The Texas-Texas A&M rivalry on the hardwood has been an easy one to predict for the last five-plus years. No matter what path each game took, or how many overtimes it took to reach the final result, the home team always prevailed. While the Longhorns have won the last eight times these two teams have played at the Frank Erwin Center, the Aggies defend their home court nearly as well. In the last five meetings at Reed Arena, A&M has been victorious each time.

A win today is even more important than just breaking a five-year road losing streak. It’s more important than holding the ever-popular “Scoreboard!” retort against your most hated in-state rival. Today’s game is a chance for the Longhorns to finally regain some momentum, a chance to win a third consecutive game for the first time since they started the year 17-0. And even more important than that, the winner of today’s game will have a leg up in what is a four-team battle for the two remaining byes in the conference tournament.

What to watch for

1) Can the Texas frontcourt keep it going? – For the first time since a game in early January against Arkansas, Dexter Pittman was incredibly productive against Oklahoma State on Wednesday night, scoring 16 points in 20 minutes to go with eight rebounds and three blocks. It wasn’t just Big Dex having a field day in the frontcourt, though. Damion James and Gary Johnson combined to shoot 8-for-13 from the field, score 26 points, and grab eleven boards.

It should be noted that the Cowboys are a very small team that was very thin in the frontcourt on Wednesday night, so the Texas big men will certainly face a much tougher task this afternoon. Bryan Davis held Pittman to just four points — all from the free-throw line — in 28 minutes of play. The addition of David Loubeau to the starting lineup gives the Aggies an even bigger presence in the frontcourt, so the battle in the paint this afternoon could be a deciding factor.

2) Will Texas attack Loubeau? – Giving Loubeau more minutes has not only made the Aggies more physical, it aids their sometimes-stagnant offense by adding a versatile big man into the mix. Loubeau can score from the midrange as well as inside, and his scoring threat will often pull opposing bigs out of the paint, opening the lane for the Aggie offense. The downside to Loubeau’s new starting gig is that his defense isn’t always that reliable against bigger, more physical Big 12 forwards and centers. If Texas can make it a point to attack the sophomore and try to draw fouls, it could negate A&M’s new, bigger lineup.

3) Can Texas dictate the tempo? – It’s no secret that the Longhorn offense bogs down in half-court sets, and it’s also not a secret that Mark Turgeon‘s Aggie defense can be downright nasty. If Texas allows this to become a half-court battle with a low score, it will certainly make it tougher to beat a well-coached A&M squad. It goes against convention to push the tempo and force the issue when playing in a tough road environment, but doing just that could give the Longhorns an offensive boost, while forcing an equally-anemic Aggie offense to score even more to secure the win.

For the first time in more than a month, the Texas Longhorns have a winning streak.

While two wins in a row is not a whole lot to crow about, Wednesday night’s 69-59 victory over the Oklahoma State Cowboys is a huge step in the right direction for a team that had lost six out of its last ten. The win pushes the Longhorns to 8-6 in league play, and into a three-way tie for fourth with Baylor and Texas A&M, two teams they will face — on the road — in their last three games.

Things didn’t start off beautifully for Texas, as Oklahoma State shot nearly 50% from the field for a majority of the first half, including a 6-of-12 mark from behind the arc. The Longhorns did force eight turnovers in the first half, but the flurry of long-range scoring for the Pokes ensured that Texas could find no breathing room in the first twenty minutes.

James Anderson also couldn’t find much breathing room for those first twenty minutes, as Justin Mason and solid help defense limited the Big 12 Player of the Year candidate to just six first half points. Five of those came in the first three minutes, but Anderson was held scoreless from the field for more than 24 minutes after that.

In the second half, it was the entire Oklahoma State offense that couldn’t breathe. The Pokes were limited to 2-of-10 shooting from behind the arc, and shot just 33% from the field. Anderson was able to add another eight points to his total, but OSU managed just 24 total points in the final twenty minutes. The Texas defense took all of its little lapses from the first half and completely eliminated them in the second.

Beyond the defense, the biggest storyline of the night came from the biggest player on the court. Against a much smaller Oklahoma State lineup, Dexter Pittman finally turned in the performance fans have been waiting for since Fayetteville. After Texas mustered only six points in the paint during the first half, the start of the second half was all about Pittman. The Longhorns made a concerted effort to get him the ball inside, and his strong moves with the ball made it clear he wasn’t going to be stopped.

Dexter’s final line on the night was 16 points, eight rebounds, and three blocks in 20 minutes. If that is the kind of production Texas can get from him down the stretch, there’s not much more you can ask for. Pittman is not a guy who needs to be playing 25-plus minutes per game because it limits his effectiveness. Dexter can’t hang with run-and-gun teams, and big men with long range can pull him out of the paint and limit his defensive presence. But in games like this one, he’s one of the most effective weapons the Longhorns have, and he’ll have to produce at that level the rest of the way.

