we want to know what we're going to get. In terms of posting up, making yourself big, that, we want to get that and I do think Cam is more confident now and why he hasn't been, I'm not quite sure, I wish I knew how to answer that.
I thought -- yeah, those two guys are important. They were kidding coming down here, Isaiah is telling him he's got to catch those balls and I keep telling Isaiah those passes in traffic down by his feet are kind of hard to come up with and even find them, because Cam has great hands. If we make the simple plays and move the ball -- what was huge tonight, the rebounds were huge. We got 18 second-chance points where we were able to get to the glass that way and score some.
Like Cam said, we need 'em all. We need everybody to step up and give us what it is they give us.
Q. Coach, there was a day in college basketball when the 20-victory plateau would be a magic number for making the NCAA Tournament. Now that you have 20, does it make you feel better about your chances?
COACH BARNES: You know, I don't know about -- I think years ago they went away from that, the Committee, I think they went to strength of schedule and making the emphasis on that. All I knew, where we were, the hole we have been trying to dig out of, we just knew we had to win games. Everybody -- I know those guys on the outside, everyone is talking about we need to win this game, three in a row, four in a row, whatever. I tell everybody every game you need to win 'em all, because you ever know when you're going to -- somebody getting hurt, this, that, or whatever.
I truly believe with the NCAA Tournament, they really do their homework now, I do. I think they really -- they don't wait until two weeks out, three weeks out, they work it all year. They're going to know why we struggled in the middle of the year, they're going to know we dealt with injuries and different things. They're going to know it all because they do want to put together the best tournament they can and I have confidence in that.
And at the end of the day, we have done enough and if we've done enough, we will be in it and if we're not, we haven't.
Q. Coach, I hope you allow me to ask a broad question. There has been a lot of criticism about college basketball this year with points being down and play doing this and that. From your perspective, do you feel that way and if there is anything you can do to improve it, what might you do?
COACH BARNES: I think there is a lot of things we can do to improve the game, I think a 30-second shot clock. I think we should be playing with the same lane that the NBA plays with. I think officiating has to get more consistent where they've got to get a set rule on how they're going to allow post defense to be played, what's going to happen on the perimeter.
I think with the new hire for the officiating, I think it's the biggest thing facing college basketball right now and officiating has to get more consistent. And the only way it's going to do that is I think NCAA and college basketball realizes how important it really is.
I think there is a lot of things we can do. I think we should be playing with the international three point line. And the question is, it'll take too long to put it all together. I think they're going to -- it wouldn't surprise me next year if we go to the 30-second shot clock. We should open the lane up. We should make the restricted area bigger and all those things should be implemented at one time. But because of the Rules Committee and the people that I know that have sat on it tell me it's a joke in terms of the way they go about doing it.
And we should have a universal game at Division I, Division II, Division III level; it should be a universal game. But there will be too many politics involved and that's what you would like to see changed. We can definitely make it a lot better, there is no doubt about it.
THE MODERATOR: Thank you, Coach.
TEXAS TECH COACH SMITH
ROBERT TURNER
NORENSE ODIASE
TODDRICK GOTCHER
THE MODERATOR: We are ready to begin with the Red Raiders of Texas Tech, Coach Tubby Smith, and his three student-athletes tonight will be Toddrick Gotcher, Norense Odiase and Robert Turner. Coach, we will call on you first for an opening comment.
COACH SMITH: Well, we want to just congratulate Texas, obviously played extremely well there during that stretch in the second half when they came out. We thought we were playing fairly well, but they turned it up another notch and Rick Barnes and his staff had his team ready to play.
I'm really proud of these guys, our players, they competed extremely hard tonight and came up short.
Q. Toddrick, do you think y'all had any breakdowns when Texas went on that run or did they just go off?
TODDRICK GOTCHER: Yes, I believe we had a lot of breakdowns, it started off with rebounding. We didn't rebound the ball well. They got a lot of second-chance points and you gotta give 'em credit for what they did.
Q. Norense, in the first half, Texas shot threes and in the second half they went down low, what were you seeing?
NORENSE ODIASE: They made an emphasis to get it into their big guy and we just tried to battle and get it in front of them.
Q. Rob, what have these past two years meant to you playing on this team?
ROBERT TURNER: It really meant a lot and I learned a lot, and I will take it with me as I continue my journey into the future. It was a great opportunity to play for Coach Smith and the rest of his staff. And just to have this opportunity, like I said, has been a blessing.
