With the final regular season game just a few hours away, let’s dive right into our notes from Monday night’s win over Oklahoma…

1) The Longhorns did not fold down the stretch – For a Texas team that has often found itself trailing by large margins during the last two months, it was refreshing to see the Horns respond despite OU’s hot start. The Longhorns were down by thirteen points just eight minutes into the game, thanks in large part to Oklahoma’s 7-of-11 three-point shooting in the first half. But Texas did not fold, and slowly chipped away at the lead. When the Sooners came out strong again in the second half, the Longhorn deficit climbed to eleven once again. But something changed in the team at that point, like their competitive switch had finally been flipped to “on.”

The Texas players really fed off of the crowd down the stretch, with Jordan Hamilton imploring the fans to get louder when OU was forced to take timeouts. J’Covan Brown even taunted the Sooner players by flashing his biceps after he sunk a floater in the lane. While it’s incredibly satisfying to see the team finally wake up and show some fire, the concern is that it seemed like the players needed the crowd energy to do so. The rest of the games this season will be on the road or at “neutral” sites, so the Longhorns have to be able to show that same level of effort and determination when the crowd is not on their side. Chances are very, very good that the fans of the old Big 8 will be rooting against Texas next week in Kansas City, particularly those fans in blue or purple.

2) Backcourt roles were more defined – For the first time in ages, each member of the Texas backcourt seemed to contribute exactly what was required of them. Justin Mason made the start and provided solid defense, along with a few strong, slashing moves to the bucket. Jai Lucas was also in the starting lineup, and although he ultimately only played seven minutes, his offensive contribution came the way it needed to. Lucas drained a three in the first half on a simple kickout. He is only a catch-and-shoot guy, so having him play off the ball allowed him to make a small, but useful contribution to the offense, as opposed to forcing him into the point guard role where he is ineffective.

While Avery Bradley had a rough night from the floor, he once again provided solid defense once Texas started rotating and helping. J’Covan Brown was the big story in the backcourt, though, playing 33 minutes off the bench. He showed leadership and poise down the stretch, and his willingness to attack the rim led to 15 points on the night, including a perfect 6-of-6 from the line. If Brown can give that kind of performance the rest of the way, the blow from the loss of Dogus Balbay will be much, much softer.

3) Free throws are improving – For the second-consecutive game, the Longhorns made at least 80% of their attempts from the charity stripe. For much of the season, the team’s average has hovered in the low-to-mid 60% range, so this drastic change is certainly worth noting. While the 6-of-6 line from Brown is not a shocker, seeing Damion James go 8-of-12 and Dexter Pittman sink all four of his attempts is certainly reassuring. Statistically, the two players should be expected to miss more shots this afternoon, as their percentages naturally regress to the mean. But what if they’ve actually been practicing and improving over the last week or so? Then perhaps the physical inside play could finally pay off in the post-season, as the Texas big men actually make the free throws they work so hard to earn.

4) Texas has two offensive identities – Not only did the Longhorns show two different offensive styles on Monday night, but they both actually worked. It was reminiscent of the early part of the season, when Gary Johnson famously said that Texas could “beat you any way you want it.” When the Longhorns can play different styles of basketball with equal success, it makes it incredibly hard for opponents to gameplan and defend. Of course, this is just one game against a team that has struggled all season long. But if this newfound offensive duality can continue this afternoon and into the postseason, there is reason for optimism.

The two offensive looks from Texas differ when it comes to the post presence. In the first look — the traditional one we’ve seen all season — the Longhorns are built around Pittman. The team focuses on getting the ball inside, where the big man is expected to either make a quick move to the basket, or kick it back out to rinse and repeat.

Early in the season, defenses sagged off of Mason and Balbay to create more pressure inside on the big man and deny those entry passes. On Monday night, having a backcourt involving Bradley and Brown meant that the OU defense couldn’t sell out to help inside. In addition, after a rusty start, Pittman finally began to make quick moves with the ball, so the defense didn’t have time to react. If these factors hold as the season winds down, the “big” lineup should be quite effective.