As always, Damion James turned in a huge effort for the Horns. He knocked down a ton of midrange jumpers in the first half to kickstart the offense, and pulled down seven boards on the night. His 19 points were certainly important, but what was much more notable was his 6-of-8 performance at the line. Heading into the game, James was shooting just 64% from the charity stripe.

Also impressive was Jordan Hamilton, who did so many little things right tonight. For one, his defense was much improved. Even when he was beat my his man, it wasn’t for lack of effort. Oftentimes this season it has seemed like Hamilton only cared to play on one side of the ball, but not in this game. Not only did he move laterally and pressure the ball on defense, but he made smart decisions with the ball on offense. He took the open three-point looks against the zone in the first half, then took the ball to the rim when OSU played the perimeter later in the game. And, most importantly, Hamilton passed the ball instead of forcing it when there was nothing there.

Apart from the continual free throw woes (21-of-36 on the night), the biggest disappointment in this game was J’Covan Brown. Coach Rick Barnes inserted the freshman back into the starting lineup after limiting him to just five minutes against Texas Tech on Saturday. Unfortunately, Brown seemed to be trying to prove himself the entire time and looked completely uncomfortable on the floor. When J’Covan is playing freely, attacking the defense, and finding his open teammates, the Longhorns are tough to stop. But if Brown is going to respond to the spotlight the way he did tonight, Texas is going to have to struggle through the rest of the year with a point guard by committee.

Looking ahead

The regular season sweep of Oklahoma State has positioned the Longhorns to make a late-season push for one of the first-round byes in the league’s conference tournament. Texas, A&M, and Baylor are all tied for fourth place, and are just a game behind Missouri in third. The Tigers still have games left with Kansas and Kansas State, while the Longhorns travel to both College Station and Waco. With just three games left on the schedule, everything is truly still up in the air.

The Longhorns return to the Erwin Center as victors, having withstood a late charge from Texas Tech to secure a narrow 71-67 win on Saturday. But while the victory was huge, it was a loss for Texas that loomed even larger. Dogus Balbay went down early in the first half with an ACL tear that has sidelined him for the rest of the year. Coupled with the November injury to Varez Ward, the once-deep Longhorn backcourt is now in total disarray.

Texas managed to beat Oklahoma State in their first meeting, but a huge reason for the win was the defensive performance of Balbay against OSU superstar James Anderson. After scoring 22 of his team’s 34 first-half points, Anderson was held to just four points in the second half. Without Balbay on the court tonight, Anderson could have a career game.

If you need a refresher on OSU’s style of basketball or their key players, click here for the preview from the first match-up. If you don’t, let’s dive right into our keys for tonight’s game……

Keys to the game

First and foremost, Texas will have to find a way to shut down James Anderson. We hate to belabor a point, but without Balbay, the Longhorns are going to have to find a way to keep the Cowboy guard from going off for 30-plus points. At 6’6″, he’s a tough match-up for Texas, especially when you consider that the best defenders Rick Barnes has on his roster are a pair of 6’2″ guards in Avery Bradley and Justin Mason. While Jordan Hamilton is a better match-up physically for Anderson, his defense consists mostly of watching people blow past him and then compounding the mistake with fouls from behind.

While Anderson is much taller than the Texas backcourt, the Cowboys are actually much smaller across the board than Texas. The Longhorns must control the defensive glass in order to limit the number of Oklahoma State possessions. The Pokes don’t turn the ball over that often, so giving them second and third chances will only serve to keep OSU in the game and wear out an already thin Texas lineup.

In the same vein, the Longhorns also need to take advantage of their size inside. Whether that means Dexter Pittman needs to step up and have the kind of game we haven’t seen from him since Fayetteville, or if it means that Gary Johnson has a second-straight career game by hustling down low, the fact remains that Texas must make its easy looks. The first time these teams met, the Longhorns missed a lot of shots just a few feet from the basket. Had Jordan Hamilton not had a magical game, Texas would have ended up on the losing end.

The biggest thing we will be looking at tonight is how J’Covan Brown handles point guard duties. As we wrote yesterday, failing to play him at this point amounts to giving up on the season. There will certainly be hiccups along the way, but now this is undoubtedly J’Covan’s team to run, and we are very interested in seeing how he handles the pressure.

Texas hasn’t won two games in a row in over a month, a stretch in which the team has lost six out of ten. Tonight provides the Longhorns an opportunity to finally string a pair of wins together, and to position itself for quite a battle in the league standings during this last week and a half.

