Longhorns' baffling slump shows no signs of ending

AUSTIN, Texas -- How big was this game, Marcus Morris?

"Going into the season, we circled it on our calendars," said the Kansas forward, and he might as well have been speaking for college basketball writers everywhere. It was going to be future top seed Kansas vs. future top seed Texas, a game that would determine the Big 12 title. So we all booked our flights and gathered at the Erwin Center. Then Kansas exploded, Texas folded, and what has happened to these Longhorns?

Cole Aldrich and the Jayhawks don't play all that well, but still make Clint Chapman and the Longhorns look silly. (AP)

"I really don't know," UT guard J'Covan Brown said.

That makes two of us.

The day after the Super Bowl is typically when the nation turns its focus to basketball, so I'm assuming a large audience plopped down in front of large televisions Monday night to watch the current No. 1 (Kansas) play the team that was No. 1 only three weeks ago (Texas). Billed that way, this was huge. But the Jayhawks and Longhorns have been going in different directions for a while, and nothing that happened in this game changed either team's trajectory.

Final score: Kansas 80, Texas 68.

"I would've never thought we could come to Texas and win with our two best players going 5 of 23 [from the field]," Kansas coach Bill Self said, but that's exactly what happened. Sherron Collins (otherwise known as KU's best player) was 3 for 13. Cole Aldrich (otherwise known as KU's second-best player) was 2 for 10.

And yet Kansas still ran Texas off its home court, and don't let the final margin mislead you. Yes, the Longhorns got within eight points late. But they were never winning this game, not after Kansas used a 22-0 run that turned a 14-8 deficit with 14:08 left in the first half into a 30-14 lead with 4:54 remaining.

"It happened so fast," Texas' Damion James said. "They showed why they're the No. 1 team in the country."

And Texas showed why it's not.

Yes, this was that kind of game.

A statement game.

A confirmation game.

A game that tells us something about both teams.

It told us the Jayhawks are exactly what we think they are, i.e., a high-level outfit on its way to another Big 12 title and, perhaps, a second national championship in three seasons. They have a great point guard (even if Collins didn't play that way in this game), a great center (even if Aldrich didn't play that way in this game), and a couple of other future pros in Marcus Morris and Xavier Henry.

The term "loaded" does not begin to describe it, and it'll be a surprise if Self's team spends the first weekend in April anywhere other than Indianapolis.

And then there's Texas.

It's one thing to have your season change drastically when Colt McCoy takes a shoulder-injuring hit, but there is no such excuse for this UT basketball team. The Longhorns have simply fallen apart. They've gone from 17-0 to 19-5, and a stunning note is that Texas has trailed at halftime in each of its past eight Big 12 games.

The only Big 12 team UT has led at the half all season?

Colorado.

Back on Jan. 9.

And that's the strongest bit of evidence this isn't just a little slump or small string of bad performances. There have long been signs of problems. Even the four most recent league victories (against Iowa State, Texas A&M, Texas Tech and Oklahoma State) have been difficult to record, and is it possible to get it straight when four of the final seven games are at Missouri, Texas Tech, Texas A&M and Baylor?

For what it's worth, Rick Barnes thinks so.

But ...

"It's not going to happen until we understand assist-to-turnover ratio," Barnes said. "We keep giving the ball away."

Which is true, of course.

Texas did turn the ball over 17 times.

Kansas did get 27 points off those turnovers.

But the Longhorns have deeper issues than assist-to-turnover ratio. It's not just that they keep giving the ball away, it's that they don't seem to know who should get the ball or where, and the roles still aren't defined.

For instance, Brown spent much of his postgame press conference explaining how he "stepped up," but all he really did was score a lot of points for a losing team. He didn't consistently run the offense in a way that inspired confidence, didn't consistently make people better. He took 19 shots, made nine and finished with 28 points and two assists.

Number of Texas points in transition: Two.

Number of Texas points off turnovers: Five.

Number of Texas losses in the past seven games: Five.

"It's my responsibility," Barnes said. "We're going to fix it."

Maybe that's true.

There's obviously still time.

But it's clear, at this point, that Texas has lots of things that need fixing.