There’s not much time left before this afternoon’s game with Coppin State, so we’re going to dispense with the introductions and dive right into a quick and dirty game preview.

The history between these two schools is brief, with the Longhorns last knocking off the Eagles at the Erwin Center in 2004. Prior to that, Coach Fang Mitchell and Coppin State served as a historical footnote when they became the last team that Tom Penders ever beat in an NCAA tournament game. The Eagles were only the third 15-seed in tourney history to knock off a 2-seed when they unseated South Carolina back in March of 1997, but fell just a point short against Penders and the Longhorns in the second round.

Tonight, the Eagles are wrapping up a brutal four-game stretch in which they have also played true road games against UConn, Wisconsin, and Kentucky. Coppin State is hoping the tough schedule will help the team jell in time for MEAC play, as they finished 3-13 in the league last year. The Eagles lost eight of the twelve players on last year’s terrible team, so Coach Mitchell’s JuCo-laden roster should only get better.

Coppin State may be without their leading scorer in this one, as Michael Harper missed Tuesday’s game against Kentucky with the flu. In his absence, the team took nearly eight minutes to score a field goal in Lexington, and shot less than 20% from the field in the first half. If Harper and his 15 points per game won’t be part of the lineup tonight, the Eagles will need 5’11” point guard Tony Gallo to step up.

A typical December “buy” game, this contest shouldn’t ever be in doubt. With that in mind, here are the things we’ll be watching this afternoon:

1) How rusty will the Longhorns be? – The one thing that Coppin State does very well is control the basketball. Their 17.5% turnover rate is 30th in the nation, so to put it simply, they do not waste possessions. Unfortunately, with the holiday layoff, there’s always a bit of rust that shows in these late December games. If the Longhorns sleepwalk through this one and play sloppy basketball, it will only serve to keep the Eagles in the game for longer than they should be.

2) Does Texas dominate the glass? – The Eagles are being outrebounded by an average of eight boards per game so far this season, including a 43-22 shellacking on the glass in their last game against Kentucky.

Looking at the tempo-free numbers, Coppin State is frequently abused in the rebounding battle on both ends of the court. While they don’t turn the ball over, they also hardly ever corral their misses, grabbing just 27.7% of their offensive rebounding chances. That mark is 302nd nationally, and is just a shade better than their 325th-ranked defensive rebounding percentage. Coppin State allows opponents to snag 39% of their misses, leading to a ton of easy putbacks and second-chance points.

With all those numbers in mind, there’s absolutely no reason that the bigger, more athletic Longhorns should not decimate the Eagles on the glass. Look for Tristan Thompson and Gary Johnson to take advantage of Coppin State, and hopefully put up some eye-popping rebounding numbers.

3) Is the transition game still a focus? – The Longhorns made Michigan State pay last week by pushing the ball in transition and getting a ton of easy baskets before the Spartans could ever set up the defense. Coppin State runs at a rather slow pace this season, so we’ll be watching to see if Texas establishes tempo by continuing to push the ball down the floor.

Tom Izzo and Rick Barnes see each other so often, it sometimes seems like they’re in the same conference. The two coaches — who have a combined 877 wins between them — have met in each of the last four seasons, and they will renew their inter-conference rivalry once more when Michigan State and Texas face off in East Lansing tonight.

The five-year streak began in Madison Square Garden, where Drew Neitzel hit a last-second, game-winning shot in 2006 against a young Texas team led by a budding superstar named Kevin Durant. The Spartans also won the next two match-ups, which were played on the neutral NBA courts of the Rockets and Pistons. Last year, the series moved to an on-campus home-and-home set-up, with the Longhorns finally pulling out a win, 79-68, over a Spartan team that eventually made the Final Four.

Tonight’s game looks like another classic in this new rivalry, with both teams boasting high rankings and high expectations. The Spartans were slotted as high as 2nd in the nation in pre-season polls, but have suffered a trio of losses against very talented teams, all of which are currently ranked in the top ten. Tonight, Michigan State is hoping to add another signature win to their tournament résumé, which already includes a neutral-court win over Washington in Maui.

