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Demolition of KU, Sole Champs of the Big 12, & #1 NCAA Seed Locked Up!!!
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Welcome to Episode 21 of the No Conference for Old Men Podcast.
The Cougars are now 28-3, 15-3 in the Big 12, undisputed Champions of the Big 12, & end the regular season as the #1 team in the Nation!!! And to end this magical 1st season in the Big 12 with a demolition of KU by 30 points at home, just made it all that much sweeter for fans. We begin this episode with a summary of the KU win, spend some time reflecting on what this Big 12 championship in year 1 meant to us, and then wrap-up by weighing in on the Big 12 Tournament & potentially what's in store in the NCAA Tourney ahead of Selection Sunday.
- No Conference for Old Men is available for free via Spotify / Apple Podcast / SoundCloud & the GoCoogs.com website; we're also available via the Republic of Football Podcast feed from the folks at Dave Campbell's Texas Football as their only basketball-centric offering
- Intro / Exit music: Ground Zero provided by FreeBeats.io
- Please follow us on https://gocoogs.com/old-men/
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Transcript
Houston Cougars' Big 12 Championship Triumph
00:00:06
Speaker
Welcome, folks, to the 21st episode of No Conference for Old Men, the podcast where three old guys are talking Houston Cougars basketball, with a bit of Big 12 coverage added in as well, and proud members of the Goku's.com network, the undisputed number one Houston Cougars content provider.
00:00:23
Speaker
The regular season is over and our Houston Cougars are 28 and three, 15 and three in the big 12 and our sole big 12 conference champions by two games after pummeling Kansas while ISU also lost to Kansas state.
00:00:39
Speaker
we truly saved our best for last.
Coach Sampson's Tactical Mastery Against Kansas
00:00:42
Speaker
As Coach Sampson had the perfect game plan in store for a bit of payback versus KU in the return mirror game, ending with a 76-46 30-point destruction of blue blood Kansas Jayhawks to put an exclamation point on our historic first season in the Big 12. So lots to talk about as we head into postseason play and what is likely to include a guaranteed number one seed in the South region of the turning.
00:01:09
Speaker
And today, all three of us are back again with Tom Lydiak, former coach, Bill Walker, former player, and myself, Steve Chang, analytics guy for this episode. Given we only have one game this week to review, headed into postseason play, we're going to be a bit more free flowing in format today.
00:01:26
Speaker
So we'll begin by summarizing Houston's demolition of KU in great detail, reflect a bit on the historical first season in the Big 12 that resulted in a conference championship, and give some thoughts on the Big 12 conference tournament as well as our chances in the NCAA tournament ahead of the draw being announced this weekend on Selection Sunday.
00:01:47
Speaker
OK, let's get into it, guys.
Record-Breaking Support at the Fertitta Center
00:01:49
Speaker
We show the nation what Houston Cougar basketball was all about in humiliating the Jayhawks to end the regular season in what was suggested would be an adjustment year for us. The Fertitta Center set new records in attendance and noise level to close out the home season in style with the win for the conference championship.
Strategic Gameplay Insights
00:02:11
Speaker
In recapping the Houston Cougars win over KU, Tom, why don't you kick us off with your coaches
00:02:17
Speaker
thoughts on our 76-46 win to become the new kings of the Big 12. Well, if this was a prize fight, they would have stopped it at 34-9. Nice. We came out through a couple of haymakers that left Kansas staggered and they never recovered. There's no truth to the rumor that Bill Self was overheard saying no mas. And if you're old, know anything about boxing, you know what I'm alluding to.
00:02:47
Speaker
Cougs were on their A game right from the start. A whole bunch of stuff was going on. It was senior night. Cougs were out for revenge. For in their own words, they said it was embarrassing loss to Kansas at Fog Allen in early February.
00:03:01
Speaker
Before the game, you alluded to this, Steve, that we learned that ISU lost to K state, giving them five conference losses. And even if we lost to Kansas, there'd be no sharing of the big 12 title. But, uh, as was evidence in the first couple of minutes, losing was the furthest thing from the Cougs minds. If you watch the game on TV, Frank Vashila, national analyst, who's covered the Cougs quite a bit this year, he said he's talked to several Cougs about the Kansas loss and to a man.
00:03:30
Speaker
They owned up to it, but they also just simply said March 9th. Ryan Monso of Go Cougs. He's also reported this mindset that the Cougs had going into the game. Ryan also had a conversation with Jawan about a week ago and Jawan said, quote, unquote, we ain't sharing this, unquote. This, you know, being the big 12 title and
00:03:54
Speaker
Boy, was he right.
