Texas Basketball: 3 takeaways from the OT collapse against Illinois

A game that went right down to the wire and more between No. 2 ranked Texas basketball and the No. 17 ranked Illinois Fighting Illini saw one slip out of the hands of head coach Chris Beard’s squad. Texas wound up blowing a double-digit second-half lead (which sounds more like the football program than it does men’s hoops) to fall short to head coach Brad Underwood and a gritty Illinois team in overtime.

Beard and the Longhorns looked like they had control of the game for most of the second half. Texas was leading by more than two possessions for more than 50 percent of the second half.

But that doesn’t mean much when you can’t close out games.

Illinois was able to nail some clutch free throws on a bad foul by senior shooting guard/wing Sir’Jabari Rice to tie the game up. And then, senior guard Marcus Carr wound up getting a bad look to chuck up an airball, which officially sent the game into overtime.

Texas couldn’t get any rhythm going offensively in overtime. Meanwhile, standout shooting guard/wing Terrence Shannon Jr. finally got his offensive game going in the overtime period.

That led to Illinois coming away with the 85-78 overtime win in the Jimmy V. Classic over the Longhorns at Madison Square Garden. Texas has now suffered its first loss of the season, moving its record to 6-1 (0-0 Big 12).

Takeaways from Texas basketball’s grueling OT loss to Illinois, despite a strong night from Timmy Allen

Here are our three takeaways from the overtime collapse for the Longhorns against the Fighting Illini on Dec. 6.

Timmy Allen is finally finding his game

One of the more positive storylines coming out of this game for the Longhorns is the emergence of super senior forward Timmy Allen.

After getting off to a slow start in the first five games of the regular season, Allen seems to have found his groove in the last two contests. Allen averaged a little shy of six points per game through the first five games of the regular season. He’s now averaged roughly triple that in the last two outings, at a clip of 16 points per game.

On this night, Allen went for a game-high 21 points on an efficient 9-of-18 shooting from the field, 1-of-3 from beyond the arc, and 2-of-3 from the free-throw line. He also registered a game-high seven rebounds, a whopping eight assists, one block, and three turnovers.

The fact that Allen went for 21-7-8 while managing turnovers pretty effectively is amazing. And hopefully, this version of Allen is closer to what we will see out of the former Utah Utes transfer from here on out. He was the MVP of this game for the Longhorns without a doubt.