As the Texas Longhorns headed to the locker room at halftime of Saturday afternoon’s game against Kansas State, it appeared that the hopes of a 14th-consecutive NCAA appearance could be circling the drain. The Wildcats had put on a late surge to build a 13-point lead heading into the break, thanks in large part to the fact that the Horns managed just two field goals in the final 16:28 of the half.

The first possession of the second half started off promising, as Clint Chapman blocked a shot and the Wildcats missed a short putback. But then another offensive rebound led to an easy hoop for K-State, and suddenly Texas was in a 15-point second-half hole on a day where they had yet to even manage that many points from the field. Even faced with those daunting odds, the Longhorns stormed back and kept their NCAA hopes alive, powered by a surprise performance from the unlikeliest of sources.

With 16:30 left in the game, Alexis Wangmene threw down a dunk off a missed layup by J’Covan Brown, breaking a 12-minute field goal drought for the Longhorns and bringing the Erwin Center crowd to life. It cut the Kansas State lead to 10 points and kick-started an 11-0 run that put the Longhorns back in the game. Following Wangmene’s dunk, Texas outscored KSU by a 43-20 count the rest of the way, cruising in the final minutes to an incredibly important win.

What looked good

While Wangmene provided the turning point for the Horns, he also chipped in his first career double-double, posting 15 points and 13 boards on the afternoon. His performance went beyond the stats, as his little hustle plays kept Texas in the game during a dismal first half and helped to lock up the game in the second. He added two blocks and a steal, but his active hands on defense disrupted many more plays than that.

The one possession that best exemplified Wangmene’s effort came in the first half when he was sprawled on the floor, stretched across the lane following a missed shot by Texas. Three Wildcats had chances to corral the rebound, but he kept tipping at the ball, knocking it out of their hands. Ultimately, a Kansas State player bobbled the ball out of bounds, giving it back to Texas on the baseline. He had no chance at actually securing the basketball himself, but Wangmene’s hustle forced a mistake by the opponents. That type of heads-up play defined Alexis’ performance on Saturday.

Myck Kabongo had set the tone early for Texas, picking up where he left off in the team’s first meeting at Bramlage Coliseum. The freshman consistently attacked the paint, as K-State’s Angel Rodriguez once again couldn’t keep up with his quick first step. Myck scored seven of Texas’ first 11 points, and added an assist on a nice interior bounce pass for a Wangmene dunk. His impact was short lived, however, as he picked up his second foul midway through the first and spent the rest of the half on the bench.

It took only three minutes of the second half for Kabongo to pick up his third foul, once again leaving the Horns without their point guard. Unlike the first half, the Texas offense remained aggressive with Kabongo off the floor, led by a revitalized Brown. The junior guard scored 15 of his 23 points in the second half, including a pair of buckets on nifty spin moves that froze Kansas State and electrified the crowd.

Brown’s commitment to driving the lane and attacking Kansas State spread to the team, and the Longhorns took advantage of an officiating crew that was calling everything tight. The two teams were called for nine fouls combined in the first four minutes of the game, and as a result both squads were shuffling players thanks to foul trouble. With the Wildcat frontcourt reduced to a platoon situation, the quick, athletic Longhorn guards and wings continually put the ball on the floor and made the defense react, earning easier looks inside and 28 trips to the line in the second half.

The Longhorns also continued their resurgence at the charity stripe, knocking down nearly 73% of their attempts for the game. In the first half, Texas was a questionable 13-of-20 from the line, but improved down the stretch when it mattered most. After making just 63.2% of their attempts in the games against Iowa State, Baylor, and Missouri, the Longhorns have made 75.5% of their free throws during their three-game winning streak.

While the aggressive play helped Texas storm back in the second half, the team’s dominating defensive performance made sure that Kansas State had no chance to stop the comeback. The Longhorns extended their pressure beyond the perimeter, with even Wangmene getting up in the shirt of K-State bigs when they would catch the ball on the arc. The Longhorns forced nine turnovers and held the Wildcats to just 32.3% shooting in the second half, while also shutting out top scorer Rodney McGruder for the final twenty minutes.

Texas also dominated the glass, making sure that their solid defensive possessions weren’t ruined by second chances for Kansas State. Led by Wangmene’s breakout performance, the Longhorns limited the Wildcats to just four offensive boards in the final 19:31 of the game. In tempo-free terms, that gave K-State an offensive rebounding mark of only 21% in crunch time, a far cry from their season average of 41.9%.

