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.”

The first twenty minutes of Tuesday night’s game against UT-Arlington certainly seemed like an uncomfortable rehash of last week’s ugly win over Centenary. And with seventeen minutes to play, the upset-minded Mavericks even had the Longhorn lead down to six. But talent and size proved the difference for Texas, as they overtook the lead in rebounds and put the game well out of reach. After forty minutes, Rick Barnes’ squad had notched a solid 84-52 win.

Texas (10-3) came out nearly as cold as they had in the Centenary game just five days prior. While the Horns had opened 2-for-12 against the Gents, they managed to be a tad better against the UTA Mavericks, starting 2-for-8 from the field. D.J. Augustin was one Horn who was able to get going early, hitting two three pointers in the first five minutes. But Augustin would not score another basket until the seventeen-minute mark of the second half.

UT-Arlington was able to control the rebounding margin for much of the game, despite being a significantly smaller team. As Texas was able to close that gap and ultimately dominate the statistical category, the Longhorns were able to put the game easily in hand. As we head towards conference play and tougher, bigger teams, we will have to be able to stay competitive on the glass. We won’t likely win the battle every night, but we need to be able to avoid getting absolutely pounded and giving up uncontested second-chance points like we did during the first half of the UTA game.

I was most impressed by Arlington’s Jermaine Griffin. Despite his horribly cheesy bicep bands, he had a very good inside game. Unfortunately for Griffin, his free throw shooting wasn’t nearly as good. He finished 2-of-11 from the line, yet still had sixteen points on the night. If he can improve his FT percentage to something above the Mendoza line, he could be a power for the Mavs in their conference stretch.

Kevin Durant followed up a great performance against Centenary with another magnificent game. He dropped 21 points and ripped down fifteen boards, giving him an amazing 42 points and 32 rebounds in his last 64 minutes on the floor. Every game that I see him in, I can’t believe that a player of this caliber is on the court in burnt orange and white. He’s going to carry this team to some wins over the next two months that we probably shouldn’t have.

The team was really active defensively, with Durant blocking four shots and Connor Atchley adding three of his own. Atchley continued to look good on defense, if you can overlook a few dumb fouls. The three personals limited Connor to fifteen minutes in the game, and is something he’ll need to continue to work on. But his defense has come so far from the guy that teams could immediately pick on when he entered the game, and he will play a key role in the Big 12 matchups.

At this point, I’m a bit buzzed on Shiner and I’m not sure what is making sense and what is even spelled correctly. And I guess in theory I should get rest before another eight hours on the road tomorrow. But suffice it to say that I’m happy with this team. We’ve got an insane amount of talent and we’re going to be in fine shape when Selection Sunday rolls around. Sure, we’re going to lose some stupid games over the next two months, and that will without a doubt be frustrating. But I think we’ve got a shot in every contest, and that makes it fun to head to the arena twice a week.

Have a great Friday, and I’ll bring you a Colorado preview from somwhere in Denver on Friday night.