It was only one game, but the future certainly looks bright for the Texas Longhorns.

Led by junior J’Covan Brown, Rick Barnes’ freshman-laden roster settled down after some early adversity and cruised to an easy, 36-point win in front of a home crowd on Sunday night. Brown tied a career-high with 28 points and added eight assists, despite enjoying the final five minutes of the blowout from the bench.

What looked good

Brown’s scoring outburst gives Texas fans a lot to be optimistic about, as there is no doubt that he will have to be the team’s leader this season. He scored in a variety of ways, knocking down three triples, earning his way to the line for five points, and repeatedly sinking a soft pull-up floater. Texas also found success multiple times on backdoor cuts for the junior, giving him easy finishes at the rim.

Perhaps most importantly, Brown finished the night with eight assists. One of the most consistent complaints about his game last season was his troubling habit of dominating the ball to the detriment of the team. Against Boston, he was willing to give up the rock when his teammates were in a position to score. Although Brown took a few bad shots early in the game, most of them came on possessions where the entire team was standing idly in the half-court set.

In addition to Brown’s career night, the team’s defense was another reason for excitement for Longhorn fans. Texas made the Terriers uncomfortable all night, forcing turnovers on a whopping 34.2% of Boston’s possessions. The Longhorns utilized ball pressure well past the perimeter, often making it difficult for the Terriers to even get into their offense.

The active hands of freshmen Sheldon McClellan and Jonathan Holmes earned them each a pair of steals. Both used their lengthy wingspans to simply reach around the ballhandler or disrupt passing lanes on multiple ocassions.

In the post, Alexis Wangmene gave a solid defensive effort to kick off his senior campaign. He did an excellent job standing tall and forcing players to take bad shots, and even blocked five in just 26 minutes on the court. A few of those swats came when he was the help defender, bringing to mind the excellent team defense of last season’s squad.

The only knock on Wangmene’s defensive performance was that on a few instances, it was a little too easy for his man to back him down to the blocks. Fortunately, even on those plays, he typically stiffened up the D at that point and made the Terriers earn their points.

The senior also impressed with his off-the-ball play on offense. He had a few good seals as his teammates were driving to the hoop, giving them easy access to the rim, and he set some stout high screens to free up the guards. While Texas will likely need a little more than his four point output on some nights, fans have to be very happy with his seven-rebound, five-block performance.

Senior Clint Chapman is the other half of the big-man puzzle for Texas, and while he didn’t land on any All-American lists last night, he showed that he might be a serviceable option this season. Chapman utilized some nice face-up skills late in the game, lumbering baseline for an easy dunk and taking another defender to the hole for a layup.

Freshman phenom Myck Kabongo lived up to his billing as point-guard extraordinaire, logging seven assists in just 22 minutes. While he didn’t have any highlight-reel assists, he did showcase excellent court vision on some really nice interior feeds in the second half. Kabongo also added a three pointer and a pair of steals to his stat line.

Guard Julien Lewis was one of three freshmen in the starting lineup, and he unveiled a great catch-and-shoot ability behind the arc. His Longhorn teammates constantly found him open from long range, where he knocked down 4-of-7. Seeing the team repeatedly find Lewis in the flow of the offense was a very welcome sight for Texas fans who have watched some recent teams force things from long range. Lewis also added some easy layups to score 18 in his debut.

Fellow freshman Sterling Gibbs didn’t do anything exceptionally flashy in his 20 minutes off the bench, but he knocked down his one open look from behind the arc and notched three assists.

One of the most exciting developments of the night was at the free throw line. After a season in which the Horns shot just 65.4% at the line, the team’s 75% mark in last night’s game seemed downright unbelievable. Although Brown missed his first attempt — breaking the streak of 28-consecutive makes he began in last season’s Big 12 title game — he knocked down his other five. Kabongo and McClellan were the only other Horns to make it to the line, so only time will tell if Holmes, Bond, or Lewis are comfortable at the stripe.

What needed work

The number one concern for this team heading into this season was its weakness in the frontcourt, and that problem manifested itself in a poor rebounding effort against the Terriers. Although Boston was a smaller team and had just been worked on the glass by Northeastern on Friday night, the Terriers claimed a 43-35 edge on the boards.

