After fourteen consecutive years in the NCAA tournament, the Texas Longhorns stumbled through a disastrous 2012-13 campaign last season, ultimately flaming out in the first round of the CBI, Division I basketball’s third-tier postseason tournament. Predictions for this year’s team weren’t much better, with the Longhorns projected by the Big 12’s coaches to finish eighth out of ten teams. The media consensus was that head coach Rick Barnes was simply playing out the string, destined to have another mediocre or terrible season and earn his walking papers.

Instead, a team made up of unheralded freshmen, sophomores who were formerly role players, and one quiet, junior leader have brought the Longhorns back to their familiar March home. Thanks to an early seven-game winning streak in the nation’s toughest conference, Texas didn’t even have to sweat the NCAA tournament bubble to earn their bid to this year’s tournament.

Of course, overachieving also brings higher expectations. Now that the Longhorns are back in the tournament, the program’s recent NCAA history is once again part of the discussion. Since a 2008 run to the Elite Eight, the Longhorns have posted only a 2-4 mark in four trips to the Big Dance, and have failed to advance to the tournament’s second weekend. Although the Longhorn fanbase has been pleasantly surprised by this year’s team, another one-and-done visit to the NCAAs would be considered a failure.

By the numbers

To avoid that fate, Texas will have to get through a stingy Arizona State team that plays stout defense and shoots the ball well from outside. Like the Longhorns, the Sun Devils have stumbled through the final few weeks of the season, and they are entering the NCAAs on a slide. ASU has lost their last three games and five of their last seven, a skid that came as a surprise on the heels of their exciting, double-overtime win against rival Arizona on Valentine’s Day.

On the defensive end, the Sun Devils allow just 0.963 adjusted points per possession, the 33rd-best mark in Division I hoops. Arizona State does a good job limiting dribble penetration by playing tight on the perimeter, helping off the ball to clog driving lanes, and hedging hard on ball screens and recovering quickly. Inside, the presence of 7-foot, 2-inch shot-blocker extraordinaire Jordan Bachynski (No. 13) helps to clean up any drives that do happen to reach the paint. As a result, opponents take just 27.5% of their shots from long range and face a dilmena once they are inside the arc — take the higher-risk, low-reward midrange jumper, or force up a challenged look inside against a set defense with a gargantuan rim protector?

On the other end of the court, the Sun Devils take more than enough threes to make up for the ones their opponents don’t take. ASU fires up 37.5% of their looks from behind the arc, and with a success rate of 38.6%, who can blame them? That makes them the 31st-most accurate three-point shooting team in NCAA Division I, and it keeps them in games despite not having an interior presence on the offensive end.

Two ASU statistics that bode well for the Longhorns are their defensive turnover rate and their offensive rebounding numbers. During Texas’ late-season struggles, a spike in turnover rate helped to fuel blowouts at Kansas and Kansas State, and it put them in an early hole in a road loss to Iowa State. With the Sun Devils only forcing turnovers on 17.1% of opponents’ possessions, the Longhorns can hopefully avoid turnover woes tonight.

Arizona State also only reclaims 24.2% of their missed shots, ranking them ahead of only 12 out of the 351 teams in Division I. In their loss to Stanford in the Pac-12 tournament, the Sun Devils won back just 6.5% of their missed shots! Against a Texas team that already posts excellent rebounding numbers on both ends of the court, those offensive rebounding struggles mean that the Sun Devils will have to make their threes if they want to advance to Saturday’s Round of 32.

Meet the Sun Devils

Arizona State’s most well-known player is also its smallest, 5’10” point guard Jahii Carson (No. 1). A shifty sophomore who can slither through defenses with ease, Carson has already announced that he will be going pro following the season, setting the table for him to pump up his draft stock with a quality tournament run.

Although Carson is fearless in attacking the rim and seems to do it on every possession, he is still incredibly accurate when he pops a three-pointer, making more than 39% of his looks. His aggressive penetration is also key in setting up teammates, with 29.1% of his teammate’s baskets when he’s on the court come as a result of his passes.

