Sitting in the middle of the pack in the Big 12 standings, the Longhorns had a chance to secure a key win against in-state rival Texas Tech Saturday afternoon. After jumping out to a 16-point lead, everything that could have gone wrong, went wrong, allowing Texas Tech to walk out of Austin with a 62-57 victory. The loss drops Texas to 4-6 in Big 12 play and 14-9 overall.
The first half featured an efficient Texas offense combined with a strong defensive effort. The Longhorns used a 14-0 run to jump out to a 22-8 lead with 7 minutes remaining in the first half. Texas was able to take a 31-19 lead into halftime.
The second half was all Red Raiders. The Longhorns struggled to generate any kind of offense and also had two players leave due to injury. Freshman forward Kai Jones exited the game with an ankle injury and Jase Febres suffered a knee injury a short time later. Both players did not return.
Texas Tech pulled away down the stretch with a good shooting performance from Jahmi’us Ramsey and clutch free throw shooting from Davide Moretti.
With the injury to Jones and Jericho Sims battling foul trouble for most of the game, the Longhorns were forced to get extended minutes from Royce Hamm and Kamaka Hepa, who returned to action following a brief absence due to injury. Matt Coleman paced Texas with 17 points and also grabbed 7 rebounds. Andrew Jones turned in a good performance off the bench with 18 points. It was another poor shooting performance overall for Texas. The Longhorns finished the afternoon shooting 35.5% from the field and 26.1% from deep.
The Longhorns will return to action on Monday when they host the top team in the country, the Baylor Bears.
