While Kansas, K-State, and Texas are fighting it out atop the conference standings, there’s another interesting battle brewing for that fourth and final first-round bye in the post-season tournament. While Baylor’s early play made it seem they could be the frontrunners for the 4-seed, losses in six of their last seven games have made the picture a little more murky for Scott Drew’s bunch.

Now, a look ahead at the next games for the top teams in the league…

Kansas Jayhawks, 9-2
This week: at Oklahoma State (Sat)
The Jayhawks get a long week to rest and a cupcake of an opponent to feast on this weekend. Only one team from the Big 12 South has ever won in Allen Fieldhouse, and I wouldn’t put money on Sean Sutton to win a second-consecutive road game. Kansas essentially gets a full-speed practice in preparation for a battle the following weekend with K-State.

Texas Longhorns, 9-2
This week: vs. Oklahoma (Sat)
Texas took care of business against the Sooners in Norman and are playing some incredibly impressive basketball at the moment. Without Longar Longar, OU could find itself in some trouble come Saturday afternoon.

Kansas State Wildcats, 9-2
This week: at Nebraska (Wed), at Baylor (Sat)
The roadie with Baylor this weekend could be a trap game, with the Wildcats potentially looking ahead to its next two with Texas and Kansas. Add to that the fact that the Bears desperately need some résumé-building upsets to offset their recent slide, and the Ferrell Center could be a very dangerous place for Beasley’s Bunch.

Texas A&M Aggies, 6-5
This week: vs. Nebraska (Sat)
After dropping two straight games, the Aggies have a chance to get well against Big Red at home. The tussle with the Cornhuskers is the most winnable contest that A&M has left, so they’ve got to get things clicking early in front of the Reed fans, who are becoming restless as of late.

Oklahoma Sooners, 6-5
This week: at Texas (Sat)
The last two Sooner wins came on insane three-pointers (and a foul), but they’ll have to work extremely hard to keep the momentum going in Austin on Saturday. As mentioned earlier, the loss of Longar to a stress fracture makes an already-thin Sooner frontcourt look like Kate Moss, so they can’t afford foul trouble on the road.

Baylor Bears, 5-6
This week: vs. Kansas State (Sat)
If Baylor is going to stop the bleeding, they’ve got to do it against the ‘Cats. A loss drops them even further out of contention for the first-round bye, and is one of only two remaining chances for a marquee win. (The other comes against A&M in the last week of the season.) If Baylor loses this one, fans might want to start printing up those green-and-gold NIT shirts.

On a night when everything seemed to go right for the Texas Longhorns, even their fans made half-court shots. Twice. While the hometown Longhorns were cruising to a convincing 77-50 win over the rival Aggies, a pair of students hit 47-footers to win a year of Chick-fil-A and two round-trip tickets on American Airlines. The prize for the Longhorns, though, was a ninth conference victory and a tie for the league lead.

Texas came roaring out of the gates, hitting 4-of-5 from behind the arc to start the game as their defense limited Texas A&M to just 2-of-17 shooting over the first ten minutes of play. D.J. Augustin and Damion James led the offensive charge in the first half, scoring 17 and 10 before even heading to the locker room.

Despite having a comfortable 21-point lead at the break, Rick Barnes didn’t let his team’s intensity waver. The Longhorns were still pressing the ball in the backcourt with nearly a thirty-point lead and only seven minutes on the clock, and reserve forward Alexis Wangmene was even knocking down jumpers with regularity as the final minutes ticked away. By the time the student sections led the crowd in singing “Poor Aggies,” many of the maroon-clad supporters in the upper decks had long since departed.

There were a ton of things to like about this one for Longhorn fans, starting with the return of Augustin as a scorer. While Texas continued to win during D.J.’s recent slump, other players were forced to step up in his place. But while his teammates maintained their strong play against A&M, the re-awakened Augustin poured in 27, including his 1,000th point as a Longhorn. The only downside for the point guard might have been the fact that he sat on the bench for just four minutes in the rout, despite having the game well in hand the entire second half.

Justin Mason continued his scrappy play, picking up loose balls and rebounds for putbacks, including an improbable dunk following an airballed hook shot by Dexter Pittman. Mason may have fired too many three-point attempts during the early scoring barrage, but he was getting open looks and was certainly not afraid to try to capitalize on them. Personally, I will take a slightly overconfident Jay Mase over one who is unsure on the offensive end and only contributes on defense. If Mason continues to play at this level the rest of the way, Texas has yet another X-factor that can put it over the top in close games.

