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The Round Mound of Rebound called out Sean Miller for not having one of his best rebounders on the floor for the moment that ended Texas’ March Madness run.
Charles Barkley said Miller erred in benching big man Matas Vokietaitis for the final possession of Thursday’s Sweet 16 loss to Purdue, with the Boilermakers scoring the game-winning basket on a tip-in following an offensive rebound with 0.7 seconds remaining to secure a 79-77 win.
“I think Sean Miller, who I love, he made a mistake,” Barkley said on CBS. “You gotta have a big guy in there in that situation. I know he had four fouls, but what you saving him for? He’s their best rebounder, he’s their only big they really have out there. You can’t give up an offensive rebound in that situation.
“I love Sean Miller, he’s a hell of a coach, but that’s a screw up.”
Miller will have all offseason to wonder if he made the right call with his defensive strategy for the final play, with his team’s inability to corral a miss ultimately dooming them.
Texas tied the game at 77-77 on a three-point play from Dailyn Swain with 11 seconds left before Purdue called a timeout to set up a final possession.
Vokietaitis, a 7-foot Lithuanian center, ranked second on the team in rebounding with 7.1 per game, but Miller pulled him with four fouls during the free throw leading into the timeout sequence.
Texas ultimately forced a miss from Purdue star guard Braden Smith, but Trey Kaufman-Renn, a 6-foot-9 forward, leaped over the 6-foot-8 Swain to tip in the miss with less than one second left.
Miller did not like the idea of Vokietaitis guarding Kaufman-Renn on that play and worried he would foul out on a potential final play and not be available for overtime, if the game advanced that far.
As Barkley said, though, Miller had to get to overtime and his team ultimately did not.
“(Kauffman-Renn) just is a really difficult match-up for a game-winning play, especially from Matas,” Miller said following a 21-15 campaign. “I think a strong drive putting him in a position to do that and Matas having four fouls on top of that, it had not worked out very well for us in the game. So by playing quicker or smaller, we could switch that and really defend the drive in a better fashion, because Matas can’t really switch. You can’t put Matas on Braden Smith on a switch.
“Look, we did get the stop. They got us with their size on the offensive rebound, and many times a game is won and lost not on the first shot, but on the second. We could have done a better job of blocking out or competing, but the number one thing for us to have a chance today was to rebound with Purdue.”
This season marked Miller’s first with Texas, and it should be viewed as a rousing success due to this unexpected tournament run, despite the late-game strategic error.
The 11th-seeded Longhorns beat NC State before upsetting sixth-seeded BYU and third-seeded Gonzaga, before coming one rebound short of overtime with No. 2 seed Purdue.
The Boilermakers will face top-seeded Arizona on Saturday night in the Elite Eight.
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