By the numbers

The Spartans have been excellent on offense so far this year, with an efficiency mark of 1.12 points per possession, good for 28th in the nation. They are most effective when the team is in motion, as the Spartans love to misdirect with screens and ball movement guiding the defense one way, while one of their excellent shooters curls around to the weak side for an open look.

Unfortunately, Michigan State has also had some long stretches of stagnant offense this season. When they aren’t moving around off the ball, the team tends to settle for outside shots. Against the tougher defenses they’ve faced this year, such as Syracuse’s patented 2-3 zone and Duke’s intense ball pressure beyond the perimeter, the Spartans tend to dribble the air out of the ball or simply pass it around the perimeter. The team is full of excellent shooters, but they have the most success when their looks come off of ball movement and slashing attacks, not when they simply settle for long-range jumpers.

The Spartans also had difficulty this year when Washington blitzed their ball screens in Maui. Guard Korie Lucious is just 5’11”, while starting point guard Kalin Lucas is 6’1″. With the extra length provided by Washington’s big men surging past the screen, the Husky double teams gave the Spartan guards fits. The Longhorns would be wise to do the same thing a few times tonight.

Typically, the Spartans are a dominant rebounding team. In fact, Michigan State led the NCAA in rebounding each of the last two seasons. This year, though, they look like mere mortals on the glass. The Spartans were outrebounded by eight in their loss to Syracuse, and finished even on the boards with UConn in that loss.

Despite having an “off” year on the glass, the Spartans are still very good at cleaning up their misses. So far this season, they are snagging 36.7% of offensive rebounding opportunities. Texas gave up a few easy putbacks in the second half against North Carolina on Saturday, so they need to learn from that and get a body on the Spartan rebounders when the shot is in the air.

Perhaps the biggest issue facing Tom Izzo’s team this year is ball control. They are averaging 16.2 turnovers per game, which equates to a miscue on 23% of their possessions. That turnover rate puts the team in the bottom third of Division I basketball for that metric. In all three Spartan losses this year, they had a turnover rate of greater than 23%, including a frustrating 26.9% mark in the loss at Duke.

Meet the Spartans

Michigan State has an experienced roster, so many faces will be familiar to Longhorn fans. In addition to the solid core of returning Spartans, there’s also a handful of highly-talented freshman who are already giving Coach Izzo quality contributions.

Senior swingman Durrell Summers is leading the team with 15.5 points per game so far this year, thanks in large part to his excellent stroke from long range. Summers is hitting 45.6% of his three-point attempts this season, so the Longhorns have to keep an eye on him when he’s hanging out on the weak side of the court. He’s also a solid rebounding guard, pulling down nearly five boards a night.

The aforementioned Kalin Lucas is yet another three-point threat for the Spartans, but he’s also able to attack and get to the rim at a moment’s notice. He tore his left Achilles tendon in the second round of last season’s NCAA tournament, so he is still working to get back to 100%. Even with the injury hampering his explosive first step, Lucas is one of the quickest guards in college basketball, and he’ll blow right past the Longhorns if they are playing too tight in an effort to limit his threes.

Although Draymond Green isn’t leading the team in scoring with his 12.5 points per game, he’s the team’s most important player. He leads the team with nine rebounds a game, is tops in total assists with 45, and his 14 blocks are just one shy of the team leader. He’s the Spartans’ top steal man by a wide margin, swiping it twice per game, and is even 50% from behind the arc on his 28 attempts this year.

Last season, Green was the obvious choice for the Big 10’s Sixth Man of the Year Award, and he’s well on his way to securing that honor again this season. Although Coach Izzo has used him in the starting lineup in six of the team’s first 11 games, he’s still just as productive coming off the bench. There is simply no way the Longhorns will shut Green down tonight, so they can only hope to limit his impact on the game.

Forward Delvon Roe is the man who has one more block than Green, and he’s also chipping in seven points and 5.1 rebounds each game. He’s not a flashy player or a bona fide superstar, but he gives the Spartans a junkyard dog in the paint who knows how to get to the basketball. He’s also a very good free-throw shooter for a big man, knocking down nearly 75% of his attempts this season.