Some of the rebounding problems were a result of Wangmene and Chapman still struggling to control the ball when it came to them. There was also a surprising number of long rebounds that would fall loose around the free throw line or perimeter, with nothing but red jerseys around to claim it. The Longhorns allowed Boston to reclaim 43% of their missed shots, a number that is going to be absolutely deadly when replicated against a team that makes those second chances count.

There were also stretches of play where the Texas offense seemed to lack any direction or flow. For much of the first half, the Longhorn offense turned stagnant, as players stood around or half-heartedly made weak cuts along the baseline. Oftentimes, those possessions ended with Brown trying to take control and being forced into bad looks.

At halftime, the team seemed to make adjustments, coming out of the locker room with lots of motion in the half-court set and excellent interior passing to the bigs or guards cutting along the baseline. But as the Texas lead expanded, the Horns once again became complacent, jacking up an inordinate amount of threes down the stretch. Hopefully this lack of focus was simply a result of the lopsided score, and not an indication that the youngsters might camp out on the perimeter this season rather than run an offense.

As always, it’s important not to put too much stock into the results of one game, and it’s especially important not to do so after a season opener. But for Texas fans who had a multitude of concerns about this year’s team, it’s a relief to see the team play as well as they did last night.

While the frontcourt will have its share of issues against deeper, more-experienced units this season, the play of Wangmene and Chapman gives fans hope that they can hold down the fort and let the backcourt carry the team. And although the youthful Longhorns will certainly have growing pains as they face tougher teams down the road, all of the freshmen looked confident in Sunday night’s debut.

Next up: vs. Rhode Island (0-1); Tuesday, 3 P.M. CT

Six months ago, the Longhorn basketball season came to and abrupt an unceremonious end. A string of bizarre decisions knocked Texas out of the NCAA tournament, but three more decisions would be made in the coming weeks that would leave the program reeling. Despite the threat of an NBA lockout, Tristan Thompson, Jordan Hamilton, and Cory Joseph all left the Forty Acres early and landed in the first round of the professional draft.

Six months later, there is still no movement on the NBA front. With the three former Longhorns now stuck in professional limbo, Texas fans are left to wonder “What if?” as stars like Jared Sullinger and Harrison Barnes begin their sophomore seasons at Ohio State and North Carolina. Without Thompson, Hamilton, Joseph Gary Johnson, Dogus Balbay, or Matt Hill, the 2011-12 Longhorns are completely starting over. J’Covan Brown and Alexis Wangmene are the only returning players to log any significant minutes in 2010-11, resulting in an endless sea of questions surrounding this year’s team.

Today, fans will finally get a chance to begin answering those questions, as the Longhorns tip off the 2011-12 campaign against the Boston Terriers in the Legends Classic. As is the case with most early-season tournaments, the results of this game have no effect on whether or not Texas advances to next weekend’s semifinals in East Rutherford, New Jersey. Rather, today’s season opener is simply a warm-up for the team, a chance to ease into the season and their new roles.

By the numbers

Although the Terriers are returning four starters from last year’s American East championship team, they have their own set of questions coming into the young season. The cause of the uncertainty was a late coaching change on campus, as Pat Chambers left in June to take the vacant head coaching spot at Penn State. Enter Joe Jones, who had coached Columbia for seven years before spending the last season as an associate head coach at Boston College.

Last year’s team was one that lived and died by the three. The Terriers took more than 40% of their attempts from behind the arc, and rode a 35.5% success rate to a 21-14 record. This year’s team seems to be following the same formula, as Boston took 28 of their 67 shots (41.8%) in Friday night’s season opener from behind the arc. The Terriers managed to make just 17.9% of their long-range attempts, though, and stumbled to an 82-74 overtime loss at home against Northeastern.

“There will be some concepts and some things Patrick was doing that we’ll keep the same,” Coach Jones told Blue Ribbon Yearbook’s Kathy Orton. “We definitely want to play fast. We want to get the ball up the floor.”

Jones’ career numbers make that claim seem slightly dubious, however. In his seven years leading the Lions, his teams averaged just 65.6 possessions per game, including a painfully slow 62.6 possessions per game in 2006-07.

To be fair, his teams at Columbia were far less talented than the current batch of Terriers, and limiting possessions is a solid tactic to use when you are outclassed by the competition. Unfortunately, Jones’ first game at BU seemed to be more of the same, as the team ran at a pace of 65.7 possessions per 40 minutes.

