Well it happened. All year I've been calling for and waiting for that one random loss that we've come to expect in conference play. The loss where we should win and it leaves you with a sour taste in your mouth.
A 13-1 record to this point was well beyond my expectations and I guess it finally caught up. Karma from the 58 point beatdown last year? Maybe. All that matters now is that we regroup beat Texas and win this thing outright. Last night actually had zero bearing on our seed in the conference tournament and matters nothing in terms of the Conference title. We are guaranteed a share and assured the #1 in the conference tourney. What it did do likely though is make us a likely #3 seed at best in my mind and I'm ok with that.
We saw tonight how this team handles expectations. They had all but locked up the title, flying high after two big wins last week and the media was jumping on the bandwagon. Maybe now we can go back to the realization that we are a very young team with a very high ceiling but an equally low floor when we collapse. Back to the drawing board on this one and time to get business handled against the Longhorns. I don't know about you but I'm not interested in sharing this title.
Game flow is about as bad as you'd expect. Tech in command early and we just couldn't get over the proverbial hump.
More Stats and Breakdown after the jump...
Well for the first time it appears we took care of the ball the way we should but it didn't seem to matter. The sheer quantity of threes that Tech made was overwhelming over 50% knocking in 15 of them led to a near 60% eFG% shooting night. Tough to get out of a hole against that. Honestly I'm also a little surprised we've got the edge on the offensive boards it seemed like they were getting a lot of 2nd chances and taking full advantage of them.
Player impact is pretty irrelevant in my mind after a loss like that but I will say I think we're all in agreement with the fact that if Sherron and Cole's contributions are this low it's going to be a dogfight and against teams good or bad we've got a good shot to lose.
In team stats there are three very obvious problems based on what seems to be our formula for success. 16% from the three point line, we were outrebounded, and lastly only 8 assists in the whole game. The Jayhawks took a little bit of a step back last night now it's time for Coach Self to put the pieces back together.
With player stats I want to reference Giants fanpost earlier on that brokedown the anatomy of our losses. We basically came to the somewhat obvious conclusion that when Sherron and Cole struggle this team will lose. Those two will tend to get their averages but at the expense of additional possessions to do so. Last night was the worst of everything. They didn't play well and they still didn't get their averages. This was the worst game by the two combined and I suppose it showed in the final score.