Sophomore Garrick Sherman has started every game at center for the Spartans, and it’s clear that his offensive game improved tremendously in the off-season. He now has a handful of quality moves that he can use on the blocks, but still needs to put on weight if he’s going to body up down low. He gets pushed around far too often when trying to establish rebounding position, so Tristan Thompson and Gary Johnson will need to take advantage of that weakness tonight.

Korie Lucious has come off the bench in all 10 of his games this season, but he’s still the fourth-busiest player and fourth-highest scorer on the team with 24 minutes and nearly eight points a night. While Green leads the team in total assists, Lucious’ 4.2 per-game average is slightly higher. The junior can man the point when Lucas is on the bench, but he has the aggressive mindset of a scoring guard. He loves to isolate and take his man off the dribble, and quite often is the only player trying to attack the rim when the Spartans are going through one of their stagnant offensive stretches. He’s a fair three-point shooter, sinking 32.6% of his attempts so far, but on a Spartan team with much better long-range gunners, that’s not his primary role.

Freshman guard Keith Appling will likely be the point guard of the future for Michigan State, but for now he is performing well as the team’s back-up shooting guard. He was named Mr. Basketball in Michigan as a high school senior last year, averaging 28 points per game. Appling is one of the team’s most efficient players, scoring 6.5 points a night in just 16 minutes. He’s deadly when he chooses to shoot the triple, with an eye-popping success rate of 47.8% so far this season. When Appling makes it to the line, he’s even more impressive, having missed just once in 15 tries so far.

Joining Appling as a backcourt reserve is former walk-on Austin Thornton. The junior has actually started five games on the wing for the Spartans, but has been relegated to the bench as of late. Izzo is high on Thornton’s shooting ability, but so far he has struggled this season, making less than 32% of his threes. Often, Thornton looks nervous when the ball gets in his hands, and he tends to rush things. Defensively, he’s a quality option to guard opposing wings or smaller power forwards, and he buys into Coach Izzo’s active defensive philopshophy.

In the frontcourt, Derrick Nix remains a project in his sophomore season. He struggled with weight loss issues last year and didn’t accompany the team to Maui, reportedly for failing to commit to the team. After the Spartans struggled with Chaminade and lost to Connecticut, Nix was quoted as saying he felt like he let his teammates down, and he soon rejoined the roster.

Unfortunately, Nix still isn’t in very good shape, and he has a long way to go before he’ll be a significant contributor. He can’t move quickly enough to be of any use on pick and rolls, and his lack of speed makes him a huge liability in transition.

One player benefitting from Nix’s struggles is freshman Adreian Payne. He’s incredibly athletic for a 6’10” guy, but is still too undersized to be a star post player in the physical Big 10. For now, his incredible length and surprising hops make him a naturally-talented defender who is giving the team nearly 10 minutes and more than three rebounds per game.

Senior guard Mike Kebler will likely play only a couple of minutes tonight, but he earns a mention for the career outing he had against Prairie View A&M on Saturday. Kebler was averaging just 4.4 minutes and 0.6 points per game as a sparingly-used reserve, but he had the game of his life against the Panthers, scoring eight points in 15 minutes of action.

Keys to the game

For the Longhorns, the most important thing tonight will be an ability to win the rebounding battle, and they must do exceptionally well on the offensive glass. The Spartans have a correlation of 0.81 between their defensive rebounding percentage and their defensive efficiency. In layman’s terms, that means the Spartan defense is very, very reliant on keeping opponents off the offensive glass. The reason offensive rebounds are so important is because Michigan State forces teams to take bad shots. One-and-done possessions are a recipe for disaster.

On a related note, the Longhorns also need to shoot within the flow of the offense. Like the Spartans, Texas has stretches where the team fails to attack tough defenses and simply settles for bad shots. The Longhorns need to move without the ball, make the extra pass, and work for open looks instead of forcing up three-pointers with a defender just inches away. The two Longhorns we’ll specifically be watching in regard to this will be Jordan Hamilton and J’Covan Brown. Hamilton has greatly improved his shot selection as the season has rolled on, but Brown still tends to force things when the going gets tough.

