The Missouri Tigers (11-3) come to town tonight as Texas plays its first home game in the Big 12 this season. Unfortunately for fans of greasy, curly hair, Quin Snyder will no longer be at the head of the Mizzou bench. But for Tiger fans, they are feeling fortunate to have a new, highly-heralded coach in Mike Anderson.

Missouri comes in off of a bad loss against Iowa State where they blew a sixteen-point lead in the second half…..at home. Their offense completely shut down, as they scored only seven points in the last seven minutes of the game. While Texas probably won’t be lucky enough to see that level of futility from the Tigers, it is reassuring to know that this up-tempo team does occasionally go cold.

The Tigers run fairly deep on their bench, with nine players giving at least 14 minutes a game. But it’s freshman Stefhon Hannah who is the driving force of the team. Hannah leads the team in both points (16.1 PPG) and minutes (30.4 MPG), and is also averaging 3.4 steals per game. While that leads the nation, he is also fifth in the nation when the steals are adjusted by the minutes each player is on the court.

In addition to Hannah, the Missouri offense also likes to run through center Kalen Grimes. While Grimes only plays seventeen minutes a game, he gets a ton of touches down low. He’s not the most efficient player on offense, but he will clean up on the glass. He is particularly great at offensive rebounding, but manages to secure his share on the defensive end as well. When Grimes is in the game, it will be interesting to see who the Horns use to match up with him, and whether or not they can successfully keep him off the glass.

My favorite player on Mizzou is Matt Lawrence. While he’s a horrible defender and will repeatedly get beaten off the dribble tonight, he’s going to make up for it by nailing a ton of threes. Coming into the game, he is hitting from behind the arc at an incredible 53% clip. If the Horns try to run a 2-3 zone against this guy, he is going to make them pay.

Missouri is going to play a high-tempo, pressure style of basketball. They average over 75 possessions per game and are second in the nation at forcing turnovers, making their opponents cough it up on 29 percent of their possessions. For a comparison you can easily grasp, Tennessee forces opponents to turn it over on 25.5% of their possessions, so the intensity will be even higher tonight than it was in Knoxville.

For Texas, we can of course look for a huge game from Kevin Durant. At this point, it’s a lot like saying the sun will come up in the morning. But, as always, the fun comes in seeing who else steps up and has a great night or a key bucket. I’ll also be interested in seeing if Damion James can follow up on a great performance in Colorado and also keep his foul trouble in check.

Tip is at 7 PM tonight at the Drum, so please come on out. Missouri is no slouch, yet there are a ton of tickets available and many students are still away on break. If the FEC is as empty and dead as it was for the conference opener against Baylor a year or two ago, there will be almost no home-court advantage. And this team definitely deserves a big, energetic crowd.

If my guilt trip didn’t work, you can catch the game in the state of Texas on FSN. But you’d better text message me scores from the OSU/Kansas game if you’re going to be sitting on your couch.

My preseason pick for Big 10 champs took one step closer to that title with a huge 72-69 win over the Ohio State Buckeyes last night. That team is, of course, the Wisconsin Badgers, an experienced squad that has flown below the radar for much of the season. But after making a massive second-half run and then holding on in the final seconds against the preseason Big 10 favorite, there may finally be some national media attention heading Madison’s way.

When I worked in Belmont, I had a co-worker who was a Wisconsin grad and a huge fan of their coach, Bo Ryan. I saw a couple of games last season and was impressed. But last night I saw a perfect display of what made him so excited about having Ryan at the head of the bench. The Badgers moved the ball around with speed and precision, oftentimes finding open layups in the half-court set with only a dribble or two. Of course, as I watched I couldn’t help but think about great the Horns would look with a crsip offense instead of constant ball screens on the perimeter. But I digress.