Motivational Factors and Key Performances
00:03:56
Speaker
In addition to senior night, Jim Nansen, his family was in attendance. Reggie Cheney's mom and family were there. And I don't think we can underestimate the effect that the memory of Reggie Cheney has on this team and this program. Pre-game atmosphere was electric. Students filled their section. I heard 30 minutes before tip off. He had a national TV audience.
00:04:23
Speaker
Many potential future Kook Hoopsters were there along with some stud football recruits. So Willie doing some work and I heard there were some four and five stars there. So hopefully that was a good weekend for Kook Football too. But going back to the game, it was evident from the first couple of possessions that this game would be completely different from the previous game. I thought we were crisp on offense. The ball had what?
00:04:50
Speaker
Coaches like to say the ball had energy and like the first half of the UCF game. On defense, we were playing with active feet, active hands, unlike the OU game. We didn't get out rebounded like in some of our recent games. We didn't allow the ball to be zipped on a straight line to open shooters and allow them to shoot rhythm shots. Which brings me to something that I posited last week on the podcast. I offered the theory that with three players out for the season,
00:05:15
Speaker
And Jamal with tendonitis in his knee and Juwan with seven stitches. And that's the right hand that Kelvin might have to structure his practice differently and not have the tough physical practices. And we were starting to see some slippage in the toughness categories like rebound and coming up with 50, 50 balls. Well, this past week, it was confirmed by Kelvin and Jamal. I don't know if you Bill and Steve, if you heard the interview that Kelvin did on, on the court after the game.
00:05:43
Speaker
But while he was being interviewed, he said, and I quote, we don't practice anymore. And I took that to mean we don't practice like we normally do. Jamal was interviewed after the Kansas game and he basically said the same thing he just said.
00:05:56
Speaker
He really said, we don't need to practice right now. I don't think he really meant that literally, but he just said we need to stay sharp and get some shots up. So my theory was that, you know, we saw some slippage in the OU game, and then there were a couple of halves where we gave up like 40 plus points. We got out rebounded in several games. I think it started with the Iowa State game, but I think that had a factor in those games.
00:06:23
Speaker
the lack of those tough physical practices. Get back to the game. Ryan Elvin got the start over manual. Immediately came up with the steal to the delight of the standing room only for Tita crowd. Somebody who was at the game said it got loud when Ryan came up with that steal. JVA picked up his second foul early and you want to see my shock face? So that meant Big Said came in at 1443.
00:06:53
Speaker
And I was wrong about said, you know, I'll, uh, I'll admit I didn't see him contributing much in the program.
Defensive Brilliance and Unexpected Impacts
00:07:01
Speaker
And I kind of felt that maybe, you know, he might not have a future in this program, but with the entries and things he's forced to play and, you know, he's delivered, but he came in, he immediately made a positive impact. Said was able to match the physicality and the bully ball tactics of Hunter Dickinson.
00:07:22
Speaker
I'll give you an example here. KU tried to run one of Bill Self's staple plays that he's run since his oral Roberts days and said, blow it up by not allowing Dickinson to catch the ball at the elbow. And he deflected his past lean to a steal. I also had an epiphany when I watched said play and it harkened me back to Greg Kite.
00:07:43
Speaker
Haha watching big said reminded me of Greg kite old heads like us If you grew up in Houston, you remember kite because he's about our age. He played for Madison high school
00:07:55
Speaker
right here in Houston, you know, then he went on to BYU where he played with Danny ancient and then later on with the Celtics with Larry bird and in Mikhail. But, you know, Kite, like said, about six 10, 250 pounds. He's a banger, limited offensive ability, but able to impact the game by playing fiscal post defense rebound. And then most importantly, get the hell out of the way on offense. Yeah. And, you know, said has a role and,
00:08:23
Speaker
He's playing like a superstar in his role. Kelvin's interview after the first Kansas game, he said on the flight back home, and I believe Kelvin was saying this in that same interview on the court after the Saturday game. But he said on the flight back home, he started to scribble some notes on how we could beat Kansas the next time. And as a coach, I went back and I rewatched the first half. I saw some little adjustments we made in our pick and roll defensive coverage.
00:08:50
Speaker
Normally the man guarding the ball goes over the top of the screen and the man guarding the screener gets to the line of scrimmage. And what it does is essentially brings two guys to the ball and you have like a temporary double team. If the other team has a screener who's a good short roll player like a KJ Adams.
00:09:07
Speaker
Or can pick and pop like you have, you know, BYU bigs, they can pick and pop, you know, this can present problems for the defense. Well, on Saturday, we changed that up our bigs instead of getting to the line of scrimmage. We did what's called drop coverage and our guards actually went under the ball screen. Daring to on Harris to shoot the ball. Harris has been very, very reluctant to shoot the ball and.
00:09:34
Speaker
I wouldn't say it was disrespectful, but you got to do what you do. You know, when, and we were going to do that until Harris could prove he could hit, you know, an open three.
