With snow outside and temperatures in the teens, Oklahoma opened the doors of the Lloyd Noble Center, allowing any and all to enter the building for a game against the hated Texas Longhorns. The laissez-faire admission policy led to an overflow crowd, with 12,000-plus Sooner fans filling the seating bowl and spilling into the upper concourse, clad in their free white “Cheer Like a Champion” t-shirts.

Unfortunately for the Sooner faithful, the Longhorns made sure there was little to cheer for, champion-like or not. Texas once again rolled into a hostile road environment and silenced the crowd, which included Heisman-trophy winner Sam Bradford and “musician” Toby Keith. The Longhorns led from wire-to-wire, cruising to a 68-52 win in front of their own star, NBA scoring leader Kevin Durant.

What looked good

As it has been all season, the Longhorns relied on their trademark defense to build an early lead that they would never relinquish. Texas held the Sooners to just four field goals on their first 17 attempts, allowing the Horns to race out to a 15-point lead after just 10 minutes of play.

While the Sooners managed to attack the paint early, the Texas bigs created enough havoc to force OU to miss eight shots within just a few feet of the rim. For the ballgame, the Sooners managed to shoot just 30% from inside the arc, well off of their season average of 53%.

With so many missed shots early, the Longhorns were able to exploit their advantage on the boards. Oklahoma managed just one offensive rebound in the first half, and were held to a paltry 23.1% offensive rebounding percentage. In the midst of a tough shooting night, OU was rendered practically useless on the offensive end without the benefit of second opportunities.

On the offensive end, Dogus Balbay set the tone early for Texas, as he continued his recent trend of aggressively attacking the rim. With teams now forced to stop Balbay as he pushes the ball up the floor, Texas has an even more potent secondary break. If the initial defender doesn’t stop the ball, opponents are having to help and rotate before the defense is even fully set. That defensive scrambling leads to wide-open jumpers and three-pointers for the rest of Texas’ starting five, and this new wrinkle in the Longhorn offense is helping the team jump on opponents early.

Balbay even knocked down a mid-range jumper in this one, something that will be a huge boost to the offense if it becomes a more common occurrence. Without the threat of a jumper, defenses can still sag off of Balbay, an issue that made Texas’ inside game incredibly ugly last season. If Dogus can mix in a nice jumper here and there, the Longhorn frontcourt will have even more success inside.

With Balbay leading the team in scoring early, it allowed Jordan Hamilton time to warm up on a night where his outside shot wasn’t falling. Hamilton was just 3-of-9 from long range, but adjusted and used the dribble-drive along the baseline. He also capitalized on some great interior passing from Tristan Thompson and Gary Johnson to add a pair of easy layups. By the final buzzer, Hamilton led all scorers with 20 points.

It wasn’t just Hamilton that benefited from extra passes inside. Texas scored 28 points in the paint against the Sooners, thanks in large part to four assists from Johnson, who also added 14 points in a well-rounded performance. The solid post feeds also allowed Thompson to log an efficient 4-of-5 shooting night and an 11-point effort.

What needed work

Writing this section of the game reports has grown a little tougher as the season goes on. With the Longhorns winning 15 of their last 16 games, including nine conference wins by an average of 18.1 points, sometimes it can be hard to find things to nitpick. That being said, there is no such thing as a perfect performance, so pick nits we must.

While the Longhorns dominated the defensive glass, they did have issues giving up easy putbacks. When the Sooners did manage to grab an offensive board, they actually capitalized at a fairly high rate. OU turned nine offensive rebounds into 10 second chance points. Those easy buckets usually came when the Longhorns failed to box out on the weak side, and missed shots fell right into the hands of a Sooner waiting for the tip-in. Against a better rebounding team, allowing 1.11 points per offensive board could be disastrous.

