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.

TEAM W L LAST WEEK THIS WEEK Texas 8 0 def. A&M, 69-49; def. TTU, 76-60 Wed. at OU; Sat. vs. BU Kansas 7 1 def. TTU, 88-66; def. Neb, 86-66 Mon. vs. Mizzou; Sat. vs. ISU Baylor 5 4 lost to OU, 73-66; def. A&M, 76-74 (OT) Wed. vs. Neb; Sat at UT Missouri 4 4 lost to OSU, 76-70; def. CU, 89-73 Mon. at KU; Sat. vs. OU Texas A&M 4 4 lost to UT, 69-49; lost to BU, 76-74 (OT) Wed. at CU; Sat. at TTU Oklahoma 4 4 def. BU, 73-66; lost to OSU, 81-75 Wed. vs. UT; Sat at Mizzou Oklahoma State 4 5 def. Mizzou, 76-70; def. OU, 81-75 Sat. at Neb Kansas State 4 5 def. Neb, 69-53; def. ISU, 86-85 Sat. at CU Colorado 4 5 def. ISU 95-69, lost to Mizzou, 89-73 Wed. vs. A&M, Sat. vs. KSU Nebraska 3 5 lost to KSU, 69-53; lost to KU, 86-66 Wed. at BU, Sat. vs. OSU Texas Tech 3 6 lost to KU, 88-66; lost to UT, 76-60 Sat. vs. A&M Iowa State 1 8 lost to CU, 95-69; lost to KSU, 86-85 Sat. at KU

Last week did little to further define the strata of the Big 12 standings, as Texas and Kansas continued their winning ways, while Nebraska, Texas Tech, and Iowa State piled up the losses. Oklahoma State and Kansas State created more of a logjam in the middle of the standings, as both teams won their pair of games and climbed into a three-way tie for 7th with Colorado. Three consecutive losses for A&M knocked them out of contention for the league title and into a three-way tie for 4th place with Oklahoma and Missouri.

With such a pronounced drop-off after the league’s top two teams, there exists a very real chance that the Longhorns could have a first-round bye clinched as early as February 16th, a full four weeks before the conference tourney tips off. Only a game off of Texas’ pace, Kansas could lock up its bye just days later. Of course, all of these hypothetical situations become moot points if the Horns and Jayhawks don’t take care of business this week.

Missouri at Kansas; Monday, 8 P.M. CT (ESPN)
The Jayhawks will likely be without freshman phenom Josh Selby in this one, but his absence didn’t seem to phase them in Lincoln on Saturday. KU knocked down 13 threes against Nebraska en route to a 20-point win, with guard Brady Morningstar providing 19 points.

Missouri enters this game with an 0-4 mark on the road in conference play, and breaking out of that funk will be very difficult in Lawrence. The talented Morris twins are a very tough matchup for a Mizzou squad that lacks a traditional frontcourt presence, and the Tigers have lost in 11 consecutive trips to Allen Fieldhouse. Vegas currently has Mizzou listed as 11-point underdogs.

Nebraska at Baylor; Wednesday, 7 P.M. CT (ESPN Full Court; ESPN3.com)
Somehow, the Bears are back in the mix for a bye in the conference tournament, thanks to an overtime win at Reed Arena on Saturday. The Bears have yet to play up to their full potential, but showed flashes of it in the first half against the Aggies. This is a game that Baylor should win and needs to win, especially with a road trip to Austin looming on Saturday. Of course, Nebraska’s stout defense has kept them in most of their games this season, and this one will likely be close in the final minutes on Wednesday night.

Texas at Oklahoma; Wednesday, 8 P.M. CT (ESPN2)
An in-depth look at the Texas/OU game can be found in LRT’s game preview, which will be posted on Wednesday.

Texas A&M at Colorado; Wednesday, 8 P.M. CT (ESPNU)
This game provides an interesting contrast in styles, and it also reunites two coaches who have had a long, intertwined history. Colorado coach Tad Boyle and A&M’s Mark Turgeon played together at Kansas, and later coached alongside each other at Oregon, Jacksonville State, and Wichita State.

The Buffaloes are currently boasting one of the most efficient offenses in the country, scoring 1.157 points per possession. That’s due in large part to their excellent ball control, which will be tested against a stingy A&M defense. This is a huge game for a reeling Aggie squad, while the Buffaloes are looking to knock off another ranked team at home and keep their name in the bubble discussion.

