Quick thoughts from No. 8 Texas’ 81-72 loss to No. 9 Baylor

It was all Texas early on but it was all Baylor from then on out as the Longhorns squandered an early 18-4 lead to lose to the Bears, 81-72.

Here are a few quick thoughts from Texas’ forgettable performance in Waco

Texas absolutely deserved to lose this game. They were locked in and on fire early in building an 18-4 lead, but that was as good as it got. In fact, it was all downhill in a hurry from that point. Texas maintained its double-digit lead only for a few more moments, and that went completely away as Baylor pieced together an 18-0 run while smothering Texas defensively and forcing the Horns to go more than eight minutes without a bucket. And once Texas lost that lead, they never saw it again, getting outscored by 23 from then on out. In a game of this magnitude, the fact that Texas not only failed to adjust as Baylor got hot and played like the wanted it is disappointing enough, but more so considering that Rodney Terry never adjusted while his team squandered a lead and started playing from behind, all while Keyonte George was sidelined. And this all at a point in the season where a single loss — the loss Texas just suffered — might cost them a Big 12 regular season title and potentially a 2-seed in the NCAA Tournament.

Dylan Disu came to hoop, but nobody else did. It’s damn near March, and in a major matchup with regular season and postseason implications, Texas’ vanishing act with the exception of a single player is pretty concerning. Just three games from now Texas will start playing games that determine if your season ends or not, and that level of urgency and essentially getting destroyed after that first stretch is not what you want to see from the Longhorns entering the final handful of games this season. Disu was the lone bright spot for the Longhorns, shouldering the offensive load with 24 points on 10-15 from the field, but unfortunately, Texas as a whole had one of their worst performances of the season.

The biggest concern of the day might be Texas’ composure, or lack thereof. Sometimes, shots just don’t fall, and other times the do. The former was true for Texas with Marcus Carr (2-9 from 3) headlining a cringeworthy performance from Texas in which the Longhorns shot only 37% from deep (10-27) and 45% overall, while the latter favored Baylor (it often does) with the Bears catching fire and shooting 47% from three and 50% overall. But despite that, when Baylor had its runs — and there were several — Texas almost seemed to roll over and abandon its play style, getting bullied, out-hustled, and playing sloppy without any sort of rhythm. And during those stretches, a veteran-led team lacked any direction, leadership, or sense of calm that could have helped keep things a bit more under control. But instead, between folding under pressure during Baylor’s first and second half runs, the outcome was already decided with more than 10 minutes remaining.