The Longhorns also played a little loose with the basketball, perhaps a result of being in control the entire way. Texas coughed it up 14 times, giving them a turnover rate of 22.6%, a significant jump from their season average of 18 percent. Most of the Longhorn turnovers seemed to be a result of lazy passes or of the intended recipient simply not being awake. Just like the offensive rebounding, this won’t matter against much of Texas’ remaining schedule, but it definitely needs to be drilled down before the Horns face tougher opponents.

The bench was also largely absent in this game, although Matt Hill had some solid defensive possessions against OU big man Andrew Fitzgerald and grabbed five boards. But aside from Hill’s contributions, the bench was practically non-existent. Hill, Jai Lucas, Alexis Wangmene, and J’Covan Brown combined to play just 38 minutes, failed to score a point, and turned it over twice. It’s certainly a positive to have all five starters score at least 11 points, but Texas will need more bench production in future games.

Up next: vs. Baylor (16-7 overall, 6-4 Big 12); Saturday, 3 P.M. CT

Halfway through the Big 12 slate, the Texas Longhorns have defied the odds and find themselves atop the league standings with a perfect 8-0 mark. With the Kansas Jayhawks dominating their opponents game in and game out, it’s becoming more likely that the Longhorns will have to finish with a perfect 16-0 league record to claim an outright conference championship.

As any fan of college basketball knows, the toughest place to find wins is on the road in conference play. Tonight, the Longhorns take on one of their biggest rivals in Norman, as they square off with the Oklahoma Sooners. Fortunately for Texas, OU has one of the youngest rosters in the country, with three sophomores and one freshman in the starting lineup. The Sooners are playing well as of late, though, and could easily pull off the upset at home.

The first meeting

The Longhorns knocked off the Sooners 66-46 in Austin on January 15th, a game in which Texas led wire to wire. The Horns jumped out to an early lead by holding OU to just three field goals in their first 13 attempts, and allowed the Sooners just 19 points in the first half.

On the offensive end, the Longhorns were given numerous open looks from long range, and they were able to knock down seven of 12 from behind the arc on the afternoon. Jordan Hamilton was the biggest beneficiary of the poor perimeter D, and he knocked down five threes as part of his 17-point performance.

For the Sooners, Andrew Fitzgerald was the lone bright spot in an embarrassing loss. The big man had 18 points, scoring at will inside. Tiny guard Carl Blair also had a pair of easy layups when matched up with Texas’ Jai Lucas, who couldn’t match Blair’s speed. Unfortunately for Blair, Lucas only played six minutes in the game.

All told, the 0.747 points per possession that Texas allowed was OU’s worst offensive performance of the season. The Sooners were just 1-of-15 from long range, leading to an effective field-goal percentage of just 40.2%, their lowest mark in eight Big 12 games.

Since then…

After getting trounced by the Longhorns, Oklahoma turned things around, aided in part by an easy stretch in their schedule. OU was able to string together four straight wins, including a road victory against Iowa State. At the friendly confines of the Lloyd Noble Center, the Sooners defeated Texas Tech, Colorado, and Baylor during the streak.

On Saturday, the Sooner train finally derailed with a road loss to Oklahoma State in the Bedlam Rivalry. Cade Davis and Fitzgerald each had 18 points against the Cowboys, but the Sooners sent OSU to the free throw line 44 times. The Cowboys made more free throws (36) than Oklahoma even attempted (26), and the disparity proved the difference in the 81-75 loss.

During the four-game winning streak, Oklahoma coach Jeff Capel found success by shrinking his bench. The Sooner starters played a stunning 88.4% of the minutes available in those four games, which included a pair of 70-plus possession games against Tech and Colorado.

Cameron Clark was the breakout star of that stretch, averaging 15 points per game. The athletic freshman even played all 40 minutes of the win over Baylor, and grabbed seven rebounds against a Bear team that has one of the longest frontcourts in the country. Clark is certainly overshadowed all of the big-name freshmen in the Big 12, but he’s going to be a household name in the very near future.

Meet the Sooners

For an in-depth look at all of the Oklahoma players, click right here to read our game preview from the January 15th meeting between these two schools.

