TV: Fox Sports Southwest (TX only), 7 PM
Internet radio: SportsJuice.com

At Christmas, you find yourself eating a lot of food that you really know you shouldn’t be. You’re already beyond full, stuffed with turkey or ham and that delicious green bean casserole. You know there’s no possible enjoyment or benefit coming from trying to squeeze in just one more fudge square. But it’s just sitting there on the plate, and you find that you can’t stop grazing while Uncle Ernie is telling another story about seeing Wayne Newton live in Las Vegas.

And unforunately, that uncomfortably-full mindless gorging reminds me a lot of the game tonight between Texas and Centenary. There’s no lasting benefit that comes out of it — besides the brief moment where it tastes ohsogood — and it’s seems that it’s only there to give us a brief distraction from our annoying relatives. (Sorry, Uncle Ernie.)

Tonight’s game against Centenary isn’t going to provide much in the way of drama or intrigue, but it will give Rick Barnes a fairly strong chance at his 200th victory with the University of Texas. In fact, I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that by the end of the night, Barnes will have reached the double-century mark. I’m a risk taker, I know.

The Centenary Gentlemen (5-7) are from a private school in Shreveport and play in the Mid-Continent Conference, where they face such challenging opponents as Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis — that’s IUPUI for you acronym-lovers — and Oral Roberts. Their RPI is currently 237 according to Ken Pomeroy’s RPI approximations so we will certainly see a slide in our SOS. Of course, when we play Alcorn State to start the year, everybody else looks tougher by association.

It appears that the Gents run pretty deep on their bench, with eight players seeing significant minutes and freshman forward Jeff Montague chipping in another eleven a game. Their leading scorer is guard Tyrone Hamilton, who is averaging just over 15 points per game. Centenary also looks like a pretty small team on paper, so I can only assume that we are going to see a strong rebounding advantage for the Horns.

Centenary, like Texas State, has already surpassed their win total for the 2005-06 season. The Gents only have five wins, but that still is an improvement over their 4-23 mark of a year ago. Coincidentally enough, Centenary and Texas State will play on Saturday in a rematch of the 91-85 Gents win back in November.

Honestly, this game is going to be pretty boring. But hopefully the two hours in the Erwin Center will give me enough time to figure out how in the hell to pronounce the name. Is it CEN-te-nary? Or perhaps cen-TEN-ary? These are the great philosophical questions that keep me up late at night.

For the Horns, it’s really just a chance to see how the team is looking heading into the new year and conference play. Is D.J. Augustin back at 100% after gutting through second-half cramps in Tennessee on Saturday? Will J.D. Lewis see increased playing time after his strong showing in Knoxville? And can Dexter Pittman get a double-double in less than 10 minutes of playing time?

I’d like to see Damion James take it to the rack a lot more tonight, so we can get a look at whether or not his inside touch is back. He’s thrown down his share of dunks lately, but his layups and pull-up jumpers are still a bit off. And what better time to work on a punishing inside game than against a team with the pushover nickname of “Gents”?

If you’re in town, swing by the FEC and fill in the abundance of empty seats we’ll have downstairs. Otherwise, you can catch the game in Texas on FSN, on the Longhorn Radio Network, or through the Centenary broadcast online at SportsJuice.com.

TV: ESPN, 11 AM Central

Texas faces its third SEC opponent of the month on Saturday afternoon as they take on the Tennessee Volunteers in Knoxville. Both teams come in on winning streaks, with the Vols claiming a five-game run while the Horns have won their last three. But for Texas to earn an SEC sweep, they’re going to have to survive their first real road test of the year.

Tennessee pulled out a thriller on Monday night against Oklahoma State in Nashville, winning 79-77 on a Dane Bradshaw tip-in with 1.9 seconds left. Two days later, Texas survived a tough battle with the Arkansas Razorbacks despite going ice-cold from the line in the second half.

For this weekend’s game, I’ll try to make the keys reader-friendly for those who decide to tune in and watch Bruce Pearl sweat more than his players.

