Give it up for Varez Ward!

F

FW_Horn_32

100+ Posts
The kid stepped it up tonight when the team needed him. If he and Pittman continue to develop, we will be pretty tough next season.

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What a season for Ward. He signs late as a relatively unknown commodity....Then as the year starts looks like a 5-star recruit. As the year went on he just started making too many dumb mistakes. Against Kansas State in the Big XII Tournament I saw him on the bench and suddenly realized he hadnt played in forever...and then he came on in that game and started a terrific run that ended tonight. You have to be excited about his possibilties.
 
several games back I wanted this as our lineup...
AJ
Dogus
Ward
Dex
James
 
Ward played like a man tonight, something I can't say for guys like Johnson, Pittman, and AJ. Sad that a freshman has to be our leader in heart, that's so sickening. I cannot give enough props to him.
 
Ward is going to push Balbay into developing a shot if he wants to see playing time in the future. I started developing a man crush for him tonight as he definitely had ice water in his veins
 
^ Seems to me the difference isn't so much that Ward has a better shot, it's that Ward realizes how good he is, while Dogus doesn't yet.
 
Ward is a hell of a finisher. He kind of reminds me of PJ Tucker- seems to have an intuition about when to jump, how to use the back board, how to spin the ball off the board. He plays a lot bigger than he is, coming up with big rebounds among the trees. Has great body control. If he keeps working on his ball handling he is going to be a great player for this team.
 
Ward & Pittman were by far the most improved over the year. I don't want to post who regressed as it doesn't matter the season is over.

Early on, I wondered why we offered Ward. Towards the last 1/3 of the year, I wanted Ward on the court a ton more.
 
If last night was any indication Ward gives us a better opportunity to win than Balbay. In fact there was absolutely no reason for Balbay to be on the floor at the end of the game with ward in there. He was just out there taking up space. He was even running the point. I would have like to have had smith in there at that point. At least he will shoot.

Pike
 
SMH, any grumblings from Ward that he's unhappy with his PT or do you think he's just good enough to go somewhere else and start if he wants? And if you're talking about a school east of Austin, please don't let it be arkie with his buddy from high school.
 
If we get to the point where glove are off, I have to say Mason needs to match his defensive play with an all-around improvement in every other phase of his game or belongs on the bench at #7 or #8.

Gary Johnson never returned to his usual locked-on style of play after his ankle injury. He has to change something in his body language on the court and work as hard at that as Dex has in managing himself on the court. I'm speaking about the work Dex does to loosen up his body to allow him to move on the court with more grace and body control.

I often think these guys need a martial arts / kung fu / tai chi trainer to come in and teach them body language, awareness of what's going on in the world around them, and a sense of balance and feel for what is happening. This team looked, as a group, rather clumsy and never fully on balance.

Remember how DJ's play made the whole team look so balanced?! What I missed this season more than ever was that flow and balance, that sense of timing and floor awareness-- by all the players, no matter what lineup was on the court. It just was never quite there this year.

I'm not a coach, and played very little, but watching the game I can see where players take too much time or make too many extra body moves in a play when they need to have learned how to get to the rim, or get off the shot, in as few body motions as possible. I will see players (of this or another team) make a minimum of moves and get off the play, then see some of our players make one or more "extra" motions and end up losing the advantage. I felt I saw this in the Texas players all year, all the way back to December -- one too many extra motions on a ball play. That comes from lack of awareness and lack of training.

James... lost some kind of edge in his game, and his effort to play became brute force and not one of finesse.

Maybe it's time the coaches worked more on ball-handling basics and shooting than on defense. Some kind of balance.
 
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