Texas Southern vs Kansas: Preview and Players to Watch
Texas Southern beat fellow 16 seed Texas A&M-Corpus Christi Tuesday night to earn the honor of this Round of 64 matchup with top seeded Kansas. They pulled away in the second half to win fairly comfortably, 76-67. But who are these Texas Southern Tigers, and are they a threat to make KU nervous?
Sorry to spoil the suspense so early but, no they shouldn't be. Texas Southern ranks 183rd in KenPom's ratings, and both Vegas and KenPom seem to agree they're a roughly 22 point underdog. That said, there are some unique traits present for Texas Southern that make them a bit unusual for a barely-known 16 seed that we can dive into.
Overview
The main thing that sticks out is their size. So many of these teams on the small end of the mid majors are, well, small. It's not usual to see a team's "center" and leading rebounder be a wide bodied guy who only stands 6'6 and doesn't present much threat to a power 5 team's frontcourt. The Tigers, however, can roll out three different players who stand 6'9. This has led them to be an elite shot blocking team, 7th in the country in block rate. What's interesting is that they didn't build that number by swatting a bunch of shots in the underwhelming SWAC. Their block rate was actually lower in conference play than it was in non-con by a decent amount, meaning this team blocked a lot of shots early in the year against a surprisingly solid non-conference slate.
While we're on the subject, who has this team played? They were brave when they set up this schedule, which KenPom rates as the 9th toughest non-con in Division 1. Yes, that led to an 0-7 start, but this team doesn't have to guess at what it's like to play with the big boys. They've already battled St. Mary's, Oregon, BYU, Florida, Washington, and NC State. They lost to all but Florida, but played St. Mary's within single digits, and all of the above stayed within 20 points. They were hardly giant-slayers early on, but they entered conference play already battle tested, and that may provide some additional confidence tonight.
In terms of how this team plays, I have some good news: they don't shoot threes often, and they don't shoot them well. Just 31% of their shots have come from behind the arc, and just 31.7% have gone in. They don't have a ton of success inside the arc either, and they have turnover problems, which adds up to what KenPom rates as the 269th ranked offense in the country. Defensively they've looked much better, with the aforementioned shot blocking ability which could actually translate against Kansas. That said, most of their defensive success has hinged on teams shooting very poorly against them. Sure, part of that is due to rim protection, but part is also due to teams shooting very, very poorly from three and the free throw line against them. Teams have little actual control over the former, and obviously zero control over the latter. That means some luck has been on the Tigers' side, and they'll need that to continue to have a shot against the Jayhawks
Players to Watch
PJ Henry, 5'10 junior point guard
John Walker, 6'9 senior forward
Joirdon Karl Nicholas, 6'9 senior forward
Brinson Gresham, 6'9 senior center
Prediction
After pouring over this team's talented trio of legitimately big bigs, I've almost talked myself into being worried about this one. But at the same time, this is a team, for all its size and unique traits, that lost six games against teams ranked outside KenPom's top 200 (and got a 1 point OT win over another). They were taken to the woodshed by 99th ranked Louisiana Tech. It's easy to find things about this team that could be troubling in isolation, but overall they aren't skilled enough to beat Kansas in anything other than a complete aberration. I do think they'll come out undeterred by KU's stature, and that could turn into a sloppy start that keeps things in question for a while in the 1st half. But for all the rim protection and rotation of solid frontcourt guys they have, you'll notice I didn't say anything about players who can stop guys like Agbaji, Braun, and Martin from finding, creating and making shots. Kansas will win, and I don't think fans will be sweating much down the stretch.
Kansas 84, Texas Southern 64
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