With conference play just days away, one might think that Texas could overlook UT-Arlington tonight and only win by, say…..20 points instead of thirty. But after last Thursday’s ugly win over Centenary, I have to think that Coach Barnes will have the team ready to completely mudhole the Mavericks.

UTA is having a rough season. Coming into the game with a 4-7 record, the Mavs were most recently beaten by the UT-Dallas Comets. Unfortunatly for UTA, the Comets are a Division III team.

The high point for the Mavs this season was taking TCU to double overtime before ultimately losing. I suppose you could make an argument for one of their four wins being the high point, but I think a 2OT loss to a real team is a little more prestigious than wins over UT-Pan American and Texas-Tyler…..which, coincidentally, I just learned is a college.

UT-Arlington plays with a pretty deep bench, allowing only one player to average over thirty minutes a game. That one man is junior guard Rodrick Epps, who averages nine points and four assists per game.

Their team appears to be pretty small, the second-straight opponent that Texas has faced with a….height deficiency. Once again, we can look for the Horns to dominate on the boards and convert that into a ton of second-chance points.

Hopefully we can build an early lead in this cupcake game and get our reserves the late, uninterrpted playing time we weren’t able to give them in the Centenary match-up. In short, look for Ian Mooney to play about 35 minutes in this one and score seventeen points. Or maybe just five minutes and one point.

Get out to the Erwin Center tonight if you’ve got a chance. There will be a ton of seats available, and if last week was any indication, saying the game is on FSN doesn’t actually guarantee you can see it Austin. See y’all at the drum.

TV: Fox Sports Southwest (TX only), 7 PM
Internet radio: SportsJuice.com

At Christmas, you find yourself eating a lot of food that you really know you shouldn’t be. You’re already beyond full, stuffed with turkey or ham and that delicious green bean casserole. You know there’s no possible enjoyment or benefit coming from trying to squeeze in just one more fudge square. But it’s just sitting there on the plate, and you find that you can’t stop grazing while Uncle Ernie is telling another story about seeing Wayne Newton live in Las Vegas.

And unforunately, that uncomfortably-full mindless gorging reminds me a lot of the game tonight between Texas and Centenary. There’s no lasting benefit that comes out of it — besides the brief moment where it tastes ohsogood — and it’s seems that it’s only there to give us a brief distraction from our annoying relatives. (Sorry, Uncle Ernie.)

Tonight’s game against Centenary isn’t going to provide much in the way of drama or intrigue, but it will give Rick Barnes a fairly strong chance at his 200th victory with the University of Texas. In fact, I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that by the end of the night, Barnes will have reached the double-century mark. I’m a risk taker, I know.

The Centenary Gentlemen (5-7) are from a private school in Shreveport and play in the Mid-Continent Conference, where they face such challenging opponents as Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis — that’s IUPUI for you acronym-lovers — and Oral Roberts. Their RPI is currently 237 according to Ken Pomeroy’s RPI approximations so we will certainly see a slide in our SOS. Of course, when we play Alcorn State to start the year, everybody else looks tougher by association.

It appears that the Gents run pretty deep on their bench, with eight players seeing significant minutes and freshman forward Jeff Montague chipping in another eleven a game. Their leading scorer is guard Tyrone Hamilton, who is averaging just over 15 points per game. Centenary also looks like a pretty small team on paper, so I can only assume that we are going to see a strong rebounding advantage for the Horns.

Centenary, like Texas State, has already surpassed their win total for the 2005-06 season. The Gents only have five wins, but that still is an improvement over their 4-23 mark of a year ago. Coincidentally enough, Centenary and Texas State will play on Saturday in a rematch of the 91-85 Gents win back in November.

Honestly, this game is going to be pretty boring. But hopefully the two hours in the Erwin Center will give me enough time to figure out how in the hell to pronounce the name. Is it CEN-te-nary? Or perhaps cen-TEN-ary? These are the great philosophical questions that keep me up late at night.

