Texas basketball vs South Carolina: NCAA hopes for UT take big hit with lopsided road loss

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The bad news for Texas basketball after a disheartening 84-69 loss at last-place South Carolina Saturday?

The Longhorns (16-11, 5-9 SEC) must face two fellow NCAA Tournament bubble teams in similar desperate straits when traveling to Arkansas Wednesday and hosting Georgia Saturday.

The good news? The Longhorns get to make head-to-head statements against those two fellow NCAA Tournament bubble teams. Win both, and Texas will have an inside track on a fifth consecutive selection to the NCAA Tournament. But if they drop one of those games, the Longhorns will have little room for error in its final two games of the regular season at Mississippi State March 4 and at home against Oklahoma March 8.

More: Texas basketball: How Jayson Kent is helping the Longhorns make an NCAA Tournament push

Texas basketball coach Rodney Terry, speaking to his team in a game against Alabama earlier this season, and the Longhorns dropped a disheartening SEC game to last-place South Carolina Saturday. The Longhorns now face arguably their most important week of the season against fellow NCAA Tournament hopefuls Arkansas and Georgia.

The NET rankings, a key part of the criteria used by the NCAA Tournament selection committee when determining the field of 68 in mid-March, reflects the close battle for a tournament spot between Texas, Arkansas and Georgia. The Longhorns dropped to No. 38 in the rankings, just two spots ahead of Arkansas and three spots ahead of Georgia.

Texas has only itself to blame for its precarious position after South Carolina (11-16, 1-13) cruised to its first SEC win of the season. The Longhorns shot just 29.7% from the floor in the first half while South Carolina built a 40-22 halftime lead, and they couldn’t find any consistent offense aside from star freshman Tre Johnson, who scored a game-high 29 points on 11-of-21 shooting.

But no other Texas player reached double-figures. The Longhorns also had four more turnovers against South Carolina, which entered the game with the most…

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Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/article/texas-basketball-vs-south-carolina-154943029.html

Author : Austin American-Statesman

Publish date : 2025-02-23 15:49:00

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