Tag: texas basketball

What to make of Texas basketball’s sudden resurgence

After two top 11-victories, is Texas basketball capable of moving off the NCAA Tournament bubble?

The Texas Longhorns (14-5) are a different basketball team than they were a week prior. After two impressive wins in four days, it might be time to reconsider where they could be playing this postseason.

Through 17 games, Texas looked like it would be playing in the NIT. The lowlights from what was then a 12-5 team included an embarrassing loss to West Virginia followed by head coach Rodney Terry’s battle against opposing teams turning the Longhorns’ hand sign upside down.

We are past those low points now. Texas followed a buzzer-beating win over No. 9 Baylor on Saturday with a dominant 15-point road win over the No. 11 Oklahoma Sooners. All of the sudden, a team that seemingly had no impressive victories on the season now has an NCAA Tournament resume.

There’s plenty of basketball left to play with several conference matchups remaining. Texas will have plenty to prove in regard to how it can perform night in and night out. Even so, what we saw from the team over the last two games indicates if we get more of the high upside Longhorns, the team can move off the NCAA Tournament bubble and toward a No. 8 seed or higher.

Red River Hoops: Texas can’t exhale with No. 11 Oklahoma next

With the Oklahoma basketball game on Tuesday, Texas can’t get too high over its Baylor win.

It’s Red River week in basketball. The No. 11 Oklahoma Sooners (15-3) play host to the Texas Longhorns (13-5) on Tuesday night.

The Longhorns defeated what was then the No. 9 ranked Baylor squad on Saturday. It was just the beginning of a difficult stretch of basketball in the Big 12 conference.

Oklahoma begins a difficult stretch of five games in which the team faces four ranked opponents and three road games. No. 4 Houston and No. 23 Iowa State are the teams Texas faces at home.

The quickest way to ensure a successful stretch begins with defeating a tough Oklahoma team. That will be easier said than done. Oklahoma head coach Porter Moser who put Loyola-Chicago on the map in his time there has his Sooners operating at a high level.

Oklahoma’s leading scorer Javian McCollum averages 14.9 points per game behind a 45.2% field goal shooting percentage and a 93% average from the free throw line. Fellow guard Otega Oweh is next highest on the team in scoring with 14.1 points per game and a scorching 59.3% three point percentage.

Just as you could have guessed, Moser’s team can shoot. The question for the Longhorns is whether or not the team can match the Sooners’ scoring output.

On the year, Oklahoma averages 79.3 points per game to Texas’ 77.2 scoring average. The Sooners allow 65.1 per contest to Texas’ 67.4 allowed per game.

ESPN’s matchup predictor gives Oklahoma a 71.3% chance to win the matchup. Texas will look to beat those odds on Tuesday night.

Can Texas sustain the same level of play after defeating No. 9 Baylor?

We look at how Texas can ride positive momentum after Baylor.

There’s a glimmer of hope emanating from a surprising upset win in the Moody Center. We are unsure what to make of it.

The Texas Longhorns (13-5) defeated the No. 9 Baylor Bears (14-4) on Saturday. The win resurrects the program from the low point of Rodney Terry’s tenure as head coach in Austin.

We have not forgotten the circumstances that seemingly already put Terry on the hot seat. Terry and company followed a loss to conference cellar dweller West Virginia (7-11) with another loss to an inferior opponent in UCF (11-6). Those losses are as informative of the team as Saturday’s win over No. 9 Baylor.

At its best, Texas can compete with and beat some of the best teams in basketball. The issue is that multiple other high ceiling, low floor teams can say the same thing. It’s who the team is capable of losing against that is more noteworthy.

The margin for error is incredibly low for the Longhorns. If the team gets the performance it did from the guard-forward combo of Tyrese Hunter and Dylan Disu on Saturday, it may not lose many other games. That said, it’s a high bar for the team to ask the two to match their performance against Baylor.

Hunter and Disu combined for 40 points shooting 15-for-24 from the field and 6-for-10 from three point range. Needless to say, Texas probably isn’t going to get that efficiency every game.

What will it take from Texas to continue to win games and make it into the NCAA Tournament? It will take consistent high scoring nights from Texas’ Hunter, Disu, guard Max Abmas and forward Dillon Mitchell. And it will take more of the offense it saw from reserve post player Kadin Shedrick who scored 10 points against Baylor.

The Longhorns did themselves a huge favor in a bounce back win over No. 9 Baylor. The question is whether or not its key players will continue to produce high scoring performances to carry the team. We will have a better idea of how consistently the team can produce when it takes on the No. 15 Oklahoma Sooners (15-3) on Tuesday night.