Keys to the game

while the Sooners made just 1-of-15 from behind the arc against the Horns in Austin, Texas must again limit OU’s perimeter scoring tonight. We’ve seen our share of upsets in this building fueled by ridiculous Sooner three-point fiestas, and sharpshooter Steven Pledger is liable to light the Horns up at a moment’s notice. Just ask Iowa State, who saw the sophomore guard nail seven three-pointers in a 38-point effort up in Ames. If OU isn’t knocking down a ton of threes, it’s hard to see their offense keeping pace with the Longhorns tonight.

The Longhorns also must flex their muscles on the defensive glass. The Sooners are still one of the worst offensive rebounding teams in the country, grabbing just 28.6% of their misses. In Austin, the Horns held OU to a 30.3% mark on the offensive glass, making it even tougher for the Sooners to score on the road. A similar performance tonight will make it very difficult for the Sooners to win the game, unless they are having a career night from the field.

Finally, Texas needs to shut down the scorer. During the team’s impressive five-game march through the league’s top teams, the Longhorn defense held Keiton Page, Khris Middleton, Josh Selby, and Marcus Denmon well below their season averages. On Saturday, Texas Tech’s John Roberson finally broke through against the UT defense and had a 16-point performance against the Horns.

Texas will likely find it difficult to shut down Fitzgerald, as they discovered in Austin earlier this year. The key is to once again find that lock-down defense that shut out Middleton and Page, and use it to limit the scoring from Pledger and Clark. As long as neither of those scorers are going off for 20-plus, it should be very hard for the Sooners to ride Fitzgerald to victory.

No time for a full-fledged game preview this afternoon — especially with the intriguing Texas A&M/Missouri tilt on TV at the same time — so here’s your quick and dirty look at a struggling Oklahoma Sooner squad.

(Sorry, kiddos. This time it isn’t a picture book.)

By the numbers

The Sooners are having a hard time scoring, but it’s not because they aren’t shooting the basketball well. Their effective field goal percentage, which gives extra weight to three-pointers, is a solid 53.5%, good enough for a top-forty national mark. Unfortunately, it’s the other three-quarters of Dean Oliver’s “four factors” that Oklahoma struggles with.

The Sooners cough it up on 22.8% of their possessions, a mark so bad that it puts the team 276th nationally out of 345 Division I teams. When they manage to hang on to the basketball and happen to miss a shot, the Sooners are only reclaiming the ball 29.4% of the time. That percentage is good for 269th in the country. And as far as manufacturing their points? The Sooners have the 292nd-highest free-throw rate in the country, meaning that they simply don’t know how to get to the line.

Defensively, their effective field goal percentage is an ugly 51.1%. That number is inflated by the fact that their three-point defense is simply atrocious. Opponents are hitting 37.2% of their long-range attempts so far this year, a mark that is 272nd in the country. With the way that Jordan Hamilton, J’Covan Brown, and Cory Joseph have been knocking down threes in the last month, that could be very, very bad news for Oklahoma.

Meet the Sooners

While Tuesday night’s “meet the opponent” section was full of familiar faces on the Texas Tech roster, Jeff Capel and the Sooners are victims of roster overhaul. With nine new players on the team, it wouldn’t be surprising if the Sooners were still wearing nametags at practice.

Cade Davis is the team’s lone senior leader, and his 9.9 points per game in 2009-10 was tops for returning Sooners. Long known as simply a three-point marksman, Davis has added a wrinkle to his game by learning to attack off the dribble. He’s hitting 39.6% of his threes so far this year, but now can blow by defenders who decide to play him too tightly.

Leading the team in scoring is sophomore Andrew Fitzgerald, who showed flashes of brilliance last season, but spent much of the year in the shadows of Tiny Gallon. This year, Fitzgerald has started every game and is averaging 13.5 points per night. He’s occassionaly had difficulty making point-blank looks inside, but the Sooners feed him the ball often enough that he still scores in bunches.

