Another non-conference opponent, another double-digit win for the Longhorns. But while the scoreboard boldly trumpeted a 32-point Texas win on Tuesday night, the play on the court was anything but dominating. The Longhorns had arguably their ugliest game of the season, yet still cruised past a horribly overmatched Gardner-Webb team. It was as if Texas knew they simply had to show up to win, and their effort certainly reflected that sentiment.

What looked good

The high point of the night was freshman Jai Lucas breaking out with a 5-of-7 performance behind the arc. Although his shot is a funky little line drive, the Florida transfer was nearly unstoppable from long range. Gardner-Webb was focused on the post man all night when Texas used the pick-and-roll, and as the Bulldogs doubled down on the rolling big man, Lucas quickly fired up the threes.

If Jai can be that accurate all season, teams are going to have to pick their poison when Texas sets high ball screens. Of course, for the rest of the season Texas will be facing many teams with taller guards than those of Gardner-Webb. On those nights, it might feel a bit like A.J. Abrams is on the court, as the Longhorns work to free up their long-range gunner.

The other big storyline of the game was the improved free throw shooting for the Longhorns. Texas shot 76.2% from the line, a full twelve percentage points better than their season average. Gary Johnson was 7-of-8 from the line after starting the season 15-for-20, but most surprising was Damion James‘ perfect 8-for-8 night. Coming into the game, DaMo was just 47-of-72 at the charity stripe, giving him just a 65% success rate. Hopefully this steady shooting night is a sign of things to come.

The Texas defense forced a season-high 27 turnovers, 19 of those coming on steals. They did it with a variety of traps that completely befuddled the Bulldogs and led to lazy passes that hung over midcourt for the waiting Longhorn defenders. Texas has shown a ton of trapping looks early this season, and as a result are turning their opponents over on nearly a quarter of their possessions. When you consider that the Horns weren’t really forcing a ton of turnovers early in the year, it makes the season-long numbers even more impressive.

What needed work

While the trapping was excellent, the perimeter defense was absolutely atrocious for Texas. The Longhorns allowed Gardner-Webb to hit 8-of-14 from beyond the arc in the second half, and allowed a disgusting 50% success rate for the game. Defenders simply did not close out quickly enough and often failed to get a hand up to even challenge the shooter. Whether it was a result of the week-long layoff after the Michigan State game or just a lack of effort due to a pitiful opponent, it was an embarrassing display, and something that surely had Rick Barnes fired up at practice yesterday.

On the offensive end, Texas looked completely careless with the basketball. The Horns turned it over 19 times, much worse than their previous season average of fourteen per game. Most of the turnovers came on lazy passes or overly-fancy, streetball-style dime attempts. Even the typically steady Dogus Balbay was bit by the turnover bug, recording four miscues to just two assists. Before the game, he was boasting a 3.67 assist-to-turnover ratio.

A mixed bag

Against the Bulldogs, J’Covan Brown was absolutely cold from outside. But Gardner-Webb kept giving him looks, and he kept firing away. For as good of a shooter as J’Covan is, that seems like the correct course of action. On most nights, he would eventually hit a shot, get some confidence, and help out the team. Fortunately for the Longhorns, his 1-of-8 night from long range happened to come against one of the worst opponents on their schedule. To Brown’s credit, however, it should be noted that even though the three-balls weren’t falling, he did still occasionally slash to the basket and earned nine points on the night.

Jordan Hamilton was limited to just eleven minutes thanks to an ankle injury, but played within the flow of the offense. In perhaps the most shocking statistic of the night, Hamilton did not attempt a single shot, and actually had three assists. He made a conscious effort to work the ball into the paint in the hopes of exploiting Texas’ massive size advantage. While Longhorn fans won’t want a healthy Jordan Hamilton taking zero shots in a game, his commitment to fitting into the offensive gameplan was a welcome sight.

Looking forward

The Longhorns have another home game before they travel to Fayetteville next week, where they should likely reach the 14-0 mark for just the first time in 28 years. That Saturday home game will be against the Texas A&M-Corpus Christi Islanders, and the Texas Box Office has a slew of promotions available to get fans into the arena. All upper level tickets are just $3, and fans can show their tickets at the box office to also score a free general admission seat to the women’s game that tips at 11 A.M.

