The Texas program has long been known for its defense. Under head coach Rick Barnes, the philosophy shifted from the run-n-gun style of Tom Penders to a well-disciplined, defense-first approach. It seems only fitting the the Longhorns put up their best defensive performance of the year on a night where Coach Barnes earned his 500th career win.

Texas cruised to an 84-50 victory over the Sam Houston State Bearkats in a game where the outcome was never in doubt. Both teams played an extremely sloppy first half, with 23 combined turnovers between the two teams. The Longhorns held SHSU to just a 29.2% success rate from the field, while posting an impressive 55% field-goal percentage of their own.

What looked good

The game was so one-sided on Tuesday night that it’s tough to extract any meaningful bits of information from the game. Was Texas really that good, or did the new-look Bearkats simply lay an egg in their first true test of the year?

The truth is likely found somewhere in the middle of those two extremes, but the raw numbers certainly look pretty. The Longhorns had an offensive efficiency of 1.14 points per possession, but the stats were even better on defense. Texas allowed the Bearkats just 0.68 points each trip down the floor, making it the team’s second-most efficient defensive performance since giving up 0.66 points per possession to Navy in the season opener.

On offense, the Longhorns were led by Jordan Hamilton, who matched his season average with 25 points despite only having to play 27 minutes in the blowout. He hit both of his three-point attempts on the night, was 5-of-6 at the stripe, and finished just a rebound shy of a double-double.

There is now no question that Hamilton will be the team’s leader this year, and it’s clear that he has matured during the offseason. After forcing up some bad shots in the pair of New York City games, Hamilton played smart, team basketball against Sam Houston State.

Surprisingly, the team’s second-leading scorer was senior point guard Dogus Balbay. The Turkish guard’s lack of a jump shot is an oft-noted deficiency, and he did miss the only short jumper he took against the Bearkats. But Balbay looked comfortable pushing the break, probing the interior D in half-court sets, and getting to the rim for easy layups.

His 14 points marked a new career-high, besting the 13 he posted against Texas Tech in January. Critics might point to the quality of those two opponents before giving Balbay credit, but the fact that he is once again looking to get to the rim will only serve to open up the rest of the offense.

Freshman Cory Joseph also had the best game of his young career, chipping in nine points on the night. Joseph led the team with four assists and managed to finish with just two turnovers in a game where it seemed like the Longhorns threw it away on every other possession. Cory has taken flak for the way the Pitt game finished, but he and Balbay are going to provide a dose of quality backcourt leadership this year. And we all know the adage about March and a team’s backcourt play…

The biggest subplot of the night, however, came at the free-throw line. The Longhorns finished 15-of-19 from the stripe, an improvement of a full 11 percentage points over the season average. Texas actually started their impressive free-throw streak during crunch time of the Pitt game, where they made eight out of 10 attempts over the final eight minutes of the game. Combining the numbers from those two games gives the Horns a 79.3% mark at the line over the last 48 minutes of basketball.

What needed work

For once, Tristan Thompson looked human. After making a huge splash in his first four games, including an absolutely incredible performance on back-to-back nights in New York, the freshman came back to Earth. Sam Houston State’s Antuan Bootle frustrated Thompson all night, limiting the Canadian to just three points and four boards in 28 minutes of play. He never seemed to get in the flow of the game, and with the outcome clearly in hand, Coach Barnes elected to give Matt Hill and Alexis Wangmene more minutes and experience.

The biggest flaw for Texas, though, was clearly the turnovers. While Texas turned things around at half and only coughed it up twice in the final 20 minutes, the first half was a disaster. The Longhorns had 12 miscues before halftime, and most of them were unforced errors. The team threw the ball into the crowd on multiple occasions, while J’Covan Brown and Gary Johnson combined to pick up five offensive fouls in the game. Considering the sloppy play was limited to just the first half, and that the team also had just ten turnovers in the entire game against Illinois, we figure it’s safe to chalk this one up as an aberration.

