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.

After last year’s disappointing collapse and ignominious exit in the first round of the NCAA tournament, Texas fans were understandably skittish about embracing this year’s team. Even after a torrid 11-0 start to conference play, Longhorn Nation was still waiting for the other shoe to drop. It finally did, in the form of three losses in the team’s last five conference games and a slide to second in the conference standings.

Selection Sunday stung the spurned Longhorn fans even more. Texas dropped from a No. 2 or a No. 3 seed to a No. 4 seed, and drew a terribly tough match-up in an Oakland team that was probably under-seeded with its placement on the 13 line. Despite the tough draw, the Longhorns took a step towards erasing the demons of their past, hanging on to an 85-81 win against a feisty Oakland club on Friday afternoon.

While the win is just one small step in a much larger goal, it came as a relief to those Longhorn fans still skeptical after last year. Arizona will provide yet another tough test on Sunday in the NCAA Third Round, but at least for one day, Texas fans can finally breathe a little easier.

What looked good

The Longhorns did an excellent job forcing Oakland to settle for three-pointers. The Grizzlies averaged just 35% of their shots from behind the arc coming into the game, but took 39% of their attempts from long range on Friday. Texas was able to contest most of those looks, locking down sharpshooter Travis Bader and limiting him to a 2-for-11 performance from long range. Coming into the game, the freshman was drilling nearly 46% of his three-point attempts.

Star senior guard Reggie Hamilton found it just as tough to score from outside. He was just 2-of-9 against the Texas defense, and both of those threes came on stepback shots with a Longhorn defender just inches away from him. Texas couldn’t do anything better to defend those shots, and you simply have to tip your cap to Hamilton for sticking those looks.

Inside, Texas freshman Tristan Thompson did a fantastic job against Oakland’s Keith Benson. Thompson broke the school record for blocks in an NCAA game by swatting seven Oakland attempts, and four of those blocks came against Benson.

Oakland’s big man is a guaranteed NBA player, and might even be a lottery pick in the next NBA draft. Despite that intimidating match-up, Thompson set the tone early by taking it at Benson and forced Oakland to change their defensive approach to protect their star from foul trouble. Tristan finished with a double-double, scoring 17 points to go with 10 boards.

Jordan Hamilton also posted a double-double for Texas by scoring 19 points and grabbing 10 rebounds. He drove the lane consistently against Oakland, eschewing his usual flurry of three-point attempts. Hamilton took only three shots from behind the arc, the fewest attempts he’s had in a game since the team’s win against Kansas in Lawrence on January 22nd.

Against Oakland, Jordan made eight of his 14 attempts from inside the arc, simply because he put the ball on the floor and attacked the seams in the defense. If Hamilton will continue to attack defenses as the Longhorns move forward in the tournament, it will make the offense look much more like the well-oiled machine we saw in January and not the painfully stagnant mess we watched in late February.

Gary Johnson also had a solid game for Texas, which was a relief after how the last few weeks had gone for the senior. Johnson was just 26.7% from the field in the team’s last five games, including a 21.7% mark at the Big 12 tournament which included three missed dunks. Against Oakland, he was 4-of-6 from the field — including a made dunk — and was able to consistently knock down his patented mid-range jumper.

Off the bench, J’Covan Brown provided another solid game. He led the team with 21 points, twelve of them coming at the free throw line, where he was perfect on the day. While he had a tough time scoring inside against the physical Oakland frontcourt, Brown was able to manufacture points for his team by getting to the line. J’Covan also added three assists and six boards, and had an incredible block on a closeout against Bader on a three-point attempt.

It’s also worth noting that the rest of the team did fairly well at the free throw line, too. Hamilton and Cory Joseph were both 3-of-4 at the line, with all of Joseph’s attempts coming in the final minute of the game. Thompson was just 3-of-6 at the stripe, but at this point, 50% from the big man is a minor victory. With his season average sitting at 48.6%, Longhorn fans are simply hoping Thompson can sink one out of every two.

What needed work

Texas had just 10 turnovers in 71 possessions, but when the Longhorns did make mistakes with the basketball, it led to runs for Oakland. With Texas up 12 late in the first half, three straight turnovers and a missed three allowed the Grizzlies to slice the lead to just five points.

At the end of the game, Texas again made some poor decisions with the ball. With just five minutes left, Texas led by 15, but had three turnovers down the stretch to aid a furious Oakland comeback bid. The most egregious mistake was when Gary Johnson tried to single-handedly break the Oakland press, dribbling it three-quarters of the court before having it stolen. Oakland drilled a three on the ensuing possession, and Texas’ lead had shrunk to five.

Games are going to be close for the rest of the season, so the Longhorns must make better decisions in the clutch. The ball simply has to be passed to the best shooters on the floor. Rick Barnes was furious with Hamilton for passing to a poor free-throw shooter in crunch time against Kansas in Lawrence, so you have to be concerned that this could be a deadly trend in March.

Finally, it should be noted that the Longhorns had some major issues shutting down the slashing attack of Oakland inside. While Texas did a great job contesting Oakland’s long-range shots, it was often far too easy for the Grizzlies to score inside. The Longhorns allowed 1.148 points per possession, which was just under Oakland’s season average coming into the game.

A big part of Oakland’s excellent offensive efficiency was the 38 points they scored in the paint. with Benson limited to 12 points from the field, most of those points in the paint came on layups from the slashing guards and wings. If the Longhorns are going to continue to advance in the tournament, they will have to make sure the defense shuts down driving lanes as well as it shuts down the perimeter.

Next up: vs. Arizona (28-7) in Tulsa, OK; 5:10 P.M. CT, Sunday