With the Tech game less than 24 hours away, we’ll dispense with the introductions and get right into some post-game thoughts.

1) The game ball goes to Alex Oriakhi – Much has been written about Kemba Walker‘s performance in overtime, and there’s no denying that he single-handedly willed his team to victory in those extra five minutes. But without the sudden re-emergence of sophomore big man Alex Oriakhi, there’s no overtime for the Huskies to even play in.

Oriakhi looked like one of the nation’s most dominant bigs when he broke out at the Maui Invitational. In the three-game tournament, the sophomore tallied 45 points and grabbed 35 rebounds, logging double-doubles against both Michigan State and Kentucky. After re-entering the mainland, Oriakhi seemed to lose his mojo. He averaged just over eight points and six rebounds in the eight ensuing games, and saw his numbers dip even more in conference play thanks to foul trouble.

Against the Longhorns, Oriakhi tore down an eye-popping 21 rebounds, including 11 on the offensive end. He chipped in 11 points, and came up with the biggest block of the night when he rejected Texas’ game-winning attempt with ten seconds left in regulation.

If this is Alex Oriakhi that shows up the rest of this season, UConn will be a very tough team to beat. Without him, the Huskies are reduced to the Kemba Walker Show, and recent weeks have proven that he won’t be able to carry his team alone for much longer.

2) Free throws finally caught up with Texas – As a team, the Longhorns are currently the proud owners of a 64.8% free-throw mark. That’s good enough for 275th place in the country. To put it another way, there are only 70 teams in all of Division I basketball worse at the stripe than Texas.

Against UConn, the Longhorns made just 14 of their 23 attempts. Big man Tristan Thompson was a frustrating 1-of-6 from the line, including two excruciating misses in overtime. Jordan Hamilton was just 1-of-3 when he headed to the stripe, with one of his misses coming on the front end of a one-and-one.

It seems elementary to say that shooting 60.8% at the line cost a team the game when it was decided by just one point in overtime. But what is most frustrating about this never-ending free-throw nightmare is that while not only will it cost the Longhorns some wins against good teams, but it is likely also going to cost Texas a road game against a sub-par opponent. Losing an exciting, back-and-forth game to UConn is excusable. Losing in Lincoln or Norman? Not so much.

3) Damned if you Dogus, damned if you don’t – The Turkish Minister of Defense — better known by his given name of Dogus Balbay — is the biggest reason why Kemba Walker struggled so much on Saturday afternoon. It took 18 minutes for Walker to crack the scoreboard, and he finished regulation with just 15 points. Unfortunately, if you look at the substitution patterns late in the game, Balbay’s complete uselessness on offense essentially allowed the Huskies to force overtime.

With the Longhorns down one and just under two minutes on the clock, Coach Barnes called a timeout and subbed in Cory Joseph for Balbay. The offense-for-defense maneuver worked, and Texas took the lead on J’Covan Brown’s jumper. As Balbay watched from the bench, Walker immediately attacked the rim, drawing a foul on a helping Thompson en route to a three-point play.

There were a lot of moments in this game that all added up to a loss for the Longhorns. But Texas needs something, anything out of Balbay on the offensive end that will allow him to play more minutes. The team simply can’t afford to give an opponent’s best player an easier match-up in the most crucial minutes of the game.

4)Benchwarmers finally warmed up – J’Covan Brown had, without a doubt, his best game to-date on the 40 Acres. Sure, he still took a few questionable shots, but on Saturday afternoon, even two of those went in the bucket. He matched Jordan Hamilton with 20 points, despite playing 12 less minutes. From long range, a place he had struggled in mid-December, Brown was two for three. And on a day when nobody’s free throws seemed to go in, J’Covan made all four of his.

While not as strong as Brown’s performance, Matt Hill‘s contributions were important. He struggled early, but bounced back to come up with some key defensive stops and snagged a few defensive rebounds when Texas couldn’t even buy one. He logged six total boards in the game, and actually posted the best defensive rebounding numbers on the team when adjusted for minutes.

