A photographic breakdown of the Texas defense

The past three weeks, there has not been a team hotter than the Texas Longhorns.

Since they were Kemba'd back on January 8th, the Longhorns have gone 7-0. Texas has been the best offensive team in the Big XII during that stretch, averaging 1.12 points per possession (Kansas is second at 1.11 PPP), but that is not where they are making their mark. The Longhorns have done it with defense.

That is not a secret. All you have to do is look at the box scores to figure it out. They are holding opponents to just 36.0% shooting in conference play and lead the country in effective field goal defense on the season. Texas is allowing a league low 53.4 ppg during the last seven games, 11 points less than Texas A&M. That gap gets even more impressive when you look at the tempo-free numbers. The Longhorns are allowing just 0.83 PPP, which is more than a tenth of a point better than Missouri, who allows 0.98 PPP.

But, like I said, that is not a secret. Every writer in the country that wrote about last night's win over Texas A&M would have been fired if they had not mentioned the Longhorn's defense.

How does Texas do it?

What is their trick?

Why are they a defensive juggernaut?

This afternoon I went back through the tape (err, the TiVo) of last night's game against the Aggies and focused strictly on the Longhorn's defensively. The results were, well, not really all that surprising.

Texas doesn't do anything tricky on the defensive end of the floor. There aren't any gimmicks or junk defenses. They don't run a zone or a press. It is simple, fundamental, man-to-man defense executed to perfection.

It starts with the point guard, who is generally guarded by either Dogus Balbay, Cory Joseph, or Jai Lucas. The Longhorns pick up at half court -- if not in the back court -- and force their opponents to start their offense much higher than is ideal. Both Balbay and Lucas are terrific on the ball defenders, and Joseph is getting better with each game.

While one guard is pressuring the point guard, the rest of the team is making it very difficult to catch the ball in a good spot on the floor. Next time you watch the Longhorns play, keep an eye on how good the guards are at getting around off-the-ball screens (down screens) and how difficult the bigs make it to catch the ball on the block.

Texas exclusively wants to trail players coming off of down screens, and to a man they do a great job of avoiding the screen. The big men also understand how to hedge and prevent a curl while still being able to recover and make an entry pass into the post difficult. As good as the Aggie big men are, they were unable to get post touches within 12 feet of the rim, let alone on the block.

The next thing Texas does is play terrific help side defense. Their guards are excellent at showing and recovering when an opponent tries to penetrate. They are excellent at doubling the post -- against Texas A&M the game plan appeared to be to double when the ball was put on the floor -- and rotate well enough that there weren't many opportunities for cutters. And lastly, they have a number of shotblockers around the rim that can clean up any mess.

Here is an example of a possession that stuck out to me (Ed. Note: If you click on the picture, if should blow up full screen):

As you can see, the possession starts with, in this instance, Cory Joseph picking up Dash Harris at half court. Dogus Balbay is matched up with Khris Middleton, A&M's leading scorer, at the far block, while Jordan Hamilton, Tristan Thompson, and Alexis Wangmene are also on the floor:


The Aggies run Middleton off of a double screen. Wangmene is off his man to defend against the curl while Balbay is able to follow Middleton off of the screen:


Instead of catching the ball in a position where he can take advantage of his size, Middleton is forced out on the baseline 15 feet from the rim by Balbay. Notice the rest of the Longhorn team. All four players have at least one foot in the paint in perfect helpside position (it helps that A&M doesn't spread the floor well and doesn't have many shooters, but you get the point):


Balbay's pressure on the ball forces Middleton to get rid of it. The ball is swung to Harris at the top of the key, and Middleton once again runs off of a double screen. Once again, notice Balbay trailing the screen and Thompson hedging to prevent against the curl:


Middleton is eventually forced to catch the ball about 35 feet from the basket. The Aggies ran a pick and roll with Walkup (who faded to the far corner), and Middleton was able to momentarily get a step on Balbay. Look at Joseph's help, cutting off Middleton's penetration:


Middleton was forced to take a tough, contested 17 footer with the shot clock winding down.

This possession was textbook, man-to-man defense. Not only are the Longhorns all very good defenders individually, they play fantastic team defense.