Deep breakdown of Tang's offensive genius vs Longhorns: https:
https://www.reddit.com/r/CollegeBasketball/comments/104y7rd/kansas_state_vs_texas_offensive_bonanza_how_the/What the heck, the Longhorn Network tried to sneak this NBA game by us! No seriously, 116-103 are you kidding me?! In the Big 12????!!!!! I know I just put out a post on Tuesday but there is NO FREAKIN WAY I can pass this up. So let's dive in and detail how in the world Kansas State poured it on a typically vaunted Texas defense.
Transition Offense
If you want to know why this game was such a high scoring affair, it's because Kansas State came out looking like the embodiment of this. Unlike the Scuderia, the slow button was most definitely left off for the Wildcats. This matchup featured a whopping 82 possessions in 40 minutes of basketball, the highest mark both Kansas State & Texas have tallied through the first half of the season in either regulation or overtime. The Wildcats set the tone early, looking to get out and run regardless of the situation. Here we are just over a minute into the 1st half and while this isn't quite a transition possession, it does show how much KSU was willing to push the ball in all situations including after made Texas baskets. Notice how head coach Jerome Tang has his guys run this early double staggered ball screen, he empties the side of the floor with the roll & pop so there isn't anyone in the corner to help in the paint & tag the roll man. Coach Tang & his staff did a good job recognizing that Texas likes to leave Dylan Disu at the level of ball screens. UT freshman Dillon Mitchell gets sucked in by the pop, leaving the roll man with acres of space to slip to the basket for a layup.
Kansas State did a great job of quickly flooding up court, filling lanes, and catching multiple Texas players behind the ball. Their bigs were phenomenal at sprinting up the floor and beating Longhorn bigs to the basket. Their effort and rim running were massive components in Kansas State successfully implementing their fast break game. KSU was also able to take advantage of some mediocre transition defense. There were a number of times where they caught Texas ball-watching, not communicating properly, and/or not picking up the ball. This transition possession was particularly woeful for the Longhorns. KSU corrals the rebound and quickly trigger the break. Marcus Carr is the farthest player back for Texas, but instead of taking a Tykei Greene that is streaking down the center of the court, he takes a Markquis Nowell that stays behind the ball for the entire break. That forces Dillon Mitchell to take the ball with his back to the ball instead of being able to peel off to Nowell, and Timmy Allen to wildly closeout to the break of the 3pt arc all the way from the timeline instead of taking the ball. That allows Keyontae Johnson to freely catch the ball at the arc with a full head of steam to find Greene wide open under the hoop when Mitchell needlessly steps up in the paint. It's hard to play any sort of effective transition defense when three players take the wrong man. This clip was the absolute worst of it. It all kicks off when Marcus Carr jacks up a low-quality contested 3 very early in the shot clock. The rebound quickly finds the hands of Nowell and he knows he has room to work. Carr wasn't the only Longhorn who did this, but he picks up the ball way way WAY too low below the 3pt line. Look at where Marcus' feet are when Markquis starts to shoot, he's barely above the elbow! That simply cannot happen against guys like Johnson & Nowell but I saw it too often from the Texas players.
Kansas State also looked to use their pace to take advantage of cross matches when a Texas big would be switched onto a KSU guard. Coach Tang wanted his guys to hunt the Longhorn bigs in space and in the halfcourt all night, and that philosophy carried over to their quick game too. Anytime they saw a Texas big on a Kansas State small, the Wildcats would scrap any sets or early offense they were going to run and just spread the floor and let that guard go to work.
Halfcourt Offense
Earlier when I said this was an NBA game, I didn't just mean in terms of scoring. Kansas State's offensive playstyle was quite similar to something you'd see at the next level. You've probably already noticed KSU's pace & space attitude towards this game in the transition section of this post, but Jerome Tang took a modern approach to his halfcourt offense as well. Like I said earlier, Kansas State made it their mission to hunt the Texas bigs and force them to guard in space. Disu, Allen, Bishop, & Cunningham were all targets for the Wildcats. Anyone on Kansas State could attack those players, but they specifically made an attempt to get Nowell or Johnson on those bigs. Kansas State's favorite action was to just spread the floor out and run a high ball screen. They were good when they kept things simple and let their gravity get open shots for them. It wasn't that hard to tell how uncomfortable Texas was playing against this kind of opponent, their rotations and closeouts lacked any sort of cohesion or structure. Even on solid closeouts, KSU knew exactly what to expect from them and to immediately attack the open hip. The Longhorn defenders just seemed out of sorts against the spread attack, as they got picked apart for trying to put out a 5-alarm fire after every pass & drive. I mean just look at this PnR. Nowell rejecting the screen causes all sorts of havoc. I'm just not sure what everyone's job is supposed to be on the Longhorns? Cunningham chases the ball like he's going for a chase down block instead of checking the roller or sinking to take away the opposite dunker's spot, but Allen steps over from the dunker's spot to cut off the drive (leaving the dump off open), and Dillon Mitchell just kind of........................stands there taking away nothing before fouling Keyontae Johnson on an And-1. That wasn't the only time KSU made lemonade from rejecting a ball screen. Here is a great example of moving shooters to grab the attention of help defenders and open up the floor for driving lanes. Coach Tang has an excellent understanding of how to space the floor, keep defenders out of the paint, and make defenses pay for the tiniest lapses in detail.
