AUSTIN, Texas -- This was the one you circled the calendars for -- even before the Big 12 season began.Kansas vs. Texas.
You were looking at two of the top teams not just in the Big 12, but in the nation, squaring off for likely the regular season conference title. The No. 1 seed implications for next month's NCAA tournament were there, as well.
But with the anticipated matchup between the Jayhawks and Longhorns looming Monday night at the Erwin Center, only No. 1 Kansas has held up its end of the bargain. Texas, the consensus No. 1 team in the country just a few weeks ago, limps into this matchup having lost four of its last six games and seeming just a shell of the team it was just a month ago.
The Longhorns are coming off a disappointing wire-to-wire 80-71 loss at Oklahoma on Saturday that left them searching for answers with their biggest game of the year coming up in 48 hours.
"I don't know, man. I wish I could tell you," UT star senior forward Damion James said when asked what the team was missing following Saturday's loss. "We have to come together as a team and figure this thing out."
Texas, a team that is fusing an experienced frontcourt with a group of inexperienced backcourt players, has struggled in pretty much every facet these past six games. The offense has been bogged down by indecisiveness, while defensively players like freshman guard Avery Bradley and junior point guard Dogus Balbay have not come up with key stops when necessary.
The greatest Achilles' heel for UT, however, has been poor free throw shooting. Texas was 10 of 27 from the foul line during Saturday's loss, which included 4 of 11 in the critical second half in which the Horns pulled close but lost the momentum with poor free throw shooting down the stretch. UT coach Rick Barnes has tried to down play Texas' free throw shooting in the past, which at 61 percent is last in the Big 12 and ranks 326th out of 334 Division I teams, but Saturday the coach made his disappointment known.
"I have to truly believe that there's a junior high school team that could do better than that," said Barnes, whose team has combined to convert 47 of 96 from the free throw line in its four losses this season. "You know what, I'm not so sure that there are not some other teams in a lower level than that.
"Is it frustrating? It's frustrating because it has been the same in every game this year that we have lost."
But Kansas coach Bill Self cautions that reading too much into the Longhorns latest problems could be costly to his team. He knows from experience in 2008 when his team was in a funk during league play but ended up winning the Final Four that season in San Antonio.
"Whenever you are ranked as high as Texas has been ranked and you lose four out of six, people can start reading into things way too much," Self said during Monday morning's Big 12 Conference Call. "We won a national championship and lost three out of five in the league a couple years ago. These things do happen.
"But when they are hitting on all cylinders, obviously their pressure defense is very good, they are scoring off their defense and they are getting extra possessions on the glass and obviously knocking down shots. So much of it in our game is made of if you play well or don't play well whether the ball goes into the hole or not."
The Jayhawks, meanwhile, have consistently been good enough to win even when they're not playing well, evident during Saturday's 75-64 win over Nebraska and their 72-66 overtime win at Colorado Feb. 3.
Most, including Barnes, believe Kansas at 22-1 and 8-0 in the Big 12, has all but locked up the regular-season conference title with eight games still to play. Kansas State, which lost to Kansas in overtime at home a little over a week ago, is the next closest with a 6-3 league mark.
"It's pretty much impossible," said Barnes, whose team is sitting in fourth place in the conference standings at 19-4, 5-3. "I don't see them dropping three games. I don't. So it will be very hard.
"They will have to do it. They are going to have to give it back because of where they are and what they've done. They are extremely difficult to play at home, they are a good road team because they have experience, they are an excellent offensive team, they defend, they are solid. So it's going to be extremely tough for anybody to catch them."
The biggest difference between Kansas' successes and the Longhorns failures has been experience. The Jayhawks brought back pretty much their entire team and all the scoring from a season ago with senior guard Sherron Collins, sophomore forward Marcus Morris and junior center Cole Aldrich leading the way. Their experience has allowed highly touted freshman guard Xavier Henry to ease into his role without the same pressure at Bradley along with J'Covan Brown and Jordan Hamilton.
Barnes, whose team went from No. 9 to No. 14 in this week's AP Top 25, doesn't agree his team just isn't very good. He believes they just need to figure some things out.
"We are a good team. We are 19-4," he said. "You are not where you are without being that. If you had told me earlier in the year we would be 19-4 knowing that we were going to have to work three young guys into the lineup and knowing they were going to important to us and knowing what we were going to have to go through with those guys, I would probably say we would gladly take it.
"We have such a high ceiling to get better, but some of that is based on some of the younger guys who can score the basketball being able to be better defensive players. That's what will have to happen and they are making strides there."
Winning against the Jayhawks Monday could go a long way in helping with the Longhorns confidence. Suddenly, the Longhorns are angling to knock off the top team the way teams did them for two weeks when they were No. 1.
"Obviously you get the chance to play the No.1 team in the country," Barnes said. "They are No.1 for many reasons and one of them is offensively they have five guys that you have to defend, they have guys who come off the bench you have to defend. They are solid in every area of the game.
"Our guys know. We've been there. We know what a win can do. If you win tonight and you don't continue to grow, it doesn't help you."
But that isn't all what Barnes expects tonight in a game that had so much anticipation just a few weeks ago,
"I think both teams will play extremely hard," Barnes said. "Kansas does what they do. We've got to continue to improve ourselves offensively. That's the thing that has hurt us the last couple weeks is we haven't played together the way we need to offensively and there is no one to blame for that but me.
"I think it is going to be a game that is going to be played extremely hard and at a high level."
