Last season, the North Carolina-Texas game was one of the most anticipated of the year. It matched two top-ten teams in the first-ever basketball game at the new Cowboys Stadium, and it delivered on all counts. The two teams played an exciting, fast-paced game that ended with the high-scoring Longhorns racing away with a 103-90 victory.

As the season wore on, it became clear that both teams were ranked far too high in the pre-season, and that too much was made of the Texas victory. After the Longhorns started the season 17-0, they stumbled down the stretch and lost in the first round of the NCAA tournament. The Tar Heels, meanwhile, followed up their national title with an NIT berth, and ultimately a second-place finish in the tournament.

This year, the Tar Heels once again started the season ranked near the top of the polls. Coach Roy Williams questioned the wisdom of the voters during the pre-season, reminding the media of all that North Carolina had lost in the off-season. Marcus Ginyard, Ed Davis, and Deon Thompson had all left Chapel Hill, while twin brothers David and Travis Wear transferred to UCLA over the summer. In October, fifth-year senior Will Graves was dismissed from the team for failing to comply with team rules.

All told, the six departed players accounted for 65% of the team’s minutes last season, plus 67% of the scoring and 70% of the rebounding. Trying to fill that massive void is a cast of highly-touted freshmen and former role players who now must grow into bigger contributors.

Although this afternoon’s game is technically a neutral-site affair, there’s no doubt that Greensboro Coliseum is going to be bathed in powder blue. The two teams are closely matched, so even in fact that stat guru Ken Pomeroy predicts just a one-point win for Carolina, and gives the Horns a 46% chance to win.

By the numbers

As with all Roy Williams teams, the Tar Heels are very well coached. They are excellent on both sides of the ball, with their adjusted offensive and defensive efficiencies both ranked in the top 40 nationally. They post a 0.216 point differential per possession, which is huge when you multiply it by the high number of trips down the court in a Carolina game. The Heels run the 14th-fastest tempo in the country, logging nearly 73 possessions a game.

Offensively, the biggest weakness for North Carolina has been turnovers. Last year, the Heels constantly struggled with the issue, but seem to have made some improvements over the summer. This season, they are averaging 15 per game, which isn’t nearly as bad as it sounds because of their up-tempo attack. Adjusting for the speed of their games, the Heels cough it up just once in every five possessions.

On the other side of the ball, North Carolina plays great help defense and it results in a ton of blocks. The team is swatting 5.2 shots per game, with big men Tyler Zeller and John Henson accounting for 4.2 each night.

Free throws will not be a pretty thing in this game, as North Carolina is actually shooting worse than Texas at the line. The Heels are making 63.5% of their attempts on the year, slightly lower than Texas’ paltry 66.1% mark.

The starting five

Thank to the run-and-gun style employed by Coach Williams, the Tar Heels have 10 different players who see the court for at least 11 minutes each game. Even with the deep stable of talented players to choose from, the team has used the same starters in all ten games.

The team is led by big man Zeller, who is having a standout season in his junior campaign. The seven-footer is averaging 15.8 points per game, including a career-high 27 points against Kentucky earlier this month. Zeller is a tough match-up for opponents, because in addition to his game-changing size, he possesses an excellent jump shot. As a result, he is very dangerous when pulling opponents to the perimeter on screens, because he can easily score on both the pick-and-roll and pick-and-pop. He also runs the floor extremely well for a big man, making him a valuable asset in the transition-fueled North Carolina offense.

The biggest buzz surrounding the team this year came from the signing of superstar Harrison Barnes. Hailing from Ames, Iowa, the freshman was named to the pre-season All-American team without having ever played a single minute of college basketball. He’s an all-around player who can score in a variety of ways, making him a matchup nightmare for opposing coaches. Barnes is physical enough to bang inside, can take his man off the dribble, and has a quality jump shot to score in the midrange.

Early in the season, Barnes was struggling in his adjustment to the college game. He was finding it difficult to get open looks, and the frustration was apparent in his demeanor and attitude. The freshman had a tough five-game run starting at the tournament in Puerto Rico, shooting just 24.5% from the field over that stretch. He finally snapped out of the funk with a big game against Kentucky, and posted a double-double last Saturday against Long Beach State.