Defensively, last year’s team did a good job forcing misses, but their undersized roster proved deadly. Opponents grabbed 33.5% of their own misses, leading to far too many second- and third-chance points. The Longhorns have a rather inexperienced frontcourt this season, but will have the natural height advantage against a smaller BU lineup. Texas needs to exploit this weakness and score a chunk of points off of extended possessions.

Meet the Terriers

In the season-opening loss on Friday night, Boston was led by senior Darryl Partin, who is in his second year with the Terriers after transferring from La Salle. The 6’6″ guard dropped in 25 points in the losing effort and was able to keep a clean sheet in the turnover department. Last year, Partin coughed it up on more than 21% of the team’s possessions, so his ball control against Northeastern is a very welcome development for Terrier fans.

Sophomore D.J. Irving runs the point for Boston, and he logged an impressive 17-point performance against Northeastern. A member of last season’s America East rookie team, Irving had nine games in which he dished out at least five assists. Against Northeastern he logged just one, but the lack of ball movement seemed to be a team problem. On 28 baskets the Terriers had just eight assists, giving them a paltry 28.6% assist percentage. Although the season is less than a week old, that mark is currently the seventh-worst in all of D-I basketball.

Senior guard Matt Griffin also had just one assist against Northeastern, but added 11 points to the cause. At just 5’10”, the Rider transfer is the team’s best long-range threat, having connected on 45.8% of his attempts last season. He was once again the team’s most accurate three-point shooter on Friday night, knocking down 3-of-8 from behind the arc, while the rest of the team was just 2-for-20.

Senior forward Patrick Hazel is yet another transfer on the Boston roster, having joined the Terriers from Marquette. Now in his second season at BU, the 6’6″ Hazel is tasked with facing off against much bigger opponents in the frontcourt. Last season, his 10.8% mark in offensive rebounding was tops on the team, and actually placed him just outside of the top 100 offensive rebounders in the country. Against Northeastern, he grabbed five rebounds to go with his nine points, with three of them coming off of BU misses.

Sophomore Dom Morris rounds out the starting five. At 6’7″, he’s actually the tallest starter, a role he solidified down the stretch last season. As a freshman, he started the final 16 games of the year, and grabbed a combined 21 boards in back-to-back games against Binghamton and Vermont. On Friday night, he led the team with seven boards, six of them coming on the defensive end.

Off the bench, Jeff Pelage and Mike Terry, Jr. both gave significant minutes in the loss to Northeastern. Pelage is a 6’8″ senior who has been plagued by injury, suffering a hernia over the summer after missing 11 games last season due to a high ankle sprain . Despite coming off the bench, Pelage tied Morris with a team-high seven rebounds on Friday night.

Terry, a 6-foot guard out of Philly, provided 18 minutes off the bench against the Huskies. Although he didn’t log any numbers in the offensive categories, the sophomore set a career high with two steals in the season opener.

Freshmen James Kennedy and Zach Chionuma both made their collegiate debuts on Friday night, playing a combined 17 minutes off the bench. Kennedy, a 6’6″ forward, grabbed three rebounds and scored a bucket, while Chionuma added an assist and a basket.

Although the Terrier frontcourt is an undersized one, Coach Jones does have one big option on the bench. Mat Piotrowski is a 7’1″ redshirt freshman from Port Republic, New Jersey, but he did not see the court in the season opener.

Keys to the game

1) Lock down the perimeter – BU’s success depends completely on their ability to knock down the three-pointer, a fact made perfectly clear in their last two losses. Against Kansas in the NCAA tournament, Boston kept the game close until halftime on the strength of 46.2% shooting behind the arc. In the final twenty minutes, they were just a paltry 3-of-12, and the Jayhawks pulled away for a 19-point win. On Friday night, their 17.9% mark from long range again led to a loss.

For the Longhorns, perimeter defense was an issue that seemed to rear its ugly head as the most inopportune times last season. In losses to Colorado and Kansas State, Texas managed to repeatedly lose their opponents’ best three-point shooters, and Levi Knutson and Rodney McGruder made them pay. The pair of sharpshooters went 7-for-13 against Texas, handing the Longhorns back-to-back losses.

On paper, perimeter defense looks to be a strength for this year’s Longhorn team. With a bevy of talented guards and a coach who preaches staunch defense, fans are expecting less defensive lapses at the three-point arc. Today’s game will serve as a very early test of those expectations.

