The Longhorns head to Norman tonight as they kick off the toughest stretch of their season. Six of the next seven games for the Longhorns come against teams in the Top 50 of the RPI, with four of the games coming on the road. While beating the Sooners will be no easy task, Texas can’t afford to fold in February, and a win today will start things off on the right note.

Unfortunately, tonight’s game is at 6 P.M., so that’s going to put a squeeze on the usual game preview. Here’s my best attempt at a down-and-dirty look at the game.

By the numbers

Oklahoma comes into this game as winners of three of their last four games, the sole defeat coming on Saturday against the Aggies in College Station. The Sooners are one game back of Texas in the conference standings and are in the mix for the third or fourth bye in Kansas City.

Offensively, the Sooners are a bit streaky and often go cold for long stretches. But when they are on, they really can click. Their offensive efficiency is 31st-best in the country according to Ken Pomeroy. And for a team that sometimes forces up a bunch of poor shots in a row, that tells you just how excellent they are during the hot streaks.

What keeps the Sooners in the games when they are going cold is a really solid defense, which checks in at 38th in DefEff rankings. Teams often jack up a ton of threes against the solid inside D of Oklahoma, but hopefully the Horns won’t feel married to the perimeter. It is important to attack the lane and draw fouls on the Sooner bigs…as long as A.J. Abrams and D.J. Augustin are the ones shooting the free throws. The nightmare scenario for Texas would be a game in which their threes aren’t falling and the guards refuse to dribble penetrate and draw the post players on defense.

The starters

It all flows through big man Blake Griffin, who will be starting his second game since a knee injury suffered at Kansas on January 14th. He returned only two weeks later and provided ridiculous numbers off the bench before returning to the starting five against College Station just a few days ago. But don’t think it’s going to hamper his game, because he hasn’t backed down an inch since rejoining the team. He’s still a threat for a double/double on a nightly basis, and when teams try to put multiple defenders on him, he’s a deft enough passer to find other big men Longar Longar and Taylor Griffin.

Austin Johnson runs the point, but is much more of a ball-control guard than one who likes to penetrate and score. He’s averaging eight points a game, two of which seem to come off of a back-door cut every game. The Sooners love to use a big to set the high screen for Johnson, who typically rolls to the basket wide open. In the five OU games I’ve watched this year, it has worked at least once against literally each opponent. Hopefully the Horns will be smart enough not to chase the screener out to nearly the three-point line, because the Griffin brothers aren’t long-range threats, and Longar is streaky from that far out.

Tony Crocker is one of three Sooners averaging more than 10 points per game, and he does it by putting the ball on the floor and attacking the basket. He’s also able to knock it down from outside, hitting 45% of his attempts from behind the arc. He’s a really long guard, checking in at 6’6″, so he’ll create some problems for whichever Longhorn is stuck with him.

Down low, Longar Longar has finally developed into a really scary player. He can still play excellent defense and block a shot into the mezzanine, but his offense is now a legitimate threat. Part of this is the addition of Blake Griffin to the lineup, drawing defenders away from the lanky center, but Longar has also practiced his shots and post moves. He can knock down jumpers, sink turnarounds from the baseline, and even make the defenders look silly with a set of moves leaving them behind the layup or dunk.

It seems like David Godbold has been in the OU backcourt even longer than Hollis Price, but this will actually be the last time the Horns ever face him in Norman. He’s crashing the boards really well from OU’s three-out, two-in sets, but is fortunately the lowest-scoring starter for Coach Jeff Capel. The Sooners aren’t rebounding very well for a team with such a solid frontcourt, so hopefully Texas can keep this guard off the glass and further exploit the rebounding advantage.

Off the bench

With Keith Clark academically ineligible this semester, Capel is left with a fairly short rotation. Guard Omar Leary can give some much-needed rest to the three starters, and is pretty damned good for a sixth man. He’s a JuCo transfer, so he’s ready to produce in his first season with the team. Leary can stick a three-pointer with a man right on him, but is also really quick off the dribble if defenders play in his face.

Blake’s big brother Taylor Griffin also gives some minutes in the frontcourt, but is really the only productive bench player Capel can use in the post. Freshman Cade Davis is still pretty raw at the forward position, but can grab a few rebounds and putbacks on occasion. If the Longhorns can get Longar and the Griffin brothers in foul trouble, it will really force the hand of Jeff Capel and the Sooners.