The only other Sooner to start every game is freshman Cameron Clark, a really athletic wingman who crashes the glass hard and can score from just about anywhere. He’s chipping in 9.3 points per game this year, but has come on strong in recent weeks. In his last four games, Clark is averaging a lofty 15.8 points.

Sophomore transfer Carl Blair is the team’s only true point guard, so he’s being called on to eat up a lot of minutes this year. Although it took him awhile to crack the starting rotation, this University of New Orleans transfer played 38 minutes in each of the first two Big 12 games. If the Longhorns can manage to get Blair into foul trouble, there’s really no other solid ballhandlers to take over at the point for Coach Capel.

Joining Blair in the backcourt is Steven Pledger, a three-point bomber who has knocked down 38.6% of his attempts so far this year. He’s 6-for-11 from long range in conference play, including an eye-popping 5-for-10 performance at Baylor on Tuesday night. The Sooners are fairly overmatched in this game, but if Pledger gets hot from behind the arc, things could get dicey for the Horns.

The only other Sooners who see consistent minutes are newcomers Nick Thompson and Calvin Newell. Thompson is a tough match-up, because although he’s a 6’9″ guy who is being used inside, he’s also a heck of an interior passer and can step out to knock down a three. To capitalize on that three-point threat, the Sooners love to run Thompson out high for ball screens, taking a big defender out of the paint while leaving Thompson available for the pick-and-pop.

Newell, meanwhile, checks in about eight inches shorter. He’s a really shifty guard with a lightning-quick first step, but he prefers to facilitate the offense once he blows by the defense and drives the lane. He certainly has a sweet shot, but prefers to use it off the pass.

Keys to the game

As previously mentioned, this should be a one-sided affair. Vegas has pegged the Longhorns as 19.5-point favorites, while stat guru Ken Pomeroy gives the Sooners just a 3% chance to win on the road this afternoon.

To get the dominating win all Texas fans are expecting, though, the Longhorns need to chase shooters off the perimeter, forcing the offense to go through Fitzgerald. Yes, he’s leading the team in scoring, but he also has the tendency to miss shots he shouldn’t. Against a much-stronger rebounding team like the Longhorns, that should lead to a lot of one-and-done possessions.

Of course, that doesn’t work well unless the Longhorns dominate the glass. Oklahoma is barely posting a positive rebounding margin per game, while the Longhorns have looked very strong on the glass so far. Repeat the dominating rebounding performance from Tuesday night, and Texas should cruise to another early conference victory.

Finally, the Texas offense can’t become stagnant. Oklahoma is using a matchup-zone this season, courtesy of assistant coach Bryan Goodman, who brought the look from his time on the Bucknell bench. The Longhorns have shown the tendency to stall out against zones, and simply can’t afford to do that against a less-talented Oklahoma team. The Longhorns can also avoid this problem by pushing in transition and beating the defense down the floor, especially off of the frequent Sooner turnovers.

With the final regular season game just a few hours away, let’s dive right into our notes from Monday night’s win over Oklahoma…

1) The Longhorns did not fold down the stretch – For a Texas team that has often found itself trailing by large margins during the last two months, it was refreshing to see the Horns respond despite OU’s hot start. The Longhorns were down by thirteen points just eight minutes into the game, thanks in large part to Oklahoma’s 7-of-11 three-point shooting in the first half. But Texas did not fold, and slowly chipped away at the lead. When the Sooners came out strong again in the second half, the Longhorn deficit climbed to eleven once again. But something changed in the team at that point, like their competitive switch had finally been flipped to “on.”

The Texas players really fed off of the crowd down the stretch, with Jordan Hamilton imploring the fans to get louder when OU was forced to take timeouts. J’Covan Brown even taunted the Sooner players by flashing his biceps after he sunk a floater in the lane. While it’s incredibly satisfying to see the team finally wake up and show some fire, the concern is that it seemed like the players needed the crowd energy to do so. The rest of the games this season will be on the road or at “neutral” sites, so the Longhorns have to be able to show that same level of effort and determination when the crowd is not on their side. Chances are very, very good that the fans of the old Big 8 will be rooting against Texas next week in Kansas City, particularly those fans in blue or purple.