Finally, Texas needs to pressure the Spartans. The Longhorns haven’t forced that many turnovers this year, but the one glaring weakness of the Michigan State offense is their tendency to cough it up. If the Longhorns let Michigan State get comfortable in their half-court sets, the very talented Spartan shooters are going to have a field day. Texas needs to mix in some full-court pressure, meet the ball handlers beyond the perimeter, and be willing to blitz and double-team when the Spartans use ball screens.

With just seconds left in the game, Cory Joseph had a chance for redemption as he dribbled at the top of the key against North Carolina’s Dexter Strickland. Just a month earlier, Joseph threw up a prayer of a shot that could have tied the game against Pittsburgh at the buzzer. That night, the ball went nowhere near the basket. Now, with time running out against the Tar Heels, Coach Rick Barnes wanted his guard to attack the rim, draw a foul, and win it at the free-throw line. The freshman had a different idea.

Standing near the free-throw line, Joseph pumped, getting Strickland to bite on the fake, then spun for a turnaround jumper. The crowd of 20,787 held its collective breath in anticipation, as the shot seemed to hang in the air for eternity. When the ball finally sailed through the net, the Greensboro Coliseum’s powder-blue contingent fell completely silent.

The clutch shot provided an exciting conclusion to a back-and-forth affair, and came just seconds after Carolina superfrosh Harrison Barnes had knotted the game with a three. Both teams had monumental runs in the see-saw battle, with Texas claiming a lead as large as ten before Carolina erased the deficit and built a seven-point run of their own.

For the Longhorns, the 78-76 victory gave them a quality road win in a hostile environment, an experience the young team needed with road games against Kansas, Baylor, and Texas A&M waiting in conference play. It also marked the fourth straight time that Texas defeated North Carolina, a string dating back to the 1995 season.

What looked good

Jordan Hamilton had another excellent game, scoring a team-high 24 points, including a 4-of-7 mark from behind the arc. He seemed to thrive on the pressure, making four straight points when the team trailed by seven early in the second half. After his three-pointer pulled the Longhorns within two just minutes later, he openly celebrated and shot a Kobe-esque stare at his defender as they headed back down the court.

Joseph was the second-leading scorer for the team, setting a new career-high with his 21-point performance. It marked the fourth time in the last six games that the freshman has bested his previous high-water mark, and it gave him a 19.3 PPG average over his last three contests. Cory’s increased confidence over the last month is a huge development for a Longhorn team that often has lineups with only two or three quality scorers on the floor at a time.

In this particular game, the Longhorns were hampered by foul trouble from the start, making Joseph’s gutsy performance even more important. With Matt Hill, Dogus Balbay, and Alexis Wangmene forced to play a combined 52 minutes thanks to the foul issues, the Longhorns had to have their capable scorers step up. Joseph’s willingness to shoulder the load is going to be huge when Texas inevitably faces the same depth issues later in the season.

While Hill and Wangmene didn’t light up the scoreboard, they both played remarkably well for being thrust into a high-pressure situation against a talented North Carolina frontcourt. Wangmene had the best game of his career with Texas, grabbing nine boards — five of them on the offensive glass — while playing solid defense against the likes of Tyler Zeller and John Henson.

Hill picked up some unnecessary fouls early and was beating himself up for the mistakes. During one first-half timeout, he even looked as his dad in the stands and mouthed “dumb fouls” as he shook his head in disgust. But Hill bounced back from the early setbacks, adjusted to the physical play down low, and managed to contribute four points and four boards on the afternoon.

Most importantly, the Longhorns showed incredible poise in coming back to win the game. It would have been very easy for the team to fold after blowing their 10-point lead during a 29-12 Carolina run, especially in front of a frenzied crowd of more than 20,000. Instead, Texas chipped away at the lead and made the key plays down the stretch to secure an impressive road win.

What needed work

The biggest problem for the Longhorns came in the form of foul trouble. Having so many players pick up boneheaded fouls served to handcuff Barnes when it came to lineups, and it resulted in some really disappointing offensive results. Over the last seven and a half minutes of the first half, Texas made just two baskets, including one stretch of 4:10 without a basket. The offensive impotence allowed UNC to erase a 10-point Texas advantage and even take a one-point lead to the break. Fortunately, Carolina had their own lengthy scoring drought during that time, or else the results might have been even more disastrous for Texas.