2) Establish an inside presence – This year’s Longhorn team is facing a lot of questions in the frontcourt, as the team’s most-experienced big men are Alexis Wangmene and Clint Chapman. Both have struggled in their limited minutes over the years, with a combined career average of just 3.8 points and 3.7 rebounds per game.

Coach Rick Barnes doesn’t need either player to be great this season, but he does need both to be serviceable. Against a smaller BU team, Wangmene and Chapman have an excellent opportunity to get their season off to a good start. If they both struggle against the Terrier frontcourt, the long-term prognosis will be troubling.

3) Get the freshmen involved – Rather than a key to the game, this point is a foregone conclusion. With six freshmen making up the bulk of the roster, there’s absolutely no way that the Longhorns could field a team without relying on first-year players. With much more difficult opponents looming on the schedule, these early-season games will serve to get the youngsters a taste of college basketball before the pressure is ratcheted up.

Although the college basketball season tips off in just six days, the question marks surrounding the 2011-12 Texas basketball team still loom large. Not since Kevin Durant’s 2006-07 season have the Longhorns been this young, and in a frustrating bit of coincidence for Texas fans, the influx of youth happens to coincide with a season in which there is no clear-cut favorite in the Big 12.

Texas and Kansas finished a combined 27-5 in conference play last season, and were simply a cut above the rest of the league. Third-place teams Texas A&M and Kansas State were both a distant three games behind Texas in the conference standings and four behind the champion Jayhawks. Fortunately for the rest of the league, that dominance is unlikely to continue, as the two teams lose a combined nine of their ten starters this season.

The Longhorns are certainly in much worse shape than the Jayhawks, as Texas loses its entire starting five and will have six freshmen making up the core of what should be a nine-man rotation. While Kansas loses four of their starters from last season, the winning ways will likely continue in Lawrence as eight players return, including Tyshawn Taylor, Thomas Robinson, and Elijah Johnson.

Who’s back

The most-experienced returning player for Texas is mercurial guard J’Covan Brown, who came off the bench in all 36 games last season. While he averaged just 10.4 points in 21.5 minutes per game, he had a breakout performance in the NCAA tournament. In those two games, Brown created off the dribble and repeatedly earned trips to the line. He didn’t miss a single attempt at the stripe, scoring 44 points in the two games while sinking 25 free throws.

In the frontcourt, big man Alexis Wangmene returns with a lot of room for improvement. The senior has yet to average 10 minutes per game in any of his three previous seasons and set a career high with just 2.3 points per game last year. Wangmene has always had issues with catching passes and corraling rebounds, so Texas fans will have to hope that his hands have become much softer over the summer.

The only other returning player — outside of the mop-up duo of Dean Melchionni and Andrew Dick — is Oregon product Clint Chapman. He sat out the entire 2010-11 campaign and used a redshirt, delaying his senior year in the hopes of alleviating the team’s frontcourt issues this season. Unfortunately, recruiting top-flight big men proved difficult for Rick Barnes and company, meaning that Chapman won’t be simply one piece of the frontcourt puzzle. Instead, he will have to make an immediate impact.

Chapman’s best season to date was his sophomore campaign, where he appeared in 32 of the team’s 35 games and averaged just two points in eight minutes per game. For a player who was a consensus top-100 recruit coming out of the Portland suburbs, his career has so far been a disappointment. With such a thin and inexperienced frontcourt, the Longhorns will need him to finally live up to expectations this season.

The newcomers

While Texas had a hard time filling its needs in the frontcourt, their backcourt-heavy recruiting class was still ranked fourth nationally by ESPN and eighth by Rivals. With four of the six freshman ranked in the top 100 of the Recruiting Services Consensus Index, the Longhorns have a very solid nucleus to build upon for the future. In the meantime, there are bound to be growing pains.

The jewel of the class is point guard Myck Kabongo. A McDonald’s All-American, the Canadian was also selected for the Jordan Brand Classic Game, and was described by many scouting services as the best pure point in his class.

For a player headed to Texas, that has invariably drawn comparisons to standouts T.J. Ford and D.J. Augustin, who led Texas to the Final Four and Elite Eight, respectively. While neither is a perfect parallel for Kabongo, there’s no debating the fact that Barnes’ teams excel with a solid coach on the floor. The mature, level-headed Kabongo certainly fits that bill.

Myck brings an offensive skillset that Dogus Balbay sorely lacked, and fortunately also has the defensive tools to make him a Barnes favorite. Kabongo can create off the dribble and boasts a preternatural ability to find open looks for his teammates. He’s also known for a solid three-point shot, which only serves to increase the effectiveness of his penetration game.

