Texas Basketball: 2 studs, 1 dud from clobbering of No. 3 Kansas

Texas basketball took complete advantage of a huge opportunity to right the ship heading into the Big 12 Tournament this weekend. Interim head coach Rodney Terry and No. 9 ranked Texas were able to jump all over the No. 3 ranked Kansas Jayhawks and head coach Bill Self in a critical conference showdown in the Big 12 at the Moody Center in Austin on March 4.

Terry and the Longhorns held a double-digit lead for most of the game. Texas jumped out to a double-digit lead in the first half and never really looked back.

In almost every phase of this game, the Longhorns dominated. Texas finally won a rebounding battle, and it held the lead for more than three-dozen minutes of the 40 in this game.

Maybe the biggest storyline in this game, though, was the ability of the Longhorns to take advantage of the advantage it had with its productive bench. Texas’ bench finally showed why it is the most productive bench in the Big 12, namely thanks to the duo of senior shooting guard/wing Sir’Jabari Rice and senior big man Christian Bishop.

Guards Tyrese Hunter and Sir’Jabari Rice lead Texas basketball to a clobbering of No. 3 Kansas in the finale

With that in mind, here’s a look at the two studs and one dud from Texas’ 75-58 win over Kansas on March 4.

Stud No. 1: Tyrese Hunter, G

We’ve seen a different version of sophomore guard Tyrese Hunter come to the forefront in the last four games than we did almost throughout the entire rest of the Big 12 slate this year. Hunter has turned it up a notch to close out the regular season, which bodes well for the way he is trending heading into the postseason.

This is a similar trend down the stretch that we saw from Hunter during his time with the Iowa State Cyclones last season. The reigning Big 12 Newcomer of the Year definitely had his fair share of ups and downs during the regular season at Iowa State last year. But he took his game to new heights in March.

Hunter is doing the same thing in the last few games for Texas. He’s scored at least 13 points in each of the last four games. And Hunter had one of his best two-way performances of the entire season in this double-digit win over Kansas.

He registered 20 points on 4-of-10 shooting from the field, 3-of-7 from beyond the arc, and 9-of-10 from the free-throw line. Along with that, Hunter posted two rebounds and three assists.

It doesn’t matter if Hunter was able to get the job done mostly from the free-throw line and shooting from deep. If he’s able to provide this type of secondary scoring for the Longhorns, then this team will continue to be very dangerous in March and April.