When Dex isn’t on the floor, the Longhorns go with the fiesty Gary Johnson down low. He’s five inches shorter than Pittman, and is versatile enough to mix in a midrange game. That added threat spreads out the floor and allows Brown and Mason to slash to the rim for easy points or to draw the foul and get to the line. Johnson’s ability to pull the defender away from the paint also makes it easier for James to get offensive boards and putbacks. And, of course, the pure hustle and determination that Gary brings to the floor leads to extra possessions and second chance points.

Again, it should be noted that all of this happened against a Oklahoma team that will likely finish in the bottom quarter of the league when today’s game are through. But for once, Texas fans had something to be excited about after Monday’s game. Now, we just must wait and see if those things carry over to a game against a very, very good Baylor team this afternoon.

We’re just hours away from the final home game for Texas seniors Damion James, Dexter Pittman, and Justin Mason. And although every senior night is a bittersweet experience, this year will be especially conflicting for me.

When I started this journey four years ago, it was just a crazy idea to follow the team around the country for one season and see how they grew. Now four years later, I still haven’t found a way to quit what has become an undeniable addiction. But after watching these three players compete 145 times, in far-flung locales such as Spokane and Greensboro, it feels like perhaps a chapter of my own life is coming to a close.

It’s all a bit heavy to get into when I should be writing a brief game preview that reacquaints you with the Oklahoma Sooners. I’m sure that in a few weeks, once the season is again at its end, I’ll sit down and pound out a few thousand words about all of the conflicting emotions that comes with this bizarre and monumental journey I chose to take. But for now, I’ll try to cram those feelings into just one sentence: I hope that the fans of Texas basketball, no matter how disappointed they feel, show up en masse at 7:45 tonight to give these players the respect and the ovation that they truly deserve.

But back to the actual basketball game……

If you missed the preview from the first match-up in Norman, you’ll want to check that out for more information on the Oklahoma players and style. And if you happened to miss the game itself, you can read the game wrap to learn about the disappointing fashion in which Texas lost.

Tonight, we’ll be keeping our eyes on a few things as the team heads into the final week of the regular season…

1) Can the Longhorns defend the perimeter? – The first time Texas played OU, 20 minutes of poor perimeter defense put the Horns in a hole they could never dig out of. To be fair, a huge reason why the Sooners fared so well from behind the arc was steady shooting from Tommy Mason-Griffin. Even when Texas did manage to get a hand in the face of the diminutive gunner, he still calmly buried the shot. If TMG has that kind of night again at the Erwin Center, the Horns will have a tough time avenging their previous loss. But if TMG is hitting those shots and the rest of the Sooners are again having a field day, Senior Night could be a total disaster.

2) What will J’Covan Brown provide? – The freshman guard is back in the lineup for tonight’s game after suffering a very scary injury on Saturday in College Station, but it’s reasonable to think his role will be very limited. Unfortunately, J’Covan did not look good in the 79 minutes of basketball prior to his injury, struggling against both Oklahoma State and the Aggies. Will the injury inspire Brown to be more competitive and produce at a higher level, or will it make him a more tentative player prone to mistakes? We likely won’t know the complete answers to these questions if he plays just a few minutes, but it’s definitely something we will pay very close attention to when he’s on the court.

3)Will the real Texas frontcourt please stand up? – Once it was Jordan Hamilton who was the most wildly inconsistent player on the Texas roster. Now, it’s an entire personnel group. Gary Johnson followed up huge games against Tech and Oklahoma State by getting pushed around and intimidated by the Aggie big men. After struggling for the better part of two months, Dexter Pittman showed some life against the smaller Cowboys and even had a few flashes of brilliance in the midst of a very disappointing A&M game. Damion James, meanwhile, had no rebounds in the entire first half against the Aggies. Are all of the Texas big men ever going to put it together at the same time for any significant stretch of the season? There’s very little time left for them to do so, but there also isn’t any better time to peak than in March…

Another look at the standings

Thanks to Oklahoma State’s shocking upset of Kansas on Saturday, the Longhorns now could potentially fall all the way to 7th in the final standings if the Cowboys post a better record than Texas in these final two games. The Pokes close with a road game at A&M and a home date with Nebraska. OSU should certainly earn at least one win, so the Longhorns must get a leg up with their own victory tonight.

But while the Horns are now tied with Oklahoma State, they are still just a game back of Baylor, Mizzou, and A&M, who are all tied for third in the league. So with two games left on the slate, Texas could finish as high as third or as low as seventh. That’s a heck of a lot of uncertainty. (And a hell of a headache when it comes to planning your travel to the conference tournament.)