For now, we must get on the road, but be sure to tune in early tonight to catch this one. The game is airing on the Deuce and should be over just in time to watch that big one from Chapel Hill.

The first twelve minutes of Saturday’s game with the Baylor Bears felt all too familiar for Longhorn fans. Spurred by a hot 4-of-6 start from three-point range, the visitors had jumped out to a daunting 31-17 lead with eight minutes left in the first half. The team looked flat and the arena was dead — if you could manage to ignore the vocal Bear contingent in the upper deck that had bused down I-35 for this Big 12 showdown.

But unlike the debacle on Wednesday, Texas fought back with smart play. There weren’t defensive lapses to kill the comeback push, and there was a welcome lack of momentum-quashing technical and flagrant fouls. The Longhorns used some hot shooting of their own the rest of the way, while holding the Baylor sharpshooters to just 4-of-19 from behind the arc from that point on.

When all was said and done, the Bears had put a scare into the Longhorns for a fourth-straight time. But a much longer streak was still intact, a 21-game string of victories over the Bears dating back to 1998. This Baylor team is good enough to exorcise that demon on February 16th in Waco, but for now the Texas dominance continues.

Rick Barnes didn’t live up to his promise of keeping Damion James out of this one, but did keep him out of the starting lineup. Dexter Pittman earned the starting nod, and played hard-nosed basketball down low before picking up a pair of quick fouls and sitting the rest of the way. The message seemed to be received by James though, as he scored 17 to go along with eight rebounds in his 34 minutes on the court.

Point guard D.J. Augustin had a quiet scoring night, but played a very smart game. He was often turned back by the Baylor posts on drives to the bucket, but was smart enough to pull it back out and reset. Many times this season, Augustin would have pressed on in those situations and had a shot blocked or just turned it over. But in this game, he played much more like a floor general. He attacked the rim and drew fouls when he could, and he dished out seven assists when he couldn’t create on his own.

Justin Mason was tasked with running the point on a few possessions, even some where Augustin was on the floor. It was a new look for the Horns, and it actually seemed to work. It seems like this might be more exhausting for D.J. as he works to get open, but it was reassuring to see Mason handle the ball and finish with only two turnovers in the game. He also made a huge hustle play during a Longhorn run where he sprawled out on the floor to corral a loose ball and call the timeout. It got the crowd fired up, and it kept Baylor from stopping the Texas momentum.

During the initial spurt by Baylor, A.J. Abrams was about the only person performing for the Horns. He hit runners, he hit floaters, and he fueled the offense with 4-of-8 shooting from behind the arc on the night. His 20 points led the way for Texas, and he hit four clutch free throws, including a pair after a technical on Baylor coach Scott Drew.

The re-emergence of Connor Atchley continued, as the lanky forward hit 2-of-4 from long range and grabbed seven boards — six of them on the offensive glass. For a Texas team that is second in the Big 12 in offensive rebounding, Atchley plays a huge role. He keeps possessions going after some of the ill-advised shots that the guards occasionally throw up, and gets a few easy putbacks in the paint as well.

Atchley’s 14 points marks only the second time since the Oral Roberts game that he has reached double digits in scoring. Over that stretch, the Longhorns went 6-4, winning both of his 10+ point games. Clearly he is a key part of the offense, so one can only hope that this performance carries over to a tough test against a solid Oklahoma frontcourt on Wednesday.

Perhaps the biggest story of the night, however, was a solid outing from Gary Johnson. Apart from a good game against St. Mary’s, Johnson has struggled with his baptism by fire in the Big 12. He’s often appeared lost on defense, been out of position on rebounds, missed a ton of bunnies, and was abysmal at the line. Against Baylor, he attacked the bucket, drew fouls, and finished with a great 12/7 line. He even improved his free throw shooting, going 6-of-10 from the charity stripe after starting the year with a painful 4-of-16. Like Atchley, Gary is going to be needed down low on Wednesday night, and we hope that this is a sign of things to come for the affable freshman.

Clint Chapman was the only other Horn to play, as Coach Barnes used his shortest bench of the year. Chapman didn’t make a huge impact in the contest, seeing the court for only seven minutes to give some of the other bigs a breather. While he didn’t steal the spotlight, his role was important with Alexis Wangmene serving an unofficial suspension for his elbow against Texas A&M. Chapman was needed to simply eat up some minutes without making mistakes, and he was able to do that.

