The Texas Longhorns (10-3) open their Big 12 slate tomorrow in Boulder against the struggling Colorado Buffaloes (4-6). The hosts come into the match-up as losers of four of their last six games, including three home losses to Wyoming, Pepperdine, and Colorado State.

The weather in the Denver area has been abysmal the past few days, as yet another storm dropped up to a foot of snow in some areas. Hopefully the weather will keep some of the CU fans at home, considering the struggles Texas has had in Boulder. Two years ago, the Buffaloes knocked off Texas 88-79. Even the Final Four team in 2003 struggled at the Coors Event Center, taking one of their only seven losses on the year, 93-80. While Colorado has been drawing less than 3,000 per game at home, an even lighter crowd than usual can only help the Longhorns’ chances in an arena that has all kinds of bad juju.

This season appears to be an opportunity for the Horns to reverse the trend, as Colorado has failed to find any consistency in the first half of the year. As usual, their star player is junior Richard Roby, who some thought might try to make the leap to the NBA in June. Instead, he returned for a third year in which he is averaging a shade under 18 points a game while playing thirty minutes for coach Ricardo Patton. After that, the offense drops off. Senior guard Dominique Coleman is the team’s second-highest scorer at only 10.9 per game

Their leading rebounders are forwards Jermyl Jackson-Wilson and Jeremy Wilson, who are combining for 13 boards a game. Jackson-Wilson is also the team’s leading blocker, as he’s swatted eighteen so far this season. And if Colorado has done one thing well in this disappointing year, it’s block shots — the Buffs are logging 5.4 a game so far. Unfortunately for them, this will likely be negated by a Texas team that has 84 blocks of their own.

The 2005 win in Boulder was keyed by a hot-shooting Colorado club that was absolutely burying its threes. This year, that shouldn’t be much of a problem. The Buffs are hitting only 27.9% of their three point attempts, including Roby’s abysmal 23.4% behind the arc. Despite Roby’s struggles, he has jacked up the most threes for Colorado. I have no problem seeing the defense let him take those shots until he proves that he can hit.

Colorado has also struggled handling the ball, turning it over seventeen times while only recording fourteen assists a game. Once again, it looks like a key for Texas will be forcing turnovers and scoring points in the transition game. And by key, I don’t actually think this is so paramount that we’ll lose if we fail to do it. But with this young group of Horns, I’m never sure what is going to happen until the final horn sounds.

While stats and trends from past years are never a good indicator of how current teams will fare, consider this fun little tidbit: Rick Barnes has never lost a Big 12 conference opener in his eight years, while CU’s Patton sports a 1-9 mark….and that one win came all the way back in 1996.

So with all that said, what’s most important for Texas tomorrow?

1. Show up to the gym
2. Play at their talent level, not down to the opposition’s

Ta-da! It’s that easy. And so when CU officials put out a press release on their website today suggesting fans “assess travel conditions and exercise good judgment and caution,” the message was clear — “Stay home, because we’d rather not have our fans witness this one.”