At South Plains, Green wants his players to be strategic on defense: Suffocate opponents along the 3-point line and make life difficult for them in the paint. He is more than willing to cede midrange jumpers, the least efficient shot in basketball. The Texans have limited opponents to 28.3 percent shooting from 3-point range and outscored them by an average of 35.4 points a game.

“They’re the best team in the country,” Brian Lohrey, the coach at New Mexico Junior College, said after watching South Plains drain 14 of 25 3-pointers in a 26-point win against his team last month. “There are a lot of good teams at this level. We’re good. But we are not good against them.”

In so many ways, the players at South Plains could not be more removed from the glamour of the N.B.A. They ride a bus to all their road games, a mode of transport that Tripp assessed as a “real experience.” They live in a no-frills dorm across the street from the Texan Dome. They amuse themselves with post-practice games of one on one.

But they adhere to what Kerr described as the Warriors’ mentality: a willingness to pass and create for others. At South Plains, miles from nowhere, they do it as well as anyone.