The other concern worth noting is the team’s continued struggles from three-point range. The Longhorns shot 30% from behind the arc last night, a sad number that is even more depressing if you were to remove Hamilton’s 2-for-2 performance. On the season, the team is 29.4% from long range. Take Hamilton and walk-on Dean Melchionni out of the equation — since Melchionni won’t see meaningful minutes this season — and the Longhorns are just 6-of-38 from three-point range, which is only a 15.8% success rate. Jai Lucas, who was the team’s best three-point shooter last season (46.2%) in his limited minutes, has yet to make one this year in his eight attempts.

Next up: vs. Rice Owls (3-2); Saturday, 3 P.M. CT

The Longhorns return to the friendly hardwood of the Frank Erwin Center tonight when they host the Sam Houston State Bearkats. Texas is coming off an impressive performance in New York City, where they knocked off then-13th-ranked Illinois and lost by just two points to a top-five Pittsburgh team. While the Longhorns typically have their share of easy opponents at home in November and December, the Bearkats are just a few months removed from a Southland Conference tournament title and an appearance in the Big Dance.

Sam Houston State will look a little different than they did when they hung with Baylor in the NCAA tourney. They’ve lost their two of their three leading scorers from a season ago, and all of their off-season departures combined to account for more than 53% of last year’s points. In addition, the Bearkats have a new leader at the end of the bench, as Jason Hooten has taken over head coaching duties after six years as an assistant. Sam Houston State’s new-look squad has an untested backcourt and a slew of former role players who now need to step into the limelight. A road game against a top-twenty team should provide quite the test for the Bearkats, who have just a pair of games against NAIA opponents under their belts.

Meet the Bearkats

For the second straight year, SHSU is led in scoring by big man Gilberto Clavell. He’s upped his average slightly to 17.5 PPG through the first two contests, and he logged a double-double in his last game against Northwest Oklahoma State. At 6’7″, he is surprisingly the tallest Bearkat to see significant minutes each game, although the team may be forced to utilize 6’9″ Aaron Thompson more against the bigger Longhorn lineup.

The team’s other returning starter is senior Josten Crow. He tied a career high with 21 points against Mary Hardin-Baylor in the season opener, and is actually leading the team in rebounds despite being a 6’4″ wingman. Crow has 10 rebounds per game so far this season, but should find that task a little bit harder when facing his first NCAA opponent of the year. Texas will also have to keep an eye on Crow when he’s at the perimeter, because while he has only hit 27% of his three-point attempts in the first two games, he did sink more than 40% of his attempts last year.

Lance Pevehouse is the only other Bearkat averaging double-digits in scoring through the first two games. His 11 points per game are nearly double his output as a bench player last season.

Pevehouse is just one of a few guards who are being asked to step up this year following the graduation of seniors Corey Allmond and Ashton Mitchell. Joining him in the backcourt is 5’10” point guard Drae Murray, who is averaging 7.5 PPG so far and has an eye-popping 5-to-1 assist-to-TO ratio.

Providing some extra experience at the guard position are a pair of JuCo transfers, Nafis Richardson and Marcus Williams, who are each averaging more than 23 minutes per game. Richardson, who comes from McClennan JC in Waco, has eight points per game, while Williams has chipped in 6.5 a night.

Last year, the Bearkats were an up-tempo team led by their senior backcourt. The team’s 70.4 possessions per game was top-fifty nationally. While there are no tempo-free stats available on Sam Houston’s first two games against NAIA opponents, don’t be surprised to see much of the same tonight. The Longhorns have been running at a 71.2 possession-per-game pace so far this season, so it could be quite the track meet.

Keys to the game

1) Pressure the guards – With an inexperienced backcourt, Sam Houston State is still working out the kinks in its offense. The team has turned it over 39 times in two games, a number that is high enough on its own, but is even more troublesome when you consider the caliber of the Bearkats’ first two opponents.

Meanwhile, Texas forced just 23 turnovers in its two games at Madison Square Garden, despite having a combined 147 possessions in those two contests. That equates to just a 15% defensive turnover percentage, something that must improve for the Longhorns. Tonight offers an excellent opportunity for the team to do just that.