5) If at first you don’t succeed, hope you’re playing Texas – Easy putbacks have been a thorn in the side of the Texas defense all season long. Against North Carolina, those second-chance points nearly cost the team a big victory. With the Huskies scoring 24 of their own second-chance points on Saturday afternoon — 17 of them in the second half — the Longhorns were lucky to claw back and force overtime.

The worst part of the rebounding impotence is that it masked what was a quality defensive effort from the team. Texas held the Huskies to 38% shooting from the field, which is even more impressive when you consider how many shots UConn took just a foot or two from the bucket.

The optimist will simply chalk this up as an aberration, a result of the Longhorns selling out in an effort to stop Walker. The pessimist will declare that this is the inevitable result of having a frontcourt with little experience beyond the starters. The answer may lie somewhere between the two extremes, but there’s no doubt that the upcoming battles in a rugged Big 12 Conference will settle the debate. The first big test for the Texas frontcourt arrives next Wednesday, when the Longhorns take on an A&M squad that is currently eighth-best in the nation on the offensive glass.

Next up: at Texas Tech (8-8); 6 P.M., Tuesday

A year ago, a road game against UConn served as the turning point in a disappointing season for the Texas Longhorns, a season in which they ascended to the nation’s No. 1 ranking before spiraling into a free-fall that ended with a first-round NCAA exit.

When the Longhorns blew a 10-point second-half lead in Storrs last season, ultimately losing to the Huskies by 14 points, they had already suffered their first loss of the year to Kansas State. But the team’s inexplicable collapse in the final 20 minutes against UConn served as a microcosm of a season in which the team had an equally-frustrating implosion down the stretch.

With UConn losing both Stanley Robinson and Jerome Dyson in the off-season, this year’s match-up between the two teams seemed like an easy chance for Texas’ revenge. The Huskies entered the season as one of the youngest teams in the country, with a frontcourt surrounded by question marks.

Then, the Maui Invitational happened. Kemba Walker, who spent his summer working hard in NBA skills camps and with the USA Select team, exploded onto the national scene with 90 points in three games, leading his young team to a tournament title with wins over Michigan State and Kentucky.

The potential is certainly still there for a Texas revenge win. In recent weeks, the Huskies have struggled as they entered conference play, suffering a pair of road losses to Pitt and Notre Dame, while being forced to overtime by a South Florida team that now holds a 6-10 record. Stat guru Ken Pomeroy gives Texas a 78% chance to win this afternoon, projecting a 74-68 win for the Horns.

By the numbers

Coached by longtime legend Jim Calhoun, the Huskies are sound on both ends of the court. Their skill on both offense and defense gives them a per-possession scoring differential of 0.218, which ranks 29th nationally. As a point of comparison, the Longhorns rank 15th in that category, holding a 0.264 differential.

In eight of the last nine seasons, UConn has led the nation in blocks. The one year they didn’t claim the top spot, they slid all the way down to second. This year, the solid team defense has them blocking shots at a ridiculous pace once again, swatting 18.2% of their opponents shots. While not yet tops in the nation, that mark puts the Huskies at third in D-I basketball.

Thanks to that intimidating inside presence, the UConn defense simply doesn’t let teams score easily inside. Their defense is allowing opponents to shoot just 39.5% inside the arc, a mark that is 7th in the nation. The Longhorns come into today’s game just as stout inside, allowing just a 38.6% success rate, good for 3rd in the country. If today’s game settles into a half-court affair, it will either be a low-scoring battle or a showcase of three-point shooting.

On offense, the Huskies make their possessions count. Their turnover rate is a scant 17.8%, 38th in the country, while their offensive rebounding percantage is 4th in the country. UConn grabs 43.5% of their misses, but those numbers may be deceptive thanks to an incredibly weak non-con schedule.

The Huskies have played five opponents who place in the bottom 100 of Ken Pomeroy’s ratings, and the team’s recent foray into Big East play seem to indicate that perhaps that schedule left them a little unprepared. In UConn’s last two games — a road loss to Notre Dame and an overtime win at home over South Florida — the team grabbed just 31.5% of their offensive rebounding chances.

Meet the Huskies

If you’ve watched any college basketball at all this season, Kemba Walker needs no introduction. The junior guard is averaging 26.1 points per game, while his quick hands on defense have led to 2.4 steals per game.

