AUSTIN, Texas Texas in fourth place was without three key players for the victory of the Big 12 conference at Kansas 12 in the Erwin Center in the Erwin Center as 82-67 Greg Brown, Brock Cunningham and Kai Jones was not available to play. The school gave no reason for the three Longhorns missing the game, but they were not dressed and were not on the bench for Texas (11-2, 5-1 Big 12) as head coach. Shaka Slim and Co bounced back nicely from a 79-77 loss against no. 15 in Texas Tech.
“We knew we had to turn the page. The guys were really mature with the approach on Thursday in practice and our film session and on Friday we found out that we were going to be without a few guys,” Smart said. “It wasn’t like any other season, and that was how the season was, but I thought the guys tonight really performed what we were trying to do.”
Next for the Longhorns is a trip to Iowa State (2-7, 0-5), a game that will be hosted at the Hilton Coliseum on Wednesday, January 20, and it’s a game where they’ll get a shorthand again, if the game is accepted is played. The cyclones recently had to interrupt basketball activities due to COVID-19 issues within the program, but even if Texas can play the game, they will again be without the three Longhorns who missed the K-State route (5-9, 1-5 ).
‘I do not even know, because they did not play today, Iowa State, so I have to with (fellow athletics director) Arthur Johnson and find out what the status of that game is, ”Smart said. ‘Those guys, when we go to Ames, the guys are not going. I think that’s the most important thing I can say, it’s not available. ”
Brown, Cunningham and Jones are three of the team’s top four forwards Jericho Sims, who was available on Saturday and was in the starting lineup. Sims scored 14 points, grabbed seven rebounds, dished out an assist and stole within 24 minutes, but the story of the game was the way Kamaka Hepa acted and filled the void with Sims created by Brown’s absence, with 15 points, three rebounds, one assist, one steal and one blocked shot in 26 minutes of action.
Hepa enjoyed a 5-for-8 night from outside the arc, helping the Longhorns to a 12-for-31 (38.7 percent) showing from 3-point range. Originally, he would be red shirt for the 2020-21 season before the NCAA freezing point for winter sports athletes essentially gave Hepa a free season as far as his watch is concerned; he played a total of nine minutes in three games (has not played since) a 77-74 victory over Oklahoma State on December 20) before breaking out for a monster outing on Saturday when Texas beat the former four-star prospect of 6 feet, 9 inches and 220 pounds needed (58 overall in the 247Sports Composite Rankings in 2018) carries the juice he brings to the bench in a bad way to court.
“I thought of it like at any other moment,” Hepa said after trying to reach his career-high in a single game and setting a new personal record for three-point singles. ‘Of course I was a little more excited about tonight just because I could be on the track with my teammates. Just because of my situation and our team’s situation this year, I do not necessarily have to do it too much, but I enjoy every second with my team and enjoy embodying my role and it felt really good to just to be there with my teammates. playing basketball. ”
Even without Brown (11.8 points, eight rebounds, 1.4 blocks per game), Cunningham (1.9 points, 3.4 rebounds per game) and Jones (8.5 points, 4.8 rebounds per game) on the lane, the Longhorns even finished in the rebound battle (34-34), turned seven offensive rebounds into 12 second chances, blocked four shots, scored 26 points in the paint and managed to get 12 points off the bench with Jase Febres (Six points, three assists, five rebounds, two blocks and one steal within 22 minutes) gets half of the two on three tries in his season debut after undergoing knee surgery with microfracture last year.
Even though K-State is short and scored six players for at least 26 minutes on Saturday, the Longhorns won convincingly without three of their biggest guns. It helped to get a game-high 19 points from Andrew Jones (7-of-12 shooting, 4-for-8 from 3-point series, six rebounds, two steals, one assist and one block) with Courtney Ramey 14 points on a 5-for-7 night off the floor, along with a season-high nine assists and three rebounds, but Hepa and Sims step up and Febres offers a lift in his first minutes of the season, has helped Texas emerge from the initial loss of conference in an emphatic way.
“It’s really like a team is supposed to be, but I think of course we’ve learned over the years not to take it for granted,” Smart said. ‘These guys all come here as very sought after and highly regarded individual players. They all have very big individual goals, which they have to do, but we ask them to come up with a common cause. We can only have five on the track at any given time. We knew that with these three guys would need big contributions from some guys who did not play as much.
“The more guys you have like that, who have a passion for each other, the more fun it is and the more successful you are.”