Men’s basketball winning streak ends in regular-season finale, 81-59, against Oklahoma State

By Steve Lansdale

AUSTIN, Texas — After surging to an improbable five-game winning streak, the University of Texas men’s basketball team closed out the season with an equally unlikely thud in an 81-59 home loss to Oklahoma State at the Frank Erwin Center on Senior Day.

The loss means the Longhorns (19-12 overall, 9-9 in games against Big 12 opponents) will face [s2If current_user_can(access_s2member_level2)]Texas Tech at 11:30 a.m. Thursday in the first round of the Phillips 66 Big 12 Championship in the Sprint Center in Kansas City, Mo., in a game that will be carried on ESPN2. The Red Raiders head into the tournament with a record of 18-13 overall and like the Horns are 9-9 in conference games.

OSU improved to 17-14 overall and 7-11 in Big 12 games, and will face Iowa State in the first round of the conference tournament.

“Today felt like the opposite of who we’ve been the last five games,” Texas head coach Shaka Smart said. “We really, the last few days, have tried to impress upon our guys, you know, how dangerous Oklahoma State is, and obviously they played well today, they deserve a lot of credit. We didn’t do nearly a good enough job, obviously, making them miss, defending them with urgency, and that’s really our formula. You know, any time that we’ve been really good, we lead with that end, and starting with the very beginning of the game today, we did not do that.”

Saturday’s game marked something of a coming-out part for freshman Texas forward Kai Jones, who scored a career-high 20 points against the Cowboys, to boost his season (and career) scoring average to 3.6 points per game. Prior to Saturday, he had scored 77 points in his previous 26 games this season.

Jones buried eight of 12 field goals Saturday, including two of five attempts from beyond the three-point line. He also came within one of his career high by pulling down seven rebounds.

Guard Matt Coleman also scored 18 points in the loss, going 6-of-13 from the floor.

The Cowboys mounted an insurmountable lead in the early going, taking a 20-3 lead at the 12:59 mark of the first half. The Cowboys’ .660 field goal percentage and .615 three-point field goal percentage were the highest by any UT opponent this season. The Longhorns also almost got doubled up on the boards, getting outrebounded 36-19.

The Longhorns and Red Raiders split their two meetings in the regular season, with each team winning on the other’s home court. Texas Tech beat UT, 62-57, Feb. 8, and the Longhorns then returned the favor three weeks later, knocking off Tech in Lubbock, 68-58, Feb. 29.

“There’s two categories of teams: teams that are still playing, and teams that are done playing,” Smart said. “As long as we’re in that first category, our mentality has got to be to help ourself, and the way you do that is by winning, and by advancing … It’s about really preparing well to go up there (to Kansas City) and be the more aggressive team. That’s, again, been a formula for us when we’ve done well. Today’s a good example of what happens when we’re not the more aggressive team.”
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