For the Horns, it’s really just a chance to see how the team is looking heading into the new year and conference play. Is D.J. Augustin back at 100% after gutting through second-half cramps in Tennessee on Saturday? Will J.D. Lewis see increased playing time after his strong showing in Knoxville? And can Dexter Pittman get a double-double in less than 10 minutes of playing time?

I’d like to see Damion James take it to the rack a lot more tonight, so we can get a look at whether or not his inside touch is back. He’s thrown down his share of dunks lately, but his layups and pull-up jumpers are still a bit off. And what better time to work on a punishing inside game than against a team with the pushover nickname of “Gents”?

If you’re in town, swing by the FEC and fill in the abundance of empty seats we’ll have downstairs. Otherwise, you can catch the game in Texas on FSN, on the Longhorn Radio Network, or through the Centenary broadcast online at SportsJuice.com.

TV: ESPN, 11 AM Central

Texas faces its third SEC opponent of the month on Saturday afternoon as they take on the Tennessee Volunteers in Knoxville. Both teams come in on winning streaks, with the Vols claiming a five-game run while the Horns have won their last three. But for Texas to earn an SEC sweep, they’re going to have to survive their first real road test of the year.

Tennessee pulled out a thriller on Monday night against Oklahoma State in Nashville, winning 79-77 on a Dane Bradshaw tip-in with 1.9 seconds left. Two days later, Texas survived a tough battle with the Arkansas Razorbacks despite going ice-cold from the line in the second half.

For this weekend’s game, I’ll try to make the keys reader-friendly for those who decide to tune in and watch Bruce Pearl sweat more than his players.

1. Protect the ball
Tennessee is great with ball pressure, and Texas was a victim of that last December. The Horns turned over the ball 22 times in the 95-78 Vol blowout, but should do much better this time around. Last season, A.J. Abrams was shoved into the point guard role after Daniel Gibson left the game with a concussion. This year, Texas has a true point guard — albeit a freshman point guard — who has run the offense very well and can score at will if the defense overplays.

Texas State ran a lot of presses against the Horns last weekend, and it seemed to frustrate them for much of the contest. But as the game wore on, Texas worked their way through it and eventually pulled away. Tennessee’s intense defense is much more dangerous, as they showed in forcing two huge turnovers late in the Oklahoma State contest. It’s probably unavoidable that Texas will turn over the ball more than usual. The key is to limit the damage.

2. Turn the tables
On the flip side of Tennessee’s pressure defense is their own sloppy ballhandling. The Vols average just over 17 turnovers a game, and that offers a huge opportunity for Texas to create transition baskets and cancel out their own inevitable TOs.

3. Limit Lofton
Chris Lofton is without a doubt the most dangerous player on the floor for Tennessee. He’s hitting threes at a ridiculous 48.9% in the first eleven games, and was able to torch the Longhorns for 21 in last year’s matchup. Texas must protect the perimeter and not allow the abundance of open looks that they gave Gonzaga and Arkansas. If they can’t keep a hand in the face of Lofton, it’s going to be a long, long day.

4. Go forth with alacrity
a·lac·ri·ty – noun
   1. cheerful readiness, promptness, or willingness
   2. liveliness; briskness.

While cheerful readiness is always great, I don’t think it matters if Jay Mason is smiling or not. But if I had my Christmas wish and this game were on TBS, alacrity would be a key. And wouldn’t this game be great to watch with Seger and the pubescent, voice-cracking announcer?

While not a key, it will be interesting to see if the improvement from Damion James and Connor Atchley can continue. Along with the increased contributions from those two, we’ve also seen a rise in fouls from our players in the last two games. Keep an eye on the foul trouble for our key players, particularly D.J. Augustin. He tends to rack up quite a few, and with the attention we are going to have to be paying to Lofton — and, to a lesser extent, JaJuan Smith — our guards are going to be vulnerable to picking up fouls away from the basket.