The aforemtioned Henson has made massive strides in his sophomore campaign, averaging nearly a double-double so far this season. He’s posting 10.5 points and 9.9 rebounds per game, while providing invaluable length on the defensive end. A former Round Rock high school star, Henson can constantly be found deflecting passes or blocking shots, and often fires up the crowd with rim-rocking dunks in transition and on putbacks. He bulked up in the offseason so he could be more physical inside, but he still is a great slasher who can spread out the floor.

Dexter Strickland has also grown a lot as a sophomore, and is benefitting from being able to focus on the shooting guard role this year. He’s still turning it over a couple of times each game, but allowing him to come off the ball has opened up his offensive game. He’s upped his scoring output to more than seven per game, a solid number in a backcourt as congested as North Carolina’s.

With Strickland playing more of a two, that leaves the point guard duties to Larry Drew II. He was also a turnover machine in the early part of last season, but seemed to find his stride as the team matured and made its run through the NIT. This year, he has an assist-to-TO ratio just above 2-to-1. Quick with the ball, Drew is also a three-point threat, although he’s currently struggling from behind the arc. With just 19% of his three-point attempts going down so far this season, Drew is more than due for a breakout performance from long range.

Off the bench

Without the Wear twins, there isn’t much in the way of frontcourt reserves for the Tar Heels. Fortunately, Alabama transfer Justin Knox was able to immediately play for UNC when he enrolled in grad school, and he’s providing key minutes backing up the Carolina bigs. Knox is a high-energy guy who scraps on the boards and is a physical force inside. Despite seeing the court for just 16 minutes a game, he’s still averaging nearly seven points and five rebounds.

Reggie Bullock and Leslie McDonald are the top scoring guards off the bench for Carolina. At 6’6″, Bullock is the closest thing the Heels have to a second big man off the bench, but he’s not a good enough ball handler to be a consistent swingman. He and McDonald have actually been the team’s top three-point threats, with each going 13-for-30 (43.3%) on the season. McDonald is a 6’4″ guard who likes to take his man off the dribble, and is strong enough to finish through contact.

Joining them in the backcourt is Kendall Marshall, a highly-touted freshman point guard labeled by some as the best passer in his class. This year, the Heels simply need him to be a steady backup to Drew while learning the nuances of the college game.

Junior Justin Watts is the last man in the rotation for the Heels, and he plays the least minutes out of any of the reserves. He’s always been just a role player in Chapel Hill, and that’s still the case this season. While he’s not going to stuff the stat sheet, Watts is one of those guys who makes the most out of his limited playing time.

Keys to the game

We’ve mentioned that the Tar Heels are once again a bit careless with the basketball, albeit not as much as last year’s team. With Zeller wrecking shop inside, the best way to keep his point total down is to keep the ball from ever getting to him in the first place. The Longhorns need to pressure the guards and force mistakes when Carolina settles into half-court sets. The Tar Heels often telegraph their passes and try to force it with bad passing angles, so Texas should have ample opportunity to knock the ball away.

Although North Carolina has a formidable fronctourt, the Longhorns need to attack inside. The caveat to this approach, however, is that the Texas players can’t force things when the Carolina defense bunkers down. When the Tar Heels help on defense, the Longhorns need to kick it out to open shooters. Texas has been hot from three-point range recently, so this can get them open looks on the perimeter. But when Carolina is late responding to drives and good ball movement, Texas has to hope they can pick up some fouls on the thin Tar Heel frontcourt.

All of these are moot points, however, if the Longhorns don’t play better team defense than they did in their last road game. USC absolutely embarrassed the Texas D, with the stout Trojan frontcourt taking advantage of constant one-on-one mismatches. It’s no secret that the Longhorn frontcourt is weak in one-on-one situations, so they must work together to keep Zeller and Henson from piling up the points.

Finally, Texas can really help their case if they can make an early run. Larry Drew made the mistake of calling his team’s fans “spoiled” in an interview last year, an observation that made up for its lack of tact with its incredibly accuracy. As we learned when visiting Greensboro Coliseum for the NCAA tournament in March of 2009, UNC basketball fans are exactly like Longhorn fans. While the Carolina faithful can make the arena deafening when the team is on a run, they are a reactionary bunch that sits on their hands if things aren’t going well for the home team. Like Longhorn fans, they don’t generally will their team to victory when they are struggling. If Texas can keep Carolina from jumping ahead early, it will definitely dull the huge home-court advantage.