The biggest knock on Walker’s game coming into the season was his lack of a long-range shot. A lightning-quick guard, Kemba was often stifled by defenses who sagged off thanks to his inability to knock down threes and long-range jumpers. As a member of both Chris Paul’s and LeBron James’ skills camps this summer, Walker put in tons of hours, and developed a long-range threat that has made him nearly unstoppable. Shooting 35.9% from behind the arc this year, Walker now forces defenses to play him tight, allowing him numerous opportunities to blow by and score at the rim or on pull-up jumpers.

Inside, Alex Oriakhi has made huge strides in his sophomore season. The Huskies desperately needed a post presence entering the season, and he has improved his offensive game enough to make an impact. Oriakhi has always been a solid rebounder, but his 10.5 points per game this season are more than double his five point-per-game output from last season. With 8.4 boards per contest, the sophomore is by far the leading rebounder on the team, and his work on the offensive glass is key to keeping the UConn offense clicking.

Jeremy Lamb is the only member of the deep six-man freshman class who has started every game, and his length and athleticism are invaluable at the wing. He’s scoring 7.7 points a night while pulling down 4.8 boards, and his long arms help when he’s out of position on defense.

Fellow freshman Roscoe Smith has joined Lamb in the starting lineup for UConn’s first three Big East conference games. He’s another lengthy, athletic kid, and he embodies the strong, physical post defense that UConn is famous for. This season, he’s averaging nearly two blocks a game and is second on the team with 32 offensive rebounds.

The other UConn big man who has cracked the starting lineup in Big East play is senior Charles Okwandu. The seven-foot Nigerian product isn’t much of an offensive threat, but he runs the floor well in transition, making it difficult for teams to get open looks even on the fast break.

While his raw block numbers aren’t tops on the team, tempo-free stats reveal that Okwandu is the best shot blocker on the team. In his limited minutes, the senior was blocking 12% of all opportunities heading into the Notre Dame game. Had he played enough minutes to qualify for the leaderboard, that would make Okwandu the 17th-best shot blocker in all of D-I basketball.

Coming off the bench, UConn has an exciting freshman guard in Shabazz Napier. Like Walker, he’s incredibly quick with the basketball, and he isn’t afraid to shoot from anywhere on the floor. He brings a much-needed three-point threat to a team that struggled behind the arc last season, and he’s averaging nearly two steals a game. The Longhorns will want to be careful when pushing the ball up after missed UConn baskets, because Napier loves to steal the initial outlet pass and turn it into an easy layup.

Sophomore forward Jamal Coombs-McDaniel also comes off the bench for Coach Calhoun, and he provides even more height at the wing. He gives the Huskies a very good rebounder from the 3 or the 4 spot, but coaches are hoping he can also add a three-point threat to his arsenal. So far this season, Coombs-McDaniel is just 6-of-27 from behind the arc, and it’s limited him to about 15 minutes a game.

Freshman Niels Giffey comes to Storrs by way of Berlin, Germany, and he brings the outside shot that so many European players love. Giffey is yet another really tall wingman for UConn, checking in at 6’7″, and his height makes him a valuable defender against teams with solid outside shooters.

Big man Tyler Olander is another freshman for UConn, and he started a handful of games for the team at the beginning of the year. Now, he’s relegated to the bench, and his minutes per game have dropped to about 13 per contest. He’s not a flashy player, but he’s a hard-nosed guy who scraps for rebounds.

In the offseason, senior Donnell Beverly was being pegged as a potential leader in the backcourt, someone who could work with Walker and provide a steady hand when the young team hit speedbumps. As it’s turned out, Napier and Lamb have contributed almost immediately, and Beverly hasn’t been needed for more than nine minutes a game. Statistically, he hasn’t been much of a factor this season, but he will give the younger guards a few minutes of rest this afternoon.

The most recent addition to the team is seven-footer Enosch Wolf, another European product who is still a very raw talent. His enrollment at UConn was delayed by a semester, so he missed out on practically the entire non-conference slate, and as a result, he doesn’t have a real role in the rotation. Enosch has only played six minutes per game in his first three appearances, but his nasty, tenacious play inside will undoubtedly be a key for the team in years to come.

