Sportsfrog.com

Can’t say that I’m terribly surprised that the Horns lost both games this week. And no, I don’t think the “pressure of being #1″ had anything to do with it.

Yes, Texas is led by Damion James and Dexter Pittman, both seniors. But outside of those two, a lot of freshmen see significant playing time and it just so happened that two of Texas’s most significant road games came this week. (However, there still is no excuse for blowing an eight point halftime lead to that epic of proportions)

The Longhorns are still a top 10 team, and maybe a fringe top five team. They just were #1 at the wrong time. Or the right time if you’re a Kentucky fan.

–One of those teams that beat Texas this week absolutely laid an egg yesterday at home. Kansas State started out hot, blitzing Oklahoma State 10-2 in the early going. The Cowboys then gained their composure, and after I flipped back from the Texas-UConn game, K-State was only up 19-18. Jamar Samuels may be the best sixth man in the Big XII, but he was hampered by foul trouble and was essentially a nonfactor.

More troubling for Kansas State is the lack of production that they’ve gotten from the guard spot over the last two games. Denis Clemente did score 19 points yesterday, but fouled out and only had two assists. Against Texas, Clemente only had five points–but did have eight assists–and was 1-7 from the free throw line.

His backcourt mate Jacob Pullen has been even worse. In each game Pullen has shot 2-15 from the field and has committed a combined nine turnovers. When Kansas State is clicking, they are one of the best teams in the country. However, their big men aren’t good enough to pick up the slack when their guard play isn’t very good, and they only beat Texas because of how badly the Longhorns played.

–Both Ohio State and Minnesota have to be kicking themselves after blowing halftime leads to lose to West Virginia and Michigan State, respectively. Ohio State was the college basketball media’s Twitter darling during the first half, but collapsed in the second at WVU. Can someone explain the final 40 seconds of that basketball game to me? West Virginia had the ball up four, and OSU refused to foul, instead somehow believing that they could overcome a four point deficit with less than 20 seconds left. How is that preferable to a worst case scenario of a six point deficit with 40 seconds remaining?

–A quick check of Ken Pomeroy’s rankings shows that in terms of strength at the top of conferences, the race for the mythical “best conference in the country” is a dead heat between the Big XII and the Big East. Both conferences have five teams in Pomeroy’s top 20, but the Big East has some more depth, with three teams in the 30s, while the Big XII’s next team is #47 Texas A&M.