Texas certainly needs to work on sticking shooters a little tighter coming out of the gates, but we’ll leave the bitching for another day and just enjoy the victory while we can. It was reassuring to see the Longhorns battle through after taking it hard on the chin to start the game, and it was also great to see them bounce back from a 52% night at the line in College Station.

With the exception of next Saturday’s game against Iowa State, the rest of the month is going to be an absolute nightmare for the Horns, so every win is huge. This puts them in third place in the Big 12 with a chance on Wednesday to knock off one of the competitors nipping at their heels.

Texas A&M absolutely destroyed the Longhorns on Wednesday night, and there’s no positive spin to put on that. Texas did not want to guard anyone, turned the ball over like a Little Dribblers team, and shot below the Mendoza line for much of the first half. Thanks only to some garbage layups in the final minutes, they finished with a world-beating 38.2 shooting percentage. But as I mentioned yesterday, there were a few good things happening which could bode well for the near future, if you can get past the unabashed beatdown you saw the Ags lay on the Horns.

Dexter Pittman is ready – This is the most obvious bright spot in the game, as Big Dex gave 14 minutes off the bench and was the leading scorer with 14 points. If it weren’t for the bizarre first-half technical, Dexter might’ve been able to provide even more in the second half instead of having to sit with four fouls.

The Longhorns started feeding the ball to him against Tech a few days earlier, and it looks like Barnes and the staff are ready to make Dexter and the other post players a big part of the offense. If that is successful, it frees up Damion James and Connor Atchley to play further away from the basket, where they can not only knock down jumpers, but also beat less-agile forwards off the dribble as they attack the bucket.

Connor Atchley is shooting threes – Connor still doesn’t look like he’s completely regained the confidence he had early in the year, but he took some long-range shots in College Station and knocked down two of them in the second half. A big part of the Texas struggles over the last seven weeks has been the dip in production from Atchley and Justin Mason, so this is a really good sign for the Horns as they head into a hellacious February schedule.

A.J. Abrams is getting open – The Texas A&M guards are a hell of a lot taller than Abrams, and usually that would mean he wouldn’t be able to get any shots off. He needs screens to free him and give him enough space to get the threes off before a 6’4″ guard rejects it into the ninth row. Against the Aggies, he came off of curls and hustled enough to get some really good looks. The other side of this coin is that it really raised his confidence level, and A.J. took some threes later that he didn’t need to be taking. It’s great that he’s getting more space again, but he also needs to work on shot selection as the season rolls on.

Only one other note to be made about Wednesday night’s game, and that is to briefly touch on the unfortunate incident with Alexis Wangmene. I’ve only seen the play twice — once at full-speed, and once in slow-motion on the JumboTron — and it didn’t seem at the time to be premeditated. But the fact of the matter is that the instinctive reaction to a bump on the head should not be a quick elbow to the nearest player. That was completely out of line, and I’m glad that there weren’t severe injuries as a result. Props to all players for keeping their heads after the incident, and also to Wangmene for manning up to his mistake with apologies to the Aggies and their fans after the game.

This is a great rivalry that has become even better with the emergence of the Texas A&M program over the last few seasons, and I’d hate to see it devolve into a nasty, overly physical cage match like the Duke/Virginia Tech series. Hopefully this won’t lead to any other incidents in Austin in three weeks, and we’ll be treated to another exciting battle with the Ags at the Erwin Center.

A tough game awaits with Baylor in less than 24 hours, so I’ll be bringing you the pre-game thoughts in the wee hours of the morning.

For the better part of 21 minutes last night, it seemed that the Texas team which has struggled through its last four-plus games was going to continue down the same path. Colorado found itself wide open for a ton of shots — many of them coming from behind the arc — while Damion James picked up two fouls in less than five minutes and sat for the rest of the first half.

But with the Buffaloes holding a 41-28 lead with only 19 minutes left in the game, the Longhorns were suddenly awakened. A.J. Abrams sparked a 24-2 run over the following eight minutes, and although Colorado slowly clawed back the rest of the way, Texas was able to coast to a 69-67 victory in front of a sold out Frank Erwin Center.