Saturday’s season finale is a very tough road game against a sound Baylor team that stands between Texas and a first-round bye in the league tournament. A win tonight is absolutely critical if the Horns have any designs on one of those two remaining byes. A win would also guarantee that they finish above .500 in league play. A loss in this final home game, and our next preview will be talking about what the Longhorns have to do to stay out of 7th place.

Just a week ago, all fingers were hovering above the panic button. Texas had lost three of four games, tumbling from the nation’s top ranking all the way to the bottom rungs of the top ten. With a pair of road games looming, there was definite cause for concern. Even a split of the Oklahoma road trips would give the Longhorns four losses in six games and kill any hopes for a Big 12 title.

But Monday night, Texas stopped the bleeding. After falling behind early, the Horns were carried to a 12-point win by freshman Jordan Hamilton, who probably wouldn’t have missed a shot even if he were blindfolded. The victory kept Texas safely in the league’s second spot, and stymied talk of a season meltdown.

Unfortunately, the road swing is only half over. After a few days back in Austin, the Horns are making another trip across the border, this time to square off with the Oklahoma Sooners. Even fresh off a win, the concerns remain the same for Texas. A loss here, and the questions and criticisms will emerge once again.

By the numbers

While the Sooners are stumbling into conference play, they are feeling very fortunate to have this game on their home court. Oklahoma is just 3-4 in the Big 12, but have won all ten of their games played at the Lloyd-Noble Center this year.

The Sooners live and die by the three-pointer. They take more than 41% of their shots from behind the arc, the 23rd-highest percentage in the nation. And the all-out perimeter attack is not without reason — the Sooners make more than 35% of their attempts. That high success rate means OU is making more than eight triples a game, good for tops in the Big 12.

Unfortunately for the Sooners, their defense is atrocious. Oftentimes they seem to not even care about stopping their opponents, failing to get back in transition or to even rotate when help is needed. Oklahoma hardly ever forces turnovers, and their weak perimeter defense is allowing opponents to knock down 37% of their attempts from behind the arc.

The one thing OU does do right on the offensive side of the ball is that they rarely send their opponents to the line. Against Texas, that might actually be a negative, as many times one-and-one attempts for the Longhorns become invisible turnovers when they clang the front end off the rim.

It should also be noted that the Sooners are one of the best teams at the line, although they don’t get there all too often. Oklahoma has a team mark of 73.9% at the line, nearly twelve full percentage points better than the Longhorns. If this game ends up being decided by only a few points, this could be a huge factor in the outcome.

Meet the Sooners

Oklahoma’s top scorer is sophomore guard Willie Warren, a player that Texas fans remember all too well from last season’s epic battle at the Frank Erwin Center. Warren hit 6-of-12 behind the arc in the 73-68 Texas victory, scoring 27 points in the losing effort.

This year, Warren has faced his share of struggles. His three-point percentage has dipped all the way down to 28.4%, while an ankle injury has limited his playing time in conference games. Warren missed two consecutive games due to the injury, but returned on Saturday to score four points in a 17-point loss at Nebraska.

The heir apparent in the Oklahoma backcourt is freshman Tommy Mason-Griffin. Like Warren, TMG is a guard who is comfortable both scoring and dishing out assists. He is fourth in the Big 12 with 4.6 dimes per game, while his 12.7 points is second-most on the Sooner roster.

Mason-Griffin is very fast with the ball, and has a quick first step that allows him to blow by defenders and penetrate the lane for silky-smooth floaters or easy layups at the rim. At just 5’11″, TMG sometimes disappears among the trees in the lane, but he is very skilled at making acrobatic plays to finish.

The biggest threat from Mason-Griffin, though, comes behind the arc. He’s hitting 48.9% of his three-point attempts during Big 12 play, and 44.6% on the year. In fourteen of the team’s last 17 games, TMG has made at least two three-pointers.

The other freshman joining TMG in the starting lineup is 6’9″, 290-pound Tiny Gallon. Midway through his rookie campaign, Gallon is probably best known for shattering a backboard against Gonzaga on a botched alley-oop attempt.

