If you look solely at the number, Kevin Durant had a great game for the Longhorns on Thursday night against Centenary. Not to take anything away from KD’s solid 21-point, seventeen-rebound performance, but the game was anything but great for Texas. After a gutsy win over Arkansas and a tough road loss to Tennessee, this was the proverbial letdown game. Fortunately, it came against a team without the talent to convert that letdown into an upset. Coach Rick Barnes did in fact earn his 200th victory on the 40 Acres, but it came in an ugly 76-66 win over the Centenary Gents.

Texas (9-3) trailed Centenary at the under-twelve TV timeout. But beside that “early” deficit, Texas was never in danger of losing to the Gents. They were, however, completely mailing it in. The crowd was flat, the team was flat, and the game was ugly. The Horns had sixteen turnovers to only seventeen assists, just five days after turning the ball over only three times in the first half against a pressuring Tennessee squad.

Barnes had a quick hook throughout the game, constantly pulling players who had screwed up to give them some advice on the sideline. And while it’s certainly nice to be able to do that against the crappy teams and disrupt the flow of the game without ever risking a loss, it definitely isn’t much fun to watch for the fans. For a statistical example of how much Coach was shuffling the lineups, just take a gander at the minutes played — Durant had the most with 31, while reserves Matt Hill and Craig Winder played fifteen and eleven.

If we’re looking for positives in this steaming pile of blandness, it appeared that D.J. Augustin was back to 100% after the cramps in Tennessee that hampered his drives to the basket. And the Horns dominated the glass as they should’ve against the much smaller Gents, logging a 45-30 advantage in the rebounding department. Harrison Smith saw a full five minutes of play in the game, which is great for a guy who hardly gets to see the floor.

Otherwise, I’d rather just forget about this one. Chalk up another win for the Horns in their quest for another 20-victory season. But let’s just move on to UT-Arlington and look forward to conference play on Saturday.