After a pair of games against top-ten opponents, the Longhorns take it down a notch tonight in a home contest against the vastly overmatched Gardner-Webb Runnin’ Bulldogs. Much like the UT-Pan American game, this one will be out of hand very, very early. As a result, this game preview will be short and sweet, focusing more on the big picture than on the specific players facing off against the Horns.

First and foremost, you can ignore every single person who points out that the Bulldogs defeated Kentucky on the road two years ago. This is a completely different Gardner-Webb team, and those Wildcats were also a completely different team. This year’s Runnin’ Bulldogs have managed just three wins, and not a single one of them came against Division I competition. While Gardner-Webb has a very tough, challenging schedule, the results have been embarrassing. Excluding a two-point loss in their conference opener against UNC-Asheville, the Runnin’ Bulldogs have lost their games by an average of 31.5 points and have not kept it closer than a 16-point loss to Western Carolina.

The Runnin’ Bulldogs love to push the tempo, proving that their mascot is anything but a misnomer. The Longhorns play the 8th-fastest style of basketball in the country, while Gardner-Webb is the 20th-fastest, so expect a ton of possessions and a lot of points. And because the visiting team does so many things horribly, expect a vast majority of those points to be scored by Texas.

You may be asking your computer screen, “Just how horribly can a Division I team play?” We’ll let stat guru Ken Pomeroy’s numbers do the talking. In the simplest of terms, red is bad. The darker the red, the worse your team is at that aspect of the game. Gardner-Webb’s numbers have more red than a Soviet flag.

You can also take a look at the numbers framed in brackets next to each stat. That represents where Gardner-Webb ranks in relation to the rest of Division I basketball teams for that statistic. For ten different factors out of the twenty listed, the Runnin’ Bulldogs are 310th or worse. It should be noted that there are only 347 teams that play men’s basketball at the NCAA Division I level.

Texas also has a massive size advantage over Gardner-Webb and should have its way in the paint tonight. The tallest Bulldog who sees significant minutes is Auryn McMillan, a 6’8″ senior from Australia who averages 8.8 points and 6.7 rebounds per game. His backup is another Australian, the 6’11” Matt Maden. While he averages less than four minutes a game, Maden will likely be called upon for some extra playing time against the much bigger Texas frontcourt.

Having said all that, it should already be apparent that tonight the only real key is to see how Texas plays after the holiday break. How will Dexter Pittman respond after missing most of the Michigan State game with foul trouble? Will Jai Lucas have a breakout performance in only his third game as a Longhorn? Can Dogus Balbay set a new career high with three dunks in one game?

For those not in Austin or not willing to brave the cold for this inevitable beatdown, the game will be aired in Texas on Fox Sports Net. Longhorn fans spread across the nation can check it out on ESPN Full Court, or at ESPN360.com, if your ISP allows it. For now, enjoy the lopsided affair, and we’ll be back tomorrow for the post-mortem.

It’s been a few days since the Longhorns secured their second-straight win over a top-ten opponent, and unfortunately the post-game review slipped through the cracks as we frantically finished up holiday shopping at the eleventh hour and then enjoyed a few days with the family. But before college basketball gets back in full swing tomorrow, we’d like to take a quick look back at the highlights and lowlights from Tuesday night’s victory.

What looked good

The most impressive part of the Longhorns’ 79-68 win was that it came mostly without Dexter Pittman. Plagued by fouls and referee Rick Hartzell‘s obsession with blowing the whistle, the Texas inside game was quickly hampered. Add in the fact that Damion James seemed a bit too anchored to the perimeter early in the first half, and there was reason for Longhorn fans to be concerned.

It was James’ gutty play that ended up being the difference, though. With his jersey bloodstained and his lip swollen, Damion looked every bit the warrior as he clawed his way to a 23-point, 13-rebound night. It was truly a star performance for the senior, who became the all-time leading rebounder for the University of Texas. And not only did the win underscore James’ ability to carry the team, but it also highlighted how the depth of this Longhorn squad will make it incredibly difficult for opponents to completely shut them down.

