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No. 11 seed Texas upset No. 3 Gonzaga, 74-68, on Saturday to move on to the Sweet 16 of the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament, and head coach Sean Miller’s expletive-laden halftime speech might have been the reason why.
Miller, 57, challenged his team to maximize their effort on the offensive glass and not wilt just because Gonzaga is a higher seed and a good basketball team.
“Here it is. The team who gets the most second shots in the second half will win. Again, I want to go back. You want to take it or are you just going to say — we’re going to say, ‘Like, man, they seem to always go to the Sweet 16. Same happened to us.’ No, no. If you didn’t take it, if you’re going to be a team take, we got to go get the ball more when we miss. It can’t be one of those like, ‘F— it, we could never get an offensive rebound against Gonzaga.’ Yes, we can,” Miller told his team.
Miller impressed upon his squad that if they couldn’t grab it, they needed to keep the ball alive by whatever means possible, and to win the game, they had to steal it from Gonzaga.
“You can’t get it, punch it, tip it, go back up, tip, dunk, up,” Miller said. “The most aggressive team in the second half. The team who wants to go to San Jose, the team who’s going to steal it and take it from the other motherf—er, that’s who’s going to win because it’s an even game.”
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Texas took Miller’s advice literally, as they stole the ball four times from Gonzaga had an 11-2 advantage in points off turnovers. While the Longhorns out-rebounded 34-29, they shot the ball better than the Bulldogs, draining 52% of their shots compared to 45% for Gonzaga.
For Miller, Texas’ trip to the Sweet 16 is his ninth trip in 21 seasons as a head coach and improved his overall tournament record to 25-13 in the NCAA Tournament. For Texas, this is their first Sweet 16 since 2023.
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The Longhorns will look to keep their Cinderella run going when they play No. 2 Purdue on Thursday at 7:10 p.m. ET.
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