00:09:43
Speaker
But by going to drop covers, we negated Adams' short roll ability, which he's very good at. Another thing I saw as an adjustment, we appeared to change our monster as well. We still used the monster, but we didn't double team until Dickinson or Adams took a dribble. And what I think that did was it threw off their rhythm. I noticed one time we even had Jamal drop and dig on Dickinson, and he just left Harris wide open daring him to shoot the three.
00:10:12
Speaker
And then another thing I noticed guys was this Kansas on the other hand, defensively did the opposite of what we did. Normally they use drop coverage and, uh, dare the guards to make it tough too. But on Saturday, they actually brought their big to the line of scrimmage, including Dickinson. I call Dickinson a big stiff because he's got about the mobility of an elephant and.
00:10:39
Speaker
We were able to exploit Dickinson's lack of mobility and Kelvin had a wrinkle or two that was designed with that in mind. I respect the heck out of bill self. He's a hall of fame coach, but that defensive adjustment really, really puzzled me. We had Kansas and self so flustered that he called his third time out with, I think it was seven 16 left in the first half. And here's the thing I noticed too. And Fran for Shilla missed this one self even try to triangle and two.
00:11:09
Speaker
for three possessions. And interestingly, you know that he had Fervy on sharp, he had Dwan Harris on shed, and then they were in a triangle, hit him a color at the top. He had Dickinson on a wing, and then he had KJ Adams on a wing. But interestingly, on those three possessions versus the triangle and two, Dunn took all three shots. Matter of fact, on seven possessions, there was a stretch there where Dunn took six of them. Wow.
00:11:37
Speaker
The first time he missed the top of the key jumper, the next time he nailed a three, and then the next time he got fouled and he had to shoot and made both free throws. But here's something I noticed when Salf went to that triangle too, Kelvin was ready for it. He was ready for the junk defense. Matter of fact, the first time they came down the court, Juwan looked toward the bench and I swear he made a triangle.
00:12:01
Speaker
signed to Kelvin but evidence that I knew Kelvin knew what was coming was Jamal was being guarded by Harris and he actually Jamal went down and he screened in Dickinson down the block and that got done open on the wing for that first three you don't do that by accident so Kelvin was prepared how he knew I have no idea
00:12:24
Speaker
All right, we're not like Iowa State. I don't think we have spies And by the way if you're interested in this kind of stuff I make video clips and I put them on the forum on Goku's but you know by this time the damage had been done And you you could put a fork in Kansas. I can't remember the last time I saw bill self just He just looked like he was resigned to his fate
00:12:53
Speaker
He wasn't angry, you know, he, he just kind of knew that it was just our day. Just like when we played him in fog, it was, it was Kansas this day. Matter of fact, in the handshake line, self-set something to Kelvin and later on, I learned what he said self-set. He told Kelvin that you guys have a team that can win it all. Wow.
00:13:16
Speaker
The last thing I'll say about this game is my two favorite plays from it.
Team Bonding and Cultural Strength
00:13:20
Speaker
First one was Juan scoring on Dickinson. He did the two smalls yesterday at the seven foot two center and then Ryan's three at the end of the game was special in our team's reaction to it. Literally gave me goosebumps and you know, you don't get that type of brotherhood in most programs.
00:13:40
Speaker
But to get that type of close bonding, you have to have guys who stay in the program, believe in it, go through shared suffering like our players do. This is a special time in U of H men's basketball history. It's unprecedented. It is just unbelievable. The program that Kelvin Sampson has built here, many.
00:14:03
Speaker
doubt it could ever be done before. You know, who would have thought nine, 10 years ago that we would be here having a podcast. And actually, there's like three other podcasts that cover, you know, U of H hoops and, you know, who thought we would have enough interest in U of H basketball to have standing room only crowd and it's just mind blowing. Yeah, no, that's great coaching insights there, Tom.
00:14:30
Speaker
I will say, though, there are three podcasts covering it. We're the only ones that focus strictly on men's basketball. That's right. They they add in football and all the other sports, other stuff, too. But yeah, yeah, we're we're the we're the. Yes, we're the OG of the all strictly basketball. That's right. How about you, Bill? What do you think of the game from a player's perspective? Well,
00:14:59
Speaker
This was obviously a route and the atmosphere was just electric from pregame, you know, through the end when they were doing the, you know, honoring the seniors, you know, Jim Nance at halftime. It was just a phenomenal atmosphere from start to finish. I'd been telling people for weeks that we were going to win this game by 20 plus. And then you were right. Yeah. Well, unfortunately I chickened out on the podcast.
00:15:29
Speaker
after Tuggler got hurt. And I only predicted a 10 point win. And quite honestly, what I neglected to consider is that while Kansas does have height and I was worried that with our lack of depth inside that that would have helped them much more on the offensive end. What I just neglected to consider was the fact that they were so soft and we just completely demolished them physically.