What needed work

When a team puts on such an inspiring comeback to save not just a game, but also a season, it can be hard to step back and take a look at what went wrong. Still, there were a few issues for Texas, particularly in the team’s flat first half.

The two first-half fouls by Kabongo were incredibly frustrating for Longhorn fans and coaches alike. The first came on a charge when he pushed the tempo into a trap, while the second was a hold on an inbounds play. While both likely wouldn’t have been called in a game where the refs weren’t working so hard to keep things under control, Kabongo needs to adjust to the situation. The Longhorns need him on the floor, so he can’t be picking up fouls on offense or when the ball isn’t even in play.

Without the freshman point guard on the floor, the Texas offense fizzled in the first half. As has been the case on many occasions this season, the Longhorns stood around, making lackluster cuts and setting weak screens. This team has shown that they can score without having both Brown and Kabongo on the floor, but fail to do it with any consistency. It seems at times like the youngsters just forget what they have to do off the ball to make the offense work.

Fortunately, the halftime adjustments in this game were perfect. The Texas coaching staff apparently said all the right things in the locker room, and the players took it to heart. The Longhorns have made it a habit to dig themselves deep holes in conference play before typically storming back late in the game. For much of the season, that has resulted in close losses. Although this time the team was able to salvage the win, it would be great for the hearts and stomachs of Longhorn Nation if the team could play solid first-half basketball in the future.

The big picture

The win levels Texas’ conference record at 6-6, establishing a tie for fifth with Kansas State. If Texas wants to claim fifth-place at season’s end, they will likely have to do it outright. With the two teams splitting their regular season games, the tiebreaker will come down to who has beaten a team higher in the standings. At the moment, K-State holds the edge by virtue of their home win against Missouri. Even if Texas beats Baylor, there’s little chance that the Bears will jump the Tigers in the standings.

If Texas can take care of business on the road in Oklahoma this week, their chances of finishing all alone in fifth are very good. The Wildcats now embark on a tough three-game stretch against Kansas, Missouri, and Baylor, with the latter two games coming on the road. If K-State can’t come up with some upsets, Texas has an excellent opportunity to make a big move in the standings.

Outside of the conference race, this game was also huge for Texas’ bubble prospects. The Longhorns have a favorable back-half of the league schedule that allows them to build momentum, but they also have a rather weak tournament profile. Texas owns just two wins against the RPI Top 50, with those coming at home against Temple and Iowa State. While the Wildcats will likely finish outside of that group, Top 100 wins are also used by the NCAA Selection Committee, and the Longhorns had yet to record a victory against teams ranked 51st to 100th. Winning games against Oklahoma State and Texas Tech wouldn’t impress anyone, so the Horns had to have this W.

With other bubble teams faltering over the last week, Texas now just needs to win the games it is supposed to. A loss in one of this week’s road games wouldn’t be deadly, but would certainly be damaging. What would be crippling is a sweep in the state of Oklahoma, which would put Texas back on the wrong side of the bubble with work left to do in the final three weeks. While the Horns earned a win they had to have on Saturday, they can’t afford to let their guard down as they hit the road.

Up next: at Oklahoma (13-11 overall, 3-9 Big 12)

The Texas Longhorns have very little margin for error as they come down the stretch of the 2011-12 season. Almost all major bracket projections have them hovering right on the dreaded bubble, so with just seven regular season games left, there’s little time to make rectify a mistake. This afternoon, the Longhorns have a rare chance to make up for an earlier missed opportunity, as they host the Kansas State Wildcats, a team that narrowly beat them earlier this season.

Currently just 2-8 against the RPI Top 100, Texas desperately needs to add some quality wins to the tournament résumé, something they can do with a victory over K-State this afternoon. The Wildcats were ranked 50th in Monday’s edition of the NCAA’s official RPI rankings, so while a win by Texas would likely knock KSU out of the vaunted Top 50, it would still provide an immediate boost to Texas’ tourney profile. Unfortunately, the Horns haven’t had much luck taking care of the Wildcats at home, as K-State owns a three-game winning streak over the Horns in Austin.

Meet the Wildcats

For a full look at the K-State roster, check out LRT’s game preview from the first time these two teams met.

