Losses show biggest flaws
AUSTIN — Beads of sweat still dotted Texas forward Timmy Allen’s glum face about 30 minutes after a furious rally in Fort Worth that ultimately fell short late Wednesday night.
The Longhorns and their starting fifth-year small forward had just lost the game they needed to take in order to play for a Big 12 championship in Saturday’s regular-season finale against league leader Kansas. And they’d done so in painfully familiar fashion — outrebounded, outmuscled and outworked by No. 22 TCU for most of the night, threads that linked back to last weekend’s loss to No. 8 Baylor in Waco.
Had No. 9 Texas (22-8, 11-6 Big 12) won one of those past two games, it’d be playing for a share of the conference title this weekend. Now, with a loss to the Jayhawks, the Longhorns could potentially tumble down to fourth place heading into next weekend’s Big 12 tournament in Kansas City.
In a vacuum, losing 7573 to a ranked, fullstrength TCU team on the road wouldn’t set off any major alarms. Same goes for coming up short against the Bears, the preseason Big 12 favorite and a program just two years removed from winning a national title.
But with a chance to end its 14-year regular-season title drought — and more importantly, a chance to build a résumé worthy of a No. 1 seed in the NCAA tournament — Texas dropped the ball. Twice.
“Obviously, we want to cut down every net that we can,” Allen said after Wednesday’s loss in Schollmaier Arena. “And that’s disappointing, especially for seniors. But it’s March, we got a lot to play for. You gotta stay poised. Obviously, my teammates and I are extremely disappointed. But it’s nothing we can’t fix. We still have a huge opportunity.”
And potentially a huge problem or two to address before No. 3 Kansas (15-5, 13-4) comes to town riding a seven-game winning streak that began with an 88-80 victory over Texas back on Feb. 6.
TCU outrebounded Texas 23-8 in the first half and 46-28 for the game and finished with a 16-6 edge in second-chance points. A few days earlier, Baylor outrebounded the Longhorns 37-25 and attempted 17 more free throws. And in their first meeting at Allen Fieldhouse, the Jayhawks won the rebounding battle by five with a plus-four edge on the offensive glass and scored 50 points in the paint.
A recent 74-67 loss at Texas Tech followed those trends, too. The Red Raiders snared 12 more rebounds than the Longhorns
and outscored them 38-18 in the paint.
“You know, we can compete with anybody in the country,” Texas interim coach Rodney Terry said after the loss to TCU. “But we didn’t play well in the first half. They rebounded the basketball, outcompeted us in that regard. Tonight we knew going into the game it was a big focal point of the game, rebounding. These guys do a great job of crashing the glass and pushing the ball in transition. You know, we didn’t meet that challenge tonight.”
The most vexing thing about these kindred losses is that Texas managed to put itself in position to win each game despite struggling against the aggression and size of the opposition.
Even Wednesday night, after 39 uneven minutes that featured some heinous offensive possessions and a litany of defensive lapses, Texas would have been in position to tie the game if it tracked down just one more rebound. But TCU forward Chuck O’bannon beat the Longhorns to an offensive board with 27 seconds left and the Horned Frogs ran off six more seconds before
guard Damian Baugh hit two clutch free throws to make it a five-point game.
“It really gets down to who’s going to put their will on who, who’s going to out-execute who on the other end even knowing what’s coming,” Terry said ahead of Texas’ rematch with TCU. “We’re yelling out their plays, they’re yelling out our plays. And then who’s gonna be willing to do the uncomfortable things? Who’s gonna step up and take charges? Who’s gonna win the 5050 game? That’s where it really gets to the nuts and bolts of wins and losses.”
The sky isn’t falling over the Forty Acres just yet.
Texas remains a good bet to land a No. 2 seed in the upcoming NCAA Tournament thanks to its 10 NCAA NET Quadrant 1 wins, third-most in the nation behind Kansas (15) and Baylor (11). That would place the Longhorns in a favorable position to reach the Sweet Sixteen for the first time since 2008.
But Allen knows Texas needs to be tougher now that March has arrived — not just for 20 minutes, but all 40.
“I think it’s a mindset,” Allen said. “I think it’s coming out and being the aggressor. Yes, it hurts. Just gotta be better. And that starts with mentality and mindset.”