What Gallon should be known for is his excellent skill set with the basketball down low. If Tiny catches the ball anywhere near the blocks and there isn’t a double team, you can typically count on the ball going in the basket. He has smooth spin moves, an excellent jump hook, and of course can make strong moves to the rack.

The big knock on Gallon is his conditioning, and it typically manifests itself in lazy defense and rebounding. When Tiny starts to wear down, opponents can exploit him for easy looks down low, and smaller defenders are able to snag hustle boards that he should corrall without a problem.

The steady senior leadership in the starting five comes from Tony Crocker, a long and lanky 6’6″ guard from San Antonio. He just barely cracks the top ten of the Big 12 rebounding charts with his 6.6 boards per game, and his long arms make him a great defender out on the perimeter. When the Sooners elect to run smaller, Crocker is able to fill in as the four, but he is most comfortable as the team’s small forward. The senior is also a very good three-point shooter, although his 38.8% success rate from behind the arc this season is deceptively low.

The most surprising player this season has been junior Cade Davis. In previous years, Davis was mostly a role player who could spot up and hit threes, as the Griffin brothers ate up most of the minutes inside. On the current Sooner roster, Davis plays a vital inside-out role despite checking in at just 6’5″. He’s an in-your-face defender that leads the team in steals, and he is one of the scrappiest rebounders you will find.

Davis is also peaking at just the right time, as he’s scored 12.6 points per contest over the last five games. He’s also made seven of his last 15 attempts from behind the arc, and has earned a bunch of extra playing time with his workmanlike efforts.

The Sooners run nine deep, utilizing a pair of reserves for both the frontcourt and backcourt. Guard Steven Pledger is an excellent three-point shooter who has been slumping horribly over the last few weeks. After making 47.5% of his threes in the first six games, Pledger’s mark has dropped all the way to 30.5%, including an awful 4-of-25 line in Big 12 play.

While Pledger earns about 19 minutes off the bench, swingman Ray Willis plays roughly twelve per game. He’s an incredibly lanky 6’6″, but needs to add quite a bit of muscle if he’s going to earn quality PT in future seasons. For now, Willis is a reliable jump-shooter who is good for a few points per night.

In the frontcourt, UCLA transfer Ryan Wright handles most of the back-up duties for Gallon. He’s a very strong forward who can fight through contact to finish at the rim, and he has a nose for pulling down boards in traffic.

Freshman forward Andrew Fitzgerald also earns about twelve minutes a game. He has a jump shot that is accurate nearly to the three-point line, so he can add a wrinkle to the gameplan when he draws opposing forwards out of the paint.

Keys to the game

First and foremost, the Longhorns must defend the perimeter. Texas is holding opponents to just 30% shooting behind the arc this year, but the Sooners are a squad that can easily skew those numbers. If OU is knocking down their threes, it’s definitely a recipe for an upset. If not, Texas should be able to muscle their way to a road win.

Since Oklahoma shoots so many three pointers, there are an awful lot of long caroms on missed shots. The Sooner guards are much taller than those of Texas, so this could lead to an abnormally high number of offensive rebounds for OU. If the Longhorns can grab the defensive rebounds, the lack of second chances will stifle the Sooner offense.

Finally, the Longhorn freshmen must play like seniors. This isn’t to say that Lloyd-Noble is going to be an incredibly intimidating place to play this afternoon. In fact, attendance numbers have been rather poor for OU this season.

What we do mean, though, is that as J’Covan Brown and Jordan Hamilton go, so go the Horns. When both have solid games like they did on Monday night, Texas seems unstoppable. When they make freshman mistakes — like Hamilton did against Baylor and Brown did against Kansas State — the Longhorns completely shut down. Intentionally left out of this discussion is Avery Bradley, a first-year player who has managed to avoid making freshman mistakes all year long.

The big finish

The Big 12 standings are quickly becoming stratified, with the top few teams stepping away from a bloated middle tier. But even within that top group of teams, Kansas is already pulling away from the competition. Heading into today’s action, the Jayhawks had a full two-game lead over Texas and a 2.5-game lead over Kansas State.

