Texas’ 81-69 win over sixth-ranked Kansas Saturday changes the game quite a bit.
With the convincing win, the Longhorns’ sixth in a row and fourth over ranked opponents, Rick Barnes’ team can forget about sneaking up on anyone. They might not even be able to play the lack-of-respect card they’d been playing early in Big 12 Conference play.
“There are six teams in the Big 12 ranked in the AP Top 25, and we’re not one of them,” Barnes had said after his team’s 67-64 buzzer-beating win over Kansas State.
Texas snuck into last week’s [s2If current_user_can(access_s2member_level2)]rankings in the 25th spot of the Associated Press poll. Coaches voted Texas 26th. That changed in a big way this week following the win over Kansas, in which the Horns led by as many as 20 points and never let Kansas make a significant push. Monday’s AP poll had the Longhorns 15th. The coaches ranked Texas 19th.
Led by Isaiah Taylor and Jonathan Holmes on the offensive end and Demarcus Holland, Prince Ibeh and Cam Ridley on defense, Texas frustrated Kansas throughout. After making their first four shots, the Jayhawks – a 52 percent shooting team – made just four of 27. Led by Holland and Ibeh, Texas thoroughly frustrated the Jayhawks’ top freshmen – Andrew Wiggins and Joel Embiid. Wiggins scored just seven points on 2-of-12 shooting before fouling out. Embiid managed just eight points and 10 rebounds and even had his shot blocked twice by Ibeh.
ESPN’s Andy Katz talked about Texas’ win in his Monday feature 3-point shot.
Barnes didn’t pay too much attention to rankings earlier – despite the top 25 comment following the Kansas State game – and he isn’t about to start now. The message to the team about rankings? Nothing to see here. Move along.
“I will be disappointed if they get overexcited about it,” he told the Austin American-Statesman’s Brian Davis Monday.
Barnes has never been a coach to let his team get too high after wins. He said the Longhorns didn’t practice well following their win last weekend at Baylor, so he made them practice until their play reached his expectations. It took three hours, but the Horns got the message. The coach will work hard this week to make sure the Longhorns don’t spend too much time believing what the now-fawning press writes and says, especially following the Kansas win.
“But it is such a fine line between winning and losing, that if you start drinking the poison and think that you are there, it all gets away,” he said following the win. “This is one game, and I want them to enjoy it because they should, but we have a long way to go.”
Texas now must deal with expectations that it didn’t face when many considered the Longhorns just the eighth-best team in the Big 12. Prognosticators have Texas firmly in the NCAA Tournament and the Longhorns have put themselves in the conversation for the Big 12 title, say Kirk Bohls and ESPN’s C.L. Brown.
Writers, including Davis in Tuesday’s Austin American-Statesman, call tonight’s game at TCU a trap game for the Longhorns, one that must be avoided at all costs. The Longhorns understand.
Holmes started thinking about TCU as soon as he finished singing “The Eyes of Texas” on the court Saturday afternoon.
“I think we’re in a pretty good place,” he said. “We’ve won six in a row, including four against Top 25 teams, so we’re in a pretty good place. We’ve got some pretty good momentum, we just got to keep getting better and get ready for TCU on Tuesday.”
Holland echoed Holmes’ sentiment. A few wins – even top 25 wins – in a row won’t change Texas’ motivation.
“We don’t think we’re better than what we are,” Holland said. “We know who we are as a team; we know what we have to get better at. We’re not going to let it get to our heads or anything like that.”
Texas can win its seventh straight, matching last season’s conference win total in the process, tonight at TCU. The Longhorns will be without Javan Felix, the third-leading scorer. He’ll miss the game after sustaining a concussion when he collided with Embiid late in Saturday’s game.
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