D.J. Augustin led all scorers with 25 points on the night, but struggled a bit in the final minutes of the game as Colorado turned up the defensive pressure. Levi Knutson and Richard Roby were especially stingy defenders against Augustin as Colorado submitted a last-minute comeback bid, but it was not enough.

Augustin’s counterpart in the backcourt also had a solid game, although the first half was a bit rough. Abrams had a quiet first 20 minutes, but kick-started the giant run that put Texas ahead for good. A.J. hit a three and followed it with an old-fashioned three-point play on the ensuing possession to trim the Colorado lead to five points, and the rest of the Horns followed suit. Abrams finished the night with 17 points and had a few key steals in the second half.

One of the biggest issues in the recent Texas slide was the absence of Connor Atchley from the stat sheet, but last night he made a reappearance at key moments. Atch had 15 points and five boards against Colorado, but most importantly didn’t seem afraid to shoot the three and stayed on the ground when the Buffs threw head fakes at him. If Texas is going to find success in the Big 12 and beyond, Connor will have to continue to play at this level.

The other missing Horn has been Justin Mason, and while his offense still looked shaky, his defense and all-around hustle were on display against Colorado. In the middle of the big second-half run, Jay Mase had a great rebound and putback, plus a block and deflected shot on two straight defensive possessions. In the post-game presser, Coach Barnes said that Justin’s solid play had earned him his starting spot again for Monday night’s game with Oklahoma State.

The man who now finds himself on the bench courtesy of that lineup move is Gary Johnson, who is still struggling in his adjustment to the college game. His conditioning may also be an issue, as just four minutes into last night’s game, GJ waved to the bench to ask for a breather. He did come back into the game later, so I’m certain it was not a scare with his heart.

The unfortunate truth is that Gary still looks a little lost out there. It’s tough for freshmen to make the leap, and for a fish coming right into the rigors of Big 12 play, it’s got to be even harder. Hopefully he’ll continue to develop into his role with the team, otherwise I see him as simply another guy being rotated inside along with Alexis Wangmene, Clint Chapman, and Dexter Pittman.

As previously mentioned, James sat for more than 15 minutes in the first half, and the Longhorns suffered. Against a much smaller Colorado team, the Horns found themselves out-hustled and out-boarded by a 17-12 count. In the second half, Texas controlled the boards by a 23-17 count, especially on the offensive glass. Without a doubt, the presence of DaMo inside was a huge reason why the Longhorns were able to come back.

Another key to the comeback was the stifling defense, which held Colorado without a field goal during that stretch. The only points the Buffs managed over the eight minutes came courtesy of two free throws, while they missed four more. The sellout crowd certainly helped things, as Colorado usually plays in front of less than 5,000 folks at home, and their only wins on the road came against Denver, Air Force, and Colorado State. Increased pressure from the Texas D plus 16,000 screaming orangebloods meant disaster for the Buffs, who burned through their timeouts with more than eleven minutes left in the game.

Although a home win is certainly a nice boost, and fighting through the huge deficit speaks volumes about the character of this team, there are still always negatives to pick out. Free throw shooting was still an adventure for the Horns, with a few of the misses coming late in the game and on the front end of one-and-ones. Perhaps fatigue is a factor in the late-game misses, but those types of hiccups in the tourney could spell the end of the season.

There is also the lingering concern about the finishing punch from Texas. In this one, the Horns were up ten points with a little less than five minutes to go and did not score again. We’ve seen the lack of focus in the second half many times throughout the season, including games against teams like North Texas, Rice, Oral Roberts, and TCU, and played poorly for long stretches in the second twenty of the Mizzou and Wisconsin losses. The Horns have really only put together one complete game since UCLA, and they will surely be tested for the full 40 minutes by a handful of teams the rest of the way. If they don’t bear down in the second half the rest of the season, a few more wins will slip away in the final minutes.

But rather than end this post-game with a doom-and-gloom feeling, I’ll direct your attention to Ian Mooney as we close. Although Mooney played only five minutes in this one, his time on the court was solid. His hustle kept alive a couple of rebounds during the run, and he had a great feed from the low post to set up Atchley for a jumper. Ian is clearly not the key to success for Texas, but if he plays like he did in his short stint last night, that’s a great sign for the Longhorn bench.

The next game is less than 24 hours away against Oklahoma State in the dangerous Gallagher-Iba Arena. Game preview will be up before we hit the road in the morning.

