40 Acres Sports

The Houston Chronicle looks at how Memphis and UT match up. They give Memphis the edge overall, but I think they’re off in saying Rose has the edge over Augustin.

Longhorns lean more on Dexter Pittman for defense. Facing a much more athletic lineup than Stanford, might be a game where we need Gary Johnson to shine.

Derrick Rose, DJ Augustin battle for spot in Final Four. DJ got the best of a Rose in a game this summer, hopefully he can do it again with more on the line.

After a big victory over Stanford Friday, the Longhorns now face their toughest test by far of the tournament in the [tag]Memphis[/tag] Tigers. Before the tournament started, I thought the Tigers had a chance to be one of the first number one seeds knocked off. It’s a lot later than I thought but that could still be the case if Texas takes care of business Sunday afternoon.

If the Horns want to hand Memphis only their second loss of the season they’ll have to contain the dynamic guard duo of freshman Derrick Rose and 6-foot-7 junior Chris Douglas-Roberts. Both players are averaging around 15 points and 4 rebounds per game and are excellent on offense and defense. The battle between point guards Rose and [tag]DJ Augustin[/tag] should be an entertaining match-up to watch.

Watch the SI.com video preview of Memphis below:

Below is SI.com’s Luke Winn’s excellent Q&A with Ian Mooney, enjoy…

The Blog’s two-season series of player-and-coach (but mostly player) Q&As has featured such luminaries as Roy Hibbert and Rick Majerus, but we’ve never before interviewed a walk-on. That changed today, as the subject is Texas senior forward [tag]Ian Mooney[/tag], who shares a name with the former host of WWF’s Wrestling Spotlight and, unlike most walk-ons, had three double-digit-minute games this season, averaging 0.3 points on the season. Mooney wears the No. 22 in honor of his late brother, Brendan, and transferred from St. Louis to Texas after one year as a walk-on with the Billikens. Longhorns point guard D.J. Augustin says Mooney “sets the best screens” on the team, and strength and conditioning coach Todd Wright warns onlookers not to dismiss Mooney as unathletic because of his stocky Irish frame. “He might look like he’s been drinking for three days, or that he just fell off the potato truck,” Wright says of Mooney, “but he can really jump. Seriously, he’ll throw down dunks.”

We caught up with Mooney in the Horns’ locker room before their Friday practice:

Luke Winn: You went from being a walk-on as a sophomore, to a scholarship guy last season [when a gap was left by Daniel Gibson leaving early], back to being a walk-on. That’s an interesting back-and-forth.

Ian Mooney: I just take what comes my way. I had a scholarship fall in my lap, and now I’m back to just doing what I do, walking on.

LW: Did you earn the full ride last year by harassing Kevin Durant in practice? [Coach Rick Barnes had said that Mooney guarded Durant “better than anyone.”]

IM: I think they kind of had some extra [scholarships] lying around last year, but I’m fine with the Durant angle.

LW: And you’ve already graduated?

IM: I graduated this past summer in corporate communications. It’s like communication studies in corporate situations — doing sales presentations, things like that. And I’m in grad school now, for advertising, which is pretty tough. That’s fine, though — I’d rather do advertising than be taking basket weaving or doing the Leinart plan.

LW: What’s the University of Texas equivalent of a ballroom-dancing class?

IM: I took a semester of piano once, and that was my fine-arts credit. I don’t know if that was as bad [as ballroom dancing], but our homework was singing in class and practicing our stuff.

LW: You’ve seen some serious time in a few games this year [against TCU and St. Mary’s in January]. How did that come about?

I think coach [Rick Barnes] just kind of got frustrated with some of the guys, and gave me a shot. We were playing against TCU and they had undersized big men, and our guys were having trouble with it. Coach gave me a shot, I did well, and found a couple more minutes the next game, which was cool.

[Note: In order to conduct this interview, Mooney took a break from playing a white-board game with teammates Matt Hill and Damion James that was essentially Pictionary for movie titles. Mooney is the one drawing in the photo below.]

Where did you come up with that game? And which movies did you draw?

IM: I brought it over from high school [at St. Michael’s in Austin], but it just started today because we’ve been bored like crazy. We just needed to pass the time. I did Courage Under Fire — you see, the lion without the heart from Wizard of Oz, and then the fire? It’s supposed be be flip-flopped, but it’s there. Then I did Camelot, drawing camels in a parking lot. [He also did Honey, I Shrunk The Kids, with a pot of honey and some small stick figures, and Hill drew Next Friday by using a calendar.]

