Thursday, February 17
Texas 75 Texas A&M 40
Apologies for the lack of posts this week, everyone. The flu is an awful, awful thing.
Texas dominated the Aggies on Wednesday night, 75-40. The game was a stark contrast to the Aggies upset win in College Station over then tenth ranked Texas in early January. Tonight’s game was never in doubt. Texas raced to an early lead with stellar outside shooting from Harris and Taylor. The Horns led 37-16 at halftime and never looked back.
The first half was particularly impressive, definitely our best in weeks. Avid reader and UT superfan Jim Person agreed with this astute observation at halftime. Texas looked like the team we expected this year. For the first time in many games, the Horns opened in aggressive man to man defense and it made all the difference. The Aggies struggled to get open looks all game and finished shooting just 26% from the floor. Poor Aggies. We also dominated the glass on both ends finishing with an unbelievable 40-20 rebound margin while contributing only nine turnovers.
This was a complete game on both ends, by all players, and another huge step in the right direction. We could not afford another loss to the Aggies and expect to make the NCAA tournament. Barnes was extremely pleased after the game noting that for the first time in weeks we were able to conduct three solid practices with basically healthy players this week. Paulino is still struggling with his injured toe and Harris still has his nagging hamstring pull, but we are getting healthier and growing stronger. I still hold extreme optimism for this season. Yes, this was just an A&M team that has now lost six of their last nine and is beginning to look like more like the Aggies of last year than the ones who started 11-0. But we are beginning to gel with our seven available players. I still think we will finish at least .500 in conference play with an outside shot at 9-7. Texas now looks to steal a Big 12 road victory at Baylor on Saturday.
Tidbits:
The Aggies lost their 20th consecutive Big 12 road game and did not have a single player in double figures. Poor Aggies.
Syd Harris threw in an off balance runner with just seconds left to reach the 75 point mark and allow fans still in the stands to receive coupons for five free Pluckers wings.
Calling all UT season ticket holders. The paid attendance was 14,018 but the actual attendance was just over 11,000. I attended the game with a mezzanine ticket and had no trouble at all finding a bottom level seat. Pathetic.
Buckman’s last three games: 27 points and 21 boards, 17 and 10, & 18 and 13. It's no surprise he was named Big 12 player of the week.
Two new bracket projections College RPI and ESPN’s Joe Lunardi both have Texas projected as 11 seeds but the halftime ESPN crew of Rece Davis, Mike Jarvis, and Digger Phelps placed Texas for the first time all year out of the tournament.
Texas fell out of the top 25 rankings for the first time in three years this week.
--AW--
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If the season ended today, Texas would definitely be in the tourney. If the Horns can manage to win three of their five remaining games (at Baylor, at Tech, vs Missouri, vs OU, at Ok State), they'll be a lock for the tourney. If they only win two of the remaining five, they'll be a bubble team.
--PB--