Keys to the game

Make Walker work for his points – It’s no secret that Kemba Walker is going to score a bunch of points this afternoon. He had 12 straight games in which he scored at least 20 points, and the streak was finally broken when he chipped in “only” 19 in the loss to the Irish. What seems to be key, however, is how often Walker keeps the ball away from the rest of the offense when he’s scoring.

When Walker takes more than 40% of his team’s shots, they are 1-2 this season, with the one victory being a narrow four-point win over Wichita State in Maui. If the Longhorns challenge Walker’s shots and provide good help defense when he inevitably beats his man, they can make it much tougher for him to earn those points. If he is taking 20-plus shots tonight, Texas should find itself on top when the buzzer sounds.

Keep the Huskies off the offensive glass – Connecticut makes teams pay by extending their possessions on the offensive end. Make a good stop against the Huskies, and you’re often frustrated by an offensive board leading to an easy putback or an opportunity for the offense to re-set. Against quality competition in their last three games, the UConn frontcourt has looked much more mortal than they did in the first two months of the season. If Texas can limit the second and third-chance points, it will be tough for UConn to steal a road win.

Attack inside – The frontcourt was the big question mark coming into the season for the Huskies, and it’s still a bit of an enigma as the calendar turns to 2011. Alex Oriakhi has seen a severe drop in his production since Big East play began, averaging just 7.6 points and 3.3 boards per game. While many guys would love to have that line, Oriakhi started the season with three double-doubles in his first five games, including ones against Michigan State and Kentucky.

The biggest limiting factor for Oriakhi in conference play has been foul trouble, as he played just 19 minutes against Pitt and 23 against Notre Dame. If the Longhorns can attack Oriakhi and saddle him with fouls, the Huskies will be forced to rely on Okwandu and Wolf, two guys who lack the offensive threat that Oriakhi brings to the court.

Beat the defense – As with Michigan State just a few weeks ago, the best way to beat the skilled UConn defense is to push the ball in transition and score on the break and on the secondary break. The Huskies do a good job of staying in front of their men in the half-court, and solid help defense allows them to block a ton of shots when opponents do actually beat their man. As Notre Dame proved in a win over UConn on Tuesday night, if Texas can beat the defense down the floor, they will find it much easier to knock off the Huskies.

Earlier in the week, SI put out their Midseason Crystal Ball, with Seth Davis tabbing Texas for the Final Four, while my fellow stat-nerd, Luke Winn, selected the Horns as a Final Four “dark horse.” Meanwhile, Andy Glockner, Twitter’s most-responsive sportswriter, points out that Pat Knight should be on the hot seat in Lubbock.

With the UConn game just two days away, ESPN’s Andy Katz has a nice feature on Jordan Hamilton and the Horns. It’s an excellent read, so take a few minutes to click on over and read about the team’s revival.

Winn gets another mention for a pair of articles he put out this week. First, his look at Ohio State’s foul-aversion included eye-popping numbers and insightful quotes from top Buckeyes. If you’re into tempo-free numbers, you absolutely have to check out this piece. The stats will floor you.

Today, Winn’s weekly Power Rankings returned from a holiday hiatus, with the Longhorns ascending two spots to the No. 7 ranking. ESPN’s weekly power poll also saw a two-spot move by the Horns, who are now 10th.

The consistently impressive play of Jordan Hamilton is gaining some attention from the national media, as TSN’s Mike DeCourcy put the sophomore on his mid-season All-American team. Hamilton’s numbers also allowed him to just crack the top ten of stat guru Ken Pomeroy’s Player of the Year rankings.

There’s not much time left before this afternoon’s game with Coppin State, so we’re going to dispense with the introductions and dive right into a quick and dirty game preview.

The history between these two schools is brief, with the Longhorns last knocking off the Eagles at the Erwin Center in 2004. Prior to that, Coach Fang Mitchell and Coppin State served as a historical footnote when they became the last team that Tom Penders ever beat in an NCAA tournament game. The Eagles were only the third 15-seed in tourney history to knock off a 2-seed when they unseated South Carolina back in March of 1997, but fell just a point short against Penders and the Longhorns in the second round.

