A Fitting End…
Posted by Travis on March 20, 2011
The Texas Longhorn Men’s basketball season ended fittingly Sunday night. Off to a fast start, stumbling in the middle, closing well, but not well enough.
I talk a lot about basketball IQ. At times I think I overuse it. But when watching 2 good teams play, it is usually the team that makes better decisions late that win. Jordan Hamilton called timeout with a 2 point lead and the ball in his hands with about 12 seconds to play. Hamilton isn;t an elite free throw shooter like J’Covan Brown showed he was in the tourney, but as trhe leader of the team at that point, just hold on to the ball and wait for the foul. Or turn up court and make them chase you. Instead, Hamilton calls timeout and Texas allowed Arizona to set a defense and try to force a turnover, and that is exactly what happened.
Maybe this game will be rememberd for the phantom 5 count or the ref ignoring Corey Joseph calling timeout (Video evidence shows the ref using the visual hand count but never reaches 5 — you be the judge) But to most Longhorn fans it will probably just be another missed opportunity.
In the end, even the great play of Brown (23 points incl. 13-13 from the free throw line) couldn’t stop the Longhorns from getting in thier own way.
Maybe Thompson and Hamilton will come back next year. Who knows? And if this nucleus stays together and adds incoming talent like Myck Kabongo then I guess we can always be hopeful that one day Texas Basketball will get back the the Final 4.
