The Longhorns return to Austin as champions of the StubHub! Legends Classic tournament and are set for a top-ten battle with UCLA on Sunday. But first, Texas must add another win to the ledger when they host Texas Southern in a mid-week patsy game.

The Tigers come from the Southwestern Athletic Conference, a league which Texas holds a 4-0 all-time record against. Last season, the Horns pasted the Tigers 90-50, with A.J. Abrams and Kevin Durant combining for 42 points. Even Dexter Pittman had a breakout game against TSU, scoring ten points and blocking two shots in only eleven minutes on the court.

Texas Southern’s basketball program is in a bit of disarray this year, as they had not even named a head coach until eight days before pre-season practices began. Just last week, forward Jacques Jones was lost for the year due to a shoulder injury that requires surgery, leaving the Tigers with four active scholarship players. The only bright spot amidst this disaster of a season is the return of former coach Robert Moreland, who is sitting on 399 career victories at TSU. There’s not much hope for #400 tonight.

By the numbers

The Longhorns enter the game ranked 3rd in Ken Pomeroy’s RPI approximations. They are also the most efficient offense in the nation thus far, scoring a ridiculous 130.6 points per 100 possessions — and that number actually increases to 138.4 points when adjusted to reflect the talent level they’ve faced.

Texas Southern, meanwhile, is scraping the bottom of the offensive barrel. Their efficiency ranks 310th in the NCAA out of 341 teams. Unfortunately for the Tigers, the defense is even worse. Their defensive efficiency checks in at 321st in the league, although their adjusted rank is a much more palatable 251st.

The Tigers have only won one of their first five games, a 72-64 season-opening victory over the Islanders of Texas A&M-Corpus Christi. Their most recent lost came at the hands of Kentucky, in an embarrassing 83-35 shellacking on Saturday. Fortunately for TSU, their schedule thus far has been tough enough to keep their RPI rank a respectable 83rd.

The key players

Guards David Burrell and Sollie Norwood have combined to lead the team in scoring in each of the first five games. Norwood is tops on the team so far this year with 16.8 PPG and also provided ten points off the bench in last year’s loss to the Longhorns. Burrell is in his first season with the Tigers after transferring from UT-Pan American following the 2005-06 season.

The other two guards who have started all five games for Coach Moreland are Jonathan Frazier and Matt Miller. While neither has scored many points this year, Frazier is averaging nearly three steals a game. They both have more turnovers than assists so far this season, so they will have to be careful with the ball against this Texas defense.

The frontcourt for the Tigers is fairly unimpressive, as TSU started only two forwards prior to the aforementioned Jones injury…and even then, he was the tallest starter at 6’7″. That leaves senior Kevin Abanobi as the most reliable post player on the thin roster for TSU, and his averages are a paltry five points and six boards per game so far this season.

With the lineup card covered in red lines and scribbles, there’s a very good chance the Tigers will use a fourth guard to round out the starting five. It will likely be Burrell, although we could see Damien Henderson, who spent the last two years — one of them lost to injury — at a JuCo in Lincoln, Illinois.

What to look for

To be completely honest, this is going to be nothing more than a chance for Coach Barnes and the Horns to get some kinks worked out before Sunday. It will be interesting to see if Barnes decides to rest the key players in preparation for the UCLA game or if he leaves the core group in to get as many game minutes together as possible. I’m personally pulling for the former, as I doubt any second-half minutes in this game will be useful practice.

Texas comes into this one shooting a ridiculous 56.7% from the field, including 52% from behind the arc. While I’m not expecting this to go on forever, we’d certainly like to see the key folks still knocking them down with regularity tonight, lest they fall into a funk before this weekend’s game. Even though the Horns are really hot from three-point range, look for the increased emphasis on entry passing to continue against the overmatched Tiger frontcourt.

In their one victory this year, TSU hit eleven three-pointers, and has taken nearly half of their shots from behind the arc. With the small lineup, don’t be surprised to see the Tigers hanging out around the perimeter and settling for long-range jumpers. If they are actually hitting, they can keep the game close for perhaps the first half, but their lack of depth will make it difficult to maintain any threat.

The tiny TSU lineup also means that Texas should win the rebounding battle quite easily tonight. While it would be nice to get in some minutes against a potent frontcourt before facing Kevin Love, hopefully the good night the Horns will have on the boards can serve as a confidence boost. This also means that as long as his minutes aren’t too limited by a huge lead, I’m liking Connor Atchley for his second-consecutive double-double in this one.

This one certainly won’t be competitive, but I implore all of you to head out to the Frank Erwin Center anyhow. The game isn’t televised, so it’s the only way you can catch the action. And any coach or kid in their team jersey or t-shirt gets $4 off a GA seat in the mezzanine — which means with tonight’s expected crowd that you can sit pretty much anywhere in the lower bowl. So come on out to the FEC, and we’ll see you there.