The game also allowed me my first collegiate look at Greg Oden. His offensive performance left a lot to be desired, but who’s to say how much of that was a result of his wrist injury? Of course, it doesn’t help that for the first twenty minutes the Buckeyes were jacking up threes faster than A.J. Abrams and Kevin Durant in the final seconds of the Tennessee game. But defensively, Oden is an absolute monster. His presence inside alters shots so easily and disrupts the offense, although Wisconsin’s ball movement and Oden’s foul trouble essentially negated that for much of the second half.

Wicsonsin and Ohio State will meet again in Columbus on February 25th in a game I believe will be televised on CBS. If you missed last night’s great finish, be sure to tune in for the rematch.

So we’re back from Colorado and still alive, although we certainly were hit by about every winter condition short of a blizzard that you could think of. I’ll get to all of that in the trip wrap, but for now we’ve got a game to break down.

Nothing makes 30 hours spent in a car seem more worthwhile than a solid, convincing win. And after a battle from the Buffs in the first half, that’s exactly what Kevin Durant and the Horns had, pulling away for a 102-78 victory in Boulder.

Texas (11-3, 1-0 Big 12) jumped out to an early lead and it looked like all was going according to script. But Colorado (4-7, 0-1) quickly stormed back and took its own lead. The first half was a see-saw affair, with the Horns unable to shut down Buffs star Richard Roby. He was hitting from outside, and getting open looks inside with Texas constantly losing him away from the ball. They even allowed him easy shots on the offensive glass as he would crash from the outside and no one picked him up.

That all changed in the second half, as Texas came out with added pressure on Roby. The double-teams and help defense frustrated him, as he scored only eight points in the second half after dropping a massive 22 in the first frame. Meanwhile, Texas went on a 22-11 run at the 16:24 mark and never looked back. The surge was fueled by threes, with Texas hitting what I think was four in a row.

Kevin Durant was the star for the Horns, scoring 37 points and grabbing 16 rebounds. He was hitting from absolutely everywhere, going 5-for-7 behind the arc, throwing down some monster dunks, and knocking down the mid-range jumpers, too.

It has reached the point where we know that KD is going to be the standout player in each and every game for the Horns. Which leads me to the newest feature of Longhorn Road Trip — the Player-Not-Named-Kevin-Durant of the Game Award. And for Colorado, I have to give the PNNKDOTGA to Damion James. Enjoy the alphabet soup.

Damion continued his stellar play on the defensive end, despite picking up four fouls. You could tell that the altitude was getting to him, as he’d stand around and grab at his shorts on the offensive sets late in the game. But even with the added exhaustion from playing over a mile above sea level, James gave his best game of the year — fifteen points, nine rebounds, and a block.

A.J. Abrams and D.J. Augustin also added fifteen points each, with the latter just missing out on a double-double. Augustin dished out nine assists while turning the ball over only once and had four steals.

Connor Atchley again provided valuable minutes for Coach Barnes. And while he picked up one dumb foul that I can distinctly remember, his added contribution in playing time is huge. Now if we can just get him to actually finish those layups when he’s fouled….

Texas heads home for its next pair of conference games, starting with Mizzou at 7 PM on Wednesday night.

Conference games kick off today for the Big 12 Conference, which means we no longer have to judge the race based on common games against St. Mary’s State Technical College University. Here’s a brief rundown of the games headed your way. (All times are central.)

Oklahoma (8-4) at Texas Tech (11-4), 12:30 PM
This game is the most compelling in today’s B12 slate, although in the grand scheme of things it really just amounts to which of the “south division” teams is fourth-best. I haven’t had a chance to see either team yet this year, but neither has been especially spectacular. Tech has been playing better lately, though, winning against both Arkansas and a scrappy Bucknell team.
The pick: Tech wins by single digits

Iowa State (9-5) at Missouri (11-2), 5 PM
Mizzou should win this one going away, especially in front of their hardcore fans. Sophomore Matt Lawrence is my favorite Tiger to watch. He’s an absolute three-point machine, as he’s hit 54% of his trey attempts. No word yet on if he could nail a 30-footer over Kevin Durant for a lead with 11 seconds left.
The pick: Missouri cruises