Gary Johnson touched on that very fact in the post-game presser. “We can give it to you any way you want it,” the forward said, pointing out that the versatile Longhorns were able to play very different styles of basketball in defeating North Carolina and Michigan State. In addition to making astute observations and providing quality quotes for writers, Johnson also quietly put in a solid effort on the court. The typically shot-happy junior had nearly as many assists (two) as field goals (three), and was a steady 50% from the field.

Johnson’s defense was also a big part of the reason the Longhorns were able to pull away in the waning moments. He stripped the ball from a Spartan guard in the open court not once, but twice in the final minutes, leading to fast break buckets as Texas iced the game. That oft-mentioned depth of the Longhorn bench seemed to play a huge role in the final result, as Texas was able to continue hustling in crunch time, while Michigan State made just one field goal in the final 9:57 of the game.

In addition to that finishing kick, Longhorn fans can also be impressed with the poise their team showed under fire. With Pittman riding the bench in foul trouble, Texas fell as far behind as eight points late in the first half. The Horns closed the gap to three by the time they hit the locker room, where they made adjustments to shore up their perimeter defense. After allowing Michigan State enough time and space to hit 71% of their threes in the first half, the Longhorns locked down the three-point line and allowed just a 12.5% success rate in the second half.

The Texas defense also pressured the Spartans and forced mistakes, earning 22 turnovers in the process. That gave the Spartans a 29.5% turnover rate in the game, their worst performance with the basketball since they coughed it up 33.4% of the time against Florida in a 77-74 loss.

What needed work

For the rest of the season, the first paragraph in this portion of every single game report will likely read the exact same way. The Longhorns simply have no answers from the free throw line. In fact, the Texas free-throw nightmare is so bad that Spartan Coach Tom Izzo instructed his team to foul Dogus Balbay with nearly three minutes left on the clock. Texas quickly responded by giving ballhandling duties to J’Covan Brown, while Izzo changed course and had his team concede the defeat.

While the Longhorns have yet to win a game by less eleven points and they have an average margin of victory of more than 28 points, they will undoubtedly face tougher tests in the future. Games will be closer, and it’s highly likely that whatever losses the team incurs the rest of the way, they will be a result of missed free throws. For a team that is averaging 17 made free throws and 11 missed ones per game, those points left at the line will eventually loom large.

What also needed work was Michigan State’s attempts at distracting the Texas free throw shooters. In the first half, a woman seated in the Michigan State guest pass section decided to blow an air horn before two of James’ free throw attempts. As Murphy would have predicted, the Longhorn big man then made both. (It should be noted that James was just 1-of-5 from the line without air-horn accompaniment.) While it’s embarrassing enough that someone who was allowed into the Erwin Center for free as a guest of the visiting team would break NCAA rules by using an illegal noisemaker, it’s even more embarrassing that she couldn’t even successfully impact the game.

Everything else that Texas needed to improve upon was actually remedied within the game itself. James opened up his game after his early addiction to the perimeter, scoring more inside and getting better position for rebounds. The Longhorns improved their transition defense after letting Michigan State run right past them for easy buckets during most of the first half. And as previously mentioned, the perimeter defense was night-and-day different from one half to the next.

What lies ahead

Fresh off the heels of these two big wins, Longhorn fans are becoming understandably giddy with excitement. The last time Texas started a season 11-0 was in the fall of 2007, when that unblemished start was finally spoiled by Izzo and the Spartans in Auburn Hills. With Michigan State finally vanquished, fans have high hopes that the next two weeks will be smooth sailing for the Longhorns. After home games against Gardner-Webb and Texas A&M-Corpus Christi, a road test against the struggling Arkansas Razorbacks provides the only likely hurdle for Texas as it attempts to enter conference play with a perfect 14-0 mark.