The first game

In the first meeting between these two teams, Kansas State abused Texas inside early, piling up the fouls on Jaylen Bond and Jonathan Holmes. Big man Clint Chapman managed to avoid the whistles and stay on the court, thanks in large part to the team’s switch to a zone defense. Unfortunately, protecting the Texas frontcourt came at a cost, and Kansas State drilled 7-of-12 from long range in the first half. The Wildcats built a lead as large as 15 late in the first, but the Longhorns managed to erase the entire deficit in less than six minutes. At the break, K-State held just a one-point lead.

The second half was a closely contested affair until the final minutes, when the Wildcats once again stretched their advantage out to seven points with only 74 seconds left. The Longhorns took advantage of terrible free-throw shooting by K-State and executed nearly flawlessly on the offensive end. As a result, Texas had the ball and trailed by just two with 20 seconds left on the clock. When Myck Kabongo and J’Covan Brown tried a dribble handoff near midcourt, Martavious Irving stripped the ball, leading to a game-clinching dunk by Rodney McGruder.

Since then…

Freshman Angel Rodriguez has taken Manhattan by storm, starting all six games since facing the Longhorns. His secure hold on the point guard duties means that Will Spradling can now slide over to a shooting guard role, which fits his skill set much better. Rodriguez is now also the team’s most consistent threat to drive, and the offense often looks stagnant when he’s on the bench. Fortunately for the Horns, the freshman guard has a tendency to pick up dumb fouls, so that time on the bench comes more frequently than Coach Frank Martin would like. Texas fans may also remember that Rodriguez had issues keeping Kabongo in check during the first meeting, so the Texas point guard could get things going with penetration this afternoon.

Despite the emergence of Rodriguez, K-State has had a rather bumpy road since knocking off the Horns on January 18th, going 4-2 since that meeting. K-State took full advantage of a pair of games against league doormat Texas Tech, knocking off the Red Raiders by an average of 20.5 points in their two games. Between those two dominant performances were a pair of tough losses, however. The Wildcats were edged out at home by Oklahoma in an ugly game two weeks ago, giving the Sooners a season sweep of the Cats. Just three days later, KSU blew a second-half lead of 14 points, falling victim to a Royce White game-winner with 1.8 seconds to go.

Now, this afternoon’s game is as much a must-win for K-State as it is for Texas. After traveling to Austin, the Wildcats host league co-leader Kansas and then face stiff road tests against Baylor and Missouri. While Ken Pomeroy gives the Cats just a 22% cumulative chance to go winless, they are still the underdogs in each game. Kansas State has a strong tournament profile, but a four-game losing streak in February would certainly hurt seeding and could even put them back in the bubble discussion if other teams surge down the stretch. There is no doubt that they will come out motivated for a win this afternoon.

Keys to the game

1) Stay aggressive – The Longhorns did a great job spreading the floor, moving the ball well, and attacking the paint on Monday night against Texas A&M. It was a welcome change for an offense that had oftentimes degenerated into a team of four players waiting for J’Covan Brown to make something happen. As a result, the Longhorns posted 1.169 points per possession against the Aggies, their best offensive efficiency mark since beating up on an overmatched Nicholls State squad in December.

In their first meeting with the Wildcats, the Horns were also able to get a piece of the paint thanks to aggressive play by Kabongo and Sheldon McClellan. McClellan scored 19 points against Kansas State, his best output in a conference game. He’s also been hot as of late, scoring 32 points in wins over Tech and A&M, so there is hope he can replicate that performance this afternoon.

K-State used a great team effort to shut down Brown in the first game, throwing different defenders at the guard to keep their own players out of foul trouble. They frustrated J’Covan all night and gave him little space, limiting him to just an 8-of-28 line. If the Wildcats are just as effective against Brown tonight, other Longhorns like Kabongo and McClellan will have to be aggressive to keep the offense from stalling out.

2) Force mistakes – The first time these two teams met, the Longhorns forced the Wildcats into miscues on just 16.7% of their possessions. As a result, K-State had their most efficient offensive performance in conference play. Since then, the Cats have been rather careless with the ball, posting turnover marks of at least 22% in five out of six games. With Rodriguez now at the point, K-State has shown more life on the offensive end, but they have also made some crippling mistakes. If the Horns can actually force some turnovers this time around, they might be able to enact some revenge.

3) Limit second chance points – There’s no way to stop Kansas State from grabbing offensive rebounds, but the Longhorns can at least hope to limit the damage caused by those boards. The Wildcats grabbed more than 51% of their offensive rebounding chances against the Longhorns in Manhattan and turned those second chances into 16 points. Texas needs to not only do a much better job on the defensive glass in this one, but also keep the Wildcats from scoring on easy putbacks when they do reclaim the misses.