2) Dominate the inside game – There won’t be many times this season that the Longhorns are expected to dominate the glass and the battle for points in the paint, but tonight is one of those instances. The two teams are comparable in size, but the Longhorns have a very special big man in Tristan Thompson. Add in the fact that the team is committed to getting the ball inside and that the Horns average a +8 rebounding margin, and it’s not hard to see why Texas should be a force inside tonight.

3) Make the free ones – While the odds are incredibly slim for an upset tonight — stat guru Ken Pomeroy gives SHSU a 5% chance of winning — missing free throws is the easiest way to keep a scrappy opponent in the game. Sam Houston was within arm’s reach of a very talented Baylor team for nearly 40 minutes in March, and they could potentially do the same thing against Texas tonight. Making just 62% of their free throw attempts, as the Longhorns have done so far this season, would be one way to leave the door cracked for a talented SHSU squad.

Leaving Madison Square Garden on Friday night, it was difficult to feel anything but optimism. Sure, losing a close game to a top-five team can be frustrating for any fan. But what we saw from the Longhorns in New York City bodes very, very well for the future.

While many have focused on the bizarre finish and Cory Joseph‘s ugly heave with seconds left, there were so many positive things to take from the pair of games played in the 2KSports Classic at Madison Square Garden. We’ve already talked about the overtime win over the Illini, but there was even more to love in the loss to Pitt.

1) Jordan Hamilton is taking charge – Hamilton still has issues forcing shots and sometimes fails to look for the open man as often as his teammates do. But when you’re the most prolific scorer on a young team coming off a season played completely without leadership…can you blame him?

Jordan scored 28 points on 8-of-18 shooting, including a 5-for-8 mark from behind the arc. Two of those three-point misses actually came in the final few minutes, when Hamilton took quick threes in possessions where the Longhorns might have been better served by working it inside and earning points the hard way. But when a kid is 5-of-6 and has the hot hand, you can’t fault the decision-making too much.

In the future, Jordan will need to make wiser decisions with the basketball and not try to take the entire team on his shoulders every single trip down the floor. But maturing into a leader is a journey that’s rife with speedbumps and detours, so these criticisms are minor in the grand scheme of things. It will be exciting to watch Hamilton mature over the course of this season.

2) Tristan Thompson doesn’t play like a freshman – Ho hum. Just another 40-minute, 11-point, six-rebound performance for a kid who is only in his fourth collegiate game. Thompson even added three more blocks to his total in the loss to Pitt, giving him eight in his two games at MSG. If you can fault him for anything at this point, it might be that he doesn’t know how to take a break.

With such a thin frontcourt, having the freshman be able to play entire games while avoiding foul trouble is an incredible gift. When Thompson is able to limit fouls and perform so well, it decreases the minutes that Matt Hill and Alexis Wangmene have to play, and it makes it easier for the two reserves to produce without pressure.

3) The Texas frontcourt didn’t back down – It’s all we’ve been talking about all season. Heck, we even led off our previous paragraph with it. The Longhorns have a thin frontcourt, and unless Thompson is sharing the court with Wangmene or Hill, they are undersized against most opponents.

Still, Texas took it inside against a big, physical Pitt team and actually beat them on the glass. In fact, the Longhorns held Pitt to just 36% of their offensive rebounding chances, a far cry from the 50-plus percentage they had enjoyed in the first four games.

In addition, the Longhorns were at their most successful when they attacked the paint on offense. They consistently drew fouls against the Panther big men, forcing coach Jamie Dixon to give more minutes to guys typically buried down the bench. Unfortunately, the Longhorns went against this gameplan when it came down to crunch time, and that failure to stick to a successful formula led to a narrow defeat.

4) Frontcourt reserves did their part – As mentioned above, when Thompson plays so well, it means that Rick Barnes doesn’t need as much from his bench players. Against the Illini, Wangmene stepped up and played well. Versus the Panthers, it was Hill who had the good game. Matt only played 12 minutes against Pitt, but he worked hard for three boards, played admirably on defense, and added a free throw. The two bench forwards are not going to be lighting up the stat sheets anytime soon, but these small contributions are much more than Texas fans were expecting coming into the year.