00:15:56
Speaker
I also should have considered the fact. And I thought I did till I thought too much about it, which always gets me into trouble. But they shot 70% from the field. There was no way that was going to happen in the Fertitta Center. From behind the arc, they were three of 21. And overall, they were 15 of 45 from the field. I mean, that's a third of their shots for the game, 14% from the outside.
00:16:25
Speaker
We turned them over 18 times while forcing 11 steals. I think they had six. We out rebounded them by seven, which we had not been doing lately. Further emphasizing how much more physical we were than they were, how much more aggressive we were. And we held two of their three best players, McCuller and Harris.
00:16:50
Speaker
to a combined three points and we actually shut out McCaller. So the defensive effort was just extraordinary at 46 for the game, 21 at halftime. Roberts was Roberts 10 and eight with a couple of blocks. Cryer.
00:17:07
Speaker
Had 11 points, 4 assists, 3 boards. Shed was shed, 13, 6, 6 rebounds and 8 assists. Wilson was strong. Dunn, you mentioned Tom, was really aggressive shooting the ball and I could not have been happier to see that.
00:17:26
Speaker
I think we're going to need him at some point down the stretch. And I've said before that he needs to be more confident. He needs to be more aggressive shooting the ball when the shots there. And I thought he did a much better job of that against Kansas.
00:17:41
Speaker
Sharp had a good game, nine points, all of them from beyond the arc, three of seven, but five boards and a couple of assists. I guess the only real negatives were in this, you know, leads into the postseason where Francis's fouls again. And if I've said it once, I've said it a thousand times and stressed that he has got to be on the court. He cannot play 10 minutes when we get into the tournament.
00:18:09
Speaker
It's just not going to be a recipe for winning the whole thing. And when we play the much better teams, he's got to be out there. He's improved and played so well throughout the season that we are a better team when he's on the floor. And then, of course, we had Elvin. And if he had not gone 2-4 from the field, he wouldn't have been our fifth leading scorer amongst starters with only seven points.
00:18:40
Speaker
Actually, I'm completely kidding about Alvin. His seven points were in six minutes. Crazy. Yeah. Averaging over a point a minute, he had the steal, which was outstanding. The entire team could not have been happier. Tom, you mentioned this when he hit the three late. Of course, and maybe this is something to consider
Community Engagement and Fan Enthusiasm
00:19:03
Speaker
So that's a little disappointing.
00:19:03
Speaker
as we get into the postseason, U of H has never lost a game in which Ryan Alvin has started.
00:19:12
Speaker
True. Yeah, I know. We talked about this a little offline. I thought this crowd did beat UT and Iowa State in terms of the noise, in terms of the energy.
00:19:28
Speaker
I want to thank a couple of people. Martin Rodriguez, he's the one that I mentioned to you guys. He hooked me up in the 11th hour because I wasn't sure that I was going to be going due to whatever. But he took care of me. And then Elsa Victoria, who I sat next to during the game, spoke with at length. She's a Sam Houston alum, but she goes to U of H games. She made sure she was at this game.
00:19:56
Speaker
She supports the Cougs. And despite me thinking that she was an undergrad, she told me that she has a son that plays D3 basketball. So she's a big basketball fan as well. Most importantly, she found our podcast on Spotify during the game and I believe she subscribed. So I had to mention her and definitely say woo hoo. Absolutely.
00:20:27
Speaker
This was just a great win, not only the blowout, but the atmosphere. Just everything about this game was great. And one last thing I want to mention was that
00:20:37
Speaker
I really enjoyed when they were introducing the seniors afterwards and when it came time to talk about Juwan, the crowd just started chanting one more year, one more year, which I thought was great. I wish they would have done it for Shedd, of course, they were chanting MVP and I can't argue with that, and Cryer as well.
00:21:02
Speaker
Yeah, great, great game, great atmosphere. Just not a complaint to be had. Hey, I got something for you. T-shirt alumni. I think we've arrived when we start getting some T-shirt alumni. I love it. Wouldn't that be crazy? Yeah. I mean, this was the best game of the year to end the regular season.
00:21:24
Speaker
Starters remain the same, Shedd, Cryer, Sharp, Roberts, Francis. This was sheer domination from beginning to end. When you started looking at the flow of the game, we started the game 9-2 with an alley from Shedd to Francis. Then it was 19-4 after a Sharp 3 from way out downtown.
00:21:43
Speaker
22-5 after Dunn hit a 3, then 32-9 after yet another Dunn 3. Then we got to 34-9 when Roberts made it behind the rim layup over Dickinson. Led 40-21 at the half.