They say it’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas. Or at least, that’s what the terrible music screams from speakers in every single retail store across America. But while that means snow and ice for folks in the north and long hours for our friends at the USPS, it also means a dearth of quality basketball.

Tonight, the Longhorns take part in yet another of those mediocre matchups that litter the mid-December schedule. With North Carolina and Michigan State looming for the Longhorns in the next seven days, Texas gets one last tune-up against North Florida, a school that is still transitioning to Division I basketball under the guidance of head coach Matt Driscoll, a former Baylor assistant coach.

The Ospreys have never defeated a ranked opponent in their brief history as a D-I school, but made a big step earlier this year by dominating Wyoming in an early-season tournament in Cheyenne back on November 18th. The 18-point win might not seem like much to fans of big conference basketball, but for a school that went 12-74 during their first three seasons, it was a huge accomplishment.

By the numbers

North Florida is a very small team, and it shows in the stats. There are no Ospreys that are taller than 6’7″, and as a result, they give up a ton of second- and third-chance points to their opponents. North Florida grabs less than 40% of their defensive rebounding opportunities, which puts them among the 30 worst teams in the country in that metric.

The numbers aren’t much better anywhere else. The team posts a negative 0.095 point differential per possession, and they cough up the ball more than once every four trips down the floor. Their terrible turnover rate is actually 9th-worst in all of Division I basketball.

The Ospreys also fail to attack the lane with any regularity, which means they mostly take jumpers and hardly ever get to the line. North Florida actually shoots the ball, with a team effective field goal percentage that’s north of 49 percent. Unfortunately, they have an average turnover differential of negative six, so they often don’t hang on to the ball long enough to actually shoot it.

When the team is hitting their jumpers, they can stay in ballgames with opponents that are far more talented. More often than not, however, their 19 turnovers a game put them in an early hole they have no chance of digging out of.

Meet the Ospreys

Coach Driscoll has the luxury of four returning starters at his disposal, but all of that returning experience is still rather young. There are six sophomores on the North Florida roster, and only one senior, Brad Haugabrook, can be found in the starting five.

Haugabrook is a pure point guard and leads the team with 30 assists so far, but that doesn’t mean he isn’t a scoring threat. The senior guard is incredibly quick with the ball and knows how to get to the rim, but he can stop on a dime and drop the pull-up jumper with ease. He’s averaging nine points per game so far, good for third on the team.

The leading scorer for the Ospreys is Parker Smith, a transfer from Tennessee State who has yet to start a game. He brings a much-needed long-range threat to the North Florida roster, and his 20 threes on the season have helped to buoy his scoring average to a 10.2 mark.

Big man Andres Diaz is also scoring 10.2 points per game, but is serving an even more important role as the team’s leading rebounder. For a very small North Florida team with almost no depth in the frontcourt, Diaz is the key man inside. The Ospreys will have to improve their defensive rebounding if they want to have any shot in this game, so Diaz needs to be aggressive on the glass.

The major knock on Diaz is his complete inability to sink free throws, something that can really hamper a big man. Last year, Andres made just 37.6% of his shots from the line, but has made big strides so far this season. Although he’s still only making 57.1% of his free throws, the drastic improvement is worth a few extra points for the Ospreys each night.

Junior Matt Sauey is the only other true forward who sees significant playing time for North Florida, and he’s turning his 24 minutes a night into eight points and 3.4 boards. He’s long and athletic, and is without a doubt the best post defender the Ospreys have. Unfortunately, at just 6’7″, he’s often fighting an uphill battle when matching up against opposing big men.

Last year’s leading scorer was Jerron Granberry, and the fact that he averaged just nine points per game makes it crystal clear just how anemic the North Florida offense was in 2009-10. This year, he’s averaging 10 points a night and is leading the team with more than 29 minutes a game.

Granberry is a stocky 6’4″ swingman who is incredibly quick in the open floor and off the dribble. Besides Smith, he’s the only other three-point threat that plays significant minutes for Coach Driscoll.

At shooting guard, transfer Jimmy Williams has started every game since arriving from South Carolina State. Like Granberry, Williams checks in at 6’4″, and the two guards are combining for nearly nine rebounds a night. For such a poor rebounding team, having that contribution from the backcourt is huge.

