The much-hyped Kevin Durant showed up in Austin on Thursday night. Not the nervous Kevin Durant with the weight of the world and sky-high expectations resting on his wiry shoulders. No, the number two nationally-ranked freshman Kevin Durant finally came to town. And what a show it was.

In only 22 minutes, Durant dropped twenty points and barely broke a sweat. He drew extra defenders, made incredible passes, and threw down a reverse dunk that had to be seen to be believed. One thing I had not factored in to Durant’s already-high value to this team: when he makes a move to the glass, he draws extra defenders, but can still use his 379-inch wingspan to whip passes around the defenders to open men for the easy bucket. He uses those extra-long arms quite well on defense, too; he logged three steals on Thursday night, following up on his five from the final exhibition game.

When the buzzer sounded, the Horns had won by 103-44 margin. But that doesn’t even begin to tell the whole story. The Horns came out sloppy, turning the ball over three times and spotting the Alcorn State Braves a 9-1 lead. But Texas closed out the final 17:32 of the first half with a 47-9 run. In the second half, things got so bad that Texas led by 69 with just under five minutes left. And right around that same time, Alcorn State was shooting an odious 9-for-55 from the field.

Connor Atchley started the game, but unfortunately looked very tenative and overwhelmed during the short-lived Alcorn State lead. Barnes benched him in favor of Hill, the team settled down, and Connor was fine for the rest of the game. If he can get a steely resolve instead of a deer-in-the-headlights look, it can only help his playing time.

Craig Winder looked much better off the bench last night, dropping in ten points in his nineteen minutes, including a nifty layup on one of the Horns’ many fast-break opportunities. It will be interesting to see how big of a role he has this year off the pine, but it looked like he maybe has himself a little more under control this year.

For the first time this season, Texas had some trouble hanging on to the basketball, turning it over fourteen times. But when they forced their opponent to lose the ball 24 times, it didn’t seem to matter much. Only time will tell if this is going to be a problem for Texas. They really protected the ball well against their overmatched exhibition opponents, but against a team that was arguably just as bad as Xavier University or Lenoir-Rhyne, they suddenly had the yips. Next week’s games in New York City should be a good indicator for this statistic. Uh, I mean, if we win tonight. Then New York could be a good indicator. Maintain focusness.

A.J. Abrams continued to shoot the ball well, going 5-for-9 from the field and scoring eleven. Damion James was again an absolute beast, and the only true physical presence on the team. He scored thirteen and blocked two shots, and showed the hard-nosed, aggressive play that we all loved from P.J. Tucker and James Thomas. I thank God for Kelvin Sampson’s telephone addiction every damned day.

Dexter Pittman fouled out of the game in only nine minutes of play, but scored seven and fought his way to the line. He can score inside, but he needs to get used to his leaner body. There are some rebounds that he let get away which I’m sure he was used to gathering with his bigger frame that pushed defenders even further out of position. And it was typically after losing these rebounds that he picked up his fouls, when he made ill-advised moves to try to win the ball back. I have faith that Big Dex is going to be a great player here. And I think his four years are going to be great fun to watch.

Back for the Chicago State preview within the hour.