When the calendar turned to 2010, the once-invincible Texas Longhorns unraveled in a fashion rarely seen in sports. After starting 17-0, last year’s team sputtered down the homestretch, winning just 7 of their last 17 games. This year’s batch of Longhorns have clearly learned from their past mistakes. Instead of wilting down the stretch, they are visibly improving as the season goes along. While Texas was a dominant defensive team during a very tough non-conference run, they have turned it up another notch in conference play.

Last night was more of the same, as the Longhorn defense forced 17 turnovers and held Texas Tech to 38.2% shooting from the field en route to a 76-60 win over the Red Raiders in Austin. The victory moved Texas to 8-0 in Big 12 play, one game ahead of Kansas, and 3.5 games ahead of third-place Baylor.

It looked like yet another blowout in the early going, as Texas held the Red Raiders to just 11 points in their first 20 possessions. At the same time, the Horns were finding open shots everywhere they looked. They built a lead as large as 21 points in the waning minutes of the first half, powered by 6-of-11 shooting from behind the arc.

The second half was a different story, and it resulted in a much closer game than anyone could have expected. The Longhorns took six minutes and 46 seconds to make their first field goal in the second half, letting the Red Raiders slice the lead to just six points with 11:20 to go. But J’Covan Brown sandwiched a pair of threes around a mid-range jumper from Gary Johnson, and the Horns cruised to victory.

What looked good

In the first half, everything looked good for Texas. Jordan Hamilton knocked down his first four attempts from three-point range, while the Longhorn defense held Tech to just 0.55 points per possession over the first 12 minutes. Tristan Thompson was getting great position on the blocks and taking perfect angles to score once his teammates fed him the ball.

One of the main men dishing out assists was J’Covan Brown, who had another solid game off the bench. His two three-pointers stopped the bleeding in the second half, and he finished with 10 points and three assists in 26 minutes on the court.

The two-headed monster of Alexis Wangmene and Matt Hill also chipped in from the bench, taking advantage of their smaller Tech opponents. Wangmene earned three points at the line, while Hill had a pair of putbacks and an easy layup off an assist from Jai Lucas. Hill also grabbed six rebounds against an undersized Tech squad.

What needed work

While Hill grabbed six rebounds, the Longhorns did a poor job rebounding against a Tech team that is routinely abused on the glass. In Lubbock, Texas won the rebounding battle by 19. In Austin, they only outrebounded Tech by three. The Longhorns allowed the Red Raiders to grab 37.3% of their missed shots, after allowing them to win just 19.2% of the offensive rebounds in Lubbock. The 37.3% mark was the sixth-highest OR% for the Red Raiders in their 24 games this season.

A big cause of the rebounding woes was Gary Johnson’s absence on the glass. While GJ scored 16 points, largely on the strength of his smooth long-range jumper, he was a ghost on the boards. The team obviously benefits from his 17-footer, as he typically sinks that shot, while pulling bigger defenders out of the lane. But the failure to grab even a single board on the defensive end could prove to be critical against a better ballclub than Tech.

On defense, the Horns gave up far too many easy looks during the last three-quarters of the game. It may seem ridiculous to harp on the defense when they allowed just 0.873 points per possession. But a big reason why Texas was able to post good point-per-possession numbers is because they forced a lot of Tech turnovers.

The Red Raiders coughed it up on 24.7% of their possessions, meaning that they were making a very high percentage of their shots when they managed to hang on to the basketball. The reason? Easy layups and jumpers coming off of curls when the Longhorn defenders completely lost their men. That smacks of lazy defense with too much ball-watching and not enough rotation.

Perhaps the Horns played down to their competition, knowing they could give partial effort on defense and still win. A fair argument, but still a troubling one. If they have a similar lack of effort in Colorado, against a team that hardly ever turns the ball over, Texas will leave Boulder with a loss.

Finally, it must be noted that the sloppy effort wasn’t limited just to the defense over the last thirty minutes. The Longhorns also had just as much trouble hanging on to the basketball, piling up more turnovers (16) than assists (15), many of them on boneheaded errors. Cory Joseph had a pair of double-dribble calls, while the Longhorns fumbled numerous passes just feet from the basket.

