Texas A&M absolutely destroyed the Longhorns on Wednesday night, and there’s no positive spin to put on that. Texas did not want to guard anyone, turned the ball over like a Little Dribblers team, and shot below the Mendoza line for much of the first half. Thanks only to some garbage layups in the final minutes, they finished with a world-beating 38.2 shooting percentage. But as I mentioned yesterday, there were a few good things happening which could bode well for the near future, if you can get past the unabashed beatdown you saw the Ags lay on the Horns.

Dexter Pittman is ready – This is the most obvious bright spot in the game, as Big Dex gave 14 minutes off the bench and was the leading scorer with 14 points. If it weren’t for the bizarre first-half technical, Dexter might’ve been able to provide even more in the second half instead of having to sit with four fouls.

The Longhorns started feeding the ball to him against Tech a few days earlier, and it looks like Barnes and the staff are ready to make Dexter and the other post players a big part of the offense. If that is successful, it frees up Damion James and Connor Atchley to play further away from the basket, where they can not only knock down jumpers, but also beat less-agile forwards off the dribble as they attack the bucket.

Connor Atchley is shooting threes – Connor still doesn’t look like he’s completely regained the confidence he had early in the year, but he took some long-range shots in College Station and knocked down two of them in the second half. A big part of the Texas struggles over the last seven weeks has been the dip in production from Atchley and Justin Mason, so this is a really good sign for the Horns as they head into a hellacious February schedule.

A.J. Abrams is getting open – The Texas A&M guards are a hell of a lot taller than Abrams, and usually that would mean he wouldn’t be able to get any shots off. He needs screens to free him and give him enough space to get the threes off before a 6’4″ guard rejects it into the ninth row. Against the Aggies, he came off of curls and hustled enough to get some really good looks. The other side of this coin is that it really raised his confidence level, and A.J. took some threes later that he didn’t need to be taking. It’s great that he’s getting more space again, but he also needs to work on shot selection as the season rolls on.

Only one other note to be made about Wednesday night’s game, and that is to briefly touch on the unfortunate incident with Alexis Wangmene. I’ve only seen the play twice — once at full-speed, and once in slow-motion on the JumboTron — and it didn’t seem at the time to be premeditated. But the fact of the matter is that the instinctive reaction to a bump on the head should not be a quick elbow to the nearest player. That was completely out of line, and I’m glad that there weren’t severe injuries as a result. Props to all players for keeping their heads after the incident, and also to Wangmene for manning up to his mistake with apologies to the Aggies and their fans after the game.

This is a great rivalry that has become even better with the emergence of the Texas A&M program over the last few seasons, and I’d hate to see it devolve into a nasty, overly physical cage match like the Duke/Virginia Tech series. Hopefully this won’t lead to any other incidents in Austin in three weeks, and we’ll be treated to another exciting battle with the Ags at the Erwin Center.

A tough game awaits with Baylor in less than 24 hours, so I’ll be bringing you the pre-game thoughts in the wee hours of the morning.