The Longhorns return to the Erwin Center tonight, fresh off an impressive thirteen-point win over a top ten opponent in the North Carolina Tar Heels. But rather than getting a few days to unwind and enjoy the big victory, Texas will be immediately tested once again. This evening, their latest top-ten battle is with the Michigan State Spartans, a program that has been a thorn in the side of Coach Rick Barnes over the last three years. Each of those seasons, the Spartans narrowly won on a neutral court, with the three victories coming by just a combined twelve points.

Michigan State lost a lot of senior leadership and presence in the paint following last season’s Final Four run. Guard Travis Walton was the team’s steady leader in 2009, while big men Goran Sutan and Marquise Gray played important roles down low. Their departures leave the Spartans without a reliable center, and according to Coach Tom Izzo, also leave his team without a vocal leader.

By the numbers

Fans of college basketball know that Izzo is a disciple of defense. Every year, the Spartans are a frustrating match-up for opponents, as they pressure out past the perimeter and force countless turnovers. This season, however, Michigan State has added an impressive offense to match. In fact, the Spartan offense is actually ranked higher nationally (27th) than their defense (43rd) in adjusted efficiency, according to Ken Pomeroy.

With the newfound offensive firepower, Michigan State is pushing the tempo a little bit more this season. As members of the Big 10 Conference, the Spartans have often played grind-it-out basketball games with their league opponents. This year, the Big 10 is going to have to hustle to keep up. Michigan State’s 70.9 possessions per game is 84th-quickest in the nation, and is a massive shift from Izzo’s previous style. During the last six seasons, MSU has averaged just 65.5 possessions per game and never finished higher than 126th nationally in tempo, while placing 240th or lower in three of those years.

The thing the Spartans do best, though, is rebound. They are ranked eighth in the nation in offensive rebounding percentage, as they grab over 43% of their own misses. That dominance extends to the defensive glass, allowing Michigan State to enjoy a rebounding margin of +11.2, which is 6th-best in the country. Just behind the Spartans in the national rankings are the Longhorns, who have a margin of +11.1 boards per game. Tonight’s contest could very well be decided by which team imposes their will on the glass.

Meet the Spartans

Coach Izzo has been tinkering with his lineup all season long, looking for the right combination as he reloads his team and searches for that aforementioned missing leadership. Nine different Spartans have started during the team’s first eleven games, although only the core rotation of seven players are averaging more than 20 minutes per contest.

Junior guard Kalin Lucas is the one player that has started each game for Michigan State. Named the Big 10’s Player of the Year as just a sophomore, the speedy little guard has a deadly shot and seemingly omniscient court vision. Saturday’s victory over IPFW marked the 21st-consecutive game where Lucas scored in double digits, and he is leading the team with an average of 16.1 points per game. He added muscle over the offseason, so the 6-foot guard is also able to fight through contact when he attacks the rim this year.

Joining Lucas in the backcourt is Chris Allen, a 6’3″ junior who isn’t afraid to battle inside with bigger opponents. But what Allen is best known for is his jump shot, a skill that has unfortunately eluded him over the last season and a half. He broke his foot in the NCAA title game against North Carolina, and perhaps that is the reason why he has struggled from the floor this season. He’s shown flashes of his former brilliance at times, but has played inconsistently enough to log a 46% success rate from the field, including just 34% from behind the arc. Allen is certainly a dangerous man who is due to break out, so the Longhorns must keep an eye on him this evening.

Adding to the depth in the Spartan backcourt is Korie Lucious, a sophomore guard who, like Lucas, is not just a great facilitator, but also a dangerous shooter. While Korie has hit just 35% of his three-pointers this year and only 36% of all his shots, his jumper is far better than those numbers indicate. Like Allen, Lucious is liable to get hot at any moment, and Texas can’t afford to let him do so. Also just like Allen, Lucious is recovering from a broken foot, and that could be affecting his accuracy.

Down low, big man Raymar Morgan is the only senior on Michigan State who plays any significant minutes. He’s a big, strong forward who is a handful down low, but his accurate midrange jumper makes him even more dangerous. This season, he’s averaging nearly eleven points and six rebounds per game. His ability (or inability) to turn in that kind of performance against the Texas frontcourt will be key to Michigan State’s chances tonight.