Jerome Tang is paying early dividends as the boss of the bench in Manhattan, as seen by how well his Kansas State players are able to improvise when things break down initially while also making sure the offense as a whole stays in rhythm. Let me show you an example: This play is supposed to start out with a catch for Keyontae Johnson on the left wing coming off a pindown. Timmy Allen does well to deny the ball and blow up the entry, but KSU doesn't panic and instead gets creative. Johnson flips into an empty-side ball screen and Nowell does very well to pick up what Keyontae is putting down. The former Florida Gator picks off two defenders with one screen, and Nowell is able to let a wide open off-the-bounce 3 fly. Here again, Texas blows up the primary backdoor action but Kansas State just flows into more offense. Desi Sills cuts through to keep the floor spread, and now Kansas State has an empty-side inside ball screen against one of their targets (Bishop). Texas gets their wires crossed in how they want to play the screen (Bishop drops like it's ICE coverage but Hunter doesn't jump to the inside hip) and a beautiful pocket pass leads to an Abayomi Iyiola layup.
Late in the game, Coach Tang cranked the pro stuff up a notch by directly hunting Teddy Allen. He bet that Allen didn't have the foot speed to keep up with his guards and he was correct. First with 6 minutes left, KSU comes out in a HORNS look to get as much traffic out of the paint as possible. The first screen gets Brock Cunningham on him to get the Longhorns' lone big out on the perimeter (UT is running a Hunter-Carr-Rice-Allen-Cunningham 5) and the second screen gets Brock switched onto Keyontae to ensure that the Austin, TX native stays out of the key. With the matchup they want and Texas' rim protection displaced, Nowell is free to dance with Allen as he hits Timmy with a lightning fast in-n-out dribble before slashing to the rack for a layup over the 6' Tyrese Hunter (see how important it was to set it up so they got the big out of the paint?). Fast forwarding a bit to where there's 3 and a half minutes to play, and KSU goes to hunt Allen again. Timmy's man sets a high ball screen to get him switched out onto Nowell yet again and we see another instance of Kansas State pulling Cunningham out of the paint as Texas' lone big. The 6'10 Nae'Qwan Tomlin lifts to the wing (he's hit 10 threes on the year and had hit one earlier in the game) and that pulls Brock away from the hoop. Nowell doesn't stress even with the shot clock winding down and he blows by Allen to the right again, this time with a hesitation move that freezes Timmy in his tracks. Hunter becomes the primary rim protector, again, and can do nothing but foul Markquis as the KSU PG would eventually knock down both shots at the charity stripe. This was an absolute showcase of late game play calling and execution.
Really, nothing summed up Kansas State's halfcourt experience more than this sequence early in the second half. KSU goes with a double staggered ball screen at the top of the arc with shooters in the corners. Nowell comes off it so UT has to respect the pull up threat, Disu shows at the level, Mitchell leaves Tomlin to tag the roll, Allen is just chilling in the corner afraid to come off Johnson when he needs to split the difference, and Carr just saunters over to Markquis without shrinking the passing window. All this leads to a wide open three for Tomlin on the pop and the Wildcats extend their double-digit advantage. Next time down, Kansas State runs LITERALLY THE EXACT SAME PLAY...except this time Jerome Tang has Keyontae set the first stagger so he's the player who pops to the arc. Allen & Carr switch the first screen so the point of attack defender isn't as behind the ball as last time, and Disu still plays it at the level. Carr prevents the pop to Johnson at the opposite wing, but the problem is that Mitchell doesn't tag the roll and come off of Tomlin in the opposite corner because Nae'Qwan literally just made an open 3-pointer. Dillon the roll too late, and it turns into a layup for Iyiola. Kansas State's spacing completely confounded the Texas defense into submission.
Conclusion
We could be looking back at this game as the key turning point in both Texas' & Kansas State's seasons. The Longhorns barely escaped Norman with a 1pt victory and just got boat raced by Kansas State. Even though those are both good teams, they aren't exactly the Big 12's cream of the crop either. The rest of their schedule is conference opponents and a date
@ Tennessee. That's the best conference in the nation and a trip away to the best defense in the nation. Oh, and Texas also just officially fired the guy who started the season as their head coach. We'll see if Rodney Terry can steady the ship but giving up 116 points at home to the team projected to finish last in the league isn't exactly endearing. There's a part of me that can understand if a Texas fan thought their team was just a bunch of mercenaries after watching this game. Neither KSU nor UT have homegrown rosters or coaches, but only one team seemed halfway interested in playing for the front of their jersey on Tuesday night. Either this will be the moment that Texas retreats into a shell and limps into a Round of 64 exit, or they rally around each other and get back to that Final Four potential by playing so hard that this game seems like a bad acid trip. I'm intrigued to see which outcome we'll see.
For Kansas State, they put the rest of the conference on notice. Yes, they need clean up plenty of things on the defensive side of the ball (they got back cut to death in this game) but the offense is legit. Markquis Nowell is a walking playmaker and Keyontae Johnson is one of the most explosive primary options in the country. Most of all, they have a coach who knows exactly how to highlight their strengths and use them to manipulate defenses. Coach Tang knew that he could get Texas in trouble by involving unwilling switchers like Allen, Mitchell, Cunningham etc. and it worked to perfection. Cam Carter was also fantastic on the offensive end with a season-high 17 points and the ability to score at different levels, and Nae'Qwan Tomlin will be a nightmare at 6'10 if the shooting really comes along consistently. It still remains to be seen if they have enough to challenge their in-state rival at the top of the Big 12, but Kansas State should have the confidence & belief that they can beat anyone. Jerome Tang, Markquis Nowell, Keyontae Johnson, and the rest of that team are doing big things in Kansas State and have gotten off to about as perfect of a start as possible in Manhattan.
What did you think of Kansas State vs Texas? Will either team survive in this grueling conference that has produced the last two national champions? Will the Big 12 be a 10 bid league? Let me know in the comments and thank you for reading!