It was only one game, but the future certainly looks bright for the Texas Longhorns.

Led by junior J’Covan Brown, Rick Barnes’ freshman-laden roster settled down after some early adversity and cruised to an easy, 36-point win in front of a home crowd on Sunday night. Brown tied a career-high with 28 points and added eight assists, despite enjoying the final five minutes of the blowout from the bench.

What looked good

Brown’s scoring outburst gives Texas fans a lot to be optimistic about, as there is no doubt that he will have to be the team’s leader this season. He scored in a variety of ways, knocking down three triples, earning his way to the line for five points, and repeatedly sinking a soft pull-up floater. Texas also found success multiple times on backdoor cuts for the junior, giving him easy finishes at the rim.

Perhaps most importantly, Brown finished the night with eight assists. One of the most consistent complaints about his game last season was his troubling habit of dominating the ball to the detriment of the team. Against Boston, he was willing to give up the rock when his teammates were in a position to score. Although Brown took a few bad shots early in the game, most of them came on possessions where the entire team was standing idly in the half-court set.

In addition to Brown’s career night, the team’s defense was another reason for excitement for Longhorn fans. Texas made the Terriers uncomfortable all night, forcing turnovers on a whopping 34.2% of Boston’s possessions. The Longhorns utilized ball pressure well past the perimeter, often making it difficult for the Terriers to even get into their offense.

The active hands of freshmen Sheldon McClellan and Jonathan Holmes earned them each a pair of steals. Both used their lengthy wingspans to simply reach around the ballhandler or disrupt passing lanes on multiple ocassions.

In the post, Alexis Wangmene gave a solid defensive effort to kick off his senior campaign. He did an excellent job standing tall and forcing players to take bad shots, and even blocked five in just 26 minutes on the court. A few of those swats came when he was the help defender, bringing to mind the excellent team defense of last season’s squad.

The only knock on Wangmene’s defensive performance was that on a few instances, it was a little too easy for his man to back him down to the blocks. Fortunately, even on those plays, he typically stiffened up the D at that point and made the Terriers earn their points.

The senior also impressed with his off-the-ball play on offense. He had a few good seals as his teammates were driving to the hoop, giving them easy access to the rim, and he set some stout high screens to free up the guards. While Texas will likely need a little more than his four point output on some nights, fans have to be very happy with his seven-rebound, five-block performance.

Senior Clint Chapman is the other half of the big-man puzzle for Texas, and while he didn’t land on any All-American lists last night, he showed that he might be a serviceable option this season. Chapman utilized some nice face-up skills late in the game, lumbering baseline for an easy dunk and taking another defender to the hole for a layup.

Freshman phenom Myck Kabongo lived up to his billing as point-guard extraordinaire, logging seven assists in just 22 minutes. While he didn’t have any highlight-reel assists, he did showcase excellent court vision on some really nice interior feeds in the second half. Kabongo also added a three pointer and a pair of steals to his stat line.

Guard Julien Lewis was one of three freshmen in the starting lineup, and he unveiled a great catch-and-shoot ability behind the arc. His Longhorn teammates constantly found him open from long range, where he knocked down 4-of-7. Seeing the team repeatedly find Lewis in the flow of the offense was a very welcome sight for Texas fans who have watched some recent teams force things from long range. Lewis also added some easy layups to score 18 in his debut.

Fellow freshman Sterling Gibbs didn’t do anything exceptionally flashy in his 20 minutes off the bench, but he knocked down his one open look from behind the arc and notched three assists.

One of the most exciting developments of the night was at the free throw line. After a season in which the Horns shot just 65.4% at the line, the team’s 75% mark in last night’s game seemed downright unbelievable. Although Brown missed his first attempt — breaking the streak of 28-consecutive makes he began in last season’s Big 12 title game — he knocked down his other five. Kabongo and McClellan were the only other Horns to make it to the line, so only time will tell if Holmes, Bond, or Lewis are comfortable at the stripe.

What needed work

The number one concern for this team heading into this season was its weakness in the frontcourt, and that problem manifested itself in a poor rebounding effort against the Terriers. Although Boston was a smaller team and had just been worked on the glass by Northeastern on Friday night, the Terriers claimed a 43-35 edge on the boards.

Some of the rebounding problems were a result of Wangmene and Chapman still struggling to control the ball when it came to them. There was also a surprising number of long rebounds that would fall loose around the free throw line or perimeter, with nothing but red jerseys around to claim it. The Longhorns allowed Boston to reclaim 43% of their missed shots, a number that is going to be absolutely deadly when replicated against a team that makes those second chances count.