The Longhorns and Wildcats both have an opportunity to make up ground in head-to-head meetings with KU. But if Texas drops another conference game at this point, you can essentially give the trophy to the ‘Hawks. That means it’s absolute imperative for the Longhorns to overcome OU’s perfect 10-0 mark at the Lloyd-Noble Center and earn another road win before Monday’s super-sized showdown with KU.

It’s the first Monday in March, which means that the power begins to shift from the pollsters and over to the bracketologists. We’ve still got your weekly rundown of both, but you can be certain that fans of teams on the cusp of the polls are just a teeeeensy bit more concerned about the various bubble watches floating around the internet. On to the goodies……

Following Saturday’s loss to Oklahoma State, the Longhorns slipped from both major polls this week, falling into the “others receiving votes” category. Oklahoma slid only a few spots after their Griffin-less loss to Kansas on Monday night, checking in at 4th with the AP and 5th with the writers. The Jayhawks benefitted from that victory and their blowout win over Missouri yesterday, jumping to 9th in both polls. The Tigers slid to 12th in the ESPN/USA Today Coaches poll, while the much more vengeful Associated Press shipped them all the way to 15th for their deer-in-the-headlights performance at Allen Fieldhouse. Oklahoma State also grabbed a slight bit of attention from the AP, earning two points in this week’s poll for their five-game winning streak.

For once, the resident bracketologists at Sports Illustrated and ESPN agree on the Longhorns…sort of. Andy Glockner seeds the Longhorns 9th, facing off against Utah, while Joe Lunardi pegs Texas an 8, taking on UNLV. The common ground for the two men? A trip to Dayton for this first weekend, which sits just fine with this basketball traveler, who is strongly pulling for a Friday/Sunday pod that doesn’t involve the fabulous March weather of Minneapolis. For a complete list of the tournament sites this year, click on over to my favorite Wiki.

The folks assigned to watching the bubble are also in agreement that the Longhorns really just need to win tonight to seal up their tournament bid. Both Andy Glockner of SI.com and Mark Schlabach of ESPN.com think Texas should be in. But like any good college basketball fans would know, Andy and Mark are fully aware that this schizophrenic Longhorn team could just as easily lose their last two regular season games, lay a turd in the Big 12 Tournament, and be sweating things out on Selection Sunday. For the sake of my heart and currently-forming ulcers, this doomsday scenario would be best left on the table.

This week’s consensus blogpoll at CBS Sportsline follows the lead of the major polls, with UConn ascending to the top spot. For the second straight week, our ballot was dubbed “Mr. Numb Existence” for being the one amongst the 42 submitted which most closely approximated the consensus poll. We’re not sure if that’s some sort of sign that we watch too much basketball, but we’ll take it as a compliment. Be sure to check out the link in this paragraph to not only see the rankings, but to get all of the great analysis by Jerry Hinnen of the Auburn blog The Joe Cribbs Car Wash.

Last week’s ballot was admittedly a tough one, with teams around the country refusing to play consistent basketball. As a result, we submitted rankings which we weren’t exactly proud of, but ones which best reflected the muddied state of college hoops this year.

It’s painfully clear now that there is a very thin upper crust in the NCAA this season, and a lot of other mediocre teams filling up the middle. But even amidst that thin upper crust, there’s not much differentiation, as it’s a season in which no one is the clear frontrunner for the national title.

This week’s vote was a little easier, as only ten teams which we ranked were victims of a loss over the last seven days. Below is our ballot from this week, followed by superfluous explanation. If you’re enjoying the new “change” data in the third column, you might also be interested in our previous ballot, from February 23rd.

Rank	Team	Change
1	Connecticut	1
2	Memphis	2
3	Pittsburgh	2
4	Oklahoma	1
5	North Carolina	—
6	Louisville	—
7	Duke	—
8	Wake Forest	1
9	Michigan St.	1
10	Kansas	5
11	Missouri	3
12	Villanova	1
13	Marquette	1
14	Gonzaga	2
15	Clemson	2
16	Washington	4
17	Arizona St.	3
18	UCLA	1
19	Louisiana St.	2
20	Illinois	2
21	Purdue	4
22	Xavier	1
23	Florida St.	1
24	Brigham Young	2
25	Syracuse	1

At first glance, some readers may be confused by the very minor slides from Pitt and Oklahoma. At this point, we feel that a team should be valued more on their overall body of work than simply the results from the last seven days. The recent games certainly must be taken into account, but even Pitt’s road loss to unranked Providence isn’t enough to overshadow the fact that the Panthers have many more quality wins than the Tar Heels. As for the Sooners, they get some leniency when you consider that they lost to a Kansas team which we’ve moved into the Top Ten, and that they did so without superstar Blake Griffin.

