Make it four straight for the surging Texas Longhorns basketball team, who ripped off another outstanding second half to rally from a halftime deficit and defeat Oklahoma on their home floor, 69-58. With the win Texas improves to 17-9 on the season and 7-6 in Big 12 play, delivering another performance that demonstrated this young team's steady improvement.

Myck Kabongo showed us why he came to college a projected lottery pick, putting his exceptional quickness and floor vision to terrific use for much of the night. The freshman point guard finished with 13 points and 7 assists -- which should and would have been 10 if Clint Chapman could finish a lay up in traffic -- one of which keyed the highlight of the night, after Kabongo tossed a beautiful lob in transition to Jaylen Bond for a highlight reel alley oop. (Have I mentioned what an outstanding open court player I think Bond can be?) On the bright side (where his returning for another year is concerned), Myck also had 5 turnovers, 4 of which were needless -- the kinds of mistakes he'll cut at least in half as he continues to gain experience.

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February 14th, 2012

The Texas Longhorns (16-9, 6-6) return to the hardwood seeking to win their fourth straight, climb above .500 in conference play, and get one win closer to the 10-win mark that would make for easier breathing on Selection Sunday. And if your date objects, remember: there's nothing sexier than beating OU.

There's no time for Texas basketball to celebrate Saturday's huge win over Kansas State, as the Longhorns hit the road this week for a two-game swing to play the Oklahomas, beginning with tonight's Valentine's date with the Sooners.

OU is reeling at the moment, having lost four straight -- including the first Big 12 win of the year for Texas Tech -- but while flawed, the Sooners aren't the pushover their 3-9 conference record suggests. Oklahoma has already defeated Kansas State twice, and outside of a pair of massacres in Columbia and Lawrence, the Sooners have been competitive in every game they've played. That's in part a reflection of the school's savvy hire of veteran coach Lon Kruger, who prior to taking over for Jeff Capel in Norman took UNLV to four of the past five NCAA Tournaments, and of course before that was a highly successful college coach at Kansas State, Florida, and Illinois, with an unsuccessful detour into the NBA coaching ranks in between.

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When Adrian Diaz grabbed an offensive rebound and scored the first bucket of the second half to extend K-State's lead to 42-27, I'm sure I wasn't the only Texas fan who was starting to compose this Texas team's season epitaph. The Wildcats were on a 23-6 run and the Longhorns had not scored a single field goal in nearly 10 minutes.

But Texas immediately responded by going on a 14-2 run to close within a single point, and then after Kansas State scored 5 unanswered to go up 49-43, went on a 25-7 burst that opened up a double-digit lead of its own, lifting the Longhorns to a 75-64 win that improved their record to 16-9 overall, 6-6 in Big 12 play. Particularly considering the rut the team found itself in at halftime, the Longhorns comeback win was as big and impressive a win as could be, helping Texas continue to build momentum down the back stretch of the season as it battles for an NCAA Tournament bid.

J'Covan Brown (23 points) and Sheldon McClellan (10 second half points) provided the offensive spark, but without question the game's MVP was senior Alexis Wangmene, who delivered far and away the best game of his Longhorn career, scoring 15 points (9-12 from the line) and grabbing 13 enormous rebounds, along with a pair of blocks, a steal, two put-back dunks, and phenomenal halfcourt defense. Just an incredible overall performance, and following Lexi's strong game in College Station as well, we're finally seeing the kind of effectiveness I was fantasizing about in the pre-season.

Lexi's defensive performance was representative of the entire team's defense in the second half, and indeed the game was won on that end of the floor, where Texas' outstanding team/help defense was the best we've seen all season, leading to K-State shooting just 10 of 31 from the floor across the final twenty minutes. Maybe most impressive of all was the work Texas' guards did on Wildcat star Rodney McGruder, who after scoring 11 points on 4-7 shooting in the first half failed to score a single point in the second half, attempting just a pair of shots.

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Kansas State Wildcats (17-6, 6-5) at Texas Longhorns (15-9, 5-6)
Saturday, February 11th, 1:00 pm | Austin, TX | ESPN
Opponent Blog: Bring on the Cats

Texas basketball returns to the hardwood on Saturday afternoon for a rematch with the Kansas State Wildcats, where they'll seek to avenge the Wildcats 84-80 win on January 18th in Manhattan. The Longhorns will also be trying to snap a three-game losing streak to the Wildcats in Austin, having last knocked off K-State at the Erwin Center in 2005, and even then Lamarcus Aldridge and Co. needed overtime to pull it off.

None of those games were as important to previous Texas teams as Saturday's is to this Longhorns squad, who with a win can pull back to .500 in the conference, and dramatically increase their chances of reaching the 10-win mark all-important to their NCAA Tournament chances. A loss, by contrast, would drop Texas to 5-7 and require that in addition to sweeping everyone else on the schedule the Longhorns defeat either Baylor or Kansas in order to get to 10 wins.

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The Texas Longhorns basketball team pulled through in the clutch to pick up an enormously important road win at Texas A&M (12-11, 3-8), closing out a 70-68 win over the Aggies to improve to 14-9 overall, 5-6 in Big 12 play. In a game they absolutely had to win to preserve any realistic chance of getting to the critical 10-win mark in conference play, the Longhorns finally emerged victorious in a game that came down to the wire, after dropping each of their first seven games this season that were decided by six points or less.

Monday night's game was a textbook example of how and why it can be so incredibly difficult to win on the road in the Big 12, even against teams in the bottom third of the conference. Texas A&M is a horrible shooting team and has been absolutely putrid on offense all season long, and when you're talking about an Aggies offense without Khris Middleton, any opposing offense that manages to play relatively well against A&M's excellent defense shouldn't have anything to worry about. Tonight Texas did just that, but despite the Longhorns very solid offensive performance, the Aggies managed to hang in the game thanks to a hot night on their home court -- both shooting the ball and getting the whistles.

On the first count, the Longhorns' shoddy defensive effort is partly to blame, but seriously, the Aggie offense normally isn't one to discriminate on the basis of defensive quality. They just suck, and if you'd told me Texas would play well on offense and get to 70 points, I'd have been relaxed from the opening tip. At times it looked like Texas would indeed pull out to a comfortable lead and leave A&M behind, but the Middleton-less Aggies managed to connect on 5 of 10 three pointers and 23 of 29 free throws, including a pair after Jonathan Holmes forgot to say "Excuse me" after sneezing. All you need to know about the officiating is that the the Aggie Yell Leader finished the game with the "Beat The Hell Out Of The Official's Daughter" chant still in his overall pocket, and after the game no one in the crowd was calling to punish the Yell Leader with a nuts squeeze. (Or is that a reward for good behavior? I forget.)

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February 6th, 2012

The Texas Longhorns (14-9. 4-6) return to the hardwood on short rest for a Big Monday showdown against Texas A&M (12-10, 3-7), in what will be the last regular season Big 12 match up between the two schools. Texas is 22-7 against the Aggies under Rick Barnes, but no win may be as important to the Longhorns as the one tonight would be. With a loss tonight, Texas would face a severe uphill climb to get into the NCAA Tournament, while a win would keep that all-important mark of 10 conference wins within reach.

Not that most fans at the schools care half as much, but it sure would be nice to give the Aggies a basketball sendoff similar to the one delivered by the football team on Thanksgiving. Hook 'em!