The Texas Longhorns faced a huge threat from the upset-minded Baylor Bears on Saturday afternoon, but mounted a second-half comeback to log an 84-79 victory.

Texas (15-5 overall, 5-1 Big 12) had to overcome a six-point halftime deficit and 75% shooting from Baylor star Aaron Bruce. The Horns trailed for much of the game, but fought back in the second stanza for a 54-54 tie. The crowd was on their feet, the Erwin Center was rocking….and then the shot clock broke. Again.

You may remember shot clock issues in the Mizzou game. These were much worse. The refs stopped play for what was officially only about five minutes, but certainly felt like an hour. The crowd was neutralized, the energy was gone, and the momentum had been stifled. When play resumed, a student intern from Belmont was holding flash cards at the scorer’s table while Stan Kelly announced the time remaining every five seconds. “Clusterfuck” would not be an inaccurate description.

Baylor pushed their lead back out to six points after the stoppage, but Texas clawed back. The Longhorns took the lead for good with just under seven minutes to go on a Connor Atchley bucket, and the home fans were back in it. The arena absolutely erupted when the skinny redshirt sophomore converted the go-ahead. Last year against Baylor, the place was like a morgue. It’s certainly great to see the change.

Baylor (11-9, 1-6) shot an amazing 55% in the first half, including 43% from behind the arc. While I would never want to take anything away from such a great performance, the Longhorn defense left a lot to be desired. Aaron Bruce was easily coming open on screens along the baseline and getting easy looks from behind the arc. Texas was also having problems giving up easy baskets underneath on a basic pick-and-roll play. Apologists may point out that a few of the screens on D.J. Augustin were pretty iffy and may have even been illegal. But you can’t deny that a lot of the time, the team just didn’t seem to know how to adjust.

In the second half, the defensive pressure was turned up a notch and it showed. Baylor’s shooting percentage in the second frame dropped to 39%, but most importantly they were only able to hit four of thirteen three-point attempts — and if you take Bruce out of that equation, Baylor shot only 1-of-10 from behind the arc in the second half.

Kevin Durant had a rough first half, but absolutely exploded in the second, dropping 34 points on the night. It was the fourth time this year he had crossed the 30-point plateu, and all of those games have come in conference play. KD is averaging 31 points in the six Big 12 games to go along with thirteen rebounds. Yes, you read that correctly. He’s averaging a double-double per conference game. How do you like them apples?

In this one, Durant got to the line 15 times. It’s pretty clear that when he’s taking the ball to the basket and drawing fouls, he’s much more useful to the team. Yes, he can hit the three. But when he’s taking threes and missing, there’s oftentimes no one else around to grab the offensive boards. And when he’s shooting 85% at the line, I’d prefer he get there as many times a game as he can.

A.J. Abrams was dead-on in this game, and he did it with his lighting-quick release. There were times he’d shoot the ball that looked more like a one-timer from a hockey player. I don’t know how he can catch, set, and shoot so quickly while still maintaining good form. But he does it, and on this night it was good for 22 points.

Atchley quietly had a strong game for the Horns, scoring nine points — including that go-ahead basket — and securing six rebounds in 22 minutes of play. Big Dexter Pittman played a little in the first half of the game, but did not see the floor in the second. Dex earned two points and a board in his six minutes of play.

Augustin was nails at the point for Coach Barnes. He dished out 11 assists while only turning over the ball once, which really set the tone for what was a great ball-control game for Texas. The Longhorns only had six turnovers as a team, which was very important on a night where Baylor seemed to convert every one of them into points. The Bears had eleven points off of the six TOs, and absolutely killed the Horns on the fast break, earning a 22-3 advantage in transition points.

I was surprised by the good ball movement from Baylor, but they were working on it during their pregame warmups and seem to have made it a point of emphasis. For a team that oftentimes shot too quickly in possessions earlier this season, the Bears certainly looked good with crisp passes out to the open man. Texas will have to do a better job against this scheme when they face a great motion offense on Wednesday night in Lubbock. If the Horns struggle like they did in the first half, it could be a long night.

There were certainly some bad things in this one, but fortunately most of them were contained to the first 25 minutes of the game. Conference games are hard-fought in the Big 12, and Texas definitely got a hell of an effort from the Baylor Bears this time around. This puts the team halfway to the ten-win mark in conference play, which would give them the magical 20-win number on the season.

Next up is Bobby Knight and the bi-polar Texas Tech Red Raiders on Wednesday night in Lubbock. I’ll try to get some more photos up sometime tomorrow.