Tonight, the Eagles are wrapping up a brutal four-game stretch in which they have also played true road games against UConn, Wisconsin, and Kentucky. Coppin State is hoping the tough schedule will help the team jell in time for MEAC play, as they finished 3-13 in the league last year. The Eagles lost eight of the twelve players on last year’s terrible team, so Coach Mitchell’s JuCo-laden roster should only get better.

Coppin State may be without their leading scorer in this one, as Michael Harper missed Tuesday’s game against Kentucky with the flu. In his absence, the team took nearly eight minutes to score a field goal in Lexington, and shot less than 20% from the field in the first half. If Harper and his 15 points per game won’t be part of the lineup tonight, the Eagles will need 5’11” point guard Tony Gallo to step up.

A typical December “buy” game, this contest shouldn’t ever be in doubt. With that in mind, here are the things we’ll be watching this afternoon:

1) How rusty will the Longhorns be? – The one thing that Coppin State does very well is control the basketball. Their 17.5% turnover rate is 30th in the nation, so to put it simply, they do not waste possessions. Unfortunately, with the holiday layoff, there’s always a bit of rust that shows in these late December games. If the Longhorns sleepwalk through this one and play sloppy basketball, it will only serve to keep the Eagles in the game for longer than they should be.

2) Does Texas dominate the glass? – The Eagles are being outrebounded by an average of eight boards per game so far this season, including a 43-22 shellacking on the glass in their last game against Kentucky.

Looking at the tempo-free numbers, Coppin State is frequently abused in the rebounding battle on both ends of the court. While they don’t turn the ball over, they also hardly ever corral their misses, grabbing just 27.7% of their offensive rebounding chances. That mark is 302nd nationally, and is just a shade better than their 325th-ranked defensive rebounding percentage. Coppin State allows opponents to snag 39% of their misses, leading to a ton of easy putbacks and second-chance points.

With all those numbers in mind, there’s absolutely no reason that the bigger, more athletic Longhorns should not decimate the Eagles on the glass. Look for Tristan Thompson and Gary Johnson to take advantage of Coppin State, and hopefully put up some eye-popping rebounding numbers.

3) Is the transition game still a focus? – The Longhorns made Michigan State pay last week by pushing the ball in transition and getting a ton of easy baskets before the Spartans could ever set up the defense. Coppin State runs at a rather slow pace this season, so we’ll be watching to see if Texas establishes tempo by continuing to push the ball down the floor.

Tom Izzo and Rick Barnes see each other so often, it sometimes seems like they’re in the same conference. The two coaches — who have a combined 877 wins between them — have met in each of the last four seasons, and they will renew their inter-conference rivalry once more when Michigan State and Texas face off in East Lansing tonight.

The five-year streak began in Madison Square Garden, where Drew Neitzel hit a last-second, game-winning shot in 2006 against a young Texas team led by a budding superstar named Kevin Durant. The Spartans also won the next two match-ups, which were played on the neutral NBA courts of the Rockets and Pistons. Last year, the series moved to an on-campus home-and-home set-up, with the Longhorns finally pulling out a win, 79-68, over a Spartan team that eventually made the Final Four.

Tonight’s game looks like another classic in this new rivalry, with both teams boasting high rankings and high expectations. The Spartans were slotted as high as 2nd in the nation in pre-season polls, but have suffered a trio of losses against very talented teams, all of which are currently ranked in the top ten. Tonight, Michigan State is hoping to add another signature win to their tournament résumé, which already includes a neutral-court win over Washington in Maui.

By the numbers

The Spartans have been excellent on offense so far this year, with an efficiency mark of 1.12 points per possession, good for 28th in the nation. They are most effective when the team is in motion, as the Spartans love to misdirect with screens and ball movement guiding the defense one way, while one of their excellent shooters curls around to the weak side for an open look.