5) There’s room to grow – The Pitt team that won the 2KSports Classic is an experienced one with excellent depth. The Longhorns, on the other hand, are young and are still meshing as a group. If you take another look at these teams in March, you’ll likely see a very similar Panther squad to the one that took home the title. The Longhorns will likely be playing much better basketball.

With the exception of last year’s disaster, Coach Barnes always improves his team throughout the year, especially on defense. The Texas defensive numbers so far this season aren’t up to his standards, so you can be sure the Horns will be tougher to score on once Big 12 play rolls around. In addition, there are a lot of youthful mistakes that probably won’t be cropping up in the second half of the season. Texas may not have won the tournament, but they made quite an impact with their performance in New York City.

The Horns continue the new season with a home game against Sam Houston State tonight at 7 P.M. We’ll be back with a preview later this afternoon.

While the final result of last night’s game was a disappointing one, there’s certainly a lot of encouraging things to take from it. We have so much to discuss about the Pitt game and what it means moving forward. But after two days chock full o’ basketball, we’re taking a little time off to check out the City. We’ll be back with much more hoops talk later this weekend.

For the second time in as many years, the Texas Longhorns and Pitt Panthers meet in an early-season tournament championship. But for fans of both programs, tonight’s matchup will look very different from the 78-62 Texas win in last year’s CBE Classic at Kansas City.

In that one, the Panthers were crippled by injuries and academic issues, while the Longhorns used four players who have since graduated or left for the NBA. Meanwhile, the Panthers have healed and added another year of experience. In short, the tables have definitely turned.

Pittsburgh now boasts an incredibly deep and talented roster, even if most of their players aren’t household names outside of the Big East. The Panthers have always dealt with the underdog label, despite being one of the most successful teams of the decade. Tonight, however, they come in with a top-five ranking and high expectations for success in March and April.

By the numbers

As with every Jamie Dixon-coached team, this year’s Panther squad is well-disciplined, defensively-suffocating, and highly efficient. On paper, there’s very few games that they should ever lose.

The Pitt brand of basketball has long been slow-down basketball, and through the first four games of the 2010-11 season, that trend has continued. The team’s 66.8 possessions per game is ranked 239th-fastest in the nation — or 107th-slowest, if you’re a glass-half-empty kind of fan. It will certainly be a contrast in styles tonight, as the Longhorns are clipping along at the 19th-fastest pace in NCAA hoops, with 71.7 possessions per game.

As usual, the strength of the Panther offense is on the glass. They are cleaning up more than half of their offensive rebounding opportunities, which makes them nearly unstoppable when combined with a 53.4% effective field-goal percentage. They are fairly steady with the ball, turning it over just 13 times per game, which equates to only 18% of their possessions.

Despite shooting just 3-of-10 from behind the arc in last night’s win over Maryland, the Panthers are loaded with long-range threats. Junior guard Ashton Gibbs led the Big East in three-point percentage two seasons ago, and has made more than 48% of his long-range attempts so far this year.

Meet the Panthers

Pitt’s team is loaded with overachieving role players that any coach would kill to have on his roster. They run eight or nine deep on any given night, and their team mentality shows in every aspect of the game. On offense, quick, crisp ball movement leads to open looks and tons of assists. On defense, most players can adequately guard any position, allowing the Panthers to constantly switch on screens.

The aforementioned Gibbs is a very difficult matchup for any opponent, as he is the true definition of a combo guard. When he’s not knocking down threes, he can sink it from anywhere on the court or dish out a quick assist to the rest of his talented team. In the summer of 2009, Gibbs worked his way up to a starting role on the U-19 national team coached by Dixon, and won a gold medal in the process.

Tiny Travon Woodall joins Gibbs in the backcourt, and as his 9.5 points per game attest, his height doesn’t hold him back. Just 5’11”, Woodall is lightning-quick and constantly causes defenses to have to rotate and help when he zips past his man. While he’s yet to start a game this season, this sixth man is averaging more than 24 minutes per game and has logged 15 assists.

Brad Wanamaker is one of three starting seniors, and he contributes in every way. He’s yet another lockdown defender for Coach Dixon, and his 17 points per game come from a variety of positions. Wanamaker can comfortably play as the off-guard or the small forward, and his versatility allows the team to throw out many different lineup combinations.

