While the Longhorns have struggled through a recent stretch that included a three-game losing streak, it was easy to make reasonable excuses for their play. Players were in foul trouble, or the style the opponent played was a bad match-up for Texas. A player was having a career night, or the other team just got hot at the wrong time. The list of reasons was seemingly endless. But in Monday night’s drubbing of Texas, there was absolutely no excuses for the heaping pile of crap they put out on the floor. Texas was flat outplayed, and didn’t even look like they belonged on the same court with a team that is likely headed to the NIT.

Defensively, the Longhorns let the Aggies do whatever they pleased. Gary Johnson, Damion James, and Dexter Pittman defended the post with the will of the French army in World War II. A baseline spin move was apparently a new and amazing thing that completely baffled the Longhorn front court, as Bryan Davis and Junior Elonu each easily dropped 15 points on Texas. When the Aggies weren’t busy attacking the paint and racking up the fouls on Texas, it was open season on the three point line. The Longhorns felt it reasonable to leave deadly three-point shooters like Josh Carter and B.J. Holmes absolutely wide open time and again.

Even when the Longhorns showed a little bit of heart in the second half and trimmed the Aggie lead to just four with eight minutes to play, they gave up the most frustrating possible baskets as A&M pulled away once again. The Longhorns would make defensive stops and allow the Aggies what seemed like unlimited second chances, killing any chance of a comeback. In the final eight minutes of the game, Texas allowed A&M to grab four offensive rebounds, while they grabbed only one defensive rebound over that stretch. Not even the best defense in the NCAA could overcome that kind of shoddy work on the glass.

Granted, a huge part of the reason Texas fell behind in this one was a result of Dogus Balbay struggling with fouls and only seeing the court for 25 minutes. In fact, early in the second half the A&M lead ballooned from just five to an insurmountable twelve as the point guard spent three minutes on the bench following his third foul. It’s been perfectly clear over the last week and a half that this team grinds to a halt without Balbay, but the team must at least keep things within reach by playing defense when he leaves the game.

I could spend another five paragraphs recounting every single thing that went wrong in this trainwreck, but it’s just not worth the effort. All told, this was a gut-punch of a loss. The chances were good that Texas A&M was going to defend their home court. This rivalry is a very even one, and the Aggies are much better than their 4-7 conference record would indicate. But there is absolutely no reason that Texas should have folded the way they did in this one.

Things get no easier with the juggernaut known as OU heading to Austin this weekend. The Longhorns must crack down in practice during this long week, or else they’ll be sitting squarely at .500 in league play with only four games to play.