00:21:59
Speaker
To really hit home how much we dominated that first half, KU shot a season low 26% from the field and only 21 points for the half, missing 15 shots in the first half alone, when they only missed 9 shots all game in our first game with them in Lawrence. It was just a shocking display of exceptional defense.
00:22:24
Speaker
Hard to pinpoint the star of the game since everyone contributed big time. Ken Palm highlighted Shed as the MVP of the game for Houston. Can't really argue with 13 points, 6 rebounds, 8 assists, 1 steal for the game. Bart Torvik also had Jamal Shed as their player of the game with a player PRPG score of 6.3, which was the highest of the game.
00:22:47
Speaker
But Roberts also had 10 points, eight rebounds, two blocks. Quire came in with 11 points, four assists, one block, one steal. Williams had 6.6 rebounds, one steal. And Dunn even had 12.6 rebounds and two steals.
00:23:02
Speaker
But you know what? You know who caught my eye the most? It was our foul-prone Francis who only played 10 minutes. But he came through with eight points, two steals, zero rebounds, which is kind of shocking. But for whatever reason, he just popped during the game and was a staggering player box score plus minus 23.8.
00:23:28
Speaker
for the game in only 10 minutes. Just shocking. The way he played D on Dickinson disrupting things inside and making emphatic dunks off of alley-oops and steals, he definitely made his presence felt in a big way with those 10 minutes.
00:23:43
Speaker
And Bill, you're right. We need him on the court way more than 10 minutes during the tourney because he makes a huge difference now. Now for the KU game from an advanced analytics perspective was just a stellar game to end the season on.
00:23:58
Speaker
I've been saying this each time in our last stretch of games, but on offense we played what I considered to be our best game of the season given the opponent. And again, peaking at the right time on that side of the ball heading into the tournament. Our effective field goal percentage was a fantastic 52.3% versus 50% standard for the year.
00:24:20
Speaker
Again, we continue to protect the ball extremely well with turnover percentage at 15%, which was slightly more than our number eighth ranked standard for the year. But guess what? I loved how aggressive we were on offense, and I'll take a tiny bit more turnovers to be able to score more effectively. And we're back to our offensive rebounding ways with 34.2% offensive rebounds.
00:24:46
Speaker
And that was great in that there were very few offensive rebounds to even be had by our team. On D, we clearly found a working formula even without Tugler. KU shot a dismal 36.7% effective field goal percentage. Almost 10 points below our 44.5% effective field goal percentage D. That is number two in the country.
00:25:12
Speaker
and we limited them to a shocking 14.3% from three-point range. We only blocked 16.7% of the two-point shots, but we first turnovers on 27.5% of their possessions above our standard for the year again. It was a pristine game on D to wrap up the regular season against KU.
00:25:34
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, such an exhilarating championship first season in the Big 12.
Reflecting on a Dominant Season
00:25:39
Speaker
Why don't we maybe just spend a little bit of time, give our own personal thoughts on winning the conference championship outright by two games in our first season in the conference. Bill, you can go first on this one. What were kind of your thoughts now that the regular season is over and kind of how it all played out with us winning things outright?
00:26:01
Speaker
Well, I'm not I hadn't really thought about this a whole lot. And the reason for it is that we're so damn good. That's great that we won the Big 12. But, you know, from a fan standpoint, I've got my sights set on slightly.
00:26:18
Speaker
Higher goals and we'll get to that in the next segment. Yeah. Yeah. So, you know, this is just another step toward nice where we hopefully end up. It was a great first season. I love the fact that last year there were people that talking heads, the people on TV, a lot of coaches were saying Houston looks great.
00:26:44
Speaker
in the American, but they have no idea what they're in for when they get to the Big 12. And well, I think, you know, Kelvin's style translates to any conference and it doesn't matter. We won, we ended up with fewer conference losses than I thought. Yeah, definitely. I'll say this, I thought Kansas and I think we all did. And so did the nation think that Kansas was going to be better than
00:27:11
Speaker
I thought they kind of underachieved this year. Again, they were a little soft. They went through a stretch where they didn't have much of anything off the bench. So I thought that they weren't especially good. It's certainly as good as they've been in the past and as good as people expected them to be. They were terrible on the road for the most part.
00:27:35
Speaker
Kelvins mentioned it a million times, you know, offensively, you can't always control shots going in. The shot can feel good and ends up not going in. And, you know, that's something that you don't have total control over.
00:27:52
Speaker
the effort on defense and the effort on the boards, you can 100% control that. And that's exactly why we ended up winning the conference, why we're the best team, why we're the number one team in the nation. And you know why it's great to win the big 12 in the first year and to
00:28:11
Speaker
to have something to throw back the naysayers. But again, who cares? We're onto the NCAA's and that's what I'm far more focused on. Nice. That's a winner's perspective. I love it. How about you, Tom? What's your perspective? Well, Steve, when you and I, uh, when we first did the podcast, the first or second one we went through, I had us at 12 and one after non-conference, the only loss band.