Beyond the core rotation of six, the Ospreys also get a few minutes each from Charles McRoy, David Juene, and Brian Holmes. McRoy is a freshman swingman who has looked good from behind the arc in his limited minutes. He’s 5-for-11 from long range so far this season, but is still playing less than 15 minutes a night.

Juene is mostly used as a backup for Diaz and Sauey, so if either of them end up in foul trouble tonight, the sophomore forward will have to step up.

Holmes is another freshman, and Coach Driscoll is hoping that the scoring-minded point guard will be able to step into Haugabrook’s role next season. This year, he’s really struggled with ball control and has turned it over 21 times despite playing just 14 minutes a game. He likely won’t make a big impact tonight, but the game should be a valuable learning experience for the shaky freshman.

Keys to the game

Like the Texas State game on Saturday, this one should never be in doubt and is simply another opportunity for the Longhorns to improve upon things that they have been struggling with. Rather than actual keys to the game, here are three things we’ll be watching tonight:

1) How does Texas attack the zone? – Coach Driscoll is in his second season after serving as an assistant at Baylor, so he knows firsthand how Texas struggles with the zone defense. Although the Ospreys played mostly man last season, they did show both a 2-3 and a 1-3-1 against Purdue on Saturday, and it’s likely they will use those looks again tonight.

On Saturday, the Longhorns were on fire from behind the arc, and Gary Johnson was knocking down the midrange jumper. That rendered the Texas State zone all but useless. Tonight, we’ll be watching to see if Texas can continue that success when the Ospreys inevitably bunker down in a zone.

2) Which J’Covan will show up? – J’Covan Brown has been an enigmatic player so far this season, mixing brilliant performances with frustrating, immature displays. It certainly looks like he’s made strides since last year, and it’s a game like this in which he should really shine. We’ll be keeping an eye on J’Covan to see how he handles adversity, if there is any to be found tonight.

3) Can Texas finally force turnovers? – The Longhorns are in the bottom half of the national rankings when it comes to forcing turnovers. Opponents cough it up just 20% of the time, which is only 214th-best out of 345 Division I teams. We’ve mentioned just how terrible the Ospreys are at protecting the ball, so it would be nice to see the Longhorns turn up the pressure and rattle this young, skittish North Florida team.

Home games against mid-major opponents haven’t been that enjoyable for Texas or its fans in recent weeks. Against Rice, the Longhorns barely escaped with a three-point victory. Days later, a 21-point win over Lamar was marred by sloppy, uninspired basketball. This afternoon, Texas finally did what it was supposed to do against an overmatched opponent, dispatching Texas State with ease.

At first, it seemed like the Longhorns still hadn’t recovered from the beating USC laid on them just six days earlier. Texas allowed Texas State far too many easy looks out of the gate, and the Bobcats made their first five shots en route to an early 10-9 lead. The Longhorns were struggling against the zone as well, taking three of their first four shots from behind the arc, while making just one of them.

The struggles were short-lived, however, as the Horns surged past the Bobcats and never looked back. Texas State managed to stay within three points of Texas for the first 13 minutes of the game, but that was as close as they would get. A 16-4 run closed out the half for the Longhorns, who put on a scoring clinic throughout the final 20 minutes. All three Texas walk-ons even managed to see action in the final two minutes, with Andy Dick‘s runner pushing the Horns over the century mark for a 101-65 win.

What looked good

The offensive outburst for Texas was fueled by a bevy of three-pointers. The Longhorns were 11-for-19 from behind the arc, and the success was a result of smart, patient basketball. The Longhorns moved the ball around well, kicked it out when driving lanes were cut off, and didn’t force up bad shots.

Many times this season, Texas players have dribbled the air out of the ball before taking bad shots — particularly from behind the arc — and wasting possessions. This afternoon, the only long-range bombs coming off the dribble were a result of good ball screens to free up Cory Joseph and J’Covan Brown. In fact, the only “bad” look from behind the arc was one that Brown was forced to put up just before the shot clock expired.

In addition to taking and making open threes, the Longhorns destroyed the Texas State zone with the help of Gary Johnson‘s midrange game. He made a handful of jumpers throughout the first half and headed to the locker room as the team’s top scorer with ten points. His ability to find soft spots in the middle of the zone and then calmly knock down those jumpers is going to be important this season as teams try to test the Texas shooters with the 2-3 look. It’s also worth noting that Johnson added nine boards to his 14 points, including some scrappy work on the offensive glass when Texas was struggling in the early minutes of the game.

