The Horns have steadied themselves after a difficult introduction to the SEC, but the challenges keep coming.
The Lone Star Showdown finally returns to the Forty Acres as the Texas Longhorns host the No. 13 Texas A&M Aggies on Saturday at the Moody Center after matchups on the gridiron and the hardwood in College Station.
The basketball edition came earlier this month in the SEC debut for Texas, a 20-point loss after heading into halftime tied as the Longhorns went 1-of-12 shooting from beyond the arc in the second half, turned the ball over six times, and committed 12 fouls. The inability to defend without fouling produced 32 free-throw attempts for the Aggies, who also won the rebounding battle by 10 boards and had a 48-16 edge in points in the paint, aided by 17 layups.
It was a physical introduction to conference play for Texas, which has won two of its last three games behind an improving defense with the Aggies looming as the sixth
After falling apart down the stretch in Gainesville against Florida Texas head coach Rodney Terry challenged his team to turn in a complete defensive performance in Tuesday’s 61-53 win over No. 22 Missouri in Austin and the Longhorns responded, holding the Tigers to 33.3-percent shooting in the second half, including 3-of-12 shooting from three.
Junior guard Jordan Pope called it the team’s best defensive game of the season and the numbers agree — the win over Missouri bested the road win against Oklahoma as top performances in defensive efficiency.
“Coming into the Missouri game, we really wanted to hang our hats on the defensive end and execute the game plan. And I think we did a good job bouncing back and just looking ourselves in the mirror and seeing what we need to work on, what we need to do in order to be successful in this league,” Pope said.
Even in the two SEC wins, however, Texas has struggled with putting opponents on the free-throw line — the Texas A&M loss was an anomaly at the time, but the free-throw rates were similar for Oklahoma and Missouri.
With a win probability of 54 percent on Saturday, the Longhorns need to protect their home court with the team’s NCAA Tournament projections swinging 20 percentage points with alternating wins and losses in the last three games. To do that, Texas needs to keep A&M off the free-throw line and out of the paint.
They also have to compete harder than they did in College Station — Terry calls the Aggies the best team in the country at getting to 50/50 balls, bolstering an offensive rebounding rate that ranks No. 1 nationally. With 11 offensive rebounds in the first matchup, Texas A&M’s offensive rebounding rate was about 10 percent below its season average, but the 14 second-chance points scored by the Aggies made a big impact on the game.
“I think the thing that translates for us from that game that we’ll have to have carry over with the A&M game is competitive plays. I thought we made a lot of competitive plays in the game Tuesday night against Missouri. When I say competitive plays, A&M is I think the best in the country at 50-50 balls — they do a great job of out-competing you to loose balls, long rebounds, the best at extra-effort plays. I thought we had a lot of really good extra-effort, competitive plays in the game that we’ll have to try to have on Saturday against the team that I think that does it best in the country,” Terry said.
Junior guard Chendall Weaver is still out “indefinitely,” according to Terry, while the SEC availability report for Saturday’s game has senior forward Arthur Kaluma was listed as a game-time decision before being ruled out shortly before tipoff with a left knee injury. Kaluma has recorded double-doubles in each of the last two games.
Tip is at 1:30 p.m. Central on ESPN2 with Texas a 1.5-point favorite, according to FanDuel. The Longhorns have won 10 straight games against the Aggies in Austin and 23 of the last 24 home games dating back to 1988.