2) Backcourt roles were more defined – For the first time in ages, each member of the Texas backcourt seemed to contribute exactly what was required of them. Justin Mason made the start and provided solid defense, along with a few strong, slashing moves to the bucket. Jai Lucas was also in the starting lineup, and although he ultimately only played seven minutes, his offensive contribution came the way it needed to. Lucas drained a three in the first half on a simple kickout. He is only a catch-and-shoot guy, so having him play off the ball allowed him to make a small, but useful contribution to the offense, as opposed to forcing him into the point guard role where he is ineffective.

While Avery Bradley had a rough night from the floor, he once again provided solid defense once Texas started rotating and helping. J’Covan Brown was the big story in the backcourt, though, playing 33 minutes off the bench. He showed leadership and poise down the stretch, and his willingness to attack the rim led to 15 points on the night, including a perfect 6-of-6 from the line. If Brown can give that kind of performance the rest of the way, the blow from the loss of Dogus Balbay will be much, much softer.

3) Free throws are improving – For the second-consecutive game, the Longhorns made at least 80% of their attempts from the charity stripe. For much of the season, the team’s average has hovered in the low-to-mid 60% range, so this drastic change is certainly worth noting. While the 6-of-6 line from Brown is not a shocker, seeing Damion James go 8-of-12 and Dexter Pittman sink all four of his attempts is certainly reassuring. Statistically, the two players should be expected to miss more shots this afternoon, as their percentages naturally regress to the mean. But what if they’ve actually been practicing and improving over the last week or so? Then perhaps the physical inside play could finally pay off in the post-season, as the Texas big men actually make the free throws they work so hard to earn.

4) Texas has two offensive identities – Not only did the Longhorns show two different offensive styles on Monday night, but they both actually worked. It was reminiscent of the early part of the season, when Gary Johnson famously said that Texas could “beat you any way you want it.” When the Longhorns can play different styles of basketball with equal success, it makes it incredibly hard for opponents to gameplan and defend. Of course, this is just one game against a team that has struggled all season long. But if this newfound offensive duality can continue this afternoon and into the postseason, there is reason for optimism.

The two offensive looks from Texas differ when it comes to the post presence. In the first look — the traditional one we’ve seen all season — the Longhorns are built around Pittman. The team focuses on getting the ball inside, where the big man is expected to either make a quick move to the basket, or kick it back out to rinse and repeat.

Early in the season, defenses sagged off of Mason and Balbay to create more pressure inside on the big man and deny those entry passes. On Monday night, having a backcourt involving Bradley and Brown meant that the OU defense couldn’t sell out to help inside. In addition, after a rusty start, Pittman finally began to make quick moves with the ball, so the defense didn’t have time to react. If these factors hold as the season winds down, the “big” lineup should be quite effective.

When Dex isn’t on the floor, the Longhorns go with the fiesty Gary Johnson down low. He’s five inches shorter than Pittman, and is versatile enough to mix in a midrange game. That added threat spreads out the floor and allows Brown and Mason to slash to the rim for easy points or to draw the foul and get to the line. Johnson’s ability to pull the defender away from the paint also makes it easier for James to get offensive boards and putbacks. And, of course, the pure hustle and determination that Gary brings to the floor leads to extra possessions and second chance points.

Again, it should be noted that all of this happened against a Oklahoma team that will likely finish in the bottom quarter of the league when today’s game are through. But for once, Texas fans had something to be excited about after Monday’s game. Now, we just must wait and see if those things carry over to a game against a very, very good Baylor team this afternoon.

We’re just hours away from the final home game for Texas seniors Damion James, Dexter Pittman, and Justin Mason. And although every senior night is a bittersweet experience, this year will be especially conflicting for me.