The crowd will also obviously be something new for the Horns to deal with. The “neutral site” game in Phoenix is the closest thing that the Horns have seen to a road environment, with probably 90% of the crowd pulling for Gonzaga. But Bruce Pearl has created a lot of excitement in Knoxville, and there will be much less than 10% of the arena rooting for the Horns. Right now, the weather is absolutely shitty and the game is obviously two days before the holidays. Hopefully those two factors can come together enough to negate some of the huge home-court advantage.

I’m not sure when I’ll get to the post-game, considering it’s another fifteen-hour drive back to Austin. But in the meantime, enjoy the game and have a very merry Christmas, happy Hannukah, killer Kwanzaa… and, of course, a great Festivus.

TV: ESPN2, 8 PM CT

That odd sound you hear coming from the Erwin Center isn’t actually a pig call. It’s really a celebratory cry after another welfare check is succesfully cashed. And with an intro like that, there can only be one team in town to face the Horns tonight — the hated Arkansas Razorbacks, and their unwashed fans. They’re a lot like Sooners, only fatter.

As for the basketball, it should be a fun game. For Texas, it provides another chance to beat a high-quality RPI opponent and pad the March resume. Arkansas is currently ranked 20th in Ken Pomeroy’s RPI approximation, despite getting manhandled by Missouri earlier this season and Texas Tech in Little Rock last weekend.

The Tech win is a little bit misleading, as a look inside the numbers will reveal. The Red Raiders shot lights out in the game, hitting at a 54.3% clip, including 6-of-10 from behind the arc. Arkansas, on the other hand, took nearly half of their shots from three-point land and had a success rate below the Mendoza line. The Pigs were 3-for-21 on threes, or 14.3% successful.

Arkansas has a much bigger team than the Texas State squad the Horns beat up on, but it may not make a huge difference in the rebounding department. Seven-footer Steven Hill provides quality minutes off the bench for the Razorbacks, averaging just over a half of play per game, but is only averaging 2.7 boards. Something doesn’t quite add up for this guy, and fortunately for Texas the sum is a giant with piss-poor rebounding skills. Darian Townes and Vincent Hunter are both 6-10 guys but generally useless on the glass. They also come off the pine for Arkansas and average roughly seventeen minutes a game.

Offensively, Texas will have to deal with star freshman Patrick Beverley. He leads the team in scoring, but struggled in the win over West Virginia and the loss to Texas Tech. His scoring average comes mostly from dropping 29 points in the opener against Southeast Missouri State and another nineteen on Oakland. Other than those two games, he has yet to truly show the talent he possesses. Hopefully it doesn’t come out tonight at the Drum.

Texas should be able to get their share of transition baskets in this game. With Barnes’ focus on defense, plus a Razorback team that averages 17.8 turnovers a game — yes, you read that right — Texas should get a fair number of chances at pushing the tempo. And fortunately for the Horns, the teams that have been able to do that against Arkansas have found success.

As always, the keys for Texas are Kevin Durant, rebounding, and quality minutes from their inside men. I can’t help but think that Durant will bounce back from his shockingly mortal game against Texas State. As for rebounding, the lack of skill possessed by the Razorback big men will likely cancel out their height advantages. And if the past few games are any indication, we should see more quality time from Connor Atchley and a few solid minutes from Pittman as well. Only time will tell how Matt Hill does against the Pigs, but I don’t think his contributions will be as key as Atchley’s.

I think Texas can win this in front of a home crowd with a team still riding high from the LSU upset. Keep your eyes on A.J. Abrams to see how he bounces back from Saturday’s rough outing. And as always, look for great things from our exciting freshmen D.J. Augustin and Justin Mason.

UT announced today that there were still 2,200 tickets available as of 10:30 this morning. So if you’re in town, get yourself out to the Erwin Center and help to revive this old rivalry. I can still remember being at the last home game against them in 1991 and the atmosphere and mutual hatred was amazing. With any luck, by the end of this four-year contract we can get the series back to where it was under Tom “Fake-Bake” Penders and Nolan Richardson.

Tip’s at 8 P.M. Hope to see you there.

