It was about what we expected in Austin. The Cowboys were overrun for 40 minutes as the Longhorn's were able to do pretty much anything they wanted. (If you just love reliving torturous events, check out the Texas side of things with the BON recap) There are plenty of negatives to focus on here, and I'm sure we will (*cough* what the hell is up with JPO?), but first a few bright spots.
Markel Brown looked very impressive in stretches driving to the basket and showcased his developing ability to finish. Sure there were some rough patches in his game, but it is nice to see him continuing to build on every performance.
Matt Pilgrim had a nice half, snagging 12 rebounds in the first half alone. And yes it is sad that we are congratulating Pilgrim for having a good half... but that is the 2010-2011 Cowboy basketball season.
But the most impressive Cowboys performance of the night in my mind belongs to none other than Jarred Shaw. Shaw was showing a confidence I don't know that I have ever seen in him. He drove to the basket a couple of times, utilized a decent post move/baby hook shot a couple of times, got to the line and was 4-4 from there. The glaring hole in his performance is that he is 6'11 and had zero rebounds in 12 minutes of action, but I will take any positives from a Shaw performance as a great thing for this team.
For the negatives, rather than listing all the bad things that happened, I wanted to showcase one particular play that I feel captures almost everything that is wrong with this version of the Cowboys. Yes this is a cheap symbolism ploy and unfairly depicts Marshall Moses in a horrible light (which he doesn't deserve), but I just feel that it is the perfect sequence to represent this Cowboy team. Watch Moses on the weak side in this video after the jump:
(not the best quality, but work with me here)
See how he gives about 9% effort on keeping position for that rebound while Tristan Thompson continues to fight to get around him to get that board. Then, once Moses realizes that there is something happening, and he should be doing something about it, you can almost actually see the "Oh Shit!" thought bubble appear above his head right around the 0:03 mark, at which point he jumps forwards, starts slapping wildly, then ends up fouling Thompson on the putback.
While I do like Moses effort most of the time, his attempt at mimicking what defense and rebounding are here, combined with the overall effort level, really feels like a microcosm of the entire Oklahoma State season.
"Ugh, this is a lot of work, maybe I should take this play/shift/half/game/season easy... oh wait shit, I am about to look bad.. now it's on... shit, I fouled him."
- Oklahoma State Basketball