Another non-conference opponent, another double-digit win for the Longhorns. But while the scoreboard boldly trumpeted a 32-point Texas win on Tuesday night, the play on the court was anything but dominating. The Longhorns had arguably their ugliest game of the season, yet still cruised past a horribly overmatched Gardner-Webb team. It was as if Texas knew they simply had to show up to win, and their effort certainly reflected that sentiment.

What looked good

The high point of the night was freshman Jai Lucas breaking out with a 5-of-7 performance behind the arc. Although his shot is a funky little line drive, the Florida transfer was nearly unstoppable from long range. Gardner-Webb was focused on the post man all night when Texas used the pick-and-roll, and as the Bulldogs doubled down on the rolling big man, Lucas quickly fired up the threes.

If Jai can be that accurate all season, teams are going to have to pick their poison when Texas sets high ball screens. Of course, for the rest of the season Texas will be facing many teams with taller guards than those of Gardner-Webb. On those nights, it might feel a bit like A.J. Abrams is on the court, as the Longhorns work to free up their long-range gunner.

The other big storyline of the game was the improved free throw shooting for the Longhorns. Texas shot 76.2% from the line, a full twelve percentage points better than their season average. Gary Johnson was 7-of-8 from the line after starting the season 15-for-20, but most surprising was Damion James‘ perfect 8-for-8 night. Coming into the game, DaMo was just 47-of-72 at the charity stripe, giving him just a 65% success rate. Hopefully this steady shooting night is a sign of things to come.

The Texas defense forced a season-high 27 turnovers, 19 of those coming on steals. They did it with a variety of traps that completely befuddled the Bulldogs and led to lazy passes that hung over midcourt for the waiting Longhorn defenders. Texas has shown a ton of trapping looks early this season, and as a result are turning their opponents over on nearly a quarter of their possessions. When you consider that the Horns weren’t really forcing a ton of turnovers early in the year, it makes the season-long numbers even more impressive.

What needed work

While the trapping was excellent, the perimeter defense was absolutely atrocious for Texas. The Longhorns allowed Gardner-Webb to hit 8-of-14 from beyond the arc in the second half, and allowed a disgusting 50% success rate for the game. Defenders simply did not close out quickly enough and often failed to get a hand up to even challenge the shooter. Whether it was a result of the week-long layoff after the Michigan State game or just a lack of effort due to a pitiful opponent, it was an embarrassing display, and something that surely had Rick Barnes fired up at practice yesterday.

On the offensive end, Texas looked completely careless with the basketball. The Horns turned it over 19 times, much worse than their previous season average of fourteen per game. Most of the turnovers came on lazy passes or overly-fancy, streetball-style dime attempts. Even the typically steady Dogus Balbay was bit by the turnover bug, recording four miscues to just two assists. Before the game, he was boasting a 3.67 assist-to-turnover ratio.

A mixed bag

Against the Bulldogs, J’Covan Brown was absolutely cold from outside. But Gardner-Webb kept giving him looks, and he kept firing away. For as good of a shooter as J’Covan is, that seems like the correct course of action. On most nights, he would eventually hit a shot, get some confidence, and help out the team. Fortunately for the Longhorns, his 1-of-8 night from long range happened to come against one of the worst opponents on their schedule. To Brown’s credit, however, it should be noted that even though the three-balls weren’t falling, he did still occasionally slash to the basket and earned nine points on the night.

Jordan Hamilton was limited to just eleven minutes thanks to an ankle injury, but played within the flow of the offense. In perhaps the most shocking statistic of the night, Hamilton did not attempt a single shot, and actually had three assists. He made a conscious effort to work the ball into the paint in the hopes of exploiting Texas’ massive size advantage. While Longhorn fans won’t want a healthy Jordan Hamilton taking zero shots in a game, his commitment to fitting into the offensive gameplan was a welcome sight.

Looking forward

The Longhorns have another home game before they travel to Fayetteville next week, where they should likely reach the 14-0 mark for just the first time in 28 years. That Saturday home game will be against the Texas A&M-Corpus Christi Islanders, and the Texas Box Office has a slew of promotions available to get fans into the arena. All upper level tickets are just $3, and fans can show their tickets at the box office to also score a free general admission seat to the women’s game that tips at 11 A.M.