Kansas 69, Texas 66

Saturday afternoon at the Erwin Center, the Texas Longhorns provided themselves a great chance to upset the #7-ranked Kansas Jayhawks but ultimately failed down the stretch in a 69-66 loss. Down by as many as 15 points in both halves of the game, the Longhorns stormed back late earning themselves a 4 point lead with only 3 minutes left in the contest. But while Kansas looked like a well-oiled machine to secure the win in crunchtime, Texas looked utterly disorganized as J'Covan Brown put up a series of ill-advised, forced shots that in 3 chances all eluded the bottom of the net. Brown ended the game with 24 points, but again shot poorly, this time to the tune of 7-26 from the field.

Point guard Myck Kabongo suffered his 2nd consecutive miserable game, limited to 3 points and 4 assists as he battled with foul trouble and a coach that lacks confidence in Kabongo's ability to adequately run the offense. This may come as news to some for Rick Barnes to be upset over such a thing when at the end of the game with J'Covan Brown shooting aimlessly, there didn't to be any sort of offensive scheme at work, period. This has been a recurring theme for a Rick Barnes-coached team, the complete lack of a coherent offensive flow in clutch situations, yet Barnes keeps calling Kabongo out in his post-game press conferences as if it's up to Kabongo to not only run an offense, but actually conceive of one on the fly. Barnes apparently has no problem allowing J'Covan Brown to play one-on-five against a team already double-teaming him. But if Kabongo misses one single pass to say an Alexis Wangmene who is likely going to just fumble it out of bounds anyway, it becomes time to call in the national guard.

What this team lacks is leadership. Barnes has put the whole season on J'Covan Brown's shoulders, but Brown is more of a streaky assassin than a player who can effectively run a team and get everyone involved on his own. Kabongo should not be floundering right now, and much of the blame must be put on Barnes who frankly isn't doing a very good job managing his freshman phenom. The move to accentuate Clint Chapman has been a wise one as of late, as has the shift to playing Sheldon McClellan more frequently than Julien Lewis, so Barnes is in certain areas still showing his smarts as a coach. But it's been 3 games in 2 weeks now that the Longhorns have had a great chance to win only to let them each slip away. Someone needs to step up and inject a killer instinct into this squad, and with teams game-planning against the predicatability of J'Covan Brown having to do it all himself, Barnes needs to come up with alternative ways of manufacturing wins.

The Horns are now 12-7 on the season and 2-4 in Big12 Conference play. Texas certainly gets credit for hanging in there with Kansas, but something big needs to happen for this team, and it needs to happen soon. Iowa State visits the Erwin Center Tuesday at 8 pm, so look for it as a chance for Texas to turn its season back toward the positive.