There were also stretches of play where the Texas offense seemed to lack any direction or flow. For much of the first half, the Longhorn offense turned stagnant, as players stood around or half-heartedly made weak cuts along the baseline. Oftentimes, those possessions ended with Brown trying to take control and being forced into bad looks.

At halftime, the team seemed to make adjustments, coming out of the locker room with lots of motion in the half-court set and excellent interior passing to the bigs or guards cutting along the baseline. But as the Texas lead expanded, the Horns once again became complacent, jacking up an inordinate amount of threes down the stretch. Hopefully this lack of focus was simply a result of the lopsided score, and not an indication that the youngsters might camp out on the perimeter this season rather than run an offense.

As always, it’s important not to put too much stock into the results of one game, and it’s especially important not to do so after a season opener. But for Texas fans who had a multitude of concerns about this year’s team, it’s a relief to see the team play as well as they did last night.

While the frontcourt will have its share of issues against deeper, more-experienced units this season, the play of Wangmene and Chapman gives fans hope that they can hold down the fort and let the backcourt carry the team. And although the youthful Longhorns will certainly have growing pains as they face tougher teams down the road, all of the freshmen looked confident in Sunday night’s debut.

Next up: vs. Rhode Island (0-1); Tuesday, 3 P.M. CT

Six months ago, the Longhorn basketball season came to and abrupt an unceremonious end. A string of bizarre decisions knocked Texas out of the NCAA tournament, but three more decisions would be made in the coming weeks that would leave the program reeling. Despite the threat of an NBA lockout, Tristan Thompson, Jordan Hamilton, and Cory Joseph all left the Forty Acres early and landed in the first round of the professional draft.

Six months later, there is still no movement on the NBA front. With the three former Longhorns now stuck in professional limbo, Texas fans are left to wonder “What if?” as stars like Jared Sullinger and Harrison Barnes begin their sophomore seasons at Ohio State and North Carolina. Without Thompson, Hamilton, Joseph Gary Johnson, Dogus Balbay, or Matt Hill, the 2011-12 Longhorns are completely starting over. J’Covan Brown and Alexis Wangmene are the only returning players to log any significant minutes in 2010-11, resulting in an endless sea of questions surrounding this year’s team.

Today, fans will finally get a chance to begin answering those questions, as the Longhorns tip off the 2011-12 campaign against the Boston Terriers in the Legends Classic. As is the case with most early-season tournaments, the results of this game have no effect on whether or not Texas advances to next weekend’s semifinals in East Rutherford, New Jersey. Rather, today’s season opener is simply a warm-up for the team, a chance to ease into the season and their new roles.

By the numbers

Although the Terriers are returning four starters from last year’s American East championship team, they have their own set of questions coming into the young season. The cause of the uncertainty was a late coaching change on campus, as Pat Chambers left in June to take the vacant head coaching spot at Penn State. Enter Joe Jones, who had coached Columbia for seven years before spending the last season as an associate head coach at Boston College.

Last year’s team was one that lived and died by the three. The Terriers took more than 40% of their attempts from behind the arc, and rode a 35.5% success rate to a 21-14 record. This year’s team seems to be following the same formula, as Boston took 28 of their 67 shots (41.8%) in Friday night’s season opener from behind the arc. The Terriers managed to make just 17.9% of their long-range attempts, though, and stumbled to an 82-74 overtime loss at home against Northeastern.

“There will be some concepts and some things Patrick was doing that we’ll keep the same,” Coach Jones told Blue Ribbon Yearbook’s Kathy Orton. “We definitely want to play fast. We want to get the ball up the floor.”

Jones’ career numbers make that claim seem slightly dubious, however. In his seven years leading the Lions, his teams averaged just 65.6 possessions per game, including a painfully slow 62.6 possessions per game in 2006-07.

To be fair, his teams at Columbia were far less talented than the current batch of Terriers, and limiting possessions is a solid tactic to use when you are outclassed by the competition. Unfortunately, Jones’ first game at BU seemed to be more of the same, as the team ran at a pace of 65.7 possessions per 40 minutes.

Defensively, last year’s team did a good job forcing misses, but their undersized roster proved deadly. Opponents grabbed 33.5% of their own misses, leading to far too many second- and third-chance points. The Longhorns have a rather inexperienced frontcourt this season, but will have the natural height advantage against a smaller BU lineup. Texas needs to exploit this weakness and score a chunk of points off of extended possessions.

Meet the Terriers

In the season-opening loss on Friday night, Boston was led by senior Darryl Partin, who is in his second year with the Terriers after transferring from La Salle. The 6’6″ guard dropped in 25 points in the losing effort and was able to keep a clean sheet in the turnover department. Last year, Partin coughed it up on more than 21% of the team’s possessions, so his ball control against Northeastern is a very welcome development for Terrier fans.

