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Sean Miller calls for effort and energy against the Huskies

by: Evan Vieth2 hours ago

Sean Miller has not gotten the best out of his team in the non-conference slate.

Texas had one of the 35 most talented teams in the nation heading into the year, but they are just 1–3 against major programs.

A 15-point loss to Duke was expected to end the year, but Texas lost a close game to an inferior Arizona State team, beat a good but flawed NC State team, and was blown out by Virginia, a barely top-25 unit.

Texas would’ve liked to have two signature OOC wins at this point, but that isn’t the case. Now, they are power-rated as the 54th-best team in KenPom, a death zone for teams looking to make March Madness.

Texas has a big task on its hands on Friday: taking on one of the 10 best teams in the nation in the UConn Huskies, winners of two of the last three national championships.

The Longhorns are severely undermatched based on personnel, and UConn will likely enter this matchup around a 15-point favorite. With that in mind, Miller knows what the keys are to attempting to take down a giant of the industry.

“Leading into the UConn game, it’s this: when you play against the best, it starts with effort and energy and all-out effort,” Miller said. “That doesn’t mean you run around and just foul people on defense, or you run real fast and take ridiculous, bad, quick shots. But it’s ball pressure, deflections, being sound the last 10 seconds of the shot clock, which is big against UConn, not having that one player break where, man, you just played really well and together in a connected way defensively for 20 seconds, but you weren’t able to finish the possession. That’s effort in basketball and being able to sustain it.”

Miller knows that there was sloppiness from his team against Virginia. It’s part of the reason the Cavaliers went 12-for-24 from three with 18 total assists. Players were just being left wide open.

He makes a strong point about the UConn game itself: Dan Hurley is fantastic at getting his team to find open looks late in the shot clock.

It was one of the key strengths of the teams that won in 2023 and 2024, when Tristen Newton and Jordan Hawkins could find late looks for jumpers, or a dominant big like Adama Sanogo or Donovan Clingan could win down low for a high-percentage shot.

Believe it or not, four players on the current roster remember winning a national title. Senior Alex Karaban is an obvious one, as he started on both title teams, but juniors like Solo Ball, Jaylin Stewart, and Jayden Ross contributed in 2023–24 and are now well ingrained in the system.

“Yeah, Alex Karaban, not a lot of players are in their fourth year when they’ve won two national championships,” Miller said about the vet. “Alex has been a starter and a fixture on, really, all four teams that he’s played on, and I’m sure that when his time ends at UConn, he’ll go in the rafters. He’s just the epitome of a winner. Great respect for him.”

Texas is outmatched, but they can’t be out-efforted like they were against Virginia. That may mean a tighter rotation, as Miller noted in the presser, but it doesn’t matter which Longhorns are out there. Texas has to play consistently, take their advantages when they come, and hope to be the better-conditioned and more tenacious team in Connecticut on Friday.

“I think we’re looking for consistent effort and consistent play throughout the game. Not a team that goes up and down and up and down, and that’s really how I try to see it,” Miller said.

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