Tristan Thompson picked up a pair of fouls within the first three minutes of each half, and as a result he spent 24 of the first 29 minutes of the game on the bench. He drew one whistle by trying to tap at the ball on a rebound he was out of position on, and was tagged with another foul by playing too aggressively on defense 17 feet from the basket. Perhaps the freshman was too amped up for a road game against a big-name opponent, but he has to play smarter basketball. He should be commended for making a difference down the stretch while playing with four fouls, but in the future he must avoid the brain-lock that limited his minutes in this game.

The Longhorns also had a hard time climbing the mountain during their comeback because they were giving up far too many easy points inside. Time and again, Texas failed to box out on the weak side, giving Carolina too many extra possessions. In fact, four different Tar Heel buckets in the second half were scored on tip-ins and putbacks.

In addition, transition defense for the Longhorns was uncharacteristically pathetic. Nobody stopped the ball as the UNC guards flew down the court, and it resulted in far too many easy layups. On the rare occasion a Texas big would recognize the situation and flash out to stop the play, the late response left other Tar Heels open for midrange jumpers or threes.

One final thing that was troubling in this game was that the Longhorns threw two or three inbounds passes directly into the near corner. Naturally, the Tar Heels immediately collapsed into a double team, which was especially effective with the length on their roster. Texas is going to face some very nasty, high-pressure defenses in Big 12 play, so this is a habit that must be broken. There’s simply no reason to waste possessions or time on the shot clock by passing into an easy double-team situation where the sideline acts as a third defender.

Up next: at #15/14 Michigan State (8-3)

Last season, the North Carolina-Texas game was one of the most anticipated of the year. It matched two top-ten teams in the first-ever basketball game at the new Cowboys Stadium, and it delivered on all counts. The two teams played an exciting, fast-paced game that ended with the high-scoring Longhorns racing away with a 103-90 victory.

As the season wore on, it became clear that both teams were ranked far too high in the pre-season, and that too much was made of the Texas victory. After the Longhorns started the season 17-0, they stumbled down the stretch and lost in the first round of the NCAA tournament. The Tar Heels, meanwhile, followed up their national title with an NIT berth, and ultimately a second-place finish in the tournament.

This year, the Tar Heels once again started the season ranked near the top of the polls. Coach Roy Williams questioned the wisdom of the voters during the pre-season, reminding the media of all that North Carolina had lost in the off-season. Marcus Ginyard, Ed Davis, and Deon Thompson had all left Chapel Hill, while twin brothers David and Travis Wear transferred to UCLA over the summer. In October, fifth-year senior Will Graves was dismissed from the team for failing to comply with team rules.

All told, the six departed players accounted for 65% of the team’s minutes last season, plus 67% of the scoring and 70% of the rebounding. Trying to fill that massive void is a cast of highly-touted freshmen and former role players who now must grow into bigger contributors.

Although this afternoon’s game is technically a neutral-site affair, there’s no doubt that Greensboro Coliseum is going to be bathed in powder blue. The two teams are closely matched, so even in fact that stat guru Ken Pomeroy predicts just a one-point win for Carolina, and gives the Horns a 46% chance to win.

By the numbers

As with all Roy Williams teams, the Tar Heels are very well coached. They are excellent on both sides of the ball, with their adjusted offensive and defensive efficiencies both ranked in the top 40 nationally. They post a 0.216 point differential per possession, which is huge when you multiply it by the high number of trips down the court in a Carolina game. The Heels run the 14th-fastest tempo in the country, logging nearly 73 possessions a game.

Offensively, the biggest weakness for North Carolina has been turnovers. Last year, the Heels constantly struggled with the issue, but seem to have made some improvements over the summer. This season, they are averaging 15 per game, which isn’t nearly as bad as it sounds because of their up-tempo attack. Adjusting for the speed of their games, the Heels cough it up just once in every five possessions.

On the other side of the ball, North Carolina plays great help defense and it results in a ton of blocks. The team is swatting 5.2 shots per game, with big men Tyler Zeller and John Henson accounting for 4.2 each night.

Free throws will not be a pretty thing in this game, as North Carolina is actually shooting worse than Texas at the line. The Heels are making 63.5% of their attempts on the year, slightly lower than Texas’ paltry 66.1% mark.