LW: I heard last week about the team’s obsession with Rock Band in your home locker room …

IM: We first got it started with Guitar Hero. One of the managers brought it in, and then we convinced him to get another guitar — and then we made him keep the guitars in the lounge, because we were playing it so much. Then Rock Band came along and the next thing you know, we had a band. D.J. is good at drums, because he played in middle school, and Clint [Chapman] is probably the best at guitar. Justin [Mason] is on the mic. He sings the classic rock. Very adequately.

(more …)

The Longhorns controlled the first half and dominated the last ten minutes in route to a 20 point win over [tag]Stanford[/tag] Friday night. Texas used a 20-3 run to turn a 1-point game into a 82-62 victory.

[tag]DJ Augustin[/tag] was the player of the game for the Horns, leading the team in scoring with 23 points and dishing out 7 assists. When he took over the game and the tempo in the middle of the second half is when Texas went on their run. But equal credit for reversing the momentum should go to [tag]Rick Barnes[/tag], [tag]Dexter Pittman[/tag], and the other bigs playing defense down inside. The switch to a 2-3 zone defense and Pittman’s big body frustrated Stanford star Brook Lopez, and without him the Cardinal had no offensive threat.

The team now advances to the Elite 8 where they will face the Memphis Tigers Sunday at 1:20pm on CBS.

Related Links

• Men’s Basketball advances with 82-62 win over Stanford
• D.J. Augustin’s the best I’ve seen
• Texas a win away from Final Four
• Texas takes its place among Elite Eight
• Augustin has UT pointed toward Final Four
• Rick Barnes credits Justin Mason
• Longhorns’ second-half spurt propels them into Elite company
• Instant Analysis: Second-half run dooms the Cardinal
• How Texas Took Down Stanford: An Inside Look
• Stanford calls its shot: Texas just plain better
• There’s more to UT than D.J. Augustin
• Where in the world are Robin and Brook? Definitely not Houston…
• Postgame notes
• Photo gallery
• Video highlights

The NCAA is trying a new set up for tournament games in football arenas and the games in Houston and Detroit this weekend will be fans’ first look at it. In order to get more fans in the stadiums, the courts will be set up at the fifty-yard line instead of tucked away to one side like the normal football stadium set up. When the Longhorns face off against the [tag]Stanford[/tag] Cardinal Friday evening at Reliant Stadium they’ll also do it from 27 inches off the ground.

The set up will allow them to sell more tickets and will look good on TV, but seems far from optimal for the players and coaches in the games. Both the location and elevation could actually affect the outcomes of these very important games. It could change things for shooters and on loose balls near the sideline.

The big drop just a few feet out of bounds is incredibly dangerous. Players are definitely worried about hustling after the basketball and falling off the edge, as evidenced by quotes like this one from Villanova’s Scottie Reynolds: “What if we go for the loose ball and dive off the court? I mean, that’s the thing I was scared about.” It seems like a lawsuit waiting to happen.

The large empty space behind each basket also may cause depth perception issues for shooters, something that would be a very bad for the guard-oriented Longhorns. There will be very few fans behind each basket, and each will be backdropped by large black curtains. On how the shooters would cope, our own [tag]AJ Abrams[/tag] said, “There’s going to be an obvious depth perception [problem] just from the goals, but nothing you can’t handle. Just go out and get a couple shots up and get the feel of it and that’s what it’s all about.”

Hopefully AJ can get comfortable during warm-ups and comes out firing during showtime. And maybe that homecourt advantage means we’ll have Texas fans lining the court to catch any Longhorns that go flying off the ledge. The best outcome is that nobody will get hurt and the final score of the games won’t be affected. We’ll find out Friday evening.

Related Links

• NCAA tries new-look location, elevation of courts in Detroit, Houston
• UTeric32’s (Hornfans) photos from Thursday’s shootaround
• Stanford vs. Texas on the big stage, literally
• ‘Falling off’ edge of court a worry

After playing well in hostile territory in the first two rounds, the Longhorns come home to Texas for the Sweet 16. On Friday the Horns will take on [tag]Stanford[/tag] in a 2 vs. 3 match-up in Houston. The Cardinal pose the biggest challenge in the tourney yet for Texas, particularly the giant Lopez twins down inside.

The 14 feet of Lopezes in the paint means the Longhorns need a big game defensively from the likes of [tag]Connor Atchley[/tag], [tag]Damion James[/tag], [tag]Gary Johnson[/tag], [tag]Alexis Wangmene[/tag], and big [tag]Dexter Pittman[/tag]. On the offensive end Texas needs another hot shooting night out of junior guard [tag]AJ Abrams[/tag], but open looks won’t come as easily as they did in the previous two games.

Watch the SI.com video preview of Stanford below:

How Texas remained durable after Kevin Durant. Every single other player is better the season, especially Connor Atchley.

16 to 1: Ranking the Sweet Sixteen. Drinking the Forty puts the remaining NCAA Tournament teams in order.