Joining Carson in the backcourt is sharpshooter Jermaine Marshall (No. 34), a Penn State transfer who has made 40% of his threes on the year and averages more than 2.5 makes per game. Although Marshall is known for a quick release and deadly long-range accuracy, he can also take advantage of defenses that get up in his shirt by slashing to the rim.

To say that Carson and Marshall fuel the Arizona State offense would be a considerable understatment. The pair has combined to play 80.6% of the team’s available minutes, with Carson taking 30.3% of the shots when he’s on the floor, and Marshall taking 26% of the shots when he’s on the court. Although there are other Sun Devils who can score against Texas tonight, a game plan that closely shadows Marshall and keeps Carson in front of the D would make things very, very difficult on ASU.

On the wing, 6’5″ juco transfer Shaquielle McKissic (No. 40) is another driving threat, although he lacks the burst of Carson or the three-point threat of Marshall to keep defenses off-balance. Instead, McKissic has a craftier game, using good angles and spin moves to work his way towards the paint, while his great defensive instincts lead to quite a few easy, fast-break looks, as well.

The fourth spot in the starting five has belonged to Eric Jacobsen (No. 3) for the final few weeks of the season, but his scant contributions in recent games have opened the door for Jonathan Gilling (No. 31) to reclaim his starting role. Jacobsen provides the team some size at 6’10”, but he is incredibly foul-prone and frequently turns the ball over. Against the Longhorns, Jacobsen might have to play extended minutes to match up against Jonathan Holmes, but after averaging just five minutes in the team’s last three games, it’s hard to see him making much of a contribution.

The 6’7″ Gilling worked out with the starting group in yesterday’s open practice, and he gives the Sun Devils an offensive option that Jacobsen just cannot provide. Gilling is almost exlusively a long-range threat, having drilled 42.5% of his threes on the year. Three-point attempts make up 79% of his shots, and he needs very little time or space to one up, so Texas must stick to him like glue. If the Longhorns can keep him from getting daylight, Gilling’s inability to put the ball on the floor and make midrange jumpers would make him a non-factor.

In the middle, Bachynski is a defensive presence that has frustrated opponents all season long. The Canadian product set the Pac-12’s all-time blocks record with seven games still left in his senior year, and he has posted the nation’s ninth-best block rate this year, swatting 12.7% of opponents’ two-point shots when he’s on the court. On the other end of the floor, Bachynski has a good hook shot over both shoulders when he’s isolated on the block, and he’s a monster target cutting to the rim on pick-and-rolls after the team’s frequent high ball screens.

Off the bench, Bo Barnes (No. 4) is a three-point gunner who forced his way into the rotation when Marshall was struggling through a groin injury earlier this year. A local kid who started his college career at Hawaii, Barnes has made more than 40% of his threes this season and averaged more than 28 minutes in the team’s last three games.

With a core rotation of seven players, depth is a major concern for Arizona State tonight. The Sun Devils also squeeze about 14 minutes per game out of 6’5″ Russian freshman Egor Koulechev (No. 15), but he has played just a total of seven minutes in the team’s last five contests. If foul trouble becomes a factor in this game, Coach Herb Sendek won’t find many options as he looks down the bench.

Keys to the game

1) Attack inside – The Arizona State defense does a great job contracting and cutting off passing and driving lanes, so this is much easier said than done. However, if the Longhorns can pound the ball down low, they can not only attempt to exploit their size advantage, but also put Arizona State’s game-changer in foul trouble. If Bachynski is sidelined due to foul concerns, that Texas size advantage becomes even greater and interior points should be even more plentiful.

2) Push the pace – One glaring weakness in the Arizona State defense this season has been an inability to stop transition and the secondary break. UCLA and Utah are just two Pac-12 teams who exposed that deficiency this season, and Texas must aim to do the same thing tonight. The Longhorns need to look up after missed Sun Devil shots and quickly get as many people down the floor as they can. The Sun Devils don’t often turn the ball over, so Longhorn transition opportunities will have to come off of defensive rebounds.

3) Stick with the shooters – Texas’ interior defense and Arizona State’s preference for the long ball mean that the Longhorns don’t need to worry about giving up too many points in the paint. However, the Sun Devils can easily light it up from long range, and NCAA tournament history has shown that a key ingredient in a Round of 64 upset is hot three-point shooting. The Longhorns cannot afford to lose track of Marshall, Gilling, or Barnes, and they also have to keep up with Carson when he doesn’t have the ball. If Texas can keep Arizona State close to or below their season average behind the arc, the Horns should be able to advance to the next round.

