Viewers Guide: Stanford At Texas

The deep, long and talented Texas Longhorns look to continue their defensive dominance when they host Stanford tonight in a Pac 12 versus Big 12 showdown. Here’s a complete breakdown of what you will see:

Projected starters:

Texas Longhorns (#9 AP, 10-1)

• Guard – Kendal Yancey
• Guard – Demarcus Holland
• Forward – Conner Lammert
• Center – Cameron Ridley
• Foward – Jonathan Holmes (12.5 ppg, 6.9 rpg)

Stanford Cardinal (6-3)

• Guard – Chasson Randle (18.9 ppg)
• Center – Stefan Nastic (15.1 ppg, 7.2 rpg)
• Guard/Forward – Anthony Brown
• Forward – Reid Travis
• Forward – Roscoe Allen

Last Outings:

• Texas defeated Long Beach State 78-68 (12/20/2014)
• Stanford lost at BYU 79-77 (12/20/2014)

Texas Longhorns

Texas features a massive quartet of big men with Lammert and Ridley getting the starts, but Rick Barnes rotates his big men early and often. Look for athletic shot-blocker Prince Ibeh (6’10”) to come in quickly. Barnes is still bringing super-frosh Myles Turner (6’11) off the bench and his presence instantly lifts the Longhorns on both ends of the floor. Turner has an impressive stat line coming off the bench – 11.9 ppg, 6.9 rpg and 32 blocked shots on the season.

This quartet has helped the Longhorns become one of the most dominant defensive and rebounding teams in the nation. Texas is sixth in scoring defense surrendering only 53.4 points per game. They are fourth in the nation with 7.6 blocked shots per game and are third in the nation in field-goal percentage defense (31.4%).

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Texas leads the nation with an astounding 31.6 defensive rebounds per game and they rank atop all of the NCAA in rebounding margin (+15.5). Easy baskets and second chances will be hard to come by for the Cardinal.

Offensively, Texas has a balanced scoring attack led by Holmes and Turner. The Horns have been playing without ultra-quick point guard Isaiah Taylor. He is out with a broken wrist until conference play begins.

Texas uses a secondary break attack that flows into an NBA-inspired formation commonly called “Horns.” The Longhorns run the floor looking for passes ahead to the wings who will enter to the big men sprinting to the block.

If they cannot enter the post off the break Texas will reverse the ball, set a double-screen away for the guard in the corner then move into their Horns set. In Horns, the two big men come to the corners of the free throw lane and the wings set up in the corner. Texas has many options from there.

Here is a look at the Texas secondary break into the Horns action:

Texas will run their secondary break into this action many times. Here is similar action from an early season Longhorn victory over Texas-Arlington.  You can clearly see the ball reversal, the double-screen away for the player in the corner and the Texas post players slide up to the corners of the lane into the Horns set.

Texas is primarily a man-to-man defensive team, but look for Texas to mix in a healthy amount of 2-3 zone. Barnes has been using the zone more frequently and with the massive length of the Longhorns the zone can both contest Stanford’s outside shots and seal off driving lanes.

Stanford Cardinal

Any conversation about Stanford (a Sweet 16 squad last season) must begin with Chasson Randle. Randle lead the Cardinal in scoring and he is their most dynamic player.

He has been a starter his entire career and produced 16 games with 20 or more points in 2013-2014. He has added to that total this year including some 30-point plus outings and a team-high 22 points in a loss to No. 2 Duke. Stanford’s all-time career scoring mark is within Randle’s reach.

Johnny Dawkins can also get scoring from Nastic and Brown inside, but points in the paint may be hard to come by versus Texas.

Dawkins and the Cardinal often employ the Triangle Offense made famous by Phil Jackson during his time with the Chicago Bulls and the Los Angeles Lakers. Randle is Dawkins’ version of Michael Jordan.

In the Triangle you will most commonly see the point guard pass to the wing then cut to the ball-side corner. This forms the triangle with the ballside post on that side of the floor.

From there Stanford wants to get the ball inside to Nastic on the block and cut off of him. But Stanford often goes straight into the second option of the Triangle which is to take the ball to what Jackson and his assistant Tex Winter called the “pinch post” area. The pinch post is located at the corner of the lane on the weakside.

Teams do different things with the two weakside players away from the triangle. Stanford likes to flare screen on the weakside by using the pinch post player to screen for the guard at the corner of the free throw lane.

Here we see the pass to the wing and the corner cut forming the triangle. On the weakside we see the flare screen from the pinch post. The screener then steps out to make the catch and he and the guard get into a two-man game. Stanford posts the mismatch for a basket.

Stanford will need to use the triangle action and other set plays to free Randle for open shots. The inside battle between Nastic and the quartet of Texas big men will be interesting as well.

Dawkins and his Cardinal squad will need to play their best game of the season to win in Austin.