It feels a bit weird writing this a full week and a half after the Tennessee game and five days after the team sleepwalked through the Centenary matchup, but the loss last Saturday in Knoxville was actually a huge step for the program.

Sure, the Horns blew a second-half lead of seventeen points, invcluding an abortion of clock management with 1:35 to go and a seven point advantage. And the argument could be made that Texas actually took its biggest strides in the victory over LSU. But teams learn the most from losses, and I think that is why we’ll be looking back in March and pointing to this game as the turning point.

Despite the game being two days before Christmas, the Volunteer fans showed up en masse. And they were loud. Very, very loud. And while many of their fans apparently don’t know much about the game of basketball — most were booing and bitching about calls despite Texas having eight team fouls to their three at one point in the second-half — they were devoted and cheered with intense fervor. Coming out of halftime, with their team down fifteen, Thompson-Boling Arena sounded more like there were two seconds left in a tie game.

The Vols made a brief spurt to cut the lead to ten, but Texas pushed it back out to the aforementioned seventeen-point cushion. The second half saw a change in tempo and styles as the refs called a much tighter ballgame. Justin Mason fouled out, and KD picked up his fourth. D.J. Augustin cramped up, and Atchley joined Jay Mase on the bench with five fouls. But without two of our core players, two others seeing limited minutes, and a crowd that was living and dying on every play, Texas still found itself ahead by eight with 2:30 on the clock.

Then everything melted down. And I’ll only briefly touch on that. Yes, A.J. and Durant took ill-advised shots early in the possession and failed to milk the clock. But Coach Barnes does a great job at teaching the team how to handle itself in random late-game situations (see: the half-court pass, timeout, and three-pointer at Tech in 2003 or 2004.) I have no doubt that Coach rectified the situation immediately when the team returned to practice the day after Christmas.

But the main point in all of this is that if you ignore the meltdown in the final minutes, an extremely young Texas team held its own in a hostile road environment without many of its key players. J.D. Lewis — J.D. Freakin Lewis! — was relied on for key minutes, and actually provided. Dexter Pittman saw more playing time than anybody could have possibly guessed he’d see against Tennessee’s up-tempo game. Yet Texas was in a position to win.

This is going to be huge when the Horns have to play in places like Norman, Stillwater, College Station, and Lubbock. I’d add Lawrence to the mix, but nothing can truly prepare a player for what it’s like inside Allen Fieldhouse on gameday. And of course, I’m not sure if anybody can take down this year’s KU team on their own floor……..oh, wait. My apologies to Oral Roberts.

What Texas takes away from this is that they can play with anybody in any situation. And when you consider the schedule that followed/follows the Tennessee game, I think this is going to be a key stretch for the Horns. Thursday night they took out Centenary, and tonight will likely steamroll UTA. Their first conference road test is against lowly Colorado, and then they get both Mizzou and OU at home. While the Tigers are certainly capable of an upset at the Frank Erwin Center — and OU could be as well, if a “perfect storm” of variables come together — this is a chance for Texas to rip off five wins in a row before their brutal OSU-Villanova-Nebraksa road stretch over an eight day period. Win two of those three, and Texas will be riding high as they head into the crunch time of February.

So, sure — you can be frustrated over the loss to the Vols. I know I definitely was, although that passed after ten or fifteen minutes. But give it just a few more weeks, and we’ll be talking about how this game was truly a sign of things to come….if you just ignore that little mark in the loss column.