00:28:41
Speaker
to A&M. I was wrong there, and that's great. I predicted us 12 and six in the conference, wrong again. I'm glad I'm wrong. And then I thought we'd go two and one in the conference tourney, finish 26 and eight and get a second seed in the tournament. And I had our ceiling as a final four team. So like I said, I'm glad I'm wrong.
00:29:10
Speaker
Bill, you mentioned something about the, you know, the national media, the talking heads, talking about a U of H going to big 12, you know, from the American and this and that. Well, one of those coaches was Bob Huggins last year. I think it might've been at the final four. He was with Jeff Goodman and I can't remember some other people. You're right. And they reposted that. Yeah. Yeah. His exact words were when asked about Houston going to the big 12, he said, I feel sorry for them.
00:29:40
Speaker
Well, well, you know what, Bill, Bob, I think you've been hitting the sauce too much. Yeah. So I feel sorry for him. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. But, and I had KU went into conference at 13 and five. Yeah. So did I. Bill, you, you mentioned how bad they were on the road. They were two and seven on the road in conference. And as you guys are well aware of to win on the road, you have to be a tough team, not just
00:30:11
Speaker
physically, but mentally as well. And, you know, the toughest team wins, especially on the road. And we showed it, we went six and three and two of those three losses were, you know, one at the buzzer pretty much against ECU. And then Iowa state, we were down by two, had a chance to win it. LTA had an open three and missed, but bringing up injuries, Kansas had injuries. We had injuries, but I just want to point out the difference between these two coaches and
00:30:40
Speaker
And like I said, they're both Hall of Fame coaches. Bill Self-Sawry there. Hopefully Kelvin will be there one day. When we had injuries the last couple of years, it didn't derail our our seasons at all. You know, the expectations never went down. Kelvin and staff were able to adjust, never used it as a crutch. And, you know, we always had that identity. I can't say the same thing about Kansas. It's when McCulloch didn't play and he sat out and they had maybe
00:31:09
Speaker
that they had some other minor injuries or whatever. They look lost when they played without those guys. And it's like, what is their identity when those guys got out? It's not good for Kansas. So, and I don't know if I told you this guys, but I went to observe a practice early in November. It was between our first and second game. And these were the exact words that Kelvin said. He stopped practice and he told every single
00:31:39
Speaker
person in that building. This is how we're going to win this conference. He might have had an adjective before before this conference, but and I remember when he said that it just, you know, I kind of straightened up a little bit and I was like, yeah, F and A man. Yeah. And here we are. So Kelvin's my coach of the year. I'm biased, but
00:32:07
Speaker
Well he won it for the conference coach of the year yeah he's you know. Lot of great coaches in the country but. Given the entries we had. And then you got factor in Jamal had 10 and I just you know what you want holy cow seven stitches yeah are you kidding me and somebody on the message for Goku mention that.
00:32:29
Speaker
When you have that type of entry there, there's a lot of tendons and stuff there and it affects how you play. It really, really hurts and didn't miss a beat. Yeah. Just crazy. You know, you highlighted our road record in conference. Do you guys realize we're the only team in the conference that had a 500 or above record on the road? That's nuts. That's unbelievable. I mean, for me.
00:32:57
Speaker
Not a shock that we won since I picked us to come in second behind Kansas with a 13 and five conference record.
00:33:05
Speaker
I had also predicted 12-1 with a loss to Xavier. Boy, was I off on that one. But to have lost Arsenault, Walker, then Tuggler, and still go 15-3 in conference to win the title in year one, I am extremely surprised. We've been spoiled with Coach Sampson and his family at the helm for a basketball program. And as spoiled as we've become with the success, he still finds a way to surprise us by exceeding our expectations.
00:33:33
Speaker
If you're even semi impartial and focus on the facts coming into the season, it was already pretty ambitious of us to think we'd go second place. Moving up in weight class to the big 12, the best hoops conference in the land after losing to first round draft picks and Sasser and Walker, then have Mark transfer to Arkansas. Then during the season to lose three more key contributors to injury. I mean, just a masterful coaching job by coach Sampson and his assistants.
00:34:04
Speaker
I've spoken several times about my favorite Samson team being the Elite Eight one and not the Final Four team that we had, where we overcame injuries to Sasser and Mark and totally transformed our team to an inside out team playing through Josh Carlton. But regardless of what happens in the tourney this season, this has definitely become my favorite team during the Samson era and perhaps even my favorite Cougar team ever.
00:34:32
Speaker
I mean, it's just been such a fun ride this season. Anyway, yet another magical regular season put forth by our program, but this time on the national stage in the
Postseason Expectations and Team Potential
00:34:44
Speaker
big 12. Now, as we look into post-season play.