Sophomore D.J. Irving runs the point for Boston, and he logged an impressive 17-point performance against Northeastern. A member of last season’s America East rookie team, Irving had nine games in which he dished out at least five assists. Against Northeastern he logged just one, but the lack of ball movement seemed to be a team problem. On 28 baskets the Terriers had just eight assists, giving them a paltry 28.6% assist percentage. Although the season is less than a week old, that mark is currently the seventh-worst in all of D-I basketball.

Senior guard Matt Griffin also had just one assist against Northeastern, but added 11 points to the cause. At just 5’10”, the Rider transfer is the team’s best long-range threat, having connected on 45.8% of his attempts last season. He was once again the team’s most accurate three-point shooter on Friday night, knocking down 3-of-8 from behind the arc, while the rest of the team was just 2-for-20.

Senior forward Patrick Hazel is yet another transfer on the Boston roster, having joined the Terriers from Marquette. Now in his second season at BU, the 6’6″ Hazel is tasked with facing off against much bigger opponents in the frontcourt. Last season, his 10.8% mark in offensive rebounding was tops on the team, and actually placed him just outside of the top 100 offensive rebounders in the country. Against Northeastern, he grabbed five rebounds to go with his nine points, with three of them coming off of BU misses.

Sophomore Dom Morris rounds out the starting five. At 6’7″, he’s actually the tallest starter, a role he solidified down the stretch last season. As a freshman, he started the final 16 games of the year, and grabbed a combined 21 boards in back-to-back games against Binghamton and Vermont. On Friday night, he led the team with seven boards, six of them coming on the defensive end.

Off the bench, Jeff Pelage and Mike Terry, Jr. both gave significant minutes in the loss to Northeastern. Pelage is a 6’8″ senior who has been plagued by injury, suffering a hernia over the summer after missing 11 games last season due to a high ankle sprain . Despite coming off the bench, Pelage tied Morris with a team-high seven rebounds on Friday night.

Terry, a 6-foot guard out of Philly, provided 18 minutes off the bench against the Huskies. Although he didn’t log any numbers in the offensive categories, the sophomore set a career high with two steals in the season opener.

Freshmen James Kennedy and Zach Chionuma both made their collegiate debuts on Friday night, playing a combined 17 minutes off the bench. Kennedy, a 6’6″ forward, grabbed three rebounds and scored a bucket, while Chionuma added an assist and a basket.

Although the Terrier frontcourt is an undersized one, Coach Jones does have one big option on the bench. Mat Piotrowski is a 7’1″ redshirt freshman from Port Republic, New Jersey, but he did not see the court in the season opener.

Keys to the game

1) Lock down the perimeter – BU’s success depends completely on their ability to knock down the three-pointer, a fact made perfectly clear in their last two losses. Against Kansas in the NCAA tournament, Boston kept the game close until halftime on the strength of 46.2% shooting behind the arc. In the final twenty minutes, they were just a paltry 3-of-12, and the Jayhawks pulled away for a 19-point win. On Friday night, their 17.9% mark from long range again led to a loss.

For the Longhorns, perimeter defense was an issue that seemed to rear its ugly head as the most inopportune times last season. In losses to Colorado and Kansas State, Texas managed to repeatedly lose their opponents’ best three-point shooters, and Levi Knutson and Rodney McGruder made them pay. The pair of sharpshooters went 7-for-13 against Texas, handing the Longhorns back-to-back losses.

On paper, perimeter defense looks to be a strength for this year’s Longhorn team. With a bevy of talented guards and a coach who preaches staunch defense, fans are expecting less defensive lapses at the three-point arc. Today’s game will serve as a very early test of those expectations.

2) Establish an inside presence – This year’s Longhorn team is facing a lot of questions in the frontcourt, as the team’s most-experienced big men are Alexis Wangmene and Clint Chapman. Both have struggled in their limited minutes over the years, with a combined career average of just 3.8 points and 3.7 rebounds per game.

Coach Rick Barnes doesn’t need either player to be great this season, but he does need both to be serviceable. Against a smaller BU team, Wangmene and Chapman have an excellent opportunity to get their season off to a good start. If they both struggle against the Terrier frontcourt, the long-term prognosis will be troubling.

3) Get the freshmen involved – Rather than a key to the game, this point is a foregone conclusion. With six freshmen making up the bulk of the roster, there’s absolutely no way that the Longhorns could field a team without relying on first-year players. With much more difficult opponents looming on the schedule, these early-season games will serve to get the youngsters a taste of college basketball before the pressure is ratcheted up.