TV: 3 P.M., Fox Sports Net (Texas only)

The Texas Longhorns (6-2) get a break from their brutal December non-conference slate as they host perennial patsy Texas State (4-5) in a 3 P.M. game at the Frank Erwin Center. Considering that the Bobcats have beaten Texas only five times in 40 tries and have already lost this year to such powerhouses as the University of Arkansas-Little Rock and University of Texas Pan-Am, I feel that the Longhorns should do just fine.

Texas State is a very small team, with their tallest players checking in at 6-foot-7, one of whom is sophomore guard Brandon Bush. They run a three-guard look with a bench that runs only about two or three deep. Although eleven players saw significant minutes in Texas State’s last game against UT-Permian Basin, the game was a blowout over a Division II opponent and allowed the team a chance to play the scrubs.

Although a guard, Bush leads the team in minutes, points, and rebounds per game. Against UTPB, he scored 21 points and logged six assists. Freshman Atnwon Williams notched his highest rebounding total in the Bobcats’ win, ripping down fourteen boards. But most importanly for Texas State, their win over UTPB avenged a loss from last season — yes, a loss to a D-2 school — and pushed their 2006-07 wins past last season’s grand total of three.

For Texas, this will be a chance to get some more experience for our less-seasoned players and an opportunity to fine-tune some aspects of the game. We know that Kevin Durant, A.J. Abrams, and D.J. Augustin should do fine against this team. Hell, the whole squad should look great against the Bobcats. But personally, I will most interested to see if Connor Atchley picks up where he left off on Sunday night. He seems to do fine against the lesser opponents — think back to his great game against Lousiana-Monroe last November — so he should be perfectly fine against Texas State. But psychologically, I think it would be good for him to have two solid games of momentum coming into the Arkansas tilt on Wednesday.

Damion James needs to continue his re-emergence on the offensive end and on the glass. He has been working his way back to the level we saw in the earliest games of the season, and we will need him to play at that same level (or higher) when conference play arrives. Also, it would be good to have “The Omen” reach the free throw line and get those four misses from LSU out of his head. According to recruiting gurus, he was not a poor free throw shooter in high school, so I’d like to see that mental block disappear.

I’m hoping to see more quality minutes from Dexter Pittman this afternoon. With the game likely well in hand before halftime — the Longhorns have won the last two contests by an average of 34 points — Pittman should get a chance to work on his inside game with his leaner frame. He should also get in some good conditioning, because I’m guessing that Texas State and its three-guard scheme will push the tempo.

We will get a chance to see more out of Craig Winder and J.D. Lewis today, and hopefully there will be more playing time for Harrison Smith. Besides J.D. giving our starting guards rest, none of these players have much of a role with the team yet. And honestly, I’m no sure that Smith is going to have much of one this season. But it’d be good for him to get as much experience as possible to prepare him for future years. And as far as Winder and Lewis go, they’ll need to be ready to give some important minutes off the bench as the long season wears on and our starting five start to feel its wear and tear.

Of course, the subplot of the game is the inevitable 400th win for Rick Barnes. There isn’t much suspense here, but it will be nice to see him recognized after the game. Coach’s 200th win at Texas is also fast approaching, although there is the possibility it could come as early as the road game Tennessee. I’d never like to see a Texas team lose, but if it happens that way, then Barnes’ 200th Longhorn win would come at home against Centenary.

For me, the most intriguing storyline of the day is whether or not I can make it to tipoff in time. As I type this, I’m waiting outside the Erwin Center to reserve my seat when doors open in just over an hour. Then it’s a rush over to the UTC for a 2 P.M. final exam in a fairly easy elective. The goal time for finishing the final is 30 minutes, at which point I’ll then sprint up the bitch of a hill on MLK and try to reach the front row of the South O-Zone by a 3 P.M. tip. Wish me luck. Or just bring me a bottle of water for my post-run thirst.

For those of you in Austin, they are running a ticket special on this one — buy two general admission tickets and get a third free. And with many students already gone for the holidays, there should be a bevy of seats behind either basket that will be open for GA folks to sit in.