Joining Kabongo in the backcourt is guard Sterling Gibbs, the younger brother of Pitt’s Ashton Gibbs. Once committed to Maryland, Sterling decommitted following the retirement of Gary Williams and eventually signed to play on the Forty Acres.

At 6’1″, Gibbs has the body of a point guard, but he carries himself with the confidence of a two-guard. With both Kabongo and Brown in the backcourt, Sterling’s ability to both create and score will allow Barnes to tinker with his lineups. Considering the questions Texas faces in the frontcourt, it wouldn’t be surprising to see all three on the floor at times.

At the wing, Texas welcomes 6″5″ Sheldon McClellan and 6’3″ Julien Lewis. Out of Houston’s Bellaire High, McClellan is an athletic slasher with solid handles and a good — albeit streaky — track record behind the arc. Lewis is a strong 190 pounds, a necessity for a guy his size to finish against bigger players. Like Gibbs, Lewis is undersized for his primary position, but his ability to play both the two and the three will provide Coach Barnes more flexibility with his rotation.

In the frontcourt, Texas will need immediate contributions from freshmen Jonathan Holmes and Jaylen Bond. Holmes is a 6″8″ power forward out of San Antonio whose good ball handling skills and three-point range make him a difficult matchup for other bigs. He brings shot blocking skills that Texas will sorely need following the departure of Tristan Thompson, but scouts fear that he’ll need to bulk up to be able to battle down low in the Big 12.

Bond is a less-polished player, but has impressed coaches with his summer improvement. At the Big 12 media day, Coach Barnes guessed that Bond would be the team’s second-leading scorer, noting that Jaylen’s play over the previous two weeks had vaulted him past McClellan. In addition to inside scoring, the one-time Pitt commit will be asked to come up big on the glass.

At forward, Texas was also counting on big things from the 6’8″ lefty Kevin Thomas. Yet another product of Texas’ new Canadian pipeline, Thomas unfortunately failed to qualify academically and will now be forced to play at the JuCo level this season. Only time will tell if and when he can make his way back to Division I basketball.

The big picture

Not since the 2006 season has a Texas team been such a mystery heading into the year. Coming off of an Elite Eight appearance, that team was also gutted by early departures and had to be built on a foundation of seven freshman. Of course, one of those freshman was Kevin Durant, who became a cult hero during his impressive season at Texas.

Without a once-in-a-lifetime talent like Durant, this year’s Longhorn team will likely have a bumpy ride. With so many freshmen being counted on to play significant minutes, there will certainly be a lot of learning on the fly. Kabongo is already a very mature player, but he will have to adjust to the college game. His fellow freshmen will find that adjustment to be an even tougher task.

The Texas frontcourt is definitely going to be a weakness this year, which means fans will likely see their fair share of a three-guard look. Even when the Longhorns stick with a traditional lineup, they will probably be outsized by their opponents at almost every position. With all of the questions surrounding the production of the Texas frontcourt, perhaps we will even see Barnes experiment with a small, four-guard lineup like Villanova was forced to run in 2006 following Curtis Sumpter‘s injury.

In the backcourt, we’ll be watching to see how Brown and Gibbs play off the ball. J’Covan has found a lot of success in the past when he’s on the ball, creating with dribble penetration. Gibbs, meanwhile, is fairly small for a shooting guard, so his effectiveness might be limited against taller backcourts.

With an athletic roster and small frontcourt, it would seem like an up-tempo, high-pressure approach would play to Texas’ strengths. But with only nine players in the rotation, that strategy could easily lead to late-game and late-season fatigue. Foul trouble would also be a concern with any high-pressure defensive approaches, so look for the Horns to play sound, conservative half-court defense with a tendency to push for transition buckets.

The young Texas roster will have little time to ease into things, with non-conference road tests at UCLA and North Carolina set for December. Before that, they could even face a formidable Vanderbilt team in the final round of the Legends Classic on November 21st. Following that non-con is the first-ever round-robin schedule in a very deep Big 12 Conference, so this could be a very rough year for the Longhorn faithful.

Texas hasn’t had to sweat the NCAA bubble since 2005, when the team won 20 games and went 9-7 in conference play after an injury sidelined LaMarcus Aldridge and grades spiked P.J. Tucker. Depending on how quickly this young team matures, Selection Sunday might once again be a nervous one for the Longhorns and their fans.

