Texas basketball is a sinking ship. The season reached a new low in an surprising collapse against the UCF Golden Knights.
The Longhorns led the Knights by a score of 44-32 at halftime. It was an impressive half, but the Longhorns stopped impressing after that. UCF stormed back outscoring the Longhorns in the second half, 45-27.
Texas guards Ithiel Horton and Max Abmas attempted a combined 21 three-point field goals. Needless to say, that wasn’t a winning formula, but the two guards weren’t getting much help from elsewhere.
The Longhorns bench scored a grand total of seven points on the game. For context, the Knights bench scored 34.
Some saw our criticism of the Longhorns’ lack of portal acquisitions as unfair. After watching a 1-3 start to Big 12 play, the team’s lack of depth has shown up in a huge way with not enough stepping up to help the primary scorers.
There are great players on this Texas team. There just aren’t enough of them, and certainly not as much as there could have been had there been more urgency in building a more complete team in the offseason.
Texas got outscored by 18 points in the second half against UCF at home. This isn’t the start we hoped for in head coach Rodney Terry’s first full season. Due to the lack of depth, there probably won’t be much of any improvement.
The Longhorns are on the verge of missing the NCAA Tournament barring dramatic improvement. We will see if Terry can make do with the roster he assembled.