In the middle, Gary McGhee is another senior leader for the Panthers, although he isn’t going to wow you on offense. He cleans up misses and puts in the easy ones, chipping in just four points per game. McGhee is a big body that makes it difficult for opponents to score inside, and he constantly cleans up the defensive glass to limit the other team to one-and-done possessions. In last year’s meeting in Kansas City, the big man logged a double-double against the Horns with 11 points and 10 boards.

The third senior in Dixon’s starting five is Gilbert Brown, a fifth-year man who was academically ineligible when these teams met last year. This summer, he led the team in scoring during their overseas trip to Ireland, and is averaging nearly 10 points a game so far this season. Brown is yet another offensive threat for the Panthers that can explode at any moment, as evidenced by the three times he posted 20-plus points last year.

At power forward, Nigerian-born redshirt freshman Talib Zanna is making a quick impact. He was the star of last night’s game, leading Pitt with both 14 points and 11 boards. He only has four blocks in four games, but he has the length and reputation of a serious post defender. Like Texas big man Alexis Wangmene, he was discovered as a part of the NBA’s Basketball Without Borders program. He also speaks five languages, which means he’ll likely be Dick Vitale’s most-loved linguistic topic since Sydmill Harris.

The deep Panther bench is loaded with talent, and these athletic reserves will likely make a big difference in tonight’s game. While Texas often uses Wangmene, Jai Lucas, and Matt Hill to give the starters a blow, the Panthers can continue attacking when they go to the bench.

In addition to Woodall, the Panthers can also count on quality performances from Dante Taylor, Lamar Patterson, and Nasir Robinson. Taylor is Pitt’s first McDonald’s All-American in the Jamie Dixon era, and he’s primed for a breakout season. He spent much of his freshman year as a role player, but is leading the team in blocks despite playing just 15 minutes a game. He’s also one of Pitt’s top rebounders, grabbing 6.5 per contest.

Patterson is an athletic small forward who hopes to make a splash after playing just 10 games last year before suffering a season-ending injury. He sees just over 17 minutes per game off the bench, and contributes a quiet 4.8 points and three rebounds a night.

Robinson, meanwhile, missed the first three games of the year before making his debut against Maryland. Despite being just 6’5″, he knows how to work inside and will grind out a few points every game. He’s yet another solid defensive player for Dixon and the Panthers, as the Longhorns will discover in just a few hours.

Keys to the game

As always, the number one key when facing the Panthers is to attack the defensive glass. Pitt doesn’t miss that many shots, so the Longhorns simply cannot allow the Panthers to continue their trend of reclaiming more than half of their misses. If Texas can hold Pitt to one-and-done possessions, they have a chance to escape with the tournament title.

Against a physical team, there’s always the danger of picking up a ton of fouls. For a very thin Texas team, they absolutely must avoid foul trouble. Wangmene and Hill have given nice chunks of minutes against the likes of Louisiana Tech and Navy, but Texas will struggle if that pair has to play 20-plus minutes each against a very talented Pittsburgh frontcourt.

Additionally, the Longhorns have found lots of easy points this year by forcing mistakes. Texas must pressure the Panther ballhandlers and look for fast break buckets. Gibbs is a talented scorer, but he’s had problems in the past with coughing it up. He seems to have settled down this year, with just under three turnovers per game, but perhaps a high-pressure approach from the Horns can give him the yips.

If Texas can force some Panther mistakes, they can also likely dictate the tempo. While it’s certainly easier to impose your will as a slower team, in past years the Longhorns have been able to make some perennially-slow opponents pick up the pace. Yes, it’s a gamble to push the pace with a short bench, and Texas is probably tired after playing an overtime game that ended just 19 hours before this one tips. But it’s much easier to win when you are playing to your own strengths, so the Longhorns should throw caution to the wind and turn this into a track meet.

As with last night’s game, the start time for tonight’s championship is going to be impacted by the consolation game that precedes it. There is typically a 20-minute window between games, so look for this one to start no earlier than 6:20 back in Texas.