The Texas Longhorns are sweating the bubble for the first time since the 2004-05 season, when an injury sidelined LaMarcus Aldridge and academic issues kept P.J. Tucker out of action. Despite those setbacks, Texas managed to make it into the field as an 8-seed, keeping alive a streak of tournament appearances that since has grown to 13 years. This season, a Texas squad featuring six freshmen has taken its lumps and missed some big opportunities, but the Horns are still alive and in the tournament picture.

Many fans of teams on the bubble ask the question, “What does my team need to do to get in?” Unfortunately, there’s no magic formula or certain number of wins that gets a team in. Every year there’s a different stack of résumés for the Selection Committee to sort through, so it’s impossible to give a clear answer.

Obviously, running the table would get Texas into the Big Dance. Considering Ken Pomeroy gives Texas just a 1.6% chance to do that, we’ll ignore that improbable scenario and instead focus on who the Longhorns are competing against. Without looking at the other teams competing for those final spots, you cannot get a clear picture of what your favorite team needs to do — or have other teams do ‐ down the stretch. Using the S-curve from ESPN’s Joe Lunardi, this week we’ll dive into the eight teams who are just above the cut line and the nine teams who are on the wrong side of the bubble.

This discussion excludes teams who are currently leading their conference. For the sake of those on the bubble, we operate under the assumption that all conference titles will be won by their leaders, saving more NCAA invites for the bubblicious squads. What these marginal teams don’t want to see is for a surprise conference tournament winner to come from a league like the Missouri Valley, where Wichita State and Creighton have profiles that will still earn them an at-large.

The table below shows Lundardi’s last eight teams in, along with the nine teams closest to making the tournament in the bracket he released Monday. If his bracket were the real deal, those above the big black line would be dancing, while those below it would be making NIT plans.

RPI and SOS numbers are taken from the most recent official update from the NCAA, which included games through Sunday, February 5th. All records are updated through Thursday night’s games, but the records against the RPI Top 50 and Top 100 are based on Monday’s RPI rankings. That means those particular W-L counts could be off by a game or two when the RPI numbers update again on the 12th, if teams that were hovering around those cutlines have moved above or below the thresholds.

When it comes to wins against the RPI Top 50, Texas compares well to its peers, having logged a victory over both Iowa State and Temple. Unfortunately, the Horns have also squandered far more opportunities, suffering seven losses that overshadow the wins. No team in Lunardi’s field has dropped more than five games against the Top 50, and many have stocked up on additional wins against teams ranked 51-100 in the RPI.

Of course, the tournament is still 31 days away. There’s a lot of time for teams to make their cases for the Big Dance, and a lot of time for teams to play their way out of consideration. Just ask the Razorbacks, who fell on their faces in an embarrassing 81-59 loss at Georgia on Wednesday night.

With that in mind, we’ve compiled the data below to look at how these teams might stack up at the end of the season. The “KP W-L” column is the team’s predicted final record according to Ken Pomeroy. The second column lists all remaining games against teams currently ranked in the RPI Top 100.

You might notice that if you visit a team’s individual page on Pomeroy’s website, their game-by-game predictions don’t always match his predicted final record, which we have used in this chart. Pomeroy uses cumulative probabilities to predict a team’s overall record, giving a more accurate representation of what the final outcome is likely to be. For instance, he has the Longhorns favored to win six of their final seven games, but four of those predicted wins range from just 55% to 65% likely. With those odds not much better than a coin flip, the team’s cumulative probabilities predict Texas to go just 4-3 down the stretch.

The Longhorns still have five games remaining against the RPI Top 100 and three against the Top 50, although Kansas State could slide out of that group in the coming weeks. The Longhorns are not alone in having numerous opportunities to make a mark, as the nine teams sitting on the wrong side of the bubble all have at least three Top 100 games remaining. While the Longhorns won’t likely pull a clean sweep of those games, only the road contest at Kansas seems like an insurmountable obstacle.

Texas will be hard-pressed to catch teams like Saint Louis and BYU, who have few opportunities left to trip up. While the Billikens still face road tests in LaSalle and Duquesne, the committee rarely leaves out teams with a solid RPI number like the one they boast. Instead, the Longhorns will most likely have to overtake teams like Minnesota, Cincinatti, N.C. State, or Arizona.