1. Protect the ball
Tennessee is great with ball pressure, and Texas was a victim of that last December. The Horns turned over the ball 22 times in the 95-78 Vol blowout, but should do much better this time around. Last season, A.J. Abrams was shoved into the point guard role after Daniel Gibson left the game with a concussion. This year, Texas has a true point guard — albeit a freshman point guard — who has run the offense very well and can score at will if the defense overplays.

Texas State ran a lot of presses against the Horns last weekend, and it seemed to frustrate them for much of the contest. But as the game wore on, Texas worked their way through it and eventually pulled away. Tennessee’s intense defense is much more dangerous, as they showed in forcing two huge turnovers late in the Oklahoma State contest. It’s probably unavoidable that Texas will turn over the ball more than usual. The key is to limit the damage.

2. Turn the tables
On the flip side of Tennessee’s pressure defense is their own sloppy ballhandling. The Vols average just over 17 turnovers a game, and that offers a huge opportunity for Texas to create transition baskets and cancel out their own inevitable TOs.

3. Limit Lofton
Chris Lofton is without a doubt the most dangerous player on the floor for Tennessee. He’s hitting threes at a ridiculous 48.9% in the first eleven games, and was able to torch the Longhorns for 21 in last year’s matchup. Texas must protect the perimeter and not allow the abundance of open looks that they gave Gonzaga and Arkansas. If they can’t keep a hand in the face of Lofton, it’s going to be a long, long day.

4. Go forth with alacrity
a·lac·ri·ty – noun
   1. cheerful readiness, promptness, or willingness
   2. liveliness; briskness.

While cheerful readiness is always great, I don’t think it matters if Jay Mason is smiling or not. But if I had my Christmas wish and this game were on TBS, alacrity would be a key. And wouldn’t this game be great to watch with Seger and the pubescent, voice-cracking announcer?

While not a key, it will be interesting to see if the improvement from Damion James and Connor Atchley can continue. Along with the increased contributions from those two, we’ve also seen a rise in fouls from our players in the last two games. Keep an eye on the foul trouble for our key players, particularly D.J. Augustin. He tends to rack up quite a few, and with the attention we are going to have to be paying to Lofton — and, to a lesser extent, JaJuan Smith — our guards are going to be vulnerable to picking up fouls away from the basket.

The crowd will also obviously be something new for the Horns to deal with. The “neutral site” game in Phoenix is the closest thing that the Horns have seen to a road environment, with probably 90% of the crowd pulling for Gonzaga. But Bruce Pearl has created a lot of excitement in Knoxville, and there will be much less than 10% of the arena rooting for the Horns. Right now, the weather is absolutely shitty and the game is obviously two days before the holidays. Hopefully those two factors can come together enough to negate some of the huge home-court advantage.

I’m not sure when I’ll get to the post-game, considering it’s another fifteen-hour drive back to Austin. But in the meantime, enjoy the game and have a very merry Christmas, happy Hannukah, killer Kwanzaa… and, of course, a great Festivus.

Here’s the requisite open thread preceding all road trips. I’ll be in Knoxville, Tennessee on Friday and Saturday to see our boys take on the Volunteers in their first road test of the season.

So far, some of the good folks over at Longhorn Nation have suggested a few restaurants to me. The tips on BBQ include Corky’s and Buddy’s, while one Horn fan threw out Calhoun’s on the River. Apparently if you want to open a restaurant in Knoxville, you have to name it after yourself.

Have your own favorite sights or eats in Knoxville? Want to blindly send me into the bad part of town? (I hear those country-western gangs are pretty hard. They’ll cut you.) Just follow the speech bubble and throw in your two cents. And if you’ve got suggestions for Memphis, feel free to throw them in there. It looks like I’ll be passing through, so I can always make a stop if need be.

In the meantime, enjoy the great win over Arkansas and I’ll be back with a Tennessee preview on Friday night or Saturday morning. And maybe someday I’ll get to wrapping up that trip to Phoenix. You know, the one I took three weeks ago.

Thanks in advance for your tips, and be safe on your holiday travels this weekend.

I leave for the first true road trip of the season in about fourteen hours and am working for eight of them, so I figure I’ll jot down my initial thoughts on the Arkansas game and perhaps come back to it again next week once I get a chance to watch it on the DVR. Later this afternoon I’ll have an open thread for Knoxville suggestions, although from what I hear the town doesn’t have a whole lot. Hopefully I’ll be surprised.