The Texas Longhorns bounced back quickly from their loss to Texas Tech in the regular-season finale, racing out of the gate in a blowout of West Virginia last night in the Big 12 Championship quarterfinals. Texas sprinted to a 21-4 lead by the under-12 media timeout, stifling the Mountaineers at every turn. The game was never in doubt, as the Longhorns led by as many as 30 points midway through the second half. Texas ultimately advanced to the semifinals with a 66-49 victory, but the game was never actually that close.

The win sets up a third meeting with Baylor in the Big 12 tournament semis, the 13th time in the league’s 18-year existence that Texas has made it to this stage. Texas posted a season sweep of the Bears in their two previous meetings this year, but Baylor is on the upswing and finally looking like the team that people expected them to be back in October.

The Longhorns are projected anywhere from a No. 5 seed to a No. 7 seed in the NCAA tournament, depending on which bracket projections you prefer, but another Top 50 RPI win over Baylor would make it unlikely they would actually end up in a 7/10 game when the field is announced on Sunday. A win tonight would not only give Texas its seventh appearance in the Big 12 Championship final tomorrow, but could perhaps give the team enough of a push to even end up on the 5-seed line in next week’s tournament.

Keys to the game

1) Dictate the tempo – It’s much easier to force teams to play slower than it is to speed up the game. Although you can try to speed up a team with traps and extra ball pressure, the offense has 35 seconds to burn if it wants. If that same team has a good defense, particularly a zone, you also have to be patient to get a good look. The Bears have been that kind of stubborn team all season, with an average tempo of 62.8 possessions per game, the 24th-slowest pace out of 351 Division I teams.

Even though Texas won both games against the Bears this season, the importance of dictating the pace against Baylor is evident in the results. The Longhorns won fairly comfortably in the first meeting in Waco, a game in which the teams played 72 possessions. During a much tighter Texas victory in Austin, the two teams played just 58 possessions. The importance of getting out in transition and looking for opportunities in the secondary break is clear for Texas in tonight’s game.

Playing at a brisk pace is also important for the Longhorns when you consider fatigue and Baylor’s short bench. The Bears are playing their third game in three days, with their five starters all averaging 30 minutes in the two games. (Technically Isaiah Austin (No. 21) averaged 29.5 minutes in the two contests, but rounding is great when it supports your point.)

The Longhorns, meanwhile, took two days off from practice earlier this week and looked incredibly fresh to start last night’s game. With the result well in hand, the starting five averaged just 22.8 minutes in the win. That difference in workload could mean the difference in crunch time tonight, especially if Texas can turn this into an up-tempo affair.

2) Limit second chances – Baylor is the nation’s third-best offensive rebounding team, and they boast the country’s second-best offensive rebounder by percentage in Rico Gathers (No. 2). The Longhorns have been strong on the glass all season long, but have had some lapses in conference where they allow teams to extend key late-game possessions with offensive boards. Texas will obviously have their work cut out for them on the glass tonight, but they simply cannot afford to let Baylor score a significant number of second-chance points.

This also ties in with our previous key to the game, as allowing Baylor to have longer offensive possessions only serves to slow the pace and shorten the game. Texas has to close out its defensive stops with solid rebounding, and not allow Baylor to win too many offensive rebounds tonight.

3) Keep Heslip quiet – Brady Heslip (No. 5) has nailed 45.9% of his three-point attempts on the year and averages more than three makes per game. That percentage puts the Canadian sharpshooter among the nation’s ten best when it comes to three-point percentage, so he’s always a threat to quickly bury a team under a flurry of threes.

Texas did a good job limiting his damage in the first two games, holding him to just 2-of-8 shooting beyond the arc in those contests. The Longhorns also locked down the perimeter very well against a great three-point shooting West Virginia team last night, so their backcourt does seem to be keyed in at the right time. If Heslip gets hot tonight, it will make things very tough on Texas, but if they can put in another good defensive showing on the perimeter, the Longhorns should be in position to challenge for a Big 12 title berth.