The other big force in the paint is forward Draymond Green. Although he has started just three games, he’s second on the team in scoring and leads the team in rebounding. At 6’6″, he’s a bit undersized for the power forward role, but can do that when the Spartans want to run with a smaller lineup. When Michigan State wants to go bigger, Green’s surprising abilities with the basketball even allow Coach Izzo to use him as a point forward. If ballhandling, rebounding, scoring, and assists aren’t enough of a contribution from Green, he even chips in with his quick hands on defense, to the tune of a team-leading 16 steals. With tonight’s big game on national television, this could be a breakout game for the well-rounded sophomore.

Durrell Summers is another ‘tweener for Coach Izzo, who has the player listed as a 6’4″ guard. He’s quick and can take defenders off the dribble, and has bulked up prior to his junior season so that he’s able to body up more inside. He has a lot of length that will frustrate the Texas offense, and incredible hops that could lead to some impressive dunks and blocks in tonight’s game. Like Allen and Lucious, Summers is a solid shooter who has struggled so far this season. But as Texas fans can surely remember, Durrell can hit the clutch shots, like the three that knocked off the Longhorns in Houston last December.

The final member of the core rotation is power forward Delvon Roe, who has started nine games and is averaging 22 minutes per contest. The sophomore has high expectations this year, following a freshman season in which he was adjusting to a surgically-repaired knee. Once a top-ten recruit, Roe is quicker and more agile than most power forwards, allowing him to defend further from the paint and also draw out opponents when he has the ball.

While he’s averaging just eight points and eight boards per game, those numbers have been limited by an unfortunate problem with fouls. Roe picked up his fifth personal against both North Carolina and Gonzaga with seven minutes still left on the clock, and also fouled out against Florida Gulf Coast. Against the deep Texas frontcourt, Delvon will have to be careful not to pile up the personals once again.

Averaging only nine minutes per game, freshman center Garrick Sherman is a work-in-progress that Izzo hopes will anchor his frontcourt in years to come. As a high school senior in Ohio last year, Sherman was the Co-Player of the Year, and his fundamentals and footwork certainly seem to be sound. It appears, however, that Garrick gets overly nervous at times and rushes with the basketball. When he slows down, he’s actually been fairly impressive, and his eight point performance in just eight minutes on Saturday could be a sign that the light has finally come on for this youngster.

The other newcomer at center is freshman Derrick Nix, a 6’8″, 280-pound player that will remind fans of Dexter Pittman as a freshman. Nix was as heavy as 340 pounds in high school and is still adjusting to his new body and the speed of Michigan State basketball, but he is highly effective in short bursts. Nix swats a ton of shots down low, and has even had a few nice steals early in the season.

On offense, he still seems awkward at times, likely as a result of having to post up against college defenders instead of just barreling through them like he did in high school. If Nix and Pittman are on the floor at the same time tonight, it ought to be entertaining to watch.

Keys to the game

As we mentioned earlier, these two teams are both dominant on the glass. While it’s highly likely this will lead to a very close battle on the boards, if either team is able to hold a significant rebounding edge, it could be the difference. Texas can easily frustrate their opponents if they can manage to shut down the highly-effective Michigan State offensive rebounders and eliminate a ton of extra Spartan chances.

With so many skilled shooters who have struggled over the first month of the year, the Longhorns also have to be worried about a sudden flurry of offense from the outside. Texas needs to shut down the three-point shooters, especially after allowing North Carolina to hit 54% of their long-range attempts on Saturday afternoon.

While the Longhorns should be worried about the Michigan State backcourt, they are likely giddy over the advantage their frontcourt has in this match-up. Texas should attack the Spartans inside, drawing fouls on Roe and Green so that Sherman and Nix are forced to play a bigger role. The Longhorns should enjoy a nice edge on points scored in the paint, and getting the thin Michigan State frontcourt in foul trouble should only make that easier.

For the second time in the last three years, Rick Barnes has led his Texas Longhorns to a perfect 9-0 start. Texas has yet to truly be tested, winning those first nine games by an average margin of 32.7 points. That all changes today.

