New positions? New defensive scheme? New-look Longhorns beat Big 12 newcomer Cincinnati

Although it was shorthanded, No. 10 Texas bounced back from a midweek loss to Oklahoma with a 67-50 win over Cincinnati at Moody Center on Saturday. After pulling away from the Bearcats in the second half and getting a game-high 16 points from junior forward Aaliyah Moore, the Longhorns are 19-3 this season. They have won six of their nine conference games.

Here are three observations and a quote from UT's 17-point win:

Texas loses its starting point guard. Again.

The Longhorns had to turn to their third-string quarterback to run the offense Saturday. Before the game, Texas announced that freshman point guard Madison Booker would be sidelined by a hamstring injury. All-America candidate Rori Harmon was lost for the season when she tore the anterior cruciate ligament in her right knee Dec. 27.

That left senior Shaylee Gonzales to play point guard against Cincinnati. Gonzales usually starts at shooting guard, but she has been used as an emergency point guard during her two years in Austin.

Gonzales played most of the game and finished with 13 points, six rebounds and three assists while not committing a turnover. Freshman reserve Gisella Maul entered the game for the first time with less than 35 seconds left.

"To me, Shaylee had a presence tonight on the floor, and it permeated through my team," Texas coach Vic Schaefer said. "She never once was shook or anything. She had a real presence, and I thought that made other people have a real calming effect as well."

After the game, Schaefer reported that Booker had tweaked her hamstring during Friday's practice and would be evaluated on a day-to-day basis. Texas next will play at No. 13 Baylor on Thursday.

In addition to Booker, Texas played without senior forward DeYona Gaston for the fourth straight game. Gaston was cleared to play earlier last week, but Schaefer said her body did not respond well to the practice she participated in on Thursday. Gaston is dealing with her second ankle injury this season.

Texas was surprisingly in the zone

Of his many tried-and-true sayings, Schaefer often likes to brag that his teams aren't "standing around in a 2-3 zone playing hope-you-miss defense." Under Schaefer, the Longhorns prefer an aggressive attack.

But with depth issues, he felt that a zone defense was the best option against a Cincinnati team that was averaging 62.4 points. Texas practices a zone sparingly, and Schaefer made the decision to use that defensive strategy during Saturday's shootaround.

In his postgame press conference, Schaefer joked that the zone defense was "poison" and reminded reporters that "I'm almost allergic to zone." The Longhorns, though, held Cincinnati to 33.3% shooting, and Schaefer thought his team rebounded well on defense.

"I might have to pull it out of the closet (in the future)," he said.

Cincinnati coach Katrina Merriweather said she didn't have the exact numbers in front of her, but she believed that Texas had used a zone defense for eight possessions ahead of Saturday's game. She thought the Bearcats (10-9, 2-6) faced a zone 20 to 25 times in Saturday's game.

Merriweather added that it wasn't just the zone defense that hurt Cincinnati. The Bearcats' first-year coach argued that rebounding and fouls "mattered far more than that." With a 46-32 advantage, Texas became the first Big 12 team to out-rebound Cincinnati this season. Texas shot 29 free throws while Cincinnati was 9-for-12 at the charity stripe and had 25 fouls to UT's 11.

Block party for Jones

Texas got an early boost on the defensive end from senior Taylor Jones, who blocked four shots in the first four minutes and five Cincinnati attempts in the opening quarter. The 6-foot-4 Jones didn't threaten Ellen Bayer's school record of 12 stuffed shots in a single game, but she did end up with seven blocks.

On Friday, Jones was named as one of the top 10 candidates for the Lisa Leslie Award, given annually to the best center in college basketball. Jones is averaging 13.7 points, 7.1 rebounds and 1.9 blocks.

They said it: Muhammad and Mwenentanda step up

"I thought they both did awesome. I feel like it's super important for us to have length at the top of that (zone) defense, and they were just causing problems for them. The other team didn't know what to do, didn't know what to run, and they got a lot of deflections," Gonzales said of teammates Amina Muhammad and Ndjakalenga Mwenentanda.

In Big 12 play, Texas has leaned heavily on Booker, Gonzales and Shay Holle in its backcourt. Those three guards all averaged more than 36 minutes of playing time over UT's first eight conference games.

But without Booker, Texas was forced to play Muhammad, a 6-4 forward, out of position for portions of Saturday's contest and give extended minutes to Mwenentanda off the bench. Muhammad and Mwenentanda are both sophomores.

While also playing in the paint, Muhammad logged 31 minutes Saturday. Mwenentanda, who made each of the three shots she took, played 14 minutes.

This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: Shaylee Gonzales, zone defense lead Texas Longhorns past Cincinnati