The old adage holds that it’s tough to beat the same team three times in one season. With the advent of the double round-robin in the Big 12, that scenario is even more common than it once under the previous, imbalanced league schedule. For a Texas Longhorn team that heads to Kansas City having lost four of its last six games, pulling off the difficult three-game sweep of West Virginia is the only way to try to build some momentum heading into the NCAA tournament.

The Longhorns have also struggled away from the Erwin Center in recent weeks, although many of their road stumbles came in very tough road environments. Fortunately, from this point on, all of Texas’ games will be on a neutral court, even though the decidely pro-Kansas fans at the Sprint Center will likely back the Mountaineers in tonight’s contest. The Longhorns only played two neutral-court games this season — both in the Sprint Center — and pulled off a split by defeating DePaul after a loss to BYU.

In addition to building some momentum and proving they can win away from home, the Longhorns are obviously playing for seeding at this point. Although ESPN’s Joe Lunardi has kept Texas as a No. 6 seed following a loss to Texas Tech and throughout Championship Week, the team would obviously like to avoid slipping to the 7-seed line and potentially facing a No. 2 seed in the Round of 32. A loss tonight could make that outcome a distinct possibility, while another win over West Virginia would give the Horns their twelfth RPI Top 100 win and a shot at a eighth RPI Top 50 win against Baylor or Oklahoma tomorrow night.

The First Meeting

The Longhorns dominated the glass and forced the Mountaineers into taking — and missing — a bunch of challenged threes when the teams met at West Virginia last month. Texas used a 27-11 run over the final 12 minutes of the first half to open up a big lead, and the team never looked back. Although the Mountaineers clawed to within 11 points by the final buzzer, the game was never in doubt in the second half, and Texas cruised to an 80-69 win.

Cameron Ridley was dominant inside for Texas, posting 12 points and 12 boards for what was then his fourth double-double of the season. The Longhorns reclaimed more than 34% of their offensive rebounding opportunities, while limiting WVU to contested one-shot possessions. Texas locked down the defensive glass, allowing the Mountaineers to win back just 22% of their own misses.

Texas did a good job limiting open looks on the perimeter, something that opponents often find difficult to do against the spread attack and driving ability of West Virginia. The Mountaineers made just 16% of their three-point attempts on the night, shooting 4-for-25 from long range. Point guard Juwan Staten (No. 3) went off for 23 points and added five assists, while freshman forward Brandon Watkins (No. 20) had a nice performance off the bench, logging five blocks and snagging six boards in just 14 minutes of action.

The Second Game

The Longhorns again owned the boards against West Virginia in Austin, limiting the Mountaineers to just 23.1% of their offensive rebounding chances, while reclaiming nearly 40% of their own missed shots. When you also consider that the Longhorns shot a blistering 58% from the field, those extended possessions carried even more weight.

Texas did a great job limiting Staten in the first half, holding him to just four points as the Longhorns took an 11-point edge to the locker room. The Longhorns moved the ball crisply, knocked down jump shots, and took advantage of their size inside.

Although the Mountaineers made a push coming out of the half and cut the lead to just six points, Texas responded with an 8-0 run and never looked back. Despite an uneven second-half performance, the Longhorns still cruised to an 88-71 win over West Virginia, who had won four out of five coming into the game. Texas held a massive 46-14 advantage on points in the paint and logged assists on 54.5% of their buckets. All five starters finished in double-digits for the Horns, with big men Jonathan Holmes and Ridley combining for 28.

Keys to the Game

1) Pound the paint – West Virginia will likely dare the Longhorns to beat them with the jump shot again, and it’s not a poor strategy. Texas clearly has the advantage in the frontcourt when these two teams meet, and the Horns are ranked among Division I’s 100 worst teams in every shooting category — free throws, two-pointers, and three-pointers. If Texas plays into West Virginia’s hands, allows the ball to stick against that 1-3-1 zone, and settles for jump shots, the Longhorns will have a tough time advancing to the Big 12 Championship semifinals.