All good things come to an end, but typically those good things don’t come to as hideously ugly an end as they did on Saturday in Columbia. The Longhorns were a perfect 9-0 in conference openers under Rick Barnes and had won nine in a row against the Missouri Tigers, but Mike Anderson’s club destroyed both of those streaks with a convincing 97-84 win in front of 13,085 loud fans at Mizzou Arena.

Texas jumped out to an early lead on the road, riding the hot shooting of Damion James to an eight point advantage with a little less than twelve minutes left in the half. But a flurry of points from reserve Keon Lawrence had the Tigers back on top in less than three minutes. The teams battled back-and-forth the rest of the half, with the Longhorns taking a two-point lead into the break.

The second half was all Mizzou, which was immediately evident when the Tigers hit their first six shots coming out of the locker room. Missouri quickly built a ten-point lead which they never relinquished. Texas kept fighting, slowly chipping away at the deficit, but were constantly thwarted by timely threes from the Tigers.

There were almost no positives to be drawn from this game beyond the play of Damion James. His 27 points and 16 boards were good enough for his eighth double-double of the year. In the first half, he was a scorching 6-of-8 from the field and hit two free throws — something which was a huge struggle for the Longhorns for a fifth straight game.

Coach Barnes had to limit Damion’s minues in the first half thanks to foul trouble, but an interesting incident just before half may have cost him even more playing time. With 3:32 left on the clock, a foul was called inside on Clint Chapman. James was next to the play and the scoreboard charged him with his third foul, although the announcer correctly said that Chapman was the one responsible. During the ensuing media timeout, James was replaced by Justin Mason and sat for the rest of the half.

It’s tough to say whether or not the Texas coaching staff thought he had three fouls, and it’s even more difficult to say that the Longhorns could’ve built up enough of a lead in those three-plus minutes to withstand the Missouri barrage in the second half. But it’s definitely valid to say that the one player who the Tigers didn’t have an answer for could’ve changed the complexion of the game had he been left in.

As for the rest of the team, the picture wasn’t pretty. The Longhorns made only fifty percent of their free throws, finishing a nauseating 11-of-22 from the line. Most shocking of all was the fact that D.J. Augustin was a paltry 3-of-8 from the line, while A.J. Abrams made only 2-of-4. This has suddenly become a recurring theme for this team, and it is going to absolutely kill Texas in the post-season if it continues. If I’m Jeff Capel or Mark Turgeon, I’m licking my chops at the thought of my physical defense sending the Longhorns to the line instead of giving up points in the paint.

While Missouri’s hot shooting from behind the arc was the biggest reason they won on Saturday, Texas certainly helped them out. Sure, there were a few contested threes that Missouri made, but a huge percentage of them were wide open thanks to poor rotation on defense. Late in the first half, the Tigers had a ton of open looks that clanged off. The perimeter defense was just as weak in the second half, while the Mizzou shooters weren’t. And that was the difference in the game.

I’ve been one of the biggest believers in Connor Atchley since last season, perhaps often overlooking flaws and choosing only to point at the flashes of brilliance and potential that occasionally shone through. And early in the year, Connor was validating that faith, scoring 20-plus points in some games, setting great screens, and even playing great defense inside. But since then, he has completely disappeared from the offense and started biting on any head fake thrown his way. If you trace it back, the sudden drop in Atch’s play coincides with the Longhorns’ struggles. Just like the free throw issues, Texas needs Connor to step it up if they want to get back to the level of play they were at in early December.

Gary Johnson was almost a non-factor, aside from a heads-up play setting a (moving) screen for Abrams on a fast break layup. His stat sheet was appropriately bare, as he missed two free throws to go with a rebound and a foul in nineteen minutes of play.

Although he only saw the floor for five minutes, it was five more than I thought I would see Dexter Pittman against the up-tempo Tigers. He actually looked good inside, snagging three offensive rebounds and scoring on a pair of put-backs. He even made both of his free throws, so perhaps he should lead a team meeting on the subject.

Texas has a long week off to prepare for a very weak Colorado team, and they should coast to a home victory against the Buffaloes. But while coaches and players always spout the axiom “one game at a time,” here the matter at hand is much larger than just winning the next one. Texas has some huge issues to address, and the Big 12 is going to be a very bumpy road to travel if they can’t figure things out quickly.