Texas had little trouble dominating Texas State on Saturday night, building a 19-point lead by halftime, before totally burying the Bobcats in the opening minutes of the second half en route to an 86-52 win. The Longhorns (7-2) built their first half cushion behind a 14-0 run, then exploded out of the gates in the second half, outscoring Texas State 25-7 over the first 5:45 to open up an enormous 63-26 advantage on the scoreboard.
Five Longhorns scored in double figures, led by Julien Lewis' 19 points on 5-8 shooting from downtown, while the Texas defense held the Bobcats to 15-58 shooting on the night (26%), including just 8-36 on two-point field goal attempts. When you limit an opponent to a 37.5 TS%, there's really not much else to say.
This was a beatdown, and while you don't want to read too much into a big win over a bad opponent, I will suggest that the ability to thoroughly crush an outmatched opponent is a good sign. It doesn't necessarily tell us anything about how we'll compete with the best squads we'll face this year, but dominating inferior teams is something that NCAA Tournament teams are able to do.
Our post-season fate will be determined by our performance in conference play, but for now it's good to see that this Texas team has developed into a squad capable of obliterating an outmatched squad as we did tonight. I'll check in with a much more in depth set of thoughts on the team in tomorrow's Texas Basketball Report.
Hook 'em