In 2002, ESPN’s Bill Simmons penned an epic column titled “The Levels of Losing.” In it, he outlined thirteen different types of losses suffered by teams and — more importantly — their fans. A 2007 update expanded the list out to 16 different levels of losing, ranking them from the pedestrian “Princeton Principle” to the most gut-wrenching level, saved only for Game 6 of the 1986 World Series.

Not far behind Bill Buckner’s gaffe is The Sports Guy’s third most-excruciating level of losing — “The Stomach Punch.” Simmons describes it as “any roller-coaster game that ends with (A) an opponent making a pivotal (sometimes improbable) play or (B) one of your guys failing in the clutch…Usually ends with fans filing out after the game in stunned disbelief, if they can even move at all.”

Sound familiar, Texas fans?

Sunday’s loss to Arizona in the third round of the NCAA Tournament fit every letter of that description. From Derrick Williams’ improbable no-look and-1 bucket that gave Arizona the final lead, to numerous failures by Longhorn stars in the clutch, Longhorn Nation experienced a massive, unrelenting series of gut punches. We even have the stunned disbelief covered, as your intrepid travelers spent a good portion of the eight-hour drive back to Austin in that very state.

There have been a million words written and spoken about the five-second call that gave Arizona the ball for the winning possession. If you watched the game on television, you likely saw the studio discussions and 8,923 video replays. If you didn’t, feel free to use Google or YouTube — I won’t rehash the debate here. Right or wrong, that call isn’t the only reason Texas lost. As had happened multiple times this season, there was a glaring lack of basketball IQ when the game hung in the balance.

First, the entire five-count sequence was set up by Jordan Hamilton’s inexplicable timeout with 14 seconds left. The Longhorns had a two-point lead when Tristan Thompson blocked a potential game-tying shot from Williams. Hamilton grabbed the loose ball, and the game seemed to be in the bag. All Hamilton had to do was wait for the Arizona foul.

Jordan was a 77.9% free throw shooter this season. Against the Wildcats on Sunday, he was 1-for-2 from the line. If Jordan waits for the foul in that situation, more time ticks off the clock and he then has two opportunities to make it a three-point Longhorn lead. Make both of those, and it’s a two-possession ballgame. Instead, Texas had to inbound the ball against full-court pressure and an unthinkable chain of events was set in motion.

Even after the five-second violation, the Longhorns were still leading by two with 14 seconds to go. The fear in every Texas fan’s mind was that the Wildcats — who had hit 8-of-14 from behind the arc — would drill another three and win the game. But once Williams started driving to the basket, there seemed to be no way Texas could lose in regulation. Until, of course, Hamilton tried to take a charge.

If Hamilton defends the shot straight up and it goes in, the game is tied, but Texas still has the ball and some time to win it. If you want to contest the shot in that situation, you have to make sure you don’t foul, or make sure your foul counts.

Williams was 8-for-14 from the line at that point, so a hard foul not only would have prevented the game-tying basket, but also probably meant that Williams would not have tied it at the line, either. In trying to draw a charge, Hamilton not only let Williams get off a shot, but left the worst-case scenario on the table. That, of course, is exactly what occurred.

After the three-point play, the Longhorns were still left with about nine seconds to try to save a win despite their series of errors. But instead of pushing the ball up the floor, J’Covan Brown calmly walked it up the court, wasting close to five seconds just getting across the timeline. He drove to the right side of the lane, threw up a floater in traffic, and time expired as Gary Johnson fought for a putback.

If Brown races up the floor, the Arizona defense has less time to get set, plus the Longhorns have time to try for a rebound and game-winning putback. Instead, they were left wandering the floor after the final buzzer, arms raised in question as the officials huddled and decided whether or not a foul occurred.

It was a heartbreaking way to end the season, especially after the gritty way the Longhorns had fought back in the second half to finally reclaim the lead. But putting the loss solely at the feet of the officials is a shortsighted conclusion. As was the case in many tense situations this season, the Longhorns failed to make the right decisions. Unfortunately, it finally caught up with them.

The Texas Longhorns survived a scare on Friday to advance past Oakland in the second round of the NCAA tournament, but things won’t be any easier today. Their third-round match-up is a tough Arizona Wildcat team that won the Pac 10 regular-season title and lost in overtime in the championship of the post-season tournament.