The win also marked yet another career-high for the freshman Joseph, who chipped in 19 on 7-of-11 shooting, including an eye-popping 5-of-8 from behind the arc. Cory started off the year slowly, averaging just over six points per game through the first four contests. It was clear that he wasn’t quite comfortable enough to embrace the scoring-point role that people had hyped for him coming out of high school. But Joseph has quickly adjusted to the college game and his role with this team, as he’s doubled his scoring average to 12.8 over the last five games.

Perhaps lost amidst the three-point barrage was the fact that Jordan Hamilton quietly had one of his best games of the year. He may not have led the team with a 20-plus point performance, but he played great team basketball across the board. Hamilton did manage to score 16 points on the afternoon, but also grabbed 10 boards and dished out five assists. He took the open three when it presented itself, but often he was attacking off the dribble from the wings, forcing the Texas State defense to react. When it didn’t lead to good looks at the rim, Hamilton was able to quickly shovel it to waiting teammates in the paint and on the blocks. If Jordan can play this unselfishly throughout the year, the Longhorns will be a better team.

What needed work

On defense, the Longhorns had a glaring weakness in the post. It was far too easy for Texas State to toss lob passes in to their big men. If Texas is going to overplay the passing lane in an effort to deny the entry, there has to be help defense on those lobs. Time and again, the Bobcat big men were able to catch the ball in mid-turn and lay it in with no resistance. The Longhorns need to be more alert when off the ball on defense so they can react quicker in help situations.

The Texas forwards also picked up too many fouls on fadeaway jumpers. The Longhorn frontcourt was generally doing a good job of standing tall when the Texas State forwards were trying to face up or make a move with their backs to the basket. Unfortunately, Alexis Wangmene and Matt Hill then erased all of their good defensive work by bailing out the opposition with weak fouls on those fadeaway Js. The Horns need to let their opponents take those low-percentage shots and work on establishing good position to rebound the inevitable misses.

Finally, our “What needed work” section can never be complete without a few sentences about free throws. As a team, the Horns shot 66.7% from the line this afternoon. That’s a slight improvement over the team’s season average, but still below the nation’s median. Once again, the bulk of the issues came from Tristan Thompson, who was 4-for-9. His difficulties at the line are likely never going to change, but for a player who has a free-throw rate above 108 — meaning he actually attempts more free throws than field goals — a free-throw percentage of 48.4% is just not going to cut it.

Next up: vs. North Florida (4-5); Tuesday, 7 P.M. CT

In what has become an annual tradition, Texas and Texas State meet once again in a game dubbed by some as the I-35 Series. Considering that the highway runs from Laredo to Duluth, MN, it doesn’t seem like that would be a very original name. But I digress.

Both teams are reeling as they head into this afternoon’s contest, although the troubles are much worse in San Marcos. The Bobcats come in on a three-game losing streak, including a home loss to the NAIA’s Our Lady of the Lake. In that one, the Bobcats needed a 73-point second half to overcome a 20-point halftime deficit, but still fell just short in overtime.

For the Longhorns, today can erase the bitter taste of the team’s worst outing of the season, an embarrassing 73-56 loss at USC on Sunday. The Longhorns were outplayed in every facet of the game, as the Trojans shut down the Texas offense and scored at will. Texas shouldn’t have any problems with the Bobcats this afternoon, so this one should be a chance to work on everything that went wrong last Sunday.

By the numbers

In each of the four years that Doug Davalos has been at the helm for the Bobcats, Texas State has been one of the five fastest teams in college basketball. In fact, in his second season back in 2007-08, the Bobcats had the quickest adjusted tempo in Division I college hoops, cramming more than 80 possessions into each game. This year, the team is currently ranked 6th in the nation, as the Bobcats have 75 possessions per ballgame. With Texas also checking in to the top 50 nationally in tempo, these two teams will certainly log a few miles as they sprint up and down the court.