The Texas-Arkansas rivalry was renewed on Wednesday night in front of a rowdy, near-capacity crowd at the Frank Erwin Center. Whether it was the Hogs’ Charles Thomas trying to give covert “Horns down” hand signs to the student section on free throw attempts, or the heated exchange between Thomas and Kevin Durant, the bad blood was still around fifteen years later. In an exciting, back-and-forth second half, Texas (8-2) finally came out on top, defeating Arkansas (8-3) by a final of 80-76.

I’d mentioned in my pregame that Razorback freshman Patrick Beverley had yet to have a true breakout game, his debut against Southeast Missouri State notwithstanding. He certainly had one against the Horns. While his nineteen points were ten less than he had against SEMS, the Longhorns are a bit of a tougher opponent than the Redhawks. On Wednesday night, Beverley was particularly deadly in a second half where Arkansas lit it up from behind the arc. After hitting only 27.3% of their threes in the first half, the Hogs upped their second-half rate to a much healthier 41.7 percent.

For Texas, it was once again a cast of stars. And while Kevin Durant was the biggest of them, dropping 28 points to go with 13 rebounds, there were great performances up and down Rick Barnes’ lineup.

Damion James was one, despite fouling out of the game. He provided a ton of minutes inside against Thomas and Steven Hill, and went 5-for-6 from the free throw line — a good step forward psychologically after the meltdown in the final minutes of the LSU game.

Then there was D.J. Augustin, who added another fourteen points, giving him 63 in his last three games. He had four steals on the night, although he got his hand in the passing lane on many more chances, knocking the ball out of bounds and disrupting the Arkansas flow. The kid is one of the most exciting players I’ve seen in my time on the Forty Acres, in every phase of the game. And when I’ve been priviliged enough to see T.J. Ford, LaMarcus Aldridge, and P.J. Tucker from my spot in the South O-Zone, that’s truly high praise.

Connor Atchley stepped up again, giving Texas 26 minutes off the bench. And while he fouled out, most of his fouls were not of the stupid variety, and they certainly took a hell of a lot longer than his four-fouls-in-four-minutes disaster back in New York. It appears that Connor’s light switch has finally been flipped, and I can’t wait to see his continued growth all season with the added minutes he’s rightly earned. Atchley was active underneath, and while he still needs to work on finishing putbacks and tip-ins, the fact that he’s mixing it up inside is huge for a team that is still searching for a consistent post presence.

A.J. Abrams brought his three-point stroke back to the Drum on Wednesday night, going 4-of-9 from behind the arc. He finished with 14 points and played all but two minutes of the game. Oddly enough, he didn’t get to the free throw line once. Perhaps coupling his outing against Arkansas with the one he gave against Texas State on Saturday, we can draw a conclusion about Abrams’ game. When his three-point shot was not falling against the Bobcats, he worked his way inside for more attempts off the dribble. Tonight, he only took two non-threes, making one. It’d be nice to see him get a nice, consistent mix, but you really can’t argue with 44% three-point shooting. And on a team that is playing this well offensively, it looks like A.J.’s scoring role with be of the catch-and-shoot variety.

The one oddity I noticed during the game was that there seemed to be two different Texas teams shooting free throws in each half. The Horns were a perfect 8-of-8 in the first twenty minutes, and made one of their first two in the second. Between those first ten and the final three that Texas made to finish off the Hogs, the Longhorns were 5-for-13 from the line for a huge chunk of the second half. And it wasn’t just Justin Mason who struggled from the line in the final twenty minutes, but Kevin Durant as well. Fortunately, both of them redeemed themselves at the line in the waning moments, as they combined to make those final three charity shots that I previously mentioned.

My player of the game goes to Mason, who made the clutch layup in traffic, drew the foul, and sank a free throw to put Texas up for good. While he only had ten points — albeit three of them were the biggest of the game — he dished out seven assists and gave Coach Barnes a solid 33 minutes.