A win would put the Longhorns through to the Sweet 16, a place they have been only once since 2005. In the first half of the decade, Texas was in elite company with Duke, West Virginia, and Pitt as the most frequent guests of the NCAA’s second weekend, but that now seems like a distant memory. The Longhorns will have to beat a formidable opponent this evening if they want to once again join that prestigious club.

By the numbers

Arizona has a highly efficient offense and a sound defense. The Wildcats are aggressive with the basketball, always looking to get to the rim. Their offense has constant movement, both off the ball and with the ball. As a result, Arizona is scoring 1.154 adjusted points per possession, making them 15th-best nationally in that metric.

Every starter can drive from the perimeter, so Arizona typically sets up with four players on the perimeter and one playing the high or low post. This great floor spacing gives extra room for their slashing guards and wings to attack the paint and get layups. If the post defender helps, the Wildcats have a wide open big man waiting for the dump-off. If perimeter defense collapses down to help, the Wildcats have a bevy of three-point shooters waiting to knock down the open look.

The one drawback to Arizona’s floor spacing is that they have a hard time grabbing offensive rebounds. With most of their players far from the rim, the Wildcats are only grabbing 32.9% of their misses, a number that is just slightly above the national average. If Texas can use their size to limit Arizona to even fewer offensive boards this evening, it could seriously cripple Arizona’s offense.

The Wildcats were the best three-point shooting team in Pac 10 play, and are the 11th most-deadly team behind the arc in Division I basketball. Arizona has made 39.6% of its long-range looks, and they take nearly 37% of their shots from behind the arc. As a team, the Wildcats average nearly 20 long-range attempts per game.

Defensively, Arizona doesn’t let teams have nearly as much success from beyond the arc. The Wildcats allow opponents to shoot just 29.1% from long range, good enough for 4th place in the national rankings. Texas is actually just percentage points better, allowing a 28.7% success rate.

The weakness for Arizona is interior defense. They allow teams to make more than 50% of their shots from inside the arc, and hardly ever block shots or steal the ball. They also rarely force opponent miscues, as their defensive turnover rate is only 18.9%, ranking them 254th out of 345 D-I schools.

Meet the Wildcats

Arizona is led by sophomore Derrick Williams, an all-around athlete that was named Pac 10 Player of the Year and is one of the 30 players on the Naismith Award midseason list. (Jordan Hamilton is also part of that revered group.) Last year, he was the Pac 10’s top freshman and led the team in both scoring and rebounding.

At 6’8″, Williams is a handful to contain. He’s averaging 19.2 points and 8.2 rebounds per game, and his points come in a variety of ways. Although he only attempts about two three-pointers per game, Williams has an insane 61% success rate behind the arc.

That long-range threat helps Williams when he’s matched up with big, lumbering defensive players. He can draw them out to the perimeter and easily take them off the dribble for buckets. In an early-season game against Kansas and the Morris twins, Williams scored 27 by slashing from the perimeter and getting points in the paint.

Against smaller defenders, the Wildcats love to isolate him in the post as a part of their four-out, one-in look, and Williams will take full advantage of the situation. When stationed at the high post, he can knock down the jumper or use his great handles to shake defenders and get an easy two.

In the backcourt, another sophomore keeps the Wildcat offense churning. Lamont “MoMo” Jones is the team’s point guard, but he’s much more scorer than simple assist man. Jones is a supremely confident, shifty guard who is second on the team with 9.8 points per game.

MoMo has a really quick release, so he doesn’t need any space to get off a shot. He’ll take a couple of rapid-fire threes in front of surprised defenders, and on the year he’s made 32.1% of his attempts. When Jones drives the lane, he’s incredibly elusive and manages to constantly finish ridiculous shots that often should be blocked.

Joining Jones in the backcourt is junior Kyle Fogg, who has been playing with a pulled quad the last two weeks. The injury limited him to just 13 minutes per game in the Pac 10 tournament, but he saw the floor for 23 minutes in the NCAA win over Memphis. The injury was just another setback for Fogg, who has had a serious run of bad luck in Tucson. Last year, he suffered a knee injury and even contracted H1N1 early in the season.

Fogg is not a guy who is going to score many points in most games, but when he does get hot — look out. Against Arizona State he made seven of 13 from beyond the arc, scoring 26 points to lead the ‘Cats to victory over their in-state rivals. He knocked down four three-pointers in four other conference games, and sunk three of them in four others. On the year, Fogg has knocked down 34.8% of his three-point attempts.