2) Turn back Staten’s drives – So much of West Virginia’s offense is created by the penetrating ability of Staten, whether it leads to baskets for him, or open looks for teammates. Texas did a fantastic job limiting his damage in the first half in Austin by stopping his attack in penetration, and turning him into a jump shooter in the half-court. If the Longhorns can’t repeat that performance tonight and allow Staten to slice up their defense, things could get very dicey in Kansas City.

3) Don’t lose the shooters – West Virginia knocks down 38.6% of their three-point shots, and when they get hot, they can blow the doors right off an arena. In a thorough whipping of Iowa State in Morgantown, the Mountaineers drilled 13 triples and made more than 59% of their long-range attempts. In two games against the Longhorns, however, West Virginia has made just 12-of-48 from behind the arc.

While some may say that means the Mountaineers are due, a big factor in those numbers is Texas forcing West Virginia into taking tough looks. If the Longhorns can do the same tonight — and keep close tabs on Eron Harris (No. 10), Terry Henderson (No. 15), and stretch forwards Nathan Adrian (No. 11) and Rémi Dibo (No. 0) when they drift without the ball — they should be able to advance to the next round of the Big 12 tournament.

There’s only one day left in the Big 12 regular season, and there’s still quite a bit left to sort out. While Kansas clinched an outright title last Saturday despite losing at Oklahoma State, there are massive logjams in the middle of the standings that will likely come down to numerous tiebreakers after today’s action.

What we do know is that Kansas will be the No. 1 seed in Kansas City next weekend, while Texas Tech will be No. 9 and TCU is assured No. 10. Teams second through fifth are separated by just one game, while there’s currently a three-way tie for sixth. With the league’s top six teams getting a bye to the quarterfinals, that means there’s even drama in the middle of the table on the final day of the season.

For Texas, seeds two through five are still possibilities as the day tips off. Since Iowa State and Kansas State play earlier in the day, by the time the Horns square off with the Red Raiders in Lubbock, the picture will be a little more clear. At the moment, though, here are the possibilities for Texas’ seeding in Kansas City:

The key tiebreakers in play are the fact that Oklahoma swept Texas and that Kansas State and Texas both beat Kansas. In multi-team ties, record against the entire group is used as a tiebreaker, so the Horns end up at the bottom of any multi-team tie involving OU, since all other matchups between these four teams ended up in splits.

When group record is tied, then the records are compared against the first-place team, second-place team, etc. That means that Kansas State and Texas both hold the edge over Iowa State thanks to their KU wins, but Kansas State holds the edge over Texas by virtue of a win against Oklahoma.

Of course, the easiest way to clear this up is for Texas to win at Tech today. That won’t be an easy task, as nearly every Big 12 team has discovered in their visit to Lubbock this season. The Red Raiders picked off Baylor and Oklahoma State at home, and would have knocked off Kansas if not for the heroics of Andrew Wiggins. Tech also played Kansas State down to the wire in Lubbock and even surprised Oklahoma in Norman.

The Longhorns barely escaped with wins in their last two visits to Lubbock, and this year’s Texas Tech team is considerably better. Securing a season-ending win on the road this afternoon will certainly be a challenge.

Keys to the game

1) Take care of the basketball – The Longhorns have apparently packed grease in their travel bags the last few weeks, as their turnover rates in losses at Kansas State and Oklahoma were both over 23%, while the Horns coughed it up on 18.9% of possessions in a road thrashing at Kansas. Even in the loss at Iowa State, where Texas had a turnover rate of just 14%, it was early turnovers that put the Horns behind the eight-ball.

Texas Tech plays a very low-tempo game, making every possession even more valuable. In Tech’s last four home games, the team has forced turnovers on no less than 20.4% of their opponents’ possessions. Add in the fact that the Longhorns had a turnover rate north of 20% when the teams first met in Austin, and there’s cause for concern this afternoon. If Texas wastes possessions on the road in Lubbock, the team will likely be heading to Kansas City with one more loss.

2) Force jump shots – Tech’s offense is very patient, often running the shot clock down very low before an excellent cut and timely passing leads to an open look in the paint. The other primary source of Red Raider points are simply iso plays for point guard Robert Turner (No. 14). The Red Raiders are not a great shooting team, so if the Longhorns can pack the defense in, take away Turner’s driving ability, and be aware of movement off the ball, Tech will be forced to beat the Horns with jumpers. Although that’s not a guarantee for a W, it’s certainly a formula that increases UT’s odds today.