When I started this journey four years ago, it was just a crazy idea to follow the team around the country for one season and see how they grew. Now four years later, I still haven’t found a way to quit what has become an undeniable addiction. But after watching these three players compete 145 times, in far-flung locales such as Spokane and Greensboro, it feels like perhaps a chapter of my own life is coming to a close.

It’s all a bit heavy to get into when I should be writing a brief game preview that reacquaints you with the Oklahoma Sooners. I’m sure that in a few weeks, once the season is again at its end, I’ll sit down and pound out a few thousand words about all of the conflicting emotions that comes with this bizarre and monumental journey I chose to take. But for now, I’ll try to cram those feelings into just one sentence: I hope that the fans of Texas basketball, no matter how disappointed they feel, show up en masse at 7:45 tonight to give these players the respect and the ovation that they truly deserve.

But back to the actual basketball game……

If you missed the preview from the first match-up in Norman, you’ll want to check that out for more information on the Oklahoma players and style. And if you happened to miss the game itself, you can read the game wrap to learn about the disappointing fashion in which Texas lost.

Tonight, we’ll be keeping our eyes on a few things as the team heads into the final week of the regular season…

1) Can the Longhorns defend the perimeter? – The first time Texas played OU, 20 minutes of poor perimeter defense put the Horns in a hole they could never dig out of. To be fair, a huge reason why the Sooners fared so well from behind the arc was steady shooting from Tommy Mason-Griffin. Even when Texas did manage to get a hand in the face of the diminutive gunner, he still calmly buried the shot. If TMG has that kind of night again at the Erwin Center, the Horns will have a tough time avenging their previous loss. But if TMG is hitting those shots and the rest of the Sooners are again having a field day, Senior Night could be a total disaster.

2) What will J’Covan Brown provide? – The freshman guard is back in the lineup for tonight’s game after suffering a very scary injury on Saturday in College Station, but it’s reasonable to think his role will be very limited. Unfortunately, J’Covan did not look good in the 79 minutes of basketball prior to his injury, struggling against both Oklahoma State and the Aggies. Will the injury inspire Brown to be more competitive and produce at a higher level, or will it make him a more tentative player prone to mistakes? We likely won’t know the complete answers to these questions if he plays just a few minutes, but it’s definitely something we will pay very close attention to when he’s on the court.

3)Will the real Texas frontcourt please stand up? – Once it was Jordan Hamilton who was the most wildly inconsistent player on the Texas roster. Now, it’s an entire personnel group. Gary Johnson followed up huge games against Tech and Oklahoma State by getting pushed around and intimidated by the Aggie big men. After struggling for the better part of two months, Dexter Pittman showed some life against the smaller Cowboys and even had a few flashes of brilliance in the midst of a very disappointing A&M game. Damion James, meanwhile, had no rebounds in the entire first half against the Aggies. Are all of the Texas big men ever going to put it together at the same time for any significant stretch of the season? There’s very little time left for them to do so, but there also isn’t any better time to peak than in March…

Another look at the standings

Thanks to Oklahoma State’s shocking upset of Kansas on Saturday, the Longhorns now could potentially fall all the way to 7th in the final standings if the Cowboys post a better record than Texas in these final two games. The Pokes close with a road game at A&M and a home date with Nebraska. OSU should certainly earn at least one win, so the Longhorns must get a leg up with their own victory tonight.

But while the Horns are now tied with Oklahoma State, they are still just a game back of Baylor, Mizzou, and A&M, who are all tied for third in the league. So with two games left on the slate, Texas could finish as high as third or as low as seventh. That’s a heck of a lot of uncertainty. (And a hell of a headache when it comes to planning your travel to the conference tournament.)

Saturday’s season finale is a very tough road game against a sound Baylor team that stands between Texas and a first-round bye in the league tournament. A win tonight is absolutely critical if the Horns have any designs on one of those two remaining byes. A win would also guarantee that they finish above .500 in league play. A loss in this final home game, and our next preview will be talking about what the Longhorns have to do to stay out of 7th place.