Maybe it wasn’t with flying colors, but the Texas men’s basketball team has passed its first test of the season.[s2If current_user_can(access_s2member_level2)]
Off a 16-18 season that saw the Longhorns fail to reach .500 and miss the NCAA tournament for the first time in Rick Barnes’ tenure, Texas opened this season with four straight wins. The season opening streak is the longest since 2009 and the current four game streak is the longest since Feb. 2012, when the Horns beat Texas Tech, Texas A&M, Kansas State and Oklahoma in succession during conference play.
Texas had to rally for wins over Mercer (a 24 win team that won the Atlantic Sun regular season title last year), South Alabama (17-13 last year) and Stephen F. Austin (27-5 in winning the regular season Southland title last year) before dominating Houston Baptist earlier this week.
The three come-from-behind wins, two of which involved rallies in the final two minutes, show the Longhorns have a moxie that didn’t exist last year. Sophomore guard Javan Felix said that’s one thing the team hopes to develop early.
“…I think we learned that we are tough, but we have to get tougher in order to be who we want to be and to be who we want to be in the Big 12,” he said following the win over Houston Baptist.
Traditionally a physical team with bruising post players Cameron Ridley (6-foot-9, 285 pounds) and Price Ibeh (6-10, 250), the Longhorns appear in the process of turning that physicality into toughness, which at times means sacrificing the body for the good of the team. Barnes and other Longhorns pointed at junior forward Jonathan Holmes’ example. With his team up big against Houston Baptist, Holmes (at 6-8, 240) dove for a loose ball, banging his face on the court and chipping two teeth for his trouble. All in a day’s work, Barnes said.
“I think it speaks volumes about him,” Barnes said. “We’re up by 21 points and he goes on the floor and knocks two teeth not out, but he chipped two teeth.”
After playing more of a complimentary role, Holmes has emerged as this team’s go-to player, at least early. He made big three pointers in the rally against South Alabama and has been the team’s most consistent offensive player so far. Felix has also emerged as a scoring threat while rotating between the point and shooting guard spots. Holmes averages 15 points and 6 rebounds. Felix averages 13.8 points and 4 assists and seems to have recovered from October’s hip surgery. He said the Longhorns have begun to figure out their roles and that having a week between the HBU win and the next game – Nov. 25 against Brigham Young – will be important to continue the early momentum.
“I hope to see us just move forward, get better at everything that we did,” he said. “We have some big games coming up. It is important for us to improve and take practice seriously. I expect us to approach everything in the right way and work to get better.”
The Longhorns face BYU in the semifinals of the CBE Hall of Fame Classic and will play either DePaul or 16th ranked Wichita State, which reached last year’s Final Four in the next round. The December schedule is loaded. Texas hosts Vanderbilt on Dec. 2 as part of the Big XII/SEC Challenge. Then comes a Dec. 7 trip to always pesky Temple, which reached the third round of last year’s NCAA tournament. Those games serve as appetizers to a back-to-back stretch that sees the Horns visit No. 19 North Carolina (Dec. 18) and host No. 1 Michigan State (Dec. 21).
Texas knows it must continue to improve to compete against the two traditional powers. Barnes said the Horns must build off the confidence of the early wins.
“For us to fall behind like we did and then come back shows some things there, but we know we have to grow,” he said. “Overall, I would say that as a team we’ve learned a lot here in the last 10 days in terms of preparation. There was a lot of good things. We’ve got a long way to go and we’ve got to get better, but these guys want to get better.”
Texas will be battle tested when Big 12 play arrives in January. The Horns, picked to finish eighth by the 10 conference coaches, hope to have passed those tests with an unexpected win or two to maintain momentum heading into a conference slate that features four teams currently ranked in the AP top 25.
After opening conference play at home against OU on Jan. 4, Texas travels to face No. 7 Oklahoma State and top pro prospect Marcus Smart on Jan. 8. Texas hosts No. 21 Iowa State on Jan. 18, plays at No. 20 Baylor on Jan. 25 and hosts No. 2 Kansas and heralded freshman Andrew Wiggins on Feb. 1. Wiggins and Smart both figure to be lottery picks in next year’s NBA draft and the leading candidates for conference player of the year.
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