After benefiting from a midweek bye that allowed the Texas Longhorns to recuperate from the demanding SEC schedule, head coach Sean Miller’s team will journey to Columbia this Saturday. They are set to face the Missouri Tigers at Mizzou Arena, aiming to extend their winning streak to four games.
“This week provides us an opportunity to refresh mentally and physically for what I consider the crucial final stretch of the season, while also focusing on improvement,” Miller commented on Monday.
This break proved particularly vital for junior wing Dailyn Swain, who has been shouldering significant playmaking responsibilities for the Horns, and for graduate forward Lassina Traore, who was benched during last Saturday’s win over Ole Miss after sustaining a knock to his surgically-repaired knee.
Miller is hopeful that Texas can finish the season in a familiar fashion; last year, his Xavier team made an unexpected NCAA Tournament run by winning their final seven regular-season contests.
“My team was incredibly eager to finish strong. We had many older players, and this was their last chance in college, so they were determined to go out in the best way possible. Practice became everything. Our February practices were as good as, or even better than, our November practices in some areas,” Miller recalled.
Following several Longhorns achieving their first three-game conference winning streak against the Rebels, the Texas head coach observes similar traits in this current group.
“I believe we are driven and determined to be our best as we head into the stretch run,” Miller remarked.
However, the Horns face a more challenging route to the NCAA Tournament in the SEC compared to what the Musketeers encountered in the Big East.
After being slight road underdogs against Missouri this Saturday and then heavy home favorites when hosting LSU next Tuesday, Texas’s schedule stiffens significantly. Three of their subsequent four games are on the road, and they will be considered heavy underdogs when Florida visits the Moody Center on the 25th.
Although there’s an opportunity to significantly enhance the team’s NCAA Tournament chances—which have only improved by roughly 10 percentage points during their three-game winning streak—historical data provides a tempered outlook. Last year’s team under Rodney Terry offers one of the most comparable profiles for these Longhorns, and teams with similar resumes have historically shown limited upside; only three of the ten comparable teams advanced past the first round, and none reached the Sweet 16.
Compared to Texas’s position after an 0-2 start in SEC play, this statistical ceiling still represents clear development that must continue individually to bolster Miller’s program-building efforts.
Sophomore center Matas Vokietaitis possesses the most untapped potential over the remaining seven regular-season games, especially after rebounding from his least effective SEC performance to score a game-high 27 points in last Saturday’s 79-68 victory against Ole Miss.
In a career-high, emotionally controlled 35 minutes, the tall Lithuanian Vokietaitis showcased both his exceptional conditioning and what Miller hopes is a burgeoning ability to avoid unnecessary fouls by limiting offensive physical contact and maintaining defensive verticality to force contested shots. This effort saw him effectively finish through contact in the paint, converting 9-of-11 field goals and 9-of-12 total attempts.
“We’re working with Matas to teach him how to go vertically, straight up in the air with hands behind his head, so he can leverage his length and size defensively without committing fouls,” Miller explained. “It’s a distinct method of rim protection that doesn’t necessarily aim for a blocked shot, but rather to secure that area which has troubled us in many games where drives and shots around the basket have been our undoing.”
Despite his impressive height, Vokietaitis’s 3.3-percent block rate ranks as mediocre in college basketball, indicating a natural deficiency in shot-blocking that is compounded by breakdowns in his fundamental defensive technique.
Offensively, however, Vokietaitis was remarkably efficient against the Rebels. He drew foul trouble from Ole Miss’s frontcourt and capitalized on a more aggressive trapping defensive scheme, which opened up the lane for him. He also benefited from Ole Miss’s strategy of loading defenders onto the strong side to contain Swain’s driving ability.
Because Vokietaitis successfully avoided foul trouble, he was able to play a career-high 35 minutes, demonstrating his superior conditioning.
“We’ve spoken with Matas about his ability, at this point in the season, to play for longer stretches, which means fouling less and maintaining greater emotional control. But his conditioning is incredible. He’s one of the best-conditioned big men I’ve ever been around—he’s seven feet, 250 pounds, with approximately five or six percent body fat, and alongside that, he’s one of the hardest workers on our team,” Miller stated after the Ole Miss win.
To defeat Missouri, a team with a 57-percent win probability, Texas will likely need to contain the formidable wing Mark Mitchell, a Duke transfer who is averaging 17.2 points, 5.7 rebounds, and 3.5 assists per game.
“He’s a one-man wrecking crew. I’d describe him as a ‘bully’ in the most positive and respectful sports-specific sense—he simply imposes his will on opponents through rebounding, physicality, driving, consistently drawing free throws, and effectively playing both the five and the four, utilizing his quickness at center and his strength at power forward,” Miller said. “And another key aspect is his excellent passing; when you try to bring help or double-team him, he reads the game well and finds his very skilled teammates.”
Guards Jayden Stone and Jacob Crews are particularly dangerous playing off of Mitchell, with Stone shooting 41.2 percent from three-point range and Crews hitting at an impressive 46.7 percent. The Tigers boast a deep guard corps that also features another proficient shooter in Trent Pierce and a secondary playmaker in Anthony Robinson II, who is a poor shooter even from mid-range.
Despite also being on a three-game winning streak, Missouri does exhibit certain weaknesses: the Tigers struggle with ball protection on offense and are not a strong defensive team, notably having significant difficulty defending the three-point line.
The game is scheduled for a 7:30 p.m. Central tip-off and will be broadcast on ESPN2.