No. 6 Texas 68, Saint Joseph’s 50
Lahaina, Hawaii — Texas’ latest outstanding defensive effort left coach Rick Barnes complaining about the Longhorns’ offense.
A.J. Abrams had 17 points to lead No. 6 Texas to victory over Saint Joseph’s on Monday in the opening round of the EA Sports Maui Invitational, but the Longhorns committed 16 turnovers, and that’s what Barnes wanted to talk about.
“We turned it over way too many times. We have to cut that down,” he said. “Defensively, we gave the effort we wanted, and we got good play off the bench, but the turnovers were just careless mistakes. We have got to value the basketball. We’re too good a team to score 68 points. We can fix that.”
The Longhorns (3-0) will meet No. 8 Notre Dame, which beat Indiana, 88-50, in the semifinals today.
Abrams was 4-for-7 from three-point range, extending his strong start from beyond the arc as he was 8-for-17 in Texas’ first two games.
The Longhorns had allowed 44.5 points and 28.7 percent field-goal shooting while forcing an average of 22 turnovers in their first two victories. No. 3 looked very familiar.
Ahmad Nivins had 14 points and 13 rebounds to lead the Hawks (1-2), who finished 17-for-58 from the field (29.3 percent), including 4-for-21 from three-point range, and turned it over 18 times.
“This team has been really focused on playing defense, trying to get stops, and that’s a good thing,” Abrams said. “On offense we just have to slow down and not play at 100 miles an hour. We have to get efficient and get wide-open shots.”
Saint Joseph’s scored six of the final eight points in the first half to pull within nine, but Damion James had seven points in Texas’ 11-2 run to start the second half. Saint Joseph’s missed three of its first four shots in the half and had three turnovers in the opening 1:40.