Q. Toddrick, what have you learned from Rob and how do you plan to implement those lessons next season?
TODDRICK GOTCHER: I learned leadership and toughness. I look up to Rob and he means a lot to me. When he came in, I was excited and he is so tough and a great player. So hopefully in the future, I'll get them aspects, also.
Q. Norense, what have you learned this season and what do you hope to see next season?
NORENSE ODIASE: Work hard. Everybody works hard but you've got to do the little things, extra things, put in more time in the gym, just listen to the coaches and play your game and play confident.
Next season we've got to get better in every aspect of the game. We can't get beat like this all the time. The guys we got back, our core, we're ready for it.
Q. Rob, what have you seen from the freshman this season and what do you expect from them next year?
ROBERT TURNER: This is a strong foundation, I look for them to come back stronger than ever. This is a great group of guys. I've had a great time watching them grow throughout the season and I can't wait to see the progress next year. This was a learning experience and I don't think anybody is ready for what the Red Raiders have to bring next year.
THE MODERATOR: Thank you, gentlemen. We will call on Coach.
Q. Coach, what do you think of your guys' fight down the stretch in this game?
COACH SMITH: I thought we competed extremely hard. I thought Rob laid it on the line. He's a guy that -- he's been the catalyst to us -- he was our first recruit when we got to Texas Tech and he tried to do his best in the second half, kept us in the game there early in the second half when we couldn't get a rebound.
But this group is relatively -- well, they're very young, especially the five freshman, the four that play. And with Justin Gray not being here, we missed his leadership among the freshman, among the team, but especially among the freshman. I am glad he was here with us today. We have a lot to build on, and that's why I was happy to hear them say. I was happy to hear Rob and Norense and Toddrick say that they believe and they trust in what we're trying to get them to do.
Q. How much did it hurt with Zach having two early fouls in the first half?
COACH SMITH: It hurt, but we battled back, 4-point game at halftime, getting good stops and sometimes the ball wasn't really bouncing our way.
It got pretty physical during that stretch when they sort of dominated the boards. If we could have gotten more out of D-Will, another scoring -- we needed another scoring punch and someone else to step up and make some shots.
But, again, we did some good things, penetration, but then we get to the basket and didn't find the open guy and tried to take a tough shot.
Q. Are there any building blocks you take from this game specifically over to next season that you can build off of?
COACH SMITH: Just the kids' attitude. All year long we have been outmanned a lot, they have never given up, they have come to work extremely hard in practice. For the most part, each individual player has lived up to what our expectations are. We need to get them to overachieve and that's something if you're going to play at this level and win at this level, everybody is good.
Everybody says are you going to be able to take it to the next level and the only way you can do that is to train and prepare the proper way.
Q. What did you learn from this season?
COACH SMITH: I tell you what -- I learned that -- I learned a lot about just -- me, trying to -- you've got to be yourself and sometimes when you have a young team you tend to be a little less -- you try to be patient, but sometimes that can be taken as a weakness. By that I mean players, just like a little kid, if you don't discipline them properly and make them do things in practice the proper way -- not that you take things for granted, but then again you do.
Your games are coming so fast and you're trying to keep guys healthy, you know they're getting mentally drained and physically because they're young.
The fundamentals may not be as -- may not work on them as hard as you should. I learned that the fundamentals are most important and if you don't practice it every day and if you don't stress certain things every day the slippage will happen.
Q. I saw that Justin Gray was here and was off his crutches. Do you know how he is doing?
COACH SMITH: He's doing well. I don't know how -- probably be May before he will start. That brace, he still has to have that brace. I think he's at a 40-degree angle, 30 degrees. He can bend the knee now. But he's a hard worker and very dedicated, so I know his rehab is going well.
It's going well. He is there at practice every day on the sidelines, doing his exercises. So he's -- I really like -- and I really think if we had him this year, it would have been a different -- maybe we wouldn't have won as many games, but I'd like to think he would help us win a few more games.
Q. Coach, college basketball has been criticized for being low scoring and going the wrong way. If there is one thing that you could do to improve the game, make it better in the future, what might that be?
COACH SMITH: Basketball should be a game of finesse and John Wooden said that and it's turned into a real physical play.
I think you gotta clean up the game and call it. A foul is a foul. I think it will open up some things. We probably need to make some changes on the court. I'm in favor of widening the lane and putting the three point line back because a lot of that has been part of it, space the floor a little bit better. All those things will help. Man the shot clock. I think all of those things will help the game improve in a lot of ways, especially, and I think the scoring will go back up.
THE MODERATOR: Thank you, Coach.
