The Texas basketball team lost to Houston on Saturday. Here are three things we saw.
HOUSTON — In its 82-61 win over Texas on Saturday, No. 3 Houston (22-3, 9-3 Big 12) dominated the glass early and disrupted the Texas offense often — two points of emphasis for UT coach Rodney Terry and his staff all week. Houston outrebounded Texas 45-34 and had 17 offensive rebounds. The Cougars also held Texas (16-9, 5-7) to its lowest point total of the season as well as its lowest shooting percentage (.386) while handing the Longhorns their second-worst loss of the season.
Here are three things we saw from Texas’ loss to Houston:
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Rodney Terry: Disu, Abmas need more scoring help
Texas forward Dylan Disu, who leads the Big 12 in scoring in conference games with 18.7 points per contest, managed a team-high 16 points against Houston’s ferocious man-to-man defense, but only one other Longhorn (Chendall Weaver, 11 points) reached double-figures. Max Abmas, the league’s third-leading scorer at 17.4 points a game in conference play, had a season-low seven points. Forward Dillon Mitchell scored just three points on a season-low two shot attempts while falling short of double-figures for the first time in five games, and Tyrese Hunter (seven points) had less than 10 points for the fourth time in the past five games.
They said it: “You always need other guys to step up and play big for you. I mean, we know what Dylan Disu is going to bring every night and we know what Max is going to bring every night, and they're going to be game-planned for every night. Other guys have to (get) things done at a high level as well.” — Rodney Terry
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Max Abmas: Working way out of slump?
Abmas, a 6-foot graduate guard in his lone season with Texas, isn’t used to shooting slumps. He’s the leading active scorer in the NCAA and needs just seven points to become the 12th player in NCAA Division I history to reach 3,000 career points. But the sharpshooter with unlimited range made just two of 14 shots while scoring in single digits for the first time this season. Over the past three games, Abmas has shot just 11-of-38 from the floor.
They said it: “I'm not going to make any excuses. I’m going to get back in the gym and keep working. The next one's going to fall.” — Max Abmas
Dylan Disu: Battling on the boards
After wrangling just one rebound in last week’s win over West Virginia, Disu responded with a team-high seven rebounds against a physical and relentless Houston squad that prides itself on crashing the glass. He didn’t get much help in a game with 68 missed shots; Mitchell had five rebounds in a season-low 18 minutes and the other frontcourt players for Texas — Kadin Shedrick, Brock Cunningham and Ze’Rik Onyema — combined for four rebounds in 39 total minutes.
They said it: “We expected it to be about as physical as it was. We tried to match their physicality. At times, we were successful, but for the most part, we just didn't do what we were supposed to do.” — Dylan Disu
Up next: Kansas State
Texas doesn’t have much time to lick its wounds since Kansas State (15-10, 5-7) visits Moody Center on Monday for an 8 p.m. matchup. While the Longhorns still seem entrenched as a NCAA Tournament selection, the Wildcats are desperate to snap out of a slump and rekindle their tournament hopes; they’ve lost six of their past seven games, including a 75-72 home loss to TCU on Saturday.
This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: Three things we saw in Texas basketball's road loss at Houston