Those Jayhawks are our biggest movers of the week, shooting up from No. 15 to tenth in this week’s ballot. Kansas finished the week with an absolute mudholing of Missouri in Allen Fieldhouse yesterday, and they were also aided by the fact that Marquette, Clemson, and Arizona State all lost a pair of games during the last week.

The other portion of our ballot that is worthy of discussion this week is, as always, the troubling bottom five spots. As we mentioned in the introduction, there’s really not any consistency or exceptional quality once you get past the initial contenders, and losses this week by West Virginia and Texas muddied things up at the bottom once again. You may notice that even though Florida State lost on the road against Boston College, they actually climbed a rung in our rankings this week. That’s an anomaly explained by both the Seminoles’ huge win against Clemson on Saturday, and the fact that once again there was a dearth of teams wanting to crack the rankings.

Some bloggers have been ranking Butler, which actually resulted in the Bulldogs checking in at 24th in our consensus poll last week. Considering that they won their pair of games this week, they likely will even climb when the consensus poll is released this afternoon. But the simple fact of the matter is that Butler lost at home to Loyola-Chicago and on the road to Wisconsin-Milwaukee and Wisconsin-Green Bay. Do you honestly think the Bulldogs would be sitting at 25-4 if they played in a conference that was worth a damn?

As we’ve mentioned, the consensus blogpoll will be up later this afternoon. Fast Break will be here for your late afternoon enjoyment, including new bracket projections, bubble watches, and the real polls from the AP and coaches. The Baylor game preview will follow in the late afternoon.

#15 Kansas Jayhawks 87, #3 Oklahoma Sooners 78 – With Blake Griffin out of the game as a precaution following his Saturday-night concussion, Kansas was hoping to exploit their advantage inside by pounding it to Cole Aldrich. While the big man certainly made a difference for the Jayhawks with his 15-point, 20-rebound performance, it was the three point shooters who stole the show late in the game. The two teams combined to shoot 20-of-43 from behind the arc (46.5%), with Sherron Collins and Willie Warren trading bombs from long range. Collins finished the night with 26 points, while Warren had 23 in the losing effort.

With the win, Kansas grabbed sole possession of first place heading into their Sunday showdown with Border War rival Missouri. The Tigers are one and a half games behind the Jayhawks in the standings, but won the first meeting between the two teams back on February 2nd.

#6 Louisville Cardinals, Georgetown Hoyas 76 58 – The Cardinals converted their first seven three-point attempts against Georgetown on Monday night and never looked back, cruising to an 18-point win at the Verizon Center. Terrence Williams had a ridiculous stat line for Coach Pitino, nearly earning a triple-double with his ten points, twelve rebounds, and seven assists. On the other side of the court, DeJuan Summers was nearly non-existent for the Hoyas in the defeat, scoring only four points in his thirty minutes of play. The loss was the ninth in the last eleven games for Georgetown.

After a week’s absence in the blogpoll, we’re back in the mix with today’s ballot. Here are our votes, with the official compilation poll to come later today:

Rank	Team
1	Pittsburgh
2	Connecticut
3	Oklahoma
4	Memphis
5	North Carolina
6	Louisville
7	Duke
8	Missouri
9	Wake Forest
10	Michigan St.
11	Villanova
12	Marquette
13	Clemson
14	Arizona St.
15	Kansas
16	Gonzaga
17	Purdue
18	Illinois
19	UCLA
20	Washington
21	Louisiana St.
22	West Virginia
23	Xavier
24	Florida St.
25	Texas

It was an interesting week with losses by half of the top ten teams from the last poll. Only Wake Forest and UConn suffered their defeats at the hands of other top ten teams, while North Carolina, Michigan State, and Oklahoma all lost on the road to unranked opponents. As a result, it was a little easier to ignore the instinct to slide teams up and down based on the most recent results and instead reshuffle everyone based on their complete body of work this season.

