Following Loss to Tech, Texas basketball enters regular season stretch

On Saturday, the Longhorns men’s basketball team was once again unable to earn a victory against Texas Tech, this time shooting a miserly 28.3% from the field. However, regardless of this outcome, the Longhorns still have several important games to focus on before finishing off the regular season.

Week of February 20:

• TCU vs No. 20 Texas (2/23 – 6 P.M. CT, ESPN 2)
• No. 20 Texas vs West Virginia (2/26 – 1 P.M. CT, ESPN or ESPN2)
• Texas’s next two games are against opponents who are in the bottom half of the Big 12 Conference’s standings. Meanwhile, the Longhorns are currently the fourth seed in the conference. Despite this discrepancy, these two games will be important for the Longhorns to gel again after Saturday’s demoralizing loss to Texas Tech. Furthermore, these conference opponents could provide Texas head coach Chris Beard the opportunity to expedite junior forward Dylan Disu‘s return from injury. Although Disu has appeared in 19 games for the Longhorns this season, he has only averaged 12.1 minutes on the court in these appearances. With Texas’s lack of size in the front court, the 6’9″ forward could provide the team with a big boost if he was able to regain his form from his time at Vanderbilt, where he averaged 15 points per game last season.

Week of February 27:

• No. 7 Baylor vs No. 20 Texas (2/28 – 8 P.M. CT, ESPN)
• No. 20 Texas vs No. 6 Kansas (3/5 – 3 P.M. CT, ESPN)
• Following two games against some of the conference’s lower-seeded opponents, the Longhorns will be challenged by two of the top teams in the country. Earlier in the month of February, the Longhorns bested the Jayhawks at home, then suffered an 80-63 road loss at the hands of the Bears in Waco. Of course, the rematch against Baylor also happens to be Texas’s final home game at the Frank Erwin Center. Moreover, the trip to Kansas’s Allen Fieldhouse might give the Longhorns the jump-start that they need in order to prepare themselves for the postseason. As a result, the team’s final two games of the regular season will serve as a measuring stick for what the team might be capable of during the NCAA tournament.