00:34:47
Speaker
around both the Big 12 tourney and then most importantly, the NCAA tournament. What are your guys' thoughts on either what your expectations are as well as what you'd like to see from a draw perspective or anything that you guys want to cover as we lead up to selection Sunday? Obviously, we'll go into details once the draw comes out. But just some initial thoughts on postseason play. Tom, you want to go first?
00:35:16
Speaker
We might not win it all, but this year, besides the 83 team, this is the first time I've felt that we can definitely win it. You always have to have things fall your way, but there's something about this team.
00:35:35
Speaker
that is different than the other teams. I think it has to go back to Jamal's leadership, just the type of person he is, the competitor he is, Juwan, same. This team is connected. There's something different there. And I think that's manifested when you see how many close games we won on the road. It's hard to put your finger on it, but I think we're going to win it this year.
00:36:04
Speaker
Wow. Bold prediction. I like it. How about you, Bill? Okay. Well, I've started with what's right in front of us, which is the big 12 tournament. And I'll run through it really quickly. Steve, you and I have kind of been in an agreement that if U of H were to lose and maybe lose earlier than later, that it would be a benefit down the road.
00:36:32
Speaker
The way the draw is playing out, unfortunately for the long-term prospects, fortunately for the team winning, I don't see us going out early. Yeah, I would agree.
00:36:44
Speaker
And TCU possibly knocked out Oklahoma today, although they'll probably get in. But they beat them. BYU beat UCF. Game going on right now is Texas K-State. I predicted Texas to win that game by 14. I have no idea what's going on there. They're down nine, Bill. K-State's up by eight now. Nice. You're kidding. Love it. Six and a half minutes left, yeah.
00:37:13
Speaker
Wow, I had. Texas was down by eight or so early, then they went up by 10. Now they're back down by eight. I mean, it is in Kansas City, so.
00:37:25
Speaker
Well, maybe there's the upset. The upset that I thought was gonna happen was gonna be Cincy over Kansas tonight, but I also noticed beforehand that Cincy is actually in Vegas, they're a two and a half point favorite. So that's shocking in Kansas City, but obviously Dickinson isn't playing. But I do think Cincinnati, I predicted them to win tomorrow.
00:37:53
Speaker
The big one is the first one, Steve, since I do accept your double or nothing dinner bet. The first time they played BYU was up 16 at Tech at halftime and somehow gave that game away and it was painful watching it. But I have BYU winning 78-73. I have us getting revenge on TCU 75-67. Love it.
00:38:18
Speaker
Well, right now I have Iowa state beating Texas. I'll have Iowa state beating Kansas state, if that's what happens. And I have Baylor beating whoever it is right now, Cincinnati. And then Friday, U of H will not lose to BYU. They're not in Provo.
00:38:37
Speaker
And I have U of H winning that game by a dozen points. I have Baylor pulling the, if you want to call it an upset, beating Iowa State by four. And then it's the rematch of the overtime game in Waco. And I think we end up beating Baylor by maybe a half dozen points and not only winning the big 12 regular season in our first year, but winning the tournament as well.
00:39:02
Speaker
Wow. In terms of the NCAA's, I wrote down the teams that I'd be willing to bet that we're going to face one of these teams for sure. And I'm guessing that two of them will be playing each other in the eight, nine game. I'm not even concerned with the one 16 game, but the teams that I have and I'll just give the teams and I'll give their Ken Palm numbers. Okay.
00:39:29
Speaker
Northwestern was the number 4C. The number came in fourth in the Big 10. They're 40 in Ken Palm. Nebraska third in the Big 10, 32 in Ken Palm.
00:39:41
Speaker
Michigan State, they came in eighth in the Big Ten, but they're 19 in Ken Palm, good defensive team. Florida Atlantic, last year's sweethearts that made it to the Final Four, they're 37 in Ken Palm right now. They came in second in the American. Colorado State, this is a team that actually I would not want to face, although I don't see us losing to any of these teams, but this is a good team. Even though they came in sixth in the Mountain West,
00:40:10
Speaker
Of course they're 23 and nine Boise state's 22 and nine and came in second in the mountain West. So it was all jumbles. It was Boise state is 38 and Ken Palm. And they're one of the teams I've listed Colorado state's 36. So they're right there. Drake. They're 28 and six. They upset Indiana state in their tournament. They won the mid-American. They're not a bad team. They beat Nevada who's going to make the tournament. They beat him by 19.
