 "Photo: Caleb Miller, Daily Texan Staff")
As Stetson head coach Derek Waugh walked off the court after his team fell to Texas, he stopped to look up at the scoreboard and saw his team’s shooting percentage.
“13 of 50,” Waugh muttered as he shook his head.
The poor shooting typified No. 7 Texas’ 68-38 blowout victory over Stetson on Friday as the Longhorn defense was able to keep the Hatters to 26 percent from the field. The Stetson offense began the game with two airballs in the first three minutes and was only able to convert on two field goals in the game’s first 15 minutes.
“We were good defensively,” said Texas head coach Rick Barnes. “Overall, defensively, if we can have that kind of effort, it’ll keep us around for a long time in some games.”
On the other end, neither A.J. Abrams or Connor Atchley were bothered by the NCAA’s new 3-point line as they combined for the team’s eight 3-pointers. Abrams tallied a game-high 21 points, while Atchley chipped in with 14 points of his own on a perfect 5-for-5 shooting night, including three second-half 3-pointers.
“I don’t think it makes a difference,” Atchley said of the new 3-point line. “When you’re shooting, it’s all touch.”
Stetson mixed in a zone defense throughout the game, allowing Abrams to spend most of the night behind the new 3-point line, shooting all but three of his 12 field goal attempts from beyond the arc.
“It’s just a couple inches back,” Abrams said. “It’s just going to weed out some of the big guys from shooting threes.”
With last season’s Bob Cousy Award-winner D.J. Augustin gone and sophomore Dogus Balbay in street clothes, serving the last of a 14-game suspension, Abrams, Justin Mason and freshman Varez Ward split time running the offense as point guard. The point-guard-by-committee approach resulted in only two assists in the first half and 15 total turnovers throughout the game.
“We’re not going to turn the ball over,” Barnes said. “I promise you, we’ll get that fixed.”
Despite the Texas defense causing 19 Stetson turnovers, the Longhorns finished the game with only three fast break points. Accounting for preseason scrimmages against Davidson and Gonzaga, Barnes called it the “slowest pace” he’s seen his team play.
“We’re going to be in games like this where teams try and slow it down,” Barnes said. “We still got to push the tempo.”
Even with the offense experiencing first-game kinks, the Texas defense kept Stetson struggling, keeping last season leading Hatter scorer Garfield Blair to 10 points on 5-13 from the floor.
“We’re generally better on our offense than we were tonight,” Waugh said. “But that’s not much of a statement seeing that we shot 26 percent and 38 points.”
Before the season, Barnes called this year’s team the best defensive team he’s had in a while. Now, Barnes just needs the offense to follow suit.
“I told the coaches at halftime, we kind of remind me of some of our teams when I was at Clemson,” Barnes said. “We could really guard, but sometimes watching us on offense was painful.”
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