The Golden Gophers have a ton of big-win opportunities left on the table, but have played so inconsistently this season that it’s hard to see them suddenly flipping the switch. They let a huge win get away last night when Wisconsin escaped Williams Arena with an overtime victory. They still have Ohio State, Michigan, and Indiana at home, and will need to win one or two of those to solidify their case. Fortunately for the Gophers, the Hoosiers are a far different team on the road, so they should have a good chance to pull off that upset.

Cincinatti has a fairly terrible computer profile with an RPI of 95 and an SOS of 160. Their inclusion at this point is based completely on a 6-4 record against the RPI Top 100, but that mark could be sullied down the stretch if the Bearcats struggle with a very tough finishing slate that has six games against the Top 100, including three on the road.

Beating N.C. State for a bid could be a little more difficult for the Horns. While the committee is supposed to take into account the entire body of work, it’s hard to overlook the fact that the Wolfpack already knocked off the Longhorns on a neutral court back in November. Texas fans will have to hope that N.C. State squanders their opportunities to upset Florida State and North Carolina at home and drops an embarrassing game somewhere along the way.

Lunardi currently has three Pac-12 squads in his bracket, with Colorado, Stanford, and Oregon also still listed on the bubble of his 90-team S-curve. Although he’s the expert, we find it tough to see that conference earning three bids, short of Washington and Cal going on a tear to separate from the pack, followed by a surprise team winning the league tournament.

The Golden Bears currently have the Pac-12’s best RPI mark, checking in at 48. The rest of the league’s “top” teams all range from 62 to 96, with their best non-conference wins coming over Colorado State and N.C. State. When an entire conference is basically competing right at bubble level, it’s hard to argue for three bids.

With all that taken into consideration, it seems that it would be easy for Texas to pass up Arizona down the stretch. If the Longhorns earn their share of quality wins over the next three weeks, the Wildcats will have a tough time keeping pace. Their only remaining opportunity to win a Top 100 game comes at Washington, while they have ample opportunity to trip up on the road against teams not even in the Top 100.

Of course, all of this discussion is for naught if the Longhorns can’t take advantage of the opportunities left before them. Win against Kansas State on Saturday, and Texas’ outlook is still only partly cloudy. Drop that one, and they’ll quickly be sliding down the S-curve, with thunderstorms working their way into the forecast.

The Longhorns finally got the monkey off their back, and it couldn’t have come at a better time. Texas was 0-7 in games decided by two possessions or less this season, having left a handful of opportunities for quality wins sitting on the table. Monday night, the Longhorns learned from those past mistakes and came up with big plays in the clutch, hanging on for a narrow two-point win at Reed Arena.

As Texas heads down the homestretch of the season, the magnitude of each game grows. Unfortunately, simply winning games might not be enough to get the Longhorns into the NCAA Tournament for a 14th-consecutive year. They must win the right games, and avoiding losing to the wrong teams.

Even though last night’s victory came on the road against a talented A&M team, the unforgiving RPI numbers mean that Texas doesn’t get credit for a good win, only for avoiding a bad loss. The Aggies owned an RPI ranking of 145th coming into the game, and the Longhorns already have one loss against teams ranked below 100, having fallen in overtime to Oregon State early in the year. Another loss to the RPI 100+ group would have further weakened an already flimsy résumé.

What looked good

The Longhorns had one of their best offensive performances of the season against the Aggies, scoring 1.169 points per possession. It was the second-best output for an Aggie opponent this season, only ranking behind a 1.222 PPP performance by the Florida Gators in a 20-point blowout of A&M back in December.

Texas found success by being aggressive and moving the ball well. J’Covan Brown, Myck Kabongo, and Sheldon McClellan put the ball on the floor and attacked the paint, getting good midrange looks and setting up teammates under the hoop with timely assists.

McClellan had his best game of the year, scoring 15 points on 45% shooting. He was exceptionally hot in the first half and as a result, he took a few questionable shots. At that point, though, everything was going down for the freshman. With Kabongo having an unfortunate tendency to disappear at times or to get himself into foul trouble, Texas desperately needs a third offensive threat to step up and compliment Brown. If McClellan can continue to attack and play aggressively the rest of the year, the Longhorn offense will be much more effective.

