Austin, Texas – Texas, fourth, did not have three major players for Saturday’s Big 12 Conference victory over Kansas State at the Erwin Center as attackers. Greg Brown, Brock Cunningham and Kai Jones were not available to play. The school did not provide a reason for those three Longhorns to lose the game, but they were not dressed out and were not on the bench for Texas (11-2, 5-1 Big 12) as the head coach. Shaka Smart and Co. recovered well from a 79-77 loss to Texas Tech number 15 on Wednesday.
“We knew we had to turn the page, the guys were really mature with the approach on Thursday in training and in our movie session and on Friday, we found out that we would be without some guys,” said Smart. “It was different from any other season, which is how it has been, but I thought the guys tonight really did what we were trying to do.”
The next step for the Longhorns is a trip to the state of Iowa (2-7, 0-5), a game scheduled for Wednesday, January 20 at the Hilton Coliseum and is a game in which they will have shorthanded once again. , assuming the game is played. The Cyclones were recently forced to pause basketball activities due to problems with COVID-19 within the program, but even if Texas can play, they will again be without the three Longhorns who lost K-State’s defeat (5-9 , 1-5).
“I don’t even know why they didn’t play today, Iowa State, so I have to go (associate athletics director) Arthur Johnson and find out what the status of that game is, ”said Smart. “These guys, if we go to Ames, these guys don’t go. I think the main thing I can say is that they are not available. “
Brown, Cunningham and Jones are three of the team’s top four strikers, along with Jericho Sims, which was available and titular on Saturday. Sims scored 14 points, grabbed seven rebounds, conceded an assist and recorded a steal in 24 minutes, but the story of the game was the way Kamaka Hepa intensified and filled the void alongside Sims created by Brown’s absence with 15 points, three rebounds, an assist, a steal and a block in 26 minutes of action.
Hepa took advantage of a 5-by-8 night beyond the arc, helping the Longhorns to a 12-by-31 (38.7 percent) showing a 3-point streak. Originally scheduled to redshirt in the 2020-21 season, before the NCAA freeze eligibility for winter sports athletes basically provided Hepa with a free season with regard to his watch, he played a total of nine minutes in three games ( has not played since a 77-74 home win over Oklahoma State on December 20) before exploding like a monster on Saturday, when Texas needed the former 6-foot, 9-inch, 220-pound four-star player (No. 58 overall in 247Sports Rankings composed in 2018) transfer the juice he brings to the bench cheering his teammates on the court in a bad way.
“I thought of it as at any other time,” said Hepa after trying to set his own scoring record in a single career game and setting a new personal record for made 3-point games. “Obviously, I was a little more excited about tonight just because I was able to be out there with my teammates on the court. Just because of my situation and our team’s situation this year, I don’t necessarily get to do that much, but I enjoy every second with my team and I like to incorporate my role and it felt great just to be out there with my teammates play 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) in the On the court, the Longhorns actually ended in the rebounding battle (34-34), turned seven offensive rebounds into 12 points for a second chance, blocked four shots, scored 26 points in the painting and got 12 points off the bench with Jase Febres (six points, three assists, five rebounds, two blocks and a steal in 22 minutes) hitting half of them in two 3-point strokes on his season debut after undergoing microfracture knee surgery last spring.
Although K-State was short of players and had six players registered for at least 26 minutes on Saturday, the Longhorns won convincingly without three of their biggest weapons. Helped to get Andrew Jones’ best game score 19 points (7 out of 12 shots, 4 out of 8 in the 3 point range, six rebounds, two steals, an assist and a block) with Courtney Ramey scoring 14 points on a 5 on 7 night off the ground, along with a season record of nine assists and three rebounds, but Hepa and Sims stepping up and Fevers providing a force in their first minutes of the season helped Texas overcome its first loss of emphatically play the conference.
“This is really the way a team should be, but I think, obviously, we have learned over the years not to take it for granted,” said Smart. “All of these guys come here as highly praised and respected individual players. They all have big individual goals, which they should, but we ask that they come together around a common cause. We can only have five on the court at any one time. We knew that, with those three guys out, we were going to need big contributions from some guys who didn’t play that much.
“The more guys you have that way, who have a passion for each other, the more fun you are and the more successful you are.”