Unfortunately for Texas State, they don’t score that frequently. Their offensive efficiency numbers are in the bottom third of Division I basketball, with the team scoring just 0.961 points per possession. The only place the Bobcats can consistently score is in the paint, where they have one of the best and deepest frontcourts in the Southland Conference. When they don’t get the ball inside, though, look out. Texas State is making just 24% of their three-point attempts and are an abysmal 57.8% from the line as a team.

That strong frontcourt does mean that the Bobcats reclaim a lot of their missess off the glass. Texas State has grabbed over 39% of their offensive rebounding chances so far this season, but so far their most challenging opponent has been North Texas. The Bobcats likely won’t see the same success on the glass today, but should still score their fair share of points on putbacks.

Meet the Bobcats

Thanks to the up-tempo approach of Coach Davalos, the Bobcat bench earns a ton of playing time. This year, Texas State is running 10 deep, with all players seeing the court for at least 14.5 minutes a game. Even the busiest Bobcats don’t play for more than 26 minutes per game, so it will be tough for fans and broadcasters to keep up with all of the new faces shuffling in and out of the lineup.

That strong Texas State froncourt is anchored by Cameron Johnson, a 6’7″ senior forward who can score in a variety of ways. He can face up on opposing forwards, bang inside for his points, and is securing 5.8 rebounds a night. In a 33-point loss to Texas last year, Johnson struggled mightily, going 0-for-11 from the field in just 14 minutes of play.

Fellow senior Tony Bishop has also come on strong this year, taking the team lead in both points and boards. The 6’6″ Bishop is averaging a double-double at this point, logging 13.5 points to go with 10.5 rebounds each game.

A.J. Stewart is yet another forward who is contributing for Coach Davalos, as he’s averaging 10.8 points per game. He started his career at Kentucky before transferring to Texas State and redshirting during his year of ineligibility. He’s yet to start a game this season, but is still playing nearly 20 minutes a night. Although the Bobcats are already getting great production from Stewart, it’s scary to think of what he’ll do next season as the sole superstar in the frontcourt.

Stewart is joined by another pair of transfers in Eddie Rios and Travis Jones. Now a junior, Rios faced the Longhorns in the NCAA Tournament as a member of the Miami Hurricanes in March of 2008. The guard had just three points in his ten minutes off the bench, but also dished out three assists for Miami coach Frank Haith, a former Longhorn assistant.

Jones, meanwhile, came to San Marcos with a reputation as a scorer at Lon Morris, and he’s fitting the bill so far. He’s averaging 8.3 points per game, good for fourth on the team, despite coming off the bench in two games. The 6’7″ swingman has made just about 30% of his three-pointers this year, but the real long-range threat for Texas State is John Bowman. The only player to started every game this season, Bowman has made 46% of his threes this year. After a season in which he struggled to a 27.8% mark from behind the arc, the hot start is a welcome sight for Bobcat fans.

Ryan White, Jonathan Sloan, and J.B. Conley all came off the bench against the Longhorns last year, combining for 18 points and 11 boards. This year, Sloan is the starting center and is averaging eight points and nearly six rebounds a night. Conley, who led Texas State in scoring when they played the Longhorns last season, has seen his minutes diminish to just about 14 per game. White, on the other hand, has played so well at the point that he’s earning the most minutes on the Bobcat roster. He’s only scoring about eight points a night, but his mediocre 1.68-to-1 TO-to-assist ratio is actually best on the team.

Keys to the game

Against the Bobcats, there’s absolutely no reason the Longhorns should struggle. Due to the up-tempo approach of the Bobcats, Texas may see some issues with fatigue late in the game, but the result should be well in hand by that point. What’s most important, then, is that Texas improve upon the issues that have cropped up over the last two weeks.

1) Will the Longhorns take smarter shots? – For Jordan Hamilton, shot selection needs to improve. He shot just 31% from the field in the last three games, and a big part of that was a regression to his freshman-year form, where he forced up bad shots against good defense. Tonight, Jordan needs to shoot in the flow of the offense and not try to play one-on-five basketball. The same can be said for J’Covan Brown, who started off hot against USC, but continued shooting when the looks weren’t there. Brown was just 1-of-9 from the field in the second half.

2) Has the frontcourt defense improved? – The Longhorns should be challenged this afternoon by a deep and skilled group of Bobcat big men. While Texas State certainly doesn’t have forwards as talented as USC’s Nikola Vucevic and Alex Stephenson, the Longhorn frontcourt still needs to show some improvement on defense. If Alexis Wangmene and Matt Hill can’t hold the Texas State forwards one-on-one, will the Longhorns adjust to make things more difficult? They certainly didn’t on Sunday, and they will need to do so in the near future. Today provides a great opportunity for a practice run.