3) Don’t lose Hannahs – While most of the Red Raiders aren’t great shooters, that description doesn’t extend to sophomore Dusty Hannahs (No. 2). The sharpshooter has drilled 38% of his three-point attempts on the year, and has taken 30 more long-range attempts than any other Tech player. If the Longhorns lose track of Hannahs on the perimeter, he can quickly make them pay, as West Virginia learned when he drilled 7-of-7 against them earlier this year. If Texas can limit his damage while also turning the rest of the Red Raiders into jump shooters, they should be able to end the season on a winning note.

It won’t be Senior Night, but the Texas Longhorns will play their final home game of the year when they host TCU tonight. In a season where the Horns were expected to finish at the bottom of the standings and maybe flirt with the NCAA bubble, they are instead safely in the field with a week left in the regular season and are only playing for seeding at this point.

In addition to that NCAA tournament seeding, the Horns are also still locked in a fierce battle for seeding at the Big 12 Championship tournament in Kansas City. Heading into tonight’s action, Texas is tied with Oklahoma for second, although the Sooners own the tiebreaker by virtue of a season sweep of the Longhorns. A half-game behind the Red River rivals are Iowa State and Kansas State, two teams who have home games scheduled on Saturday in arenas where they hardly ever lose.

TCU, meanwhile, is fast approaching history with their winless conference mark. At 0-16, the Horned Frogs are two losses away from a perfectly futile Big 12 campaign, and just three wins away from tying Texas A&M’s record 20-game Big 12 losing streak. With stretch forward Amric Fields (No. 4) out for the remainder of the season due to a knee injury, the Horned Frogs now have just one player taller than 6’6″ on their roster.

The first time around, the Longhorns had a very tough time with TCU in Fort Worth, just days after taking care of Kansas in Austin. Early turnovers and horrid shooting made Texas fight for the win until the final seconds, as the Longhorns had to rely on a ridiculous 59.5% offensive rebounding mark to squeak out a narrow, 59-54 victory.

There are far too many tiebreaker permutations to compute before tonight’s action, but with wins in their final two games, the Longhorns would be guaranteed no worse than the No. 3 seed in Kansas City. There is still a doomsday scenario on the table where five teams could tie for second at 10-8, but my computer started smoking and shooting out sparks when I tried figuring out how those tiebreakers would shake out. So, for the sake of my laptop, let’s just hope Texas wins tonight’s contest.

Keys to the game

1) Hang on to the ball – Turnovers are what kept things close in Fort Worth, and they are what kept TCU within striking distance until late in the second half of games at Oklahoma and against Iowa State. With TCU taking the air out of the ball and limiting the number of possessions, even a moderate turnover rate can make things dicey against the Horned Frogs.

2) Dominate the paint – The Horned Frogs have a promising young center in Karviar Shepherd (No. 1), but he is their only post option and he is not yet a dominant one. Shepherd and TCU often give up far too easily when trying to establish an inside game, meaning that their only big man will often drift out and play a midrange game. Although he has a nice midrange jumper in his arsenal, the Horned Frogs cannot afford to have Shepherd anywhere but the painted area.

If the Longhorns play their typical style of tough, physical D, they can likely own the lane and force Shepherd off the blocks. In addition to making it tougher on TCU to score, that will also serve to increase Texas’ advantage on the boards. While it’s hard to imagine that Texas could top the 59.5% offensive rebounding mark and 79.5% defensive rebounding rate from the first meeting between these two teams, another strong performance on the glass would cripple TCU’s upset hopes.

3) Take away penetration – With Fields out of the game, the TCU offense is now almost entirely reliant upon the ability of point guard Kyan Anderson (No. 5) to generate points. He is great at varying his speeds and taking good angles to get to the rim, and he knows how to get his shots up through taller defenders, despite being listed at a very generous 5’11”.

Although he is also a good three-point shooter, Texas should be most concerned with taking away Anderson’s driving ability. None of the other Horned Frogs are very good at creating their own looks, so if Anderson can’t open things up with his dribble penetration, he’ll have to single-handedly beat Texas from beyond the arc.