I noticed a few interesting things on the defensive end, but will have to go back and watch the recording later to really get a feel for them. I find defense to be the toughest part to break down at home games, as I’m fairly busy with the jumping up and down and screaming myself hoarse. But I did catch Durant at the top of a 1-2-2 again for a brief moment in the first half, which I first noticed the Horns bust out on Saturday. I think Barnes is planning on using it as a change of pace, to force the opponent to make their own adjustments before Texas retreats back into a normal set.

I also noticed a bit more man than I’d expected early on, and was pleased with how well some of our guys were switching on screens. As the game wore on and Arkansas got hot from behind the arc, we were clearly having issues flashing out on shooters. But in the end, the only numbers that really matter are the one on the big scoreboard in the middle, and that showed Texas with a four-point advantage.

The team travels to Knoxville, Tennessee on Saturday to face the Vols, their third SEC opponent in December. Coach Rick Barnes will be looking for his 200th victory at the helm of the Texas Longhorns, while the team will be looking to push their winning streak to a season-high four games.

TV: ESPN2, 8 PM CT

That odd sound you hear coming from the Erwin Center isn’t actually a pig call. It’s really a celebratory cry after another welfare check is succesfully cashed. And with an intro like that, there can only be one team in town to face the Horns tonight — the hated Arkansas Razorbacks, and their unwashed fans. They’re a lot like Sooners, only fatter.

As for the basketball, it should be a fun game. For Texas, it provides another chance to beat a high-quality RPI opponent and pad the March resume. Arkansas is currently ranked 20th in Ken Pomeroy’s RPI approximation, despite getting manhandled by Missouri earlier this season and Texas Tech in Little Rock last weekend.

The Tech win is a little bit misleading, as a look inside the numbers will reveal. The Red Raiders shot lights out in the game, hitting at a 54.3% clip, including 6-of-10 from behind the arc. Arkansas, on the other hand, took nearly half of their shots from three-point land and had a success rate below the Mendoza line. The Pigs were 3-for-21 on threes, or 14.3% successful.

Arkansas has a much bigger team than the Texas State squad the Horns beat up on, but it may not make a huge difference in the rebounding department. Seven-footer Steven Hill provides quality minutes off the bench for the Razorbacks, averaging just over a half of play per game, but is only averaging 2.7 boards. Something doesn’t quite add up for this guy, and fortunately for Texas the sum is a giant with piss-poor rebounding skills. Darian Townes and Vincent Hunter are both 6-10 guys but generally useless on the glass. They also come off the pine for Arkansas and average roughly seventeen minutes a game.

Offensively, Texas will have to deal with star freshman Patrick Beverley. He leads the team in scoring, but struggled in the win over West Virginia and the loss to Texas Tech. His scoring average comes mostly from dropping 29 points in the opener against Southeast Missouri State and another nineteen on Oakland. Other than those two games, he has yet to truly show the talent he possesses. Hopefully it doesn’t come out tonight at the Drum.

Texas should be able to get their share of transition baskets in this game. With Barnes’ focus on defense, plus a Razorback team that averages 17.8 turnovers a game — yes, you read that right — Texas should get a fair number of chances at pushing the tempo. And fortunately for the Horns, the teams that have been able to do that against Arkansas have found success.

As always, the keys for Texas are Kevin Durant, rebounding, and quality minutes from their inside men. I can’t help but think that Durant will bounce back from his shockingly mortal game against Texas State. As for rebounding, the lack of skill possessed by the Razorback big men will likely cancel out their height advantages. And if the past few games are any indication, we should see more quality time from Connor Atchley and a few solid minutes from Pittman as well. Only time will tell how Matt Hill does against the Pigs, but I don’t think his contributions will be as key as Atchley’s.

I think Texas can win this in front of a home crowd with a team still riding high from the LSU upset. Keep your eyes on A.J. Abrams to see how he bounces back from Saturday’s rough outing. And as always, look for great things from our exciting freshmen D.J. Augustin and Justin Mason.

UT announced today that there were still 2,200 tickets available as of 10:30 this morning. So if you’re in town, get yourself out to the Erwin Center and help to revive this old rivalry. I can still remember being at the last home game against them in 1991 and the atmosphere and mutual hatred was amazing. With any luck, by the end of this four-year contract we can get the series back to where it was under Tom “Fake-Bake” Penders and Nolan Richardson.

Tip’s at 8 P.M. Hope to see you there.