The Longhorns square off with the defending National Champions this afternoon in the first-ever basketball game held at the giant Cowboys Stadium in Arlington Texas. While both schools have cash incentives built into their contracts to reward them for drawing crowd as big as 75,000, most observers expect less than 40,000 in the seats. Regardless of how many basketball fans make their way into JerryWorld this afternoon, it will be a historic day.

Although the Tar Heels are fresh off another national title, Roy Williams’ team is still finding its way early in the season. North Carolina lost four starters from last year’s team, including Tyler Hansborough and point guard Ty Lawson. The new-look Tar Heels are incredibly young, boasting a highly talented five-man recruiting class, and have a very deep frontcourt that could be the best in the nation.

By the numbers

That excellent North Carolina frontcourt means that the Heels don’t push the ball up and down the floor quite as much as they used to. Of course, that’s not saying much when you consider just how fast last year’s UNC team played. This year, the “slower” style of Tar Heel basketball is still the 25th-quickest in the nation, with an average of over 74 possessions in each of their games.

When North Carolina isn’t scoring easy points in the transition game or on the secondary break, they love pounding the ball down low to their big men. Nearly 64% of their points come from within the arc, good enough for fourth nationally in that metric.

Oddly enough, their free-throw rate isn’t sky-high as a result. The FTR measures how often teams head to the line in relation to field goals they attempt per game. North Carolina’s FTR is just a tad over 38%, which actually places them just outside the top third of the country. By comparison, the Longhorns boast an FTR of 46 percent.

The number which could be most important in this afternoon’s game is the turnover margin. So far this year, North Carolina has actually turned the ball over more often than their opponent, albeit just barely. The Tar Heels have a negative 0.3 turnover differential per game this season, a number that stems largely from their massive early-season struggles with the ball. While the youngsters have settled down quite a bit in recent weeks, the quick tempo and inexperience can still lead to a fair share of miscues for the Heels.

Meet the Tar Heels

Without a doubt, the toughest match-up for Texas is big man Deon Thompson. The 6’9”, 245-pound senior is not only a beast in the paint, but is a handful off the dribble and can hit spot-up jumpers from anywhere on the floor. While he’s not going to shoot a ton of threes, Thompson has still proven that he has the perimeter shot in his arsenal. The threat of his jump shot keeps defenses honest, so when opponents play him tighter outside, Thompson uses an explosive first step to blow by them and get to the rim.

Thompson is also going to give Texas a lot to handle on the glass. He is averaging eight boards per game to go along with his team-leading 17 points per contest, and his offensive rebounding rate is actually 66th-best in the country according to stat guru Ken Pomeroy.

In the backcourt, Marcus Ginyard is the steady leader of the team. After missing nearly the entire championship season due to injury, the senior guard used a medical redshirt to return for one more season. Unfortunately, he is struggling with another foot injury and is listed as probable for today’s game.

Ginyard is best-known for his suffocating, lock-down defense, and is often found harassing the opposing ballhandlers well beyond the perimeter. He worked hard on his jump shot all off-season, and it’s already paying off. While North Carolina isn’t a team that takes a ton of three-pointers, Ginyard is one player opponents hate to see shooting from behind the arc. So far this year, he is hitting at a 44% clip from long range and is averaging over 10 points per game.

Although not a senior like Thompson and Ginyard, big man Ed Davis is also a huge contributor for the Heels. Just a sophomore, he still hasn’t even completely developed into his 6’10” frame, but is already dominating opponents down low. He fights for every single rebound, and currently leads the team with more than nine boards per game. Davis is also an intimidating presence on defense, swatting nearly three shots per contest.

In the backcourt, sophomore Larry Drew II has huge shoes to fill at the point guard position. Following the departure of Lawson to the NBA, the youngster who averaged just nine minutes and 1.4 points per game in 2008-09 was handed the keys to the offense. No pressure.

For the most part, Drew has responded very well. He’s averaging nine points per game and has improved dramatically over the first month of the season after struggling with turnovers in his first few games. Drew is very quick with the basketball and can weave in and out of traffic to reach the paint. But if teams think they can sag back to try to keep the speedster in front of them, they quickly discover how deadly accurate Drew is from long range. On the year, the guard has connected on 42.3% of his three-point attempts.