Baylor (10-3) at Oklahoma State (14-1), 5 PM
Poor, poor Baylor. They get to play a non-conference schedule after last year’s ridiculous sanction and get to open their Big 12 sked with the hottest team in the conference. Oy vey. Sure, the Bears have a great record heading into it, but they’ve been beaten by the three real teams they’ve played and earned the wins against a schedule that even Dennis Franchione would call soft.
The pick: Scott Drew’s eyes go glassy by halftime. OSU rolls

Nebraska plays an out-of-conference game today with Western Kentucky. Kansas is idle today, but faces a good road test in South Carolina against the Gamecocks tomorrow.

As for today’s Colorado-Texas tilt…
The pick: Texas makes it closer than it should be, but starts conference play with a win

The Texas Longhorns (10-3) open their Big 12 slate tomorrow in Boulder against the struggling Colorado Buffaloes (4-6). The hosts come into the match-up as losers of four of their last six games, including three home losses to Wyoming, Pepperdine, and Colorado State.

The weather in the Denver area has been abysmal the past few days, as yet another storm dropped up to a foot of snow in some areas. Hopefully the weather will keep some of the CU fans at home, considering the struggles Texas has had in Boulder. Two years ago, the Buffaloes knocked off Texas 88-79. Even the Final Four team in 2003 struggled at the Coors Event Center, taking one of their only seven losses on the year, 93-80. While Colorado has been drawing less than 3,000 per game at home, an even lighter crowd than usual can only help the Longhorns’ chances in an arena that has all kinds of bad juju.

This season appears to be an opportunity for the Horns to reverse the trend, as Colorado has failed to find any consistency in the first half of the year. As usual, their star player is junior Richard Roby, who some thought might try to make the leap to the NBA in June. Instead, he returned for a third year in which he is averaging a shade under 18 points a game while playing thirty minutes for coach Ricardo Patton. After that, the offense drops off. Senior guard Dominique Coleman is the team’s second-highest scorer at only 10.9 per game

Their leading rebounders are forwards Jermyl Jackson-Wilson and Jeremy Wilson, who are combining for 13 boards a game. Jackson-Wilson is also the team’s leading blocker, as he’s swatted eighteen so far this season. And if Colorado has done one thing well in this disappointing year, it’s block shots — the Buffs are logging 5.4 a game so far. Unfortunately for them, this will likely be negated by a Texas team that has 84 blocks of their own.

The 2005 win in Boulder was keyed by a hot-shooting Colorado club that was absolutely burying its threes. This year, that shouldn’t be much of a problem. The Buffs are hitting only 27.9% of their three point attempts, including Roby’s abysmal 23.4% behind the arc. Despite Roby’s struggles, he has jacked up the most threes for Colorado. I have no problem seeing the defense let him take those shots until he proves that he can hit.

Colorado has also struggled handling the ball, turning it over seventeen times while only recording fourteen assists a game. Once again, it looks like a key for Texas will be forcing turnovers and scoring points in the transition game. And by key, I don’t actually think this is so paramount that we’ll lose if we fail to do it. But with this young group of Horns, I’m never sure what is going to happen until the final horn sounds.

While stats and trends from past years are never a good indicator of how current teams will fare, consider this fun little tidbit: Rick Barnes has never lost a Big 12 conference opener in his eight years, while CU’s Patton sports a 1-9 mark….and that one win came all the way back in 1996.

So with all that said, what’s most important for Texas tomorrow?

1. Show up to the gym
2. Play at their talent level, not down to the opposition’s

Ta-da! It’s that easy. And so when CU officials put out a press release on their website today suggesting fans “assess travel conditions and exercise good judgment and caution,” the message was clear — “Stay home, because we’d rather not have our fans witness this one.”