Oklahoma City ? Almost every time Texas has played a basketball game this season, much of the postgame talk has centered on the brilliance of freshman Kevin Durant.
He had another huge game in an 88-84 overtime loss to Kansas University in the title game of the Big 12 conference tournament, but afterward he wasn’t at the center of the postgame conversation. That talk took a back seat to how difficult points were to come by for the Longhorns.
“They’re a good defensive team,” Texas sophomore A.J. Abrams said. “They kind of cracked down when it came to clutch time, so we’ve got to give them credit. They made plays in overtime.”
Durant matched a career high, scoring 37 points for the fourth time this season to go with 10 rebounds, six blocked shots and two steals.
“They did a great job of pushing me out of the lane, and they played great help defense,” Durant said. “I credit them. I just was missing shots, and they did a great job.”
After the first half, Durant made just four of 16 shots. He was scoreless in the overtime period.
Texas was given a No. 4 seed in the East region and will face New Mexico State in Spokane, Wash., in the first round of the NCAA Tournament and the winner of Southern Cal-Arkansas in the second round if it advances.
“I think we’re a tough team,” Longhorns coach Rick Barnes said. “I think we’re a confident team. I think for a group of guys who started from ground zero and to be where we are right now, I’m proud of the way they’ve grown throughout the season. I’m proud of the way they’ve gone into different situations and competed every night. Regular season, postseason, we came up a few plays short here, but nonetheless, I’m happy for these guys because they’ve continued to get better.”
Texas trailed by three points when Barnes called a 30-second timeout with 21 seconds remaining in overtime. Freshman point guard D.J. Augustin came out of that timeout and with 14 seconds left put up a driving shot that Darnell Jackson grabbed out of the air with his right hand.
Barnes explained the decision not to go for a game-tying three-point shot.
“He had a couple of different options,” Barnes said of Augustin. “He could go for two or do a dribble handoff. We knew they would defend the three-point line very well. They obviously defended the basket well, too. It worked out for them. It didn’t for us. Again, we will put it in his hands and let him make the play. We felt like he could get by, and we wanted him to, and he had some other ways he could go with it.”
The loss, the selection committee revealed on TV, cost Texas one place in its seed.