Brown also had a fantastic game, leading all scorers with 20 points on 67% shooting. He was a perfect 4-for-4 from beyond the arc, taking his shots off of good feeds or after coming around screens on the perimeter. When Brown doesn’t try to create his own outside looks, he finds much more success from long range. With the Aggie defense having to work harder to limit his outside looks, Brown continued to slice up the D with penetration, adding seven assists as he drew the help inside.

Brown’s dribble penetration also gave Texas the game winning basket, as he came off a screen on the perimeter and drove the left side of the lane. Clint Chapman provided an excellent seal on the help trying to rotate across the paint, and Brown was able to easily lay it in for the deciding points.

Off the bench, freshman Jaylen Bond led everyone with eight boards. He was especially important on the offensive glass in the first half, as it seemed at times that he was the only Longhorn crashing the boards on missed shots. Considering that only Bond, McClellan, and Alexis Wangmene logged any offensive rebounds, that might not have been far from the truth. Bond’s hard work inside led to four key points on putbacks.

In addition to being one of only three Longhorns to earn a second chance for the team, Wangmene did well inside in the early minutes. The guards were finding him when the defense collapsed on their drives, and he was doing a much better job than usual at corralling the passes and finishing. Wangmene finished with 10 points on 80% shooting, and came up with a big-time stop on David Loubeau in the final minute that forced a turnover to help ice the game.

What needed work

Other than that last-minute stand, the Texas defense wasn’t that stout on the inside. Fortunately, the Aggies were hitting just about every mid-range and three-point shot they took, so they didn’t focus on their advantage inside.

When Loubeau would actually receive entry passes on the block, he was practically impossible to stop. What Texas did succeed in doing was forcing him away from the lane prior to receiving those feeds. That’s half the battle, so now the Longhorns — particularly Wangmene and Bond — just need to make their defense more consistent and effective in post-up situations.

As a result of the problems in the paint, the Texas forwards were in constant foul trouble. Chapman saw only 12 minutes of action, having picked up two fouls before the first media timeout had even occurred. The good thing is that for the first time, the other Longhorn bigs stepped up without No. 53 on the court. Even though the whistles caused a revolving door of Texas forwards, Bond, Wangmene, and Jonathan Holmes all made key contributions to the win.

Although the Aggies shot 50% from the field — well above their season average — you can’t complain too much about the Texas defense outside of those low post problems. A&M’s players hit some tough shots with little separation from the defense, and it seemed like every shot they took found the bottom of the net. On some nights, that is just going to be the case, so it was fortuitous timing on the Longhorns’ part to have such an excellent offensive night themselves.

Texas also had some issues boxing out on the defensive end in the first half, giving up four points on a pair of putbacks, one of which turned into a three-point play. The Longhorns tightened up on the defensive glass, however, limiting the Aggies to just six total offensive boards and an offensive rebounding mark of just 30%.

The big picture

As we’ve already mentioned, this win isn’t one that’s going to move the needle for Texas. The Longhorns are at a point where now they must simply stockpile wins against the easier back half of their league schedule, while hopefully grabbing one or two against the remaining top-notch opponents.

The victory gives the Horns their first two-game winning streak since the first week of conference play. Fans have to hope that this gives the team some momentum heading into an incredibly important game against Kansas State on Saturday. While the Wildcats have been slipping lately, they still provide one of just five remaining opportunities for the Longhorns to earn another Top 100 RPI win during the regular season.

Next up: vs. Kansas State (16-6 overall, 5-5 Big 12); Saturday, 1 P.M. CT

With just 34 days to Selection Sunday, the margin for error is razor thin for the Texas Longhorns. Five of the team’s remaining eight games come against squads that are even with or below them in the standings, although four of those come on the road. Had Texas actually come up with a victory in one of the many close contests they had with the league’s top teams, it could afford a stumble down the stretch. Instead, the Longhorns will have to turn into road warriors over these last four weeks of the regular season.

The first of those road tests comes tonight, in the form of the Texas A&M Aggies. Reed Arena has been a tough place for the Longhorns to win, with last year’s victory being the first in College Station in the team’s last seven trips. While Texas A&M has struggled with injuries and transfers this season, the Aggies have been a resilient bunch, and you can be sure that the fans will be loud for what will be the last regular-season meeting between these two rivals for quite some time.

Meet the Aggies
For an in-depth look at Texas A&M’s players, stats, and styles, check out the LRT game preview from the first meeting between these two teams.