00:40:40
Speaker
St. Mary's who just won their conference tournament, the West Coast beating Gonzaga, beat them two out of three times this year. They're 20 in Ken Palm. They could be an eight or nine, although with that win, they'll probably bounce up to about a seven. Florida could definitely be an eight or nine. They came at sixth in the SEC, great offensive team, turned the ball over like crazy. And I'm fine with playing them. And then
00:41:08
Speaker
James Madison, who's only got three losses, and they came in second in the Sunbelt, they got swept by Appalachian State, who won it, but lost the tournament. James Madison, 60 in Ken Palm, they did win it. The very first game of the season at Michigan State, that's really their only win. And then the last team from the Big East would be Seton Hall and
00:41:30
Speaker
They're 55 in Ken Palm. They came in fourth in the Big E's. They did beat Connecticut earlier in the year by 15, but they also lost to USC, lost to Iowa, lost by 18 to Baylor and the
00:41:45
Speaker
Big 12, Big East challenge. And Yukon responded to the 15 point loss by about a couple of weeks ago, beating them by 30. So those are the 11 teams. I'm convinced that we're going to play one of those teams in the second round. Second round. Okay. And we'll have more analysis later. Okay. And we will win any of those games. Yeah, I would agree.
00:42:09
Speaker
is I had highlighted last episode I'm obviously completely out of my funk due to Tuggler's season ending injury. Coach Sampson has found a way to adjust yet again to stay elite in how we compete and win against all comers. I highlighted last episode on how our offense has been firing on all cylinders as of late leading up to the KU game.
00:42:33
Speaker
And it's gone under the radar or even unnoticed with national basketball experts. But if you look at our last seven games, which was our toughest stretch, our adjusted offensive efficiency score of 128.5 is 7.5 points above our season average and would put us at number one in the country, a full point above Purdue at this point.
00:42:58
Speaker
And though our D has dropped maybe a tiny bit due to losing Tuggler and such, it's only dropped to 90.5 from its current 88 during the same seven game span. But that would still put us in second place in the country above Tennessee. So we're still well positioned for a Final Four and National Championship run with our eight player roster.
Significance of the Big 12 and NCAA Tournaments
00:43:22
Speaker
From a postseason perspective, my initial thoughts are that
00:43:25
Speaker
And we've talked about it as well, Bill, right? Big 12 turning. Personally, don't care one bit about results. I just want to rest our starters so they can recover, get our bench way more minutes like we did against KU. So they're prime for the NCAA's and avoid any injuries to our starters.
00:43:44
Speaker
Now don't get me wrong, and I don't want anyone to misinterpret what I'm saying here. I'm not saying don't try to win because we absolutely continue to play hard, focus on winning, and playing our way to our culture. I just want the lineup in the minutes doing so to be much more slanted towards Wilson, Dunn, and especially Lat. Just making sure they get some meaningful minutes before the tournament comes around.
00:44:13
Speaker
Of course, since it's TC we play in the quarters, I definitely want a bit of revenge from our loss early in the conference play. But I won't blink an eye due to the results in the conference tourney. In our situation, it won't impact tourney seedings because we are pretty much locked in for a number one seed in the South. And the focus should be on building depth for a national championship run. I agree with you. Yeah.
00:44:39
Speaker
I mean, for our final four in national championship chances, though I'm out of my depression regarding Tuggler season ending injury, I'm also still a realist. Our success is going to depend greatly on the draw and the matchups more so than before the injuries. A draw that I'm seeing more and more frequently now with bracketologists have us paired with Marquette as a number two seed, and then either Illinois or Bama as a number four, and which
00:45:09
Speaker
In those cases would be in my opinion the most ideal match ups.
00:45:14
Speaker
for us given our injuries. I don't want to have match-ups with rosters deep, with skilled bigs, with size that will cause us potentially issues with fouls. So I'm trying to avoid teams like Tennessee, Arizona, or North Carolina as a two seed, as well as teams like Kentucky and Auburn as a potential four seed. Obviously, just like you guys have said, we can beat all those teams. But just from a more favorable match-up perspective,
00:45:43
Speaker
I think the Illinois Bama then Marquette matchup would be the best case scenario from a draw perspective for that final four run. Anyways, so that's it for episode 21 of the No Conference Rolled Men podcast. Hope you all enjoyed it. And again, would really appreciate it if folks would follow, subscribe, or collect our podcast, depending on your podcast platform of choice.
00:46:04
Speaker
We're also available via the Republican Football Podcast feed from the folks at Dave Campbell's Texas Football as the only basketball-centric podcast, or at the gocougs.com website for those that prefer to digest the content that way. We appreciate the continued support from all. Also, please give us a follow on our Twitter account. No conferences for old men.
00:46:25
Speaker
Thank you all again for listening and please be on the lookout for our NCAA preview episode next week where we'll try to publish it a bit earlier, hopefully on Tuesday ahead of all the games starting Thursday. So please be on the lookout and download and listen as the episode drops. Take care everyone.