The starting five

Thank to the run-and-gun style employed by Coach Williams, the Tar Heels have 10 different players who see the court for at least 11 minutes each game. Even with the deep stable of talented players to choose from, the team has used the same starters in all ten games.

The team is led by big man Zeller, who is having a standout season in his junior campaign. The seven-footer is averaging 15.8 points per game, including a career-high 27 points against Kentucky earlier this month. Zeller is a tough match-up for opponents, because in addition to his game-changing size, he possesses an excellent jump shot. As a result, he is very dangerous when pulling opponents to the perimeter on screens, because he can easily score on both the pick-and-roll and pick-and-pop. He also runs the floor extremely well for a big man, making him a valuable asset in the transition-fueled North Carolina offense.

The biggest buzz surrounding the team this year came from the signing of superstar Harrison Barnes. Hailing from Ames, Iowa, the freshman was named to the pre-season All-American team without having ever played a single minute of college basketball. He’s an all-around player who can score in a variety of ways, making him a matchup nightmare for opposing coaches. Barnes is physical enough to bang inside, can take his man off the dribble, and has a quality jump shot to score in the midrange.

Early in the season, Barnes was struggling in his adjustment to the college game. He was finding it difficult to get open looks, and the frustration was apparent in his demeanor and attitude. The freshman had a tough five-game run starting at the tournament in Puerto Rico, shooting just 24.5% from the field over that stretch. He finally snapped out of the funk with a big game against Kentucky, and posted a double-double last Saturday against Long Beach State.

The aforemtioned Henson has made massive strides in his sophomore campaign, averaging nearly a double-double so far this season. He’s posting 10.5 points and 9.9 rebounds per game, while providing invaluable length on the defensive end. A former Round Rock high school star, Henson can constantly be found deflecting passes or blocking shots, and often fires up the crowd with rim-rocking dunks in transition and on putbacks. He bulked up in the offseason so he could be more physical inside, but he still is a great slasher who can spread out the floor.

Dexter Strickland has also grown a lot as a sophomore, and is benefitting from being able to focus on the shooting guard role this year. He’s still turning it over a couple of times each game, but allowing him to come off the ball has opened up his offensive game. He’s upped his scoring output to more than seven per game, a solid number in a backcourt as congested as North Carolina’s.

With Strickland playing more of a two, that leaves the point guard duties to Larry Drew II. He was also a turnover machine in the early part of last season, but seemed to find his stride as the team matured and made its run through the NIT. This year, he has an assist-to-TO ratio just above 2-to-1. Quick with the ball, Drew is also a three-point threat, although he’s currently struggling from behind the arc. With just 19% of his three-point attempts going down so far this season, Drew is more than due for a breakout performance from long range.

Off the bench

Without the Wear twins, there isn’t much in the way of frontcourt reserves for the Tar Heels. Fortunately, Alabama transfer Justin Knox was able to immediately play for UNC when he enrolled in grad school, and he’s providing key minutes backing up the Carolina bigs. Knox is a high-energy guy who scraps on the boards and is a physical force inside. Despite seeing the court for just 16 minutes a game, he’s still averaging nearly seven points and five rebounds.

Reggie Bullock and Leslie McDonald are the top scoring guards off the bench for Carolina. At 6’6″, Bullock is the closest thing the Heels have to a second big man off the bench, but he’s not a good enough ball handler to be a consistent swingman. He and McDonald have actually been the team’s top three-point threats, with each going 13-for-30 (43.3%) on the season. McDonald is a 6’4″ guard who likes to take his man off the dribble, and is strong enough to finish through contact.

Joining them in the backcourt is Kendall Marshall, a highly-touted freshman point guard labeled by some as the best passer in his class. This year, the Heels simply need him to be a steady backup to Drew while learning the nuances of the college game.

Junior Justin Watts is the last man in the rotation for the Heels, and he plays the least minutes out of any of the reserves. He’s always been just a role player in Chapel Hill, and that’s still the case this season. While he’s not going to stuff the stat sheet, Watts is one of those guys who makes the most out of his limited playing time.