The first game

Foul trouble for Myck Kabongo and a gimpy ankle for J’Covan Brown only made the stifling A&M defense even tougher when these teams met at the Erwin Center on January 11th. The Longhorns managed just two field goals in the first ten minutes of the game, yet still held a lead for much of the first half. Julien Lewis ended up leading Texas in scoring, having his best game of the season with 16 points on a 6-of-10 line, including a perfect 3-for-3 mark behind the arc.

A&M’s Ray Turner battled foul trouble for much of the game, earning the DQ in only 10 minutes on the floor. That left David Loubeau and Keith Davis as the only frontcourt threats for the Aggies, and Texas took advantage. Loubeau was held to just 10 points, while Davis was skunked, and Texas’ pairing of Clint Chapman and Alexis Wangmene combined for 16 points, nine rebounds, and two blocks.

The first meeting between these two teams was painfully slow. With just 61 possessions, it was the second-slowest contest for Texas all season, with only the UCLA game having a more lethargic tempo. The Aggies average just 63.4 possessions per game, one of the 50 slowest rates in the nation. The Longhorns aren’t much quicker, checking in at 65.7 per game. Big 10 fans will be thrilled with tonight’s contest, which will likely be another brutal, slow-down affair.

Since then…

If Texas A&M’s season weren’t already rough enough, the Aggies have had to deal with even more injuries in Big 12 play. Khris Middleton has missed the last four games as his knee injury has flared up, and he will be inactive again tonight. Senior point guard Dash Harris hurt his ankle just before half of the game against Kansas, and has missed the three games since then. He will also miss tonight’s game, according to coach Billy Kennedy.

Despite the injuries, the Aggies have been very competitive over the last two weeks. Without Middleton and with Harris hobbled for half the game, A&M fought the Jayhawks at Allen Fieldhouse until the final minutes. The Aggies also had a home win over Baylor within their grasp last Wednesday, but lost the lead and the game in the final seconds.

Although Texas A&M has posted a 3-4 record since playing Texas in Austin, the Aggies have actually looked better over the last two weeks. With just seven players left in the core rotation, it seems like this bunch has rallied together to play its best basketball with its back against the wall.

A big part of the team’s ability to compete without its two leaders is the emergence of freshman Daniel Alexander (No. 20), who has stepped up over the last two weeks. After averaging just 5.4 minutes in the team’s first 18 games, the freshman has seen his average increase to 26 minutes in the last four contests. At 6’9″, Alexander boasts a three-point threat that helps to spread the floor for Texas A&M. In the team’s two impressive performances against Kansas and Baylor, Alexander made a big impact with 6-of-9 shooting from beyond the arc.

Keys to the game

1) Attack the paint – The Longhorns won the battle for points in the paint the first time these teams met, outscoring the Aggies 20-12 in the lane. Although the Aggie defense did a good job pressuring beyond the perimeter, the Longhorns were still able to get a piece of the paint on the bounce and find teammates down low for good looks. With the Aggie roster even more thin this time around, that aggressiveness is not only important to earn easy points, but also to put the small A&M rotation in foul trouble.

With Brown back to full health, we’ll likely see much more dribble penetration this time around. If Kabongo can also avoid the frustration fouls that put him on the bench in the first game, the Texas guards could be the key to earning a road win tonight.

2) Crash the glass – Texas A&M did an excellent job on the boards in the first game, limiting a Texas team that has been quite good at reclaiming its missed shots. The Longhorns typically grab 39.7% of their missed shots, but were able to get to just 23.1% of their offensive board opportunities against the Aggies. In a game that will likely have very few possessions, Texas has to maximize the value of every single one. Extending possessions with offensive boards and earning easy points on putbacks will be key to grinding out a victory over A&M.

3) Own the perimeter – While rebounds will be incredibly important in a low-possession game, three-pointers will also be huge. It’s likely that this game finishes in the 50’s or low 60’s, so the boost of a three-point bucket in this game will be even more valuable. Alexander adds an extra three-point threat that the Aggies didn’t have when the teams met in Austin, while Elston Turner is always dangerous from long range. He went just 2-for-7 in the first meeting, which would be an acceptable line for the Longhorns to allow tonight. If he, Alexander, or Naji Hibbert suddenly get the hot hand, Texas could be in serious trouble. The Longhorns don’t necessarily need to chase shooters off the perimeter, but they do need to be in position to at least challenge all of those outside looks.