3) Can the defense force mistakes? – We will also be watching to see if the Longhorns can force mistakes by the Bobcats. Texas has not forced many turnovers this year, as their defensive TO rate is just 19.7%. That ranks near the bottom third of D-I basketball, and it simply won’t cut it when the Longhorns face more talented teams down the stretch. The Bobcats, meanwhile, have been pretty sloppy with the ball, turning it over 22.5% of the time. If Texas can’t force mistakes by a team that’s careless with the ball, there’s little chance they’ll do it against well-disciplined offenses in the future.

Los Angeles and New York City are separated by 2,800 miles. The performances by the Longhorns in those two cities might have been even further apart.

Texas impressed the basketball nation with their gutsy effort against Illinois and Pittsburgh at Madison Square Garden. With another national TV audience on hand for last night’s game against USC, the Longhorns immediately erased those memories with one of the ugliest, most uninspired performances in years. The Trojans, coming off back-to-back road losses against Nebraska and TCU, completely shut down the Texas offense and easily dissected their defense, cruising to an easy 73-56 win at the Galen Center.

What needed work

We have to flip the script on this game report and open with all of the bad news. There’s almost nothing good worth noting, so we can save those few shiny nuggets for the end. The bad things, on the other hand, could fill a Dostoevsky-sized novel.

Just four days after their second-best defensive performance of the season, the Longhorns played the worst defensive game all year. USC was shooting 57% from the field in the waning minutes of the first half, and finished the night with a 48.9% mark. Their efficiency numbers were off the chart, as the Trojans scored a scorching 1.129 points per possession.

We’ve wondered all season what would happen when a thin and inexperienced Texas frontcourt met up with a physical, talented team. We finally got a chance to see it, and the results weren’t pretty. Nikola Vucevic matched his season average with 16 points in the first half, and finished the night with 24. Alex Stephenson chipped in a double-double with 14 points and 11 rebounds.

It seemed that Coach Rick Barnes was trying to match the USC size in the first half, as most of the time Tristan Thompson was sharing the court with either Alexis Wangmene or Matt Hill. The problem was that it quickly became apparent that Vucevic couldn’t be contained by one Longhorn defender, yet he still ended up isolated on Wagmene or Hill on multiple occasions. Vucevic constantly abused the Longhorn frontcourt, but was almost never doubled when he touched the ball.

On offense, Jordan Hamilton was clearly pressing in front of his friends and family, and said as much in the post-game press conference. It took him fifteen minutes to make a basket, and even that came on a goaltending call. Hamilton heated up in the second half and finished with 12 points, but by then it was far too late for Texas to make a threatening run.

The offensive struggles extended to the entire team. USC was one of the best defensive squads in the country last season, and they will likely finish near the top of those rankings again in 2010-11. The Longhorns were clearly frustrated by that excellent defense and forced up a ton of bad shots. J’Covan Brown was hot early on, which unfortunately meant that he continued to shoot all game long, even when good looks weren’t there. Although he led the team with 17 points, J’Covan shot just 33% from the field, including a 1-for-9 performance in the second half.

One of the most puzzling things we saw from our seats in section 112 was the lack of playing time for Dogus Balbay. The Longhorns were being picked apart on defense, yet their best defensive player only saw the court for nine minutes. If there was an injury limiting his playing time, it wasn’t apparent from our vantage point.

What looked good

The only thing that the Longhorns did well on Sunday night was shoot free throws. Coming into the game, the team’s percentage at the line was hovering around 62%, but they knocked down 80% of their attempts against the Trojans. Thompson, who has been battling mental demons at the stripe all season long, still only made two of his four attempts, but the rest of the team was excellent.

In addition, concession prices were incredibly reasonable. At a sparkling arena located across the street from one of the priciest universities in the country, you wouldn’t expect to find a 33 oz. soda for just $3.50. And the free Coke Zeroes being handed out as we left the arena went down a lot easier than the 17-point drubbing we had to sit through. So, there’s that.

Next up: vs. Texas State (2-4); Saturday, 3 P.M.