One of the other reassuring things seen on the court last night was the solid contribution from every member of the frontcourt rotation. Gary Johnson continues to amaze me in how quickly he has progressed from the guy who seemed overwhelmed in late January. He played 23 minutes against the Aggies this time, after managing only four ineffective minutes during the game in College Station. He had eight points and seven boards, but perhaps his most surprising contribution was how well he defended the giant DeAndre Jordan when given the unenviable task. And with that solid mid-range jumper he’s got going now, he’s turning into a mini-Damion James, ripping down rebounds, popping Js, and attacking the rim. Exciting stuff is ahead for this guy.

While I’ve praised Gary for his solid defensive work on Jordan, I certainly can’t overlook the excellent D from all of the frontcourt players, who put on an absolute block party down low — twelve shots were officially swatted — and limited the Joseph Jones/Bryan Davis/DeAndre Jordan troika to 18 points on the night. In the first game between these two teams, those three players combined for 33 points. If Texas continues to hold down the fort in the paint, their recently-improved rotations on the perimeter shooters mean that this defensive resurgence could be around for the rest of the year.

Even the lesser-used forwards played well, as Clint Chapman had some solid minutes, including some great work on the glass just before half and an assist on a kick to Augustin for three. Wangmene earned a lot of his points in garbage time, but his continued hustle inside and nice touch on that high-arc jumper are going to be a great addition for five-to-ten minutes a game.

It can be easy to get drunk on the burnt-orange Kool Aid after a convincing win like that, but the last few games have made it seem like Texas is finally putting it together. Take away two scary minutes at the end of the Baylor game, and the Longhorns have looked incredibly impressive against three excellent ballclubs in a row. There’s a huge test looming next Monday in Manhattan, but much of the remaining schedule for Texas is very favorable and could set things up nicely for the post-season tournaments.

Enjoy the win for now, Horn fans. We’ve got quite a bit to talk about this week, including yet another rivalry game on Saturday.

Nineteen days ago, Texas A&M was absolutely reeling, having lost three of four after a nearly pristine start to their season. Only a narrow win in Stillwater kept the Aggies from stumbling into a home date with rival Texas on an ugly four-game losing streak. But the first eight minutes of the game that night went completely in Texas A&M’s favor, and they obliterated the Longhorns for an easy 80-63 win.

Since then, Texas has won five straight games, including Monday’s home upset of Kansas and road wins against OU and Baylor. And until Saturday’s fumble against Oklahoma State, the Aggies were just as hot, winning their next three after the dismantling of their rivals. The hot February for the top two teams in Texas has helped them separate from the pack in the Big 12, putting the Longhorns just a half-game out of first while the Aggies are hanging on to the coveted 4th-place spot in the conference — and the tournament bye that comes with it.

Lost amidst the ugly start to the January 30th game is the fact that Texas A&M and Texas played a pretty even game from that point on. As I mentioned in the game preview of that match-up, A&M is a very turnover-prone team, and there was a stretch in the first half where they made unforced error after unforced error. In front of a rowdy Texas crowd, there’s a chance that the Ags could get even more rattled tonight and make more mistakes. Don’t forget — this Aggie team is only 3-3 on the road, with the three wins coming against the bottom half of the Big 12.

As we look forward to tonight’s game, I feel that the biggest factor in the re-match will be the recent emergence of Gary Johnson. He is now a great offensive weapon in the paint, and the combo of Johnson and Connor Atchley in the hi-low game is really a treat to watch. When these two teams met at the end of January, the key post presence for the Longhorns was Dexter Pittman, while Johnson played only four ineffective minutes. With the addition of GJ’s offense and his work on the glass, the outlook for Texas is much rosier this time around.

A huge problem that teams face when playing Texas A&M is the pick-your-poison defensive quandary that their inside-out attack gives opponents. While a lot of Baylor’s ineffectiveness from behind the arc on Saturday was a result of their shooters going cold, the Texas three-point defense has improved tremendously over the last few weeks. If the Longhorns can shut down Dominique Kirk and Josh Carter — who was 4-of-7 behind the arc in College Station — it will make things a lot easier for the defense inside.

I linked it once earlier in this game preview, but take the time to go back and check out the preview I wrote of the first Texas/Texas A&M game to get an in-depth look at the Aggie squad and their style of play. Tonight is certainly going to be a hard-fought game, but Ken Pomeroy is predicting a three-point Longhorn victory, while Vegas likes Texas by 4.5 points.

Tonight’s game is sold out, so if you’re without a ticket you can tune in to ESPN or ESPNHD for the action or plop down $12 to watch it on the big screen in selected theatres throughout Texas (Plug in your zip code here to look for cinemas in your area.) See the rest of you at the Drum tonight.

Burnt Orange Nation game preview
Texas Sports game preview

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.