The middle of the pack all held their own by winning their games this week, but our votes differed slightly from the consensus of last week’s blogpoll, when we didn’t submit a ballot. We chose to slot Marquette ahead of Clemson based on a more robust list of quality wins, although they could quickly take a nosedive with an absolute nightmare of a schedule awaiting them over the final two weeks. The Golden Eagles have to face UConn and Louisville this week before closing the season with a road trip to Pitt and a home game against Syracuse.

After that quality in the middle of the poll, things were a bit dicier with the lower rankings. Five of the bottom seven teams lost a game this week, and practically every other team that could have been considered for the 24th or 25th slot dropped at least one game as well. LSU slides up two spots to No. 21 in our ballot, but it’s more a reflection on the lack of other candidates than a rousing endorsement of the Tigers. They are playing in an incredibly weak SEC, leaving a home win over Washington State as their only remarkable victory this year.

The full compilation ballot will be released later this afternoon.

After suffering a crushing road loss to the rival Texas A&M Aggies on Monday night, the Texas Longhorns sit in a precarious position. At just one game above the .500 mark in league play, they are in significant danger of missing out on a first-round tournament bye for only the third time in the Big 12 Conference’s 13-year history. Even more chilling is the very real possibility that the Longhorns could melt down just enough this February to miss the NCAA tournament for the first time since 1998.

There are some who would say tonight is a “make or break” game for this team. That’s only half correct. The Longhorns can certainly make their season with an upset victory over the Oklahoma Sooners, a team that is ranked second nationally and is only two days away from ascending to the No. 1 position. But a loss tonight is not the last straw. Although the bookies are favoring Texas from one to two points, make no mistake about it. This is a game that the Sooners are expected to win.

So while the potential reward tonight is huge, the risk is not nearly as great. Texas would still need to win three of its remaining four games and probably even a conference tournament contest to be on the safe side of this year’s soft bubble. But a win tonight? A win could certainly change the picture…

The previous meeting

The two teams first met on January 17th in a game many expected would help establish a favorite in the conference race. But Texas looked awful coming right out of the gates, and an irritated Rick Barnes benched most of his starters to send a message. The fact that Harrison Smith played fourteen minutes in the game should be a crystal-clear indication of just how annoyed the head coach was during the first half. Heading to the locker room, Texas was already down eleven points to the Sooners.

In the second half, the starters seemed to get the message, playing with heart and determination as they whittled the lead down to only four points with just under 12 minutes to play. But then came the meltdown. The Sooners reeled off twelve straight points and kept the Longhorns at arm’s length the rest of the way, cruising to a convincing 78-63 win.

The game showcased just how balanced this year’s Oklahoma team is, with four of the five starters contributing 15 points or more. Superstar Blake Griffin led the way with one of his countless double-doubles, scoring 20 points to go with 10 rebounds.

Since then…

Oklahoma has not lost a single conference game this season, although they have made it interesting a few times. On the road, they struggled with Texas A&M, Iowa State, and Oklahoma State, while letting the Aggies and Colorado Buffaloes hang around in games at the Lloyd Noble Center in Norman. But in every single instance, the Sooners pulled away late on the strength of solid rebounding and efficient possessions. Oklahoma has proven that even if they find themselves in a dogfight as the minutes tick away in tonight’s ballgame, you’d still want to bet the house on them.

The biggest storylines since the last time these two teams met are the emergence of Austin Johnson and the addition of Juan Pattillo to the lineup. Johnson, the team’s senior point guard, has absolutely exploded in conference play. He is averaging nearly 12 points per contest in Big 12 games and is shooting 46% from behind the arc. But perhaps most importantly, his assist-to-turnover ratio is a serviceable 2.5-to-1, an impressive achievement for someone who was known as a turnover machine during his first three seasons.

The Sooners also gained a huge advantage when they decided to take the redshirt off of Pattillo, a 6’6″ forward. He has stepped right into the rotation and gives Oklahoma some much-needed depth. Not only is Pattillo an extra body for a team that once had a short bench, but he can actually play. He’s a force inside, but also has a great midrange jumper. He’s another quality shot blocker that pairs nicely with the Griffin brothers down low, and his deft passing is an asset for a team that runs a highly-efficient half-court set.

If you’re looking for a refresher on the rest of the Sooners and their style of basketball, be sure to check out the game preview from the first match-up in Norman.

