What's next for Texas basketball after falling to Kansas State in the Big 12 tournament?
KANSAS CITY, Mo. — The Texas men's basketball team has been through some ups and down this season. In its opening game at the Big 12 Tournament on Wednesday, that roller coaster ride came in just one contest.
After racing to a 10-point halftime lead against Kansas State, the Longhorns couldn’t keep pace in a 78-74 loss in the second round. Kansas State (19-13), a team desperate to make a final case to the NCAA Tournament selection committee for an at-large bid, advanced to Thursday’s Big 12 quarterfinals against Iowa State.
Texas (20-12) now has to wait a week before it takes the court again for an NCAA Tournament game. The Longhorns will find out their fate Sunday when the NCAA field will be announced.
“We're obviously excited to play in the NCAA Tournament,” Texas forward Dylan Disu said. “We're disappointed we fell short (Wednesday), but we know — I know, personally — being in the NCAA Tournament is a blessing. You're not promised to get in the NCAA Tournament. Luckily, we have done enough this season to put ourselves in position to be in the NCAA Tournament.
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“We're not happy right now, because that game didn't go the way we wanted it to, but we're excited for the opportunity to play. We don't know how many more times we have to put the jersey on, so we're excited to play with our teammates at least one more time.”
What happened in the second half against K-State?
Disu, a 6-foot-9 graduate forward who earned first-team All-Big 12 honors this season, couldn’t have been too excited about Wednesday night's officiating. He battled foul trouble all game while scoring nine points and grabbing nine rebounds in 23 minutes. Only nine of those minutes came in the second half, when the Wildcats erased a 38-28 deficit.
To his credit, Disu refused to point the finger at the officials, saying, “No, I’m not going to do that.” Instead, he tried to shoulder the blame for Texas’ second-half woes.
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“I came out flat in the second half,” he said. “I gave up two buckets and turned the ball over twice, and that really gave them momentum.”
A strong showing for Max Abmas
As Kansas State heated up, Texas froze up, at least on the offensive end. At one point, Texas went 4-for-23 from the floor in the second half as Kansas State built a nine-point lead with less than six minutes to go. Only some late heroics from Max Abmas (26 points) kept the Longhorns close. Abmas, a 6-foot graduate guard playing in his first and last Big 12 Tournament game, hit a trio of 3-pointers in the final 2:16.
“I thought Max did a great job of picking up the pace with Disu being out,” Texas coach Rodney Terry said. “He really stepped up and got some things done.”
Abmas, who spent his first four seasons at Oral Roberts, also pulled down four rebounds while becoming the first Division I player to amass 3,000 points, 500 assists and 500 rebounds in a career.
Texas had almost everyone clicking in the first half, when it looked like the team that beat TCU and Texas Tech on the road, took out Baylor at home and took top-ranked Houston to the wire before falling in overtime. Dillon Mitchell had 11 of his 13 points and five of his six rebounds at the break, and IT Horton recorded nine of his 14 points before halftime. Texas made 57.1% of its shots in the first half.
But in the second half, those shots didn’t fall. UT shot 29% after the break as Kansas State converted 55.2% while relentlessly attacking the basket.
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What will happen on Selection Sunday?
Texas couldn’t defend its Big 12 Tournament title, but Terry defended his team’s résumé. The Longhorns are No. 28 in the NET ratings, a primary metric used by the selection committee as it wades through the 362 Division I college basketball programs to determine the 68-team field.
The Longhorns have a 5-9 record against Quad 1 teams. Seven of Texas’ 11 losses have been to teams projected as top three seeds by ESPN’s Joe Lunardi: Houston (twice), Connecticut, Marquette, Kansas, Baylor and Iowa State.
In recent weeks, Texas has been projected as a No. 8 or No. 9 NCAA seed by most prognosticators. That isn’t likely to change with the loss to Kansas State, a bubble team.
After the game, Terry talked about his team’s fate come Selection Sunday while keeping an eye on the telecast of the final second-round Big 12 Tournament game between Kansas and Cincinnati.
“Would we have liked to make a little run here and maybe get up to a No. 7 seed or higher? Yes,” he said. “But we have done enough work by now to put ourselves in position to be in the tournament. We got to get back (to Austin), be excited about continuing to compete and continue to work on our bodies and put ourselves in the best position to be ready to play at a high level. At the end of the day, that's what you have to do this time of year.”
This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: What's next for Texas basketball after its Big 12 Tournament loss
