Four Point Play: Texas completes season sweep of OU with 94-80 win, heads to postseason play

The Texas Longhorns cruised to a 94-80 win with seniors Dylan Disu, Max Abmas, Brock Cunningham, and Ithiel Horton all in the starting lineup. However, junior Tyrese Hunter stole the show from the Land Thieves with a career high 30 points as part of Texas’ clinching a 9-9 Big 12 record, a 20th regular season win, and a seventh straight victory over Oklahoma.

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Have a day, Tyrese Hunter

Hunter had posted a number of 20-point games this season for the Longhorns, as well as last year during his debut campaign in burnt orange. But between his time in Austin and his time as an Iowa State Cyclone in Ames, Iowa, he had never posted 30 points in a game.

That changed against the Sooners on Saturday.

Hunter played his finest game of the season against Oklahoma. With Abmas posting relatively meager numbers, Hunter scored a career best 30 points with seven assists and three steals. He was an efficient 9-for-13 from the field, including a 3-for-4 day from three-point range and a perfect 9-of-9 effort from the line.

Abmas, less than a week after posting his own 30-point game, wasn’t at his best on Saturday despite his 11 points in 35 minutes. Hunter was at or near his peak thanks to attacking downhill and converting good perimeter selections against a Sooner defense that couldn’t figure out how to handle quality play from a different Longhorn guard.

Hunter has been in double figures 18 times this season, but some of those 10-plus point performances belied how little an effect he actually had on the game. That wasn’t the case on Saturday when he posted his first career 30-piece to help the Longhorns finish a season sweep of the Sooners.

He had quality contributions from a number of Texas’ seniors, including 16 points from Disu (who was effective despite being a game-time decision), the 11 points from Abmas, and 6 points, five rebounds, 6 assists, and, of course, 4 fouls from Cunningham.

Horton failed to score in 18 minutes on his senior day but was +12, not creating issues either way while on the floor.

No Sooner Struggles, and a strong record against in-state teams

No matter what conference Texas plays in, there’s an importance that’s placed on defeating rivals. That of course applies to playing Oklahoma, no matter if contests with the Sooners are of the Big 12 or the SEC variety.

Texas has

• not lost a game to Porter Moser during his time as head coach of the Sooners
• defeated the Sooners seven straight games
• won eight of the last nine versus OU
• posted three straight regular season sweeps of Oklahoma

Texas has had its share of close games as well as blowouts during the streak, but neither of the Red River Shootouts during the 2023-24 season have been of much difficulty for the Longhorns. Texas defeated a then-ranked Sooner team 75-60 in Norman in January, an impressive win at the time that will go down as one of the Longhorns’ critical Quadrant 1 wins. They followed that up with a 14-point win at home that, from the 18:41 mark in the second half on, was never closer than 10 points.

Beating one’s rivals, no matter the sport, matters to fans and the program. Against OU, Texas was 2-0. Against teams from Texas in non-conference play, the Longhorns were 6-0 in 2023-24.

Against Texas or Oklahoma based teams in the Big 12 during conference play, Texas was 6-4 with only one 0-for effort at the hands of top-ranked Houston.

The Longhorns managed to take care of business for the most part against regional rivals, and they happened to save some of their best work against the team wearing crimson and cream.

20-win season, .500 conference record

The continuation of the win streak against OU also clinched a 9-9 season in Big 12 play for Texas, as well as a 20-win campaign. It’s Texas’ ninth .500 or better campaign in conference since the end of the 2009-10 season and the third consecutive 20-win season.

For Rodney Terry, it’s his sixth 20-win season as a head coach and his second straight at Texas after he was 22-8 in 2022-23 following taking over for Chris Beard.

Twenty wins is never anything to scoff at. In a 31-game season, it represents winning just under two-thirds of the games. Pair it with a .500, 9-9 record in Big 12 play, and that’s a resume that is worth commending in a season after Texas lost several significant pieces from a team just a few minutes shy of the Final Four.

What’s next?

With games in progress on Saturday, March 9, the Longhorns are locked into playing a Wednesday game in the Big 12 Tournament in Kansas City, Mo.

The lowest they can finish is eighth, which could match them up with Oklahoma once again for a 2:00 p.m. contest on March 13. Should UCF defeat TCU in their Saturday matchup, the Longhorns would earn the No. 7 seed and face No. 10 Kansas State in Wednesday’s 6 p.m. game with a quarterfinal opportunity against No. 2-seed Iowa State on the line.

What about for the NCAA Tournament? The Longhorns were essentially assured an at-large bid entering Saturday’s game, and Disu playing plus Texas roaring to a 14-point win did more to strengthen Texas’ seeding than anything else.

Entering Saturday, BracketMatrix.com had Texas on the 8-seed line and in the tournament on all 108 gathered projections. Ahead of the Longhorns but also on the 8-seed line were Boise State and Texas Tech. Oklahoma and TCU were on the 9-seed line.

The win over the Sooners may not do much to move Texas up, nor would a loss by the Red Raiders to Baylor on Saturday make too much of a difference.

But with Texas in the 7-seed or 8-seed conversation, who could the Horns potentially match up with?

There’s a consensus that has Purdue, Connecticut, Houston, and Tennessee as the projected 1-seeds. The committee likes to avoid conference matchups until the Sweet 16, so Texas isn’t likely to be an 8- or 9- seed in Houston’s region.

Texas has played Connecticut already this year in a neutral site game in Madison Square Garden, and the committee prefers to avoid repeat matchups if possible.

That means Texas could end up in a region with Rick Barnes‘ Tennessee or No. 1 overall seed Purdue if the Horns remain on the 8- or 9-seed line.

Arizona, North Carolina, Iowa State, and Marquette are all on the 2-seed line, should Texas make it’s way up to 7-seed territory. Similar applies with those teams as Texas is in the Big 12 with ISU and played Marquette earlier in the year. UNC looks for an outright ACC title this evening against Duke while Arizona has already claimed what is the final Pac-12 regular season title.

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None of these bracketology projections are set in stone, but Texas, thanks to its five Quadrant 1 wins and .500 record in the toughest conference in the country, can start thinking about its potential first-round matchups as a 7-, 8-, or 9-seed.