Keys to the game

We’ve mentioned that the Tar Heels are once again a bit careless with the basketball, albeit not as much as last year’s team. With Zeller wrecking shop inside, the best way to keep his point total down is to keep the ball from ever getting to him in the first place. The Longhorns need to pressure the guards and force mistakes when Carolina settles into half-court sets. The Tar Heels often telegraph their passes and try to force it with bad passing angles, so Texas should have ample opportunity to knock the ball away.

Although North Carolina has a formidable fronctourt, the Longhorns need to attack inside. The caveat to this approach, however, is that the Texas players can’t force things when the Carolina defense bunkers down. When the Tar Heels help on defense, the Longhorns need to kick it out to open shooters. Texas has been hot from three-point range recently, so this can get them open looks on the perimeter. But when Carolina is late responding to drives and good ball movement, Texas has to hope they can pick up some fouls on the thin Tar Heel frontcourt.

All of these are moot points, however, if the Longhorns don’t play better team defense than they did in their last road game. USC absolutely embarrassed the Texas D, with the stout Trojan frontcourt taking advantage of constant one-on-one mismatches. It’s no secret that the Longhorn frontcourt is weak in one-on-one situations, so they must work together to keep Zeller and Henson from piling up the points.

Finally, Texas can really help their case if they can make an early run. Larry Drew made the mistake of calling his team’s fans “spoiled” in an interview last year, an observation that made up for its lack of tact with its incredibly accuracy. As we learned when visiting Greensboro Coliseum for the NCAA tournament in March of 2009, UNC basketball fans are exactly like Longhorn fans. While the Carolina faithful can make the arena deafening when the team is on a run, they are a reactionary bunch that sits on their hands if things aren’t going well for the home team. Like Longhorn fans, they don’t generally will their team to victory when they are struggling. If Texas can keep Carolina from jumping ahead early, it will definitely dull the huge home-court advantage.

They say it’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas. Or at least, that’s what the terrible music screams from speakers in every single retail store across America. But while that means snow and ice for folks in the north and long hours for our friends at the USPS, it also means a dearth of quality basketball.

Tonight, the Longhorns take part in yet another of those mediocre matchups that litter the mid-December schedule. With North Carolina and Michigan State looming for the Longhorns in the next seven days, Texas gets one last tune-up against North Florida, a school that is still transitioning to Division I basketball under the guidance of head coach Matt Driscoll, a former Baylor assistant coach.

The Ospreys have never defeated a ranked opponent in their brief history as a D-I school, but made a big step earlier this year by dominating Wyoming in an early-season tournament in Cheyenne back on November 18th. The 18-point win might not seem like much to fans of big conference basketball, but for a school that went 12-74 during their first three seasons, it was a huge accomplishment.

By the numbers

North Florida is a very small team, and it shows in the stats. There are no Ospreys that are taller than 6’7″, and as a result, they give up a ton of second- and third-chance points to their opponents. North Florida grabs less than 40% of their defensive rebounding opportunities, which puts them among the 30 worst teams in the country in that metric.

The numbers aren’t much better anywhere else. The team posts a negative 0.095 point differential per possession, and they cough up the ball more than once every four trips down the floor. Their terrible turnover rate is actually 9th-worst in all of Division I basketball.

The Ospreys also fail to attack the lane with any regularity, which means they mostly take jumpers and hardly ever get to the line. North Florida actually shoots the ball, with a team effective field goal percentage that’s north of 49 percent. Unfortunately, they have an average turnover differential of negative six, so they often don’t hang on to the ball long enough to actually shoot it.

When the team is hitting their jumpers, they can stay in ballgames with opponents that are far more talented. More often than not, however, their 19 turnovers a game put them in an early hole they have no chance of digging out of.

Meet the Ospreys

Coach Driscoll has the luxury of four returning starters at his disposal, but all of that returning experience is still rather young. There are six sophomores on the North Florida roster, and only one senior, Brad Haugabrook, can be found in the starting five.

Haugabrook is a pure point guard and leads the team with 30 assists so far, but that doesn’t mean he isn’t a scoring threat. The senior guard is incredibly quick with the ball and knows how to get to the rim, but he can stop on a dime and drop the pull-up jumper with ease. He’s averaging nine points per game so far, good for third on the team.