Keys to the game

Don’t put the Sooners on the line – As we pointed out in that first game preview, Oklahoma owns a distinct advantage at the charity stripe. On the season, they are averaging 9.6 more free throw attempts per game than their opponents, and you can be sure that the Sooners will be looking to exploit that advantage tonight. There is a severe drop-off in talent after the core group of Longhorns, so they simply cannot afford to rack up fouls while sending OU to the line for free points.

Keep it close early – Oklahoma has jumped out to huge leads in many of their games, and that is the one way that the Sooners can quickly mitigate the crowd factor in tonight’s contest. OU has struggled on the road, and the Frank Erwin Center is the largest arena in the conference. If Texas wants to exploit that home-court advantage, they will need to keep the score close.

Defend the three-point line – The Sooners are going to get a ton of points in the paint. It’s simply a given fact that their opponents must find a way to deal with. But in the first match-up, Texas allowed OU to shoot 40% from behind the arc, with many of the three-pointers coming at inopportune moments. Texas is already going to have its hands full in this one, so they simply cannot afford to let Tony Crocker, Willie Warren, and Johnson to make things even more difficult with a barrage of threes.

#4 Pittsburgh Panthers 70, West Virginia Mountaineers 59
DeJuan Blair played only 16 minutes thanks to foul trouble, but Pitt was still able to cruise to victory behind Sam Young’s 20 point performance. Pitt had yet another dominating night on the glass, outrebounding West Virginia by a 39-23 count. The loss dropped the ‘Neers below the .500 mark in conference play, and was their third defeat in the four games. Pitt, meanwhile, moved to 9-2 in the Big East and stayed within striking distance of the three-way log jam of one-loss teams atop the league.

#17 Missouri Tigers 62, #16 Kansas Jayhawks 60
In a game that is destined to be replayed on ESPN Classic for years to come, Zaire Taylor hit the game-winning jumper with just 1.3 seconds left to give Mizzou a narrow win in the heated Border War rivalry. Down by fourteen and having scored only 16 points at the half, the Tigers looked to be dead in the water against their hated conference foes. But 26 Jayhawk turnovers kept Missouri in the contest and allowed a frantic comeback that was capped by Taylor’s second game-winning shot in just six days.

The win does more than just stir the pot for the rivalry re-match scheduled for March 1st in Lawrence. It also loudly announces Missouri’s intentions of making the Big 12 race a three-team affair, and even sets them up to control their own destiny should the undefeated Sooners stumble in any of their five games prior to visiting Columbia on March 4th. The league may be incredibly stratified this season, but it’s certainly going to be an exciting battle for the championship.

In the midst of a three-game losing skid, Texas dropped from both the AP and ESPN/USA Today Coaches Poll for the first time since February 19, 2007. The sudden plummet ended a streak of 37 consecutive weeks ranked in the Coaches Poll and 39 straight weeks in the Associated Press rankings. The Longhorns still received votes in both tallies, which put them at 27th in the Coaches Poll and 28th according to the media.

Oklahoma, Kansas, and Missouri are still the only three ranked representatives from the Big 12 conference, with the Sooners holding firm to their grasp on second place in both polls. The Jayhawks are slotted 16th by both groups, while the Tigers were placed 15th and 17th by the media and coaches, respectively.

The losing skid is hurting Texas in more important ways, as their NCAA outlook is getting cloudier by the day. Fortunately, many other teams across the country are stumbling at the same time, but it still hasn’t stopped the Longhorns from sliding another line in today’s Bracketology, where Lunardi slots the Horns as a 7-seed in Dayton. Andy Glockner still believes the Longhorns should be in the field of 65, but he echoes Lunardi’s sentiments and tabs Texas as a 7-seed.

If you were here back in the infancy of Longhorn Road Trip — or perhaps just attended the first two rounds of the Coaches vs. Cancer Classic back in 2006 — you might remember tiny Chicago State guard David Holston lighting up St. Bonaventure for 43 points at The Drum. Now just two years later, Holston is the NCAA’s third-leading scorer, averaging 25.6 points per contest. Sports Illustrated’s Bill Trocchi shed some extra light on the “little package of dynamite” in a piece on their website a few weeks ago. Be sure to check it out.