Texas basketball rallies, defeats No. 9 Baylor at buzzer, 75-73

Texas got a much needed win on Saturday over No. 9 Baylor.

Texas basketball got back in the win column with a surprising upset over the No. 9 Baylor Bears. The program needed the win like it needed air. Continue reading “Texas basketball rallies, defeats No. 9 Baylor at buzzer, 75-73”

Was Rodney Terry the right hire for Texas basketball?

The Longhorns have lost three of their last four games and sit near the bottom of the Big 12 conference.

Blowing a 12-point lead at home to UCF is inexcusable, but that’s exactly what happened on Wednesday night. Continue reading “Was Rodney Terry the right hire for Texas basketball?”

Texas basketball blows 12-point lead vs. UCF in new season low

Texas basketball collapses against UCF and blows a 12-point halftime lead.

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.

No. 25 Texas travels to Cincinnati for second Big 12 game of the year

Cincinnati has won four of their last five games.

The Longhorns suffered a significant loss on Saturday against Texas Tech. However, Texas has a chance to recover on Tuesday. The game against the Red Raiders marked only the second time Texas lost at home in the Moody Center, with a final score of 78-67 in the Big 12 opener.

Texas will now travel to Cincinnati to get back on the right track, playing the Bearcats for the first time in conference play. Cincinnati, although not ranked, has won four of their last five games and is 12-2 on the season.

The Bearcats have three players averaging over 10 points per game: Vicktor Lakhin, Dan Skillings, and Day Day Thomas. Lakhin also averages 8.4 rebounds per game and shoots 53.7% from the field.

Texas will need to forget about Saturday’s loss and focus on the long road ahead, especially while playing in the best basketball conference in the country.

Texas Tech runs away from Texas basketball in Austin, 78-67

Texas Tech stuns Texas on the court defeating the Longhorns by double digits.

It’s basketball season in Austin. The Texas Longhorns opened Big 12 conference play with a 78-67 loss to Texas Tech.

The Texas Tech Red Raiders ran away with the game behind a high scoring performance from Pop Isaacs. The Texas Tech guard put up 21 points behind a 3-for-5 three-point shooting night and 7-for-15 performance from the field.

Texas is facing the harsh reality of a poor transfer portal haul following the exit of several key players in the offseason. We were critical of the lack of movement by the team in the way of portal additions, and the lack of contributing Longhorns proved evident on Saturday. 54 of the team’s 67 points came from Texas guards Tyrese Hunter and Max Abmas and forward Dillon Mitchell.

The loss drops Texas to 11-3. The team certainly could have gotten off to a worse start, but has lost to perhaps every quality opponent it has faced this season. It isn’t the start we would have hoped to see from the team through 14 games.

Texas Tech, who went an abysmal 16-16 last season, proved to be the better team by a wide margin on Texas’ home floor. Longhorns head coach Rodney Terry has plenty to work on if this team is to make another NCAA Tournament run.

Texas resumes play on the road against Cincinnati on Tuesday night.

Previewing the Big 12 Opener: No. 20 Texas hosts Texas Tech

The final Big 12 opener for Texas will have Texas Tech traveling to the Moody Center.

The Big 12 opener for No. 20 Texas will tip-off on Saturday as the Longhorns host the Texas Tech Red Raiders at the Moody Center. Continue reading “Previewing the Big 12 Opener: No. 20 Texas hosts Texas Tech”

LSU in the Moody Center is up next for Texas basketball

The LSU Tigers are up next for the Longhorns on the court.

The Texas Longhorns basketball team is 7-2 through nine games. Texas faithful are more concerned with the two losses than the seven games they should have won.

The best win of the year came against the Louisville Cardinals who won just four games last season. The Longhorns are 0-2 against ranked opponents with two double digit losses to show for it. The last one was a 86-65 loss to former head coach Shaka Smart and Marquette.

Next up for the team is the LSU Tigers who check in at 5-4 on the season. A familiar face leads the Tiger offensive attack. Former Texas center Will Baker is LSU’s leading scorer averaging 14.1 points per game and shooting just under 54% from the field.

The LSU game is an opportunity for Texas to gain confidence against a big name if nothing else. The Tigers score 72.9 points per contest to the Longhorns’ 79 points per game. Texas shoots at a 48.9% rate from the field to LSU’s 45.9% shooting percentage. The ‘Horns out-rebound and out-assist their opponent among other statistical advantages.

Texas should win the game. The two teams will compete in the Moody Center at 11 a.m. CT on ESPN2.