Texas Basketball: 2 studs, 1 dud, from grind-it-out win over Baylor

Dud: Marcus Carr, G

I was expecting a much bigger night out of senior guard Marcus Carr, who had a tough outing in the loss to Tennessee on Jan. 28. Instead, Carr had another dud out on the court for the Longhorns.

Carr finished up this game with just five points on a measly 2-of-8 shooting from the field and 1-of-3 from beyond the arc. He also picked up three rebounds, two assists, one turnover, and one steal.

This is actually only the second time this season that Carr has scored in the single digits in two consecutive games. The first came when he scored nine points in the two-game stretch that saw Texas fall short to Illinois in overtime and then knock off Arkansas-Pine Bluff back in December.

Moreover, it was a good thing that other key Longhorns players were able to step up and pick up the slack for Carr. Texas getting other sources of offense in this game from the likes of sophomore guard Tyrese Hunter, senior shooting guard/wing Sir’Jabari Rice (who we’ll take more about in a second), and even a spark from freshman forward Dillon Mitchell was enough to pick Carr up on his off night.

I do think that Carr will be able to find his way again in the near future. No scoring guard is ever going to be on every game.

And we can’t overlook the clutch play that Carr was able to make late. The best shot he made in this game was a clutch mid-range field goal to give Texas a two-possession lead over Baylor in the final minute.

We’ve seen Carr respond after some off nights before this season. He’ll need to come up with a couple of strong bounce-back performances against the Kansas schools in the next two games.