Swingman Will Graves is the fifth man in the starting rotation for Coach Williams. With so many other talented players on the floor, Graves isn’t asked to do too much, and his stats are rather pedestrian as a result. What he does provide to the team, though, is a heady player who can run the floor and attack defenders off the dribble from the perimeter. Don’t be surprised if Graves is the one coming up with a key bucket late in the game while Texas is focused on all of the other stars.

Off the bench, giant seven-footer Tyler Zeller provides quite the spark in the paint. Although he plays just 19 minutes a game, Zeller is still the third-highest scorer on the team with 9.2 points per game. Named “Mr. Basketball” for the state of Indiana in 2008, the tall, thin center can run the floor incredibly well for his size and fits perfectly into the up-tempo style of UNC. In the half-court game, he provides a huge target on the blocks and his solid turnaround jumper can make him seem unstoppable when he gets the ball down low.

Freshman John Henson started playing his high school ball at Round Rock, just a few hours south of JerryWorld. After transferring to a prep school in Florida, he chose North Carolina from a long list of suitors that included the Texas Longhorns. Henson is 6’10” and has an incredible wingspan, but still has the body of a freshman. He’s wiry and lacks the muscle to bang around down low with experienced college forwards and centers. But Henson is incredibly athletic and agile, so he’s able to pull those defenders out away from the basket and beat them off the dribble.

Dexter Strickland is another of the talented freshman on the Carolina roster, and has been blossoming as the backup point guard behind Drew II. Like the starting point, Strickland is ridiculously fast and can speed past the defense in transition and off the perimeter. But the youngster is still making his share of freshman mistakes, which have limited him to just over thirteen minutes per game. Strickland is hampered by a hamstring injury that has him listed as questionable for today’s game. If he does play, the Horns can’t afford to lose him on defense, as he’s showcased a very solid jump shot early in the year.

The excellent freshman class at Carolina also includes twin brothers Travis and David Wear from Mater Dei in California. The 6’10” freshmen can score inside, but they also are very impressive shooting the ball from the midrange and even beyond the perimeter. Defensively, they often seem uncomfortable if pulled too far outside the paint, but when they are able to camp out near the rim, their length is invaluable.

Keys to the game

This afternoon’s contest is an intriguing match-up of similar styles, with both teams able to run the floor or beat up their opponents in a half-court game with their solid frontcourts. Vegas thinks the Longhorns are six-point favorites on this semi-home court, but it wouldn’t be at all surprising to see this one finish even closer.

For Texas, the most important thing is to control the paint. In their loss to Syracuse, the Tar Heels were absolutely stymied by a 2-3 zone that kept them from scoring inside and forced them to take a ton of perimeter shots which mostly resulted in misses. Even against an over-matched North Carolina Central team, the Tar Heels seem perturbed by the zone and were content to wait around the perimeter when they couldn’t attack the paint. If the Longhorns can keep Carolina from getting looks inside, they will have a much better shot at the win.

Texas also needs to force mistakes by the young Tar Heels. North Carolina has turned it over at least 19 times in four of their games, so the quick hands of Dogus Balbay and Avery Bradley on defense could lead to turnovers and easy points for the Horns. There is no easier way to slow down a high-octane team than taking the ball away from them.

In addition, the Longhorn guards and swingmen have to make sure they don’t force things inside. With their stable of tall, lengthy defenders, the Tar Heels love it when opponents try to drive all the way to the rim, or take their time trying to make moves on the blocks. The typical result is a swatted shot that ends up somewhere in the 15th row. What Carolina’s defense is susceptible to is good ball movement and drive-and-dish attacks. If Texas can work the ball around and make the tall defenders react, they will earn many more open looks.

Finally, Texas must take advantage of the freebies. Neither of these teams is very good at shooting free throws, with the Heels making just 65% of their attempts and the Longhorns sinking an even-more embarrassing 61 percent. This game has all the makings of a nail-biter, so every single point is crucial. Leaving those points sitting at the line will certainly leave one of these teams saying “What if?” tomorrow morning.