Unfortunately, Michigan State has also had some long stretches of stagnant offense this season. When they aren’t moving around off the ball, the team tends to settle for outside shots. Against the tougher defenses they’ve faced this year, such as Syracuse’s patented 2-3 zone and Duke’s intense ball pressure beyond the perimeter, the Spartans tend to dribble the air out of the ball or simply pass it around the perimeter. The team is full of excellent shooters, but they have the most success when their looks come off of ball movement and slashing attacks, not when they simply settle for long-range jumpers.

The Spartans also had difficulty this year when Washington blitzed their ball screens in Maui. Guard Korie Lucious is just 5’11”, while starting point guard Kalin Lucas is 6’1″. With the extra length provided by Washington’s big men surging past the screen, the Husky double teams gave the Spartan guards fits. The Longhorns would be wise to do the same thing a few times tonight.

Typically, the Spartans are a dominant rebounding team. In fact, Michigan State led the NCAA in rebounding each of the last two seasons. This year, though, they look like mere mortals on the glass. The Spartans were outrebounded by eight in their loss to Syracuse, and finished even on the boards with UConn in that loss.

Despite having an “off” year on the glass, the Spartans are still very good at cleaning up their misses. So far this season, they are snagging 36.7% of offensive rebounding opportunities. Texas gave up a few easy putbacks in the second half against North Carolina on Saturday, so they need to learn from that and get a body on the Spartan rebounders when the shot is in the air.

Perhaps the biggest issue facing Tom Izzo’s team this year is ball control. They are averaging 16.2 turnovers per game, which equates to a miscue on 23% of their possessions. That turnover rate puts the team in the bottom third of Division I basketball for that metric. In all three Spartan losses this year, they had a turnover rate of greater than 23%, including a frustrating 26.9% mark in the loss at Duke.

Meet the Spartans

Michigan State has an experienced roster, so many faces will be familiar to Longhorn fans. In addition to the solid core of returning Spartans, there’s also a handful of highly-talented freshman who are already giving Coach Izzo quality contributions.

Senior swingman Durrell Summers is leading the team with 15.5 points per game so far this year, thanks in large part to his excellent stroke from long range. Summers is hitting 45.6% of his three-point attempts this season, so the Longhorns have to keep an eye on him when he’s hanging out on the weak side of the court. He’s also a solid rebounding guard, pulling down nearly five boards a night.

The aforementioned Kalin Lucas is yet another three-point threat for the Spartans, but he’s also able to attack and get to the rim at a moment’s notice. He tore his left Achilles tendon in the second round of last season’s NCAA tournament, so he is still working to get back to 100%. Even with the injury hampering his explosive first step, Lucas is one of the quickest guards in college basketball, and he’ll blow right past the Longhorns if they are playing too tight in an effort to limit his threes.

Although Draymond Green isn’t leading the team in scoring with his 12.5 points per game, he’s the team’s most important player. He leads the team with nine rebounds a game, is tops in total assists with 45, and his 14 blocks are just one shy of the team leader. He’s the Spartans’ top steal man by a wide margin, swiping it twice per game, and is even 50% from behind the arc on his 28 attempts this year.

Last season, Green was the obvious choice for the Big 10’s Sixth Man of the Year Award, and he’s well on his way to securing that honor again this season. Although Coach Izzo has used him in the starting lineup in six of the team’s first 11 games, he’s still just as productive coming off the bench. There is simply no way the Longhorns will shut Green down tonight, so they can only hope to limit his impact on the game.

Forward Delvon Roe is the man who has one more block than Green, and he’s also chipping in seven points and 5.1 rebounds each game. He’s not a flashy player or a bona fide superstar, but he gives the Spartans a junkyard dog in the paint who knows how to get to the basketball. He’s also a very good free-throw shooter for a big man, knocking down nearly 75% of his attempts this season.

Sophomore Garrick Sherman has started every game at center for the Spartans, and it’s clear that his offensive game improved tremendously in the off-season. He now has a handful of quality moves that he can use on the blocks, but still needs to put on weight if he’s going to body up down low. He gets pushed around far too often when trying to establish rebounding position, so Tristan Thompson and Gary Johnson will need to take advantage of that weakness tonight.