Thankfully, this weak effort came against one of the worst teams in the conference. It’s a true luxury to play one of your worst games of the year and still come away with a 16-point win. The trajectory this team has taken so far this year leads us to believe that this effort will only lead to improvement in the near future. Expect the Longhorns to once again be firing on all cylinders by tip-off on Wednesday night.

Next up: at Oklahoma (12-10 overall, 4-4 Big 12); Wednesday, 8 P.M. CT

After surviving a brutal five-game stretch that included three road games and four games against teams ranked in the Top 25, the Texas Longhorns return to the Frank Erwin Center with a perfect 7-0 league mark. Fortunately, the team gets a breather tonight, hosting a Texas Tech team that they destroyed by 31 points in Lubbock in their conference opener.

This game should be incredibly lopsided. So lopsided, in fact, that Vegas is giving the Red Raiders an extra 20.5 points. Stat guru Ken Pomeroy and his supercomputer have the Horns as 99% to win the game, with a predicted 26-point margin of victory. Perhaps the biggest question heading into this game will be just how many minutes Andrew Dick, Dean Melchionni, and Trent Morgan see in the blowout.

The first meeting

When these two teams first met in Lubbock, the Longhorns abused Texas Tech inside. Texas posted a +19 rebounding margin and scored 50 points in the paint. The Red Raiders were limited to grabbing just 19.2% of their misses, and the string of one-and-done possessions doomed them to failure.

The dominating performance wasn’t limited just to the Texas frontcourt. Dogus Balbay scored nine points and secured five rebounds, while J’Covan Brown and Jai Lucas combined for 11 points off the bench.

The Red Raiders, meanwhile, had a hard time finding anyone to score. Big man Robert Lewandowski knocked down quite a few tough shots against the tight Longhorn defense, but his 13 points were the most on the team. Guard Javarez Willis also managed to provide a spark off the bench, scoring 10 points on 56% shooting from the field.

Since then…

That loss was the second of four that Tech suffered to open conference play. During that stretch, the Red Raiders lost by an average of 21.5 points per game.

But Tech rebounded nicely, compiling three wins to get back into the muddled mess in the middle of the conference standings. The Red Raiders edged out Nebraska at home before stealing a road win against Iowa State in Ames. They followed that up with an overtime win against OSU in Lubbock, but the momentum was stopped when they were thrashed by Kansas at home earlier this week.

The key to Tech’s resurgance was better performance on the offensive glass. After getting destroyed by the Longhorn rebounders, they had a pathetic 12.9% offensive rebounding percentage in a 34-point drubbing at K-State. In each of the three wins that followed, Tech had an OR% of at least 37.5%.

Mike Singletary and John Roberson were also instrumental in the brief winning streak for Texas Tech. After the pair combined for just 7 points in the loss to Texas, they combined to average 40.3 points per game in the team’s three wins.

Meet the Red Raiders

The Red Raiders are an experienced bunch, and as a result, four of their five leading scorers are seniors. To get a detailed breakdown on all of the retuning Tech players, check out our first preview from last season.

Coach Pat Knight is also getting contributions from three newcomers, who you can read about in our preview of the first game in Lubbock.

Keys to the game

As it was in Lubbock, this game should be one-sided from the start. That means that while this section is titled “Keys to the game,” it could easily be re-named “Ways to win by more points.”

The most important thing that the Longhorns did in Lubbock was dominate the inside game. Texas has a much bigger and more skilled frontcourt, and it led to 50 points in the paint in Lubbock. The Longhorns should have no problem doing more of the same tonight.

Texas will also enjoy a blowout victory if they win the rebounding battle. Tech is not going to grab a lot of offensive rebounds, but if Texas holds them to as few as they did in Lubbock, this thing could get ugly in a hurry. Tech is not a great shooting team — they find their greatest success against defenses that allow them a ton of backdoor cuts — so they will likely miss a ton of shots against a good Texas D tonight. If they aren’t getting many second chances, we could have a poleaxing on our hands at the Erwin Center.

Finally, Texas needs to stay in front of the basketball. The Red Raiders don’t break you down off the dribble, but they will beat you with quick cuts and crisp passing if you can’t see both the ball and your man. Fortunately, the Longhorns have had the most efficient D in college basketball this season, and held Tech to a pitiful 0.738 points per possession in Lubbock. It would be a major surprise to see the Red Raiders pick apart this Texas defense.