The leading scorer for the Ospreys is Parker Smith, a transfer from Tennessee State who has yet to start a game. He brings a much-needed long-range threat to the North Florida roster, and his 20 threes on the season have helped to buoy his scoring average to a 10.2 mark.

Big man Andres Diaz is also scoring 10.2 points per game, but is serving an even more important role as the team’s leading rebounder. For a very small North Florida team with almost no depth in the frontcourt, Diaz is the key man inside. The Ospreys will have to improve their defensive rebounding if they want to have any shot in this game, so Diaz needs to be aggressive on the glass.

The major knock on Diaz is his complete inability to sink free throws, something that can really hamper a big man. Last year, Andres made just 37.6% of his shots from the line, but has made big strides so far this season. Although he’s still only making 57.1% of his free throws, the drastic improvement is worth a few extra points for the Ospreys each night.

Junior Matt Sauey is the only other true forward who sees significant playing time for North Florida, and he’s turning his 24 minutes a night into eight points and 3.4 boards. He’s long and athletic, and is without a doubt the best post defender the Ospreys have. Unfortunately, at just 6’7″, he’s often fighting an uphill battle when matching up against opposing big men.

Last year’s leading scorer was Jerron Granberry, and the fact that he averaged just nine points per game makes it crystal clear just how anemic the North Florida offense was in 2009-10. This year, he’s averaging 10 points a night and is leading the team with more than 29 minutes a game.

Granberry is a stocky 6’4″ swingman who is incredibly quick in the open floor and off the dribble. Besides Smith, he’s the only other three-point threat that plays significant minutes for Coach Driscoll.

At shooting guard, transfer Jimmy Williams has started every game since arriving from South Carolina State. Like Granberry, Williams checks in at 6’4″, and the two guards are combining for nearly nine rebounds a night. For such a poor rebounding team, having that contribution from the backcourt is huge.

Beyond the core rotation of six, the Ospreys also get a few minutes each from Charles McRoy, David Juene, and Brian Holmes. McRoy is a freshman swingman who has looked good from behind the arc in his limited minutes. He’s 5-for-11 from long range so far this season, but is still playing less than 15 minutes a night.

Juene is mostly used as a backup for Diaz and Sauey, so if either of them end up in foul trouble tonight, the sophomore forward will have to step up.

Holmes is another freshman, and Coach Driscoll is hoping that the scoring-minded point guard will be able to step into Haugabrook’s role next season. This year, he’s really struggled with ball control and has turned it over 21 times despite playing just 14 minutes a game. He likely won’t make a big impact tonight, but the game should be a valuable learning experience for the shaky freshman.

Keys to the game

Like the Texas State game on Saturday, this one should never be in doubt and is simply another opportunity for the Longhorns to improve upon things that they have been struggling with. Rather than actual keys to the game, here are three things we’ll be watching tonight:

1) How does Texas attack the zone? – Coach Driscoll is in his second season after serving as an assistant at Baylor, so he knows firsthand how Texas struggles with the zone defense. Although the Ospreys played mostly man last season, they did show both a 2-3 and a 1-3-1 against Purdue on Saturday, and it’s likely they will use those looks again tonight.

On Saturday, the Longhorns were on fire from behind the arc, and Gary Johnson was knocking down the midrange jumper. That rendered the Texas State zone all but useless. Tonight, we’ll be watching to see if Texas can continue that success when the Ospreys inevitably bunker down in a zone.

2) Which J’Covan will show up? – J’Covan Brown has been an enigmatic player so far this season, mixing brilliant performances with frustrating, immature displays. It certainly looks like he’s made strides since last year, and it’s a game like this in which he should really shine. We’ll be keeping an eye on J’Covan to see how he handles adversity, if there is any to be found tonight.

3) Can Texas finally force turnovers? – The Longhorns are in the bottom half of the national rankings when it comes to forcing turnovers. Opponents cough it up just 20% of the time, which is only 214th-best out of 345 Division I teams. We’ve mentioned just how terrible the Ospreys are at protecting the ball, so it would be nice to see the Longhorns turn up the pressure and rattle this young, skittish North Florida team.