Korie Lucious has come off the bench in all 10 of his games this season, but he’s still the fourth-busiest player and fourth-highest scorer on the team with 24 minutes and nearly eight points a night. While Green leads the team in total assists, Lucious’ 4.2 per-game average is slightly higher. The junior can man the point when Lucas is on the bench, but he has the aggressive mindset of a scoring guard. He loves to isolate and take his man off the dribble, and quite often is the only player trying to attack the rim when the Spartans are going through one of their stagnant offensive stretches. He’s a fair three-point shooter, sinking 32.6% of his attempts so far, but on a Spartan team with much better long-range gunners, that’s not his primary role.

Freshman guard Keith Appling will likely be the point guard of the future for Michigan State, but for now he is performing well as the team’s back-up shooting guard. He was named Mr. Basketball in Michigan as a high school senior last year, averaging 28 points per game. Appling is one of the team’s most efficient players, scoring 6.5 points a night in just 16 minutes. He’s deadly when he chooses to shoot the triple, with an eye-popping success rate of 47.8% so far this season. When Appling makes it to the line, he’s even more impressive, having missed just once in 15 tries so far.

Joining Appling as a backcourt reserve is former walk-on Austin Thornton. The junior has actually started five games on the wing for the Spartans, but has been relegated to the bench as of late. Izzo is high on Thornton’s shooting ability, but so far he has struggled this season, making less than 32% of his threes. Often, Thornton looks nervous when the ball gets in his hands, and he tends to rush things. Defensively, he’s a quality option to guard opposing wings or smaller power forwards, and he buys into Coach Izzo’s active defensive philopshophy.

In the frontcourt, Derrick Nix remains a project in his sophomore season. He struggled with weight loss issues last year and didn’t accompany the team to Maui, reportedly for failing to commit to the team. After the Spartans struggled with Chaminade and lost to Connecticut, Nix was quoted as saying he felt like he let his teammates down, and he soon rejoined the roster.

Unfortunately, Nix still isn’t in very good shape, and he has a long way to go before he’ll be a significant contributor. He can’t move quickly enough to be of any use on pick and rolls, and his lack of speed makes him a huge liability in transition.

One player benefitting from Nix’s struggles is freshman Adreian Payne. He’s incredibly athletic for a 6’10” guy, but is still too undersized to be a star post player in the physical Big 10. For now, his incredible length and surprising hops make him a naturally-talented defender who is giving the team nearly 10 minutes and more than three rebounds per game.

Senior guard Mike Kebler will likely play only a couple of minutes tonight, but he earns a mention for the career outing he had against Prairie View A&M on Saturday. Kebler was averaging just 4.4 minutes and 0.6 points per game as a sparingly-used reserve, but he had the game of his life against the Panthers, scoring eight points in 15 minutes of action.

Keys to the game

For the Longhorns, the most important thing tonight will be an ability to win the rebounding battle, and they must do exceptionally well on the offensive glass. The Spartans have a correlation of 0.81 between their defensive rebounding percentage and their defensive efficiency. In layman’s terms, that means the Spartan defense is very, very reliant on keeping opponents off the offensive glass. The reason offensive rebounds are so important is because Michigan State forces teams to take bad shots. One-and-done possessions are a recipe for disaster.

On a related note, the Longhorns also need to shoot within the flow of the offense. Like the Spartans, Texas has stretches where the team fails to attack tough defenses and simply settles for bad shots. The Longhorns need to move without the ball, make the extra pass, and work for open looks instead of forcing up three-pointers with a defender just inches away. The two Longhorns we’ll specifically be watching in regard to this will be Jordan Hamilton and J’Covan Brown. Hamilton has greatly improved his shot selection as the season has rolled on, but Brown still tends to force things when the going gets tough.

Finally, Texas needs to pressure the Spartans. The Longhorns haven’t forced that many turnovers this year, but the one glaring weakness of the Michigan State offense is their tendency to cough it up. If the Longhorns let Michigan State get comfortable in their half-court sets, the very talented Spartan shooters are going to have a field day. Texas needs to mix in some full-court pressure, meet the ball handlers beyond the perimeter, and be willing to blitz and double-team when the Spartans use ball screens.