Big 12 dream ends for UT men’s basketball with 63-53 loss to West Virginia

By Steve Lansdale

KANSAS CITY, Mo. — The Texas men’s basketball team bowed out of the Phillips 66 Big 12 Championship with a 63-53 loss in the quarterfinals to No. 11/11 West Virginia at the Sprint Center in Kansas City, Mo.

Freshman guard Andrew Jones led the way for UT with a team-high 13 points, adding seven rebounds and four assists.

Texas coach Shaka Smart said after [s2If current_user_can(access_s2member_level2)]the game that the Mountaineers had the edge in aggressiveness and outside shooting, and have a chance to continue playing well after the conference tournament is decided.

“Congratulations to West Virginia,” Smart said. “They did what West Virginia does so well. They were the more aggressive team. Over the course of the game, I think there was a cumulative effect of the way they play. Obviously they shot the ball better from outside — that was a big difference, as well. But congratulations to them. I think they have a great chance to win this tournament and make a deep run in the NCAA Tournament.”

The Longhorns’ season ended with a final record of 11-22 overall, and 4-14 in Big 12 games, while WVU improved to 25-7 overall and 12-6. The Mountaineers follow the script of any Bob Huggins-coached team by playing aggressive defense, but Smart said that didn’t affect the UT shooting too much, even citing missed foul shots that could not be blamed on the opposition.

“I don’t think it was affecting our shooting percentage as much as it affected our flow of what we were trying to do, which I guess, in turn, affected our shooting percentage,” Smart said. “But man, we got a lot of open looks that didn’t go in. It’s hard to be aggressive defending free throws, and we shot under 50 percent from the foul line.”

For the game, West Virginia outshot Texas from the floor, albeit not by an enormous amount. The Mountaineers hit 42.6 percent of their shots, while the Longhorns hit 35.1 percent. More importantly, WVU was dialed in from long range, shooting a collective 53.8 percent from three-point range, while UT connected on just 29.4 percent shooting from behind the arc.

As Smart said, the Longhorns struggled from the line, going 8-of-19 from the charity stripe. But that topic usually is reserved for when one team shoots well from the line; West Virginia only got one more point than UT did at the line, shooting a collective 10-of-20 from the line.

Senior guard Kendal Yancy also scored in double figures, with 11, while freshman forward/center Jarrett Allen just missed another double-double, scoring nine points while pulling down 10 rebounds. Allen reached double figures in rebounds for the 14^th time this season. He finished his terrific freshman tied for third in school history for double-doubles (12), fourth in total rebounds (278) and fourth in rebounding average (8.4 per game).

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