The five teams in places three through seven are separated by just one game, and with only four more games on each team’s schedule, there is little room for error. A Texas win tonight means that there is quite a bit on the line this Saturday in College Station. A loss likely means that this former No. 1 team won’t even earn a bye in its conference tournament.

We knew as early as Saturday’s post-game press conference that Dogus Balbay could very well be done for the year. Coach Rick Barnes told reporters he didn’t expect good news, and he was proven a soothsayer when Sunday’s MRI confirmed an ACL tear which will sideline the point guard until next season.

Without Balbay in the lineup for most of the game against Tech, Barnes relied on Justin Mason and Jai Lucas to handle duties at the point guard position. J’Covan Brown was limited to just five minutes and didn’t even see the court until just before halftime. Barnes was sending a message to his freshman, namely “that [Texas] can win games without [Brown].”

The thing is, Texas nearly didn’t. With Brown hardly playing, the Longhorn offense stalled out late in the game and the Red Raiders almost completed a double-digit comeback in just minutes. If Texas can barely top Texas Tech without Brown, what makes Barnes thinks the Longhorns can beat Oklahoma, Oklahoma State, A&M, or Baylor without him?

Lucas is not an effective point guard. He came to Texas because Florida wasn’t going to play him at the point, so clearly he was told he would get that opportunity on the Forty Acres. Well, he’s had that opportunity, and it’s not going to work out. Jai is nowhere near the 5’10” he is listed at, and he lacks the quickness to get enough separation off the dribble to get any open looks. In the last two games, there were two different fast breaks which ended in blocked shots because Lucas tried to take it the entire way on his own.

Jai is most useful when he can actually get open looks from behind the arc, and the only way to do that is to play him off the ball and run screens to get him loose. Defensively, he gives up far too much height to get any helpful pressure on the perimeter, so most opposing guards can shoot threes even if he is in their shorts. Lucas is not the team’s answer at point guard, and he should truly be limited to a couple of short stints each game where Texas tries to free him up for some open threes.

Mason, meanwhile, is going to be needed for a ton of minutes each game. There’s practically no depth in the backcourt, and his play on the defensive end is going to be critical as the calendar turns into March. But he struggled to shake his man off the dribble late in the game on Saturday, most likely due to fatigue from suddenly being saddled with so many minutes. If Mason is going to be too tired to blow past people late in the games, there is no question that Brown has to handle the point guard duties in those crucial minutes.

J’Covan has certainly had growing pains this year, be it his early-season turnover woes, his occasional quick-trigger on shots, or his lapses on defense. The questionable D even irritated his coach enough enough to land Brown in the dreaded doghouse. But unless Rick Barnes decides to hand the reins to J’Covan in these final weeks, there is little hope that the Longhorns are going to be able to muster any sort of run in the post-season. It may be a learning process in the last four games and into the Big 12 tournament, but J’Covan Brown is going to have to be this team’s point guard. Refusing to play him at this point is simply stubbornness to the point of self-detriment.

Not much time to do a proper game preview for this one, but fortunately you can find most everything you’ll need to know about the Red Raiders in the preview from the first meeting of these two teams. Texas won that game 95-83, fueled in large part by surprising offensive outbursts from Dogus Balbay and Justin Mason.

The big difference in this afternoon’s match-up is that Tech will once again have the services of Darko Cohaderavic and D’walyn Roberts, two frontcourt players who will completely change the complexion of the game. The Red Raiders were incredibly thin when these teams first played each other, and the high pace of the game made it easier for Texas to pull away late despite playing absolutely horrible defense. There’s very little chance that will be the case this afternoon.

Fans can probably also expect to see Tech work the ball inside a little more than they did in the first meeting. Coach Pat Knight likes to try to get Cohaderavic going early, not only to earn the easy points inside, but to open things up for his other slashing, athletic wings and guards. A lot of responsibility will fall on the shoulders of the Longhorn frontcourt to ensure that gameplan doesn’t come to fruition.

In addition, Texas also will likely not enjoy another breakout performance from Balbay or Mason. Neither has played at that level since that game, and both have had their minutes significantly cut. Fortunately, J’Covan Brown and Jordan Hamilton have stepped up and performed admirably in their expanded roles. Texas will need solid offensive games out of that pair of freshmen in order to produce this afternoon.

Finally, it must also be noted that United Spirit Arena is a surprisingly tough place for visiting teams to win at. It’s not that there are loud, intimidating crowds here in Lubbock. And it’s not that Tech usually fields good teams that catch even better teams off guard. But for whatever reason, ranked teams often leave United Spirit with a loss, and for a Texas squad that has piled up quite a few of those L’s in recent weeks, it’s something to be concerned about.