Sophomore Solomon Hill is a prototypical small forward who has started all 35 games this season, and he is averaging 7.8 points in 24.9 minutes per contest. Like most of the Wildcats, Hill is a strong 6’6″ guy who also has the ballhandling skills to slash from the wings and cause havoc inside. He’s also the team’s second-leading rebounder with 4.5 boards per game.

Junior Jesse Perry is another slashing wing for Coach Sean Miller, and he arrived in Tucson after transferring from a junior college in Saint Louis. At 6’7″, Perry gives the ‘Cats another long, athletic body that can play both inside and out, but his favorite shot is the mid-range jumper on the baseline. Like Hill, Perry provides some extra rebounding punch to help out Williams.

The sole senior on the roster is Jamelle Horne, who started 13 games for the Wildcats this season, but has settled into a role as the team’s sixth man. He is another big-time threat from long range, where he’s knocked down 40.6% of his attempts on the year. Despite playing just 18.5 minutes per game, Horne is second on the team in three-point attempts behind Fogg.

Also coming off the bench is Kevin Parrom, a 6’6″ sophomore who mirrors the rest of the Arizona roster with his ability to shoot from outside or create with the dribble-drive. He is 41.4% from behind the arc this season, but only averages 2.5 attempts per game.

Jordin Mayes is another long-range shooter on the Arizona bench, and he’s coming into this one with a hot hand. In his last three games, Mayes is 5-for-6 from behind the arc. If the Longhorns pay too much attention to Williams or overhelp on the drives from the wings, Mayes will definitely make them pay on kickouts.

While Sean Miller’s bench runs 10 deep, he has been cutting back on the minutes for Brendon Lavender and Kyryl Natyazhko in post-season play. Lavender is a catch-and-shoot guy who is averaging just seven minutes per game in the post-season.

Natyazhko is a 6’11” Ukranian who gives the ‘Cats some extra size inside, and he’s always working hard to set screens when he’s on the floor. Unfortunately, he is only averaging six minutes in four post-season games for Arizona.

Keys to the game

Just as it was against Oakland, the primary concern for Texas will be keeping Tristan Thompson and Jordan Hamilton out of foul trouble. Williams is the most-fouled player in the Pac 10, and his 88.9% free-throw rate is ninth in all of D-I basketball. He also draws nearly eight fouls per contest, so Texas will have to spread out the whistles to keep their starters in the game.

Defending Williams will be a challenge for Texas. Thompson cannot defend him on the perimeter and would often be beaten on Williams’ slashing attacks. Jordan Hamilton, meanwhile, is a perfect match-up in size and athleticism, but has had his share of defensive lapses this season. Gary Johnson gives up a few inches, but is athletic enough to stick with Williams on the dribble-drive. Of course, if Johnson is tasked with Williams, you can be sure Arizona will isolate him in the post.

While Arizona is a strong three-point shooting team, they have hit the skids recently. In the Pac 10 championship game, Arizona made just 33.3% of their shots from behind the arc, and ultimately lost to Washington in overtime. In their second round NCAA game against Memphis, the ‘Cats made just 26.3% from long range and struggled to knock off the Tigers. If Texas can contain Arizona’s three-point threat, the Wildcat offense becomes much less potent.

Although Texas isn’t a team that turns you over that often, the Longhorns will want to pressure the Arizona guards. This will help with the perimeter defense, and also can lead to some costly Wildcat turnovers. This young Arizona team has had seven different games with turnover rates north of 23%, so the Longhorns should be able to force mistakes. Late in games this season, the Wildcat guards have also had fits with full-court presses, particularly traps in the backcourt.

On offense, Texas needs to attack inside. We’ve already discussed the statistical gulf between Arizona’s perimeter and interior defense, but the Memphis game showed just how successful the Longhorns can be. The Tigers constantly drove baseline and found open layups or easy interior passes against the Arizona defense. For Hamilton and J’Covan Brown, that weakness on the baseline is excellent news.

Finally, Texas cannot dig a hole. The Wildcats are 26-2 this season when leading at halftime, and a big part of that is their success at the line. Arizona has made 75% of their free throws this year, while the Longhorns have stumbled to a 65% mark. If this is a close game in the final minutes, the edge would have to go to Arizona. The Longhorns need to be in control when the game comes down to the wire, or it could spell the end of their season.