Bohls: Texas smothers Cyclones, joins Kansas in a Big 12 dead heat for supremacy

Three games left.

Texas has three, and Kansas has three.

And one of them might have to sweep all three to be anointed Big 12 basketball champions.

That’s how small the margin of error between these two Big 12 frontrunners knotted with identical 11-4 records in league play is when it comes to determining the best team in the nation’s best conference.

Judging by No. 8 Texas’ 72-54 total domination of No. 23 Iowa State at Moody Center on Tuesday night, that team could well be the Longhorns, who are all but a sure thing to win at home, improving to 15-1 in their new crib.

Unfortunately, they’ve only got a single game remaining at Moody preceded by a pair of tough road games against Baylor and TCU, starting with the Bears and their dynamic backcourt in Waco on Saturday.

The Jayhawks, meanwhile, host West Virginia and Texas Tech in their next two contests at Allen Fieldhouse where they are 13-1.

Texas’ last three opponents are a collective 27-18. Kansas’s final three have gone 19-24.

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Then comes the titanic tilt at Moody between the Horns and Rock Chalkers on March 4 to close out the regular season. And Texas hasn’t dropped a game here since the moon and the stars aligned and Kansas State racked up 116 points that one evening. Even then the Horns managed a more-than-respectable 103.

“The last I checked, they won a national championship,” Texas coach Rodney Terry said deferentially of the Jayhawks.

Yeah, they’re pretty good, but that’s so yesterday, and Kansas is missing a lot of pieces from that net-cutting team. Still, the Jayhawks are projected as a 1 seed. Texas, on the other hand, is listed as a dangerous 2 seed but is much, much, much better than a year ago.

Texas' scoring, depth sets it apart from the rest

If it’s Texas that raises a Big 12 regular-season championship banner for the first time since 2008, it’ll likely be its diverse offense that sets it apart. Its defense can be good, just not claustrophobic-good.

“We’re playing with better pace,” said UT forward Brock Cunningham, part of a bench brigade that outscored Iowa State 34-13. “There’s something to be said for chemistry. You see how we mesh better. Also we’re deep, coming off the bench. We’ve got nine guys who can play high-level basketball. That’s why our offense is a lot better this year.”

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The Longhorns don’t live and die with long-range bombs, but they’re good enough to hit seven a game. That may not get them in the rarefied air of an Alabama (10.5 a game) or a Baylor (9.4), but Texas is more than capable of lighting it up from distance and blitzed Iowa State with a dozen triples, three apiece from Marcus Carr, Tyrese Hunter and Jabari Rice.

Arterio Morris, a freshman wild card in the upcoming postseason, also nailed a couple and Cunningham sank one as a much more polished bomber.

“We have a variety of ways we can score,” Terry said. “We can play through the posts or through our guards. We can score in transition. A lot of our offense comes off our defense.”

The Longhorns average a hair under 80 points a game to lead the league and are No. 25 nationally in scoring while Kansas is No. 64. Neither team relies heavily on its inside game although Terry said, “When we get paint touches and get uncontested shots, that’s when we’re at our best.”

Spreading it around is the key for Texas

The Jayhawks absolutely mauled the Longhorns in the paint with 50 points in close at the Phog, some 36 of them off easy layups. Terry might just bring that up between now and the finale.

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Better yet, Texas has lots of choices to find scoring. With its starters and with its reserves, which is why it is rated No. 12 nationally in offensive efficiency compared to No. 32 at the other end of the court.

“On any given night, we can play through any different guy,” Terry said. “We can play through our guards. We can play through Timmy Allen. We can score in transition. It’s critical for us to have good ball movement and player movement.”

Every single Longhorn who saw action scored Tuesday. Hunter, whose numbers have been down since winning freshman of the year honors at Iowa State last season, and Morris were both hitting outside jumpers Tuesday. That’s an excellent omen since both largely do their work at the rim on drives and cuts.

So who is the best team in the Big 12?

“That’s hard to say,” said second-year Iowa State coach T.J. Otzelberger, whose club split their series with both the Longhorns and Jayhawks. “These guys are really good. Kansas is good as well, and Baylor’s right there. But Texas is playing great basketball, so a lot of respect for what they did here.

“I don’t know who the best team is, but there’s a lot of really good ones. And Texas is very good.”

That comes as no secret to the Longhorn fan base, which has provided its favorite team an extra jolt of energy every night to fuel Texas.

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In the Big 12, turnabout is fair play

ln this rematch with Iowa State, which easily handled the Horns in Ames earlier this season, Texas looked like the best team in the Big 12, which is saying a lot because the league is expected to send at least eight teams into the 68-team field of the NCAA Tournament.

And the two teams not projected for the postseason?

Texas Tech may be 4-10, but beat three top-15 teams recently, including Texas. Oklahoma sits in the cellar at 3-11 but gave Texas all it wanted last Saturday and has the win of the year in college basketball with a 24-point drilling of No. 1 Alabama in late January.

Just three days after playing flat but holding on to beat Oklahoma, the Longhorns flat-out played one of their best first halves of the season, shooting a blazing 55% and leading 47-29 in a runaway. This offensive showcase was right up there with the West Virginia and Gonzaga games.

In those first 20 minutes, they went on an impressive 16-0 run to separate themselves from Iowa State, an elite defense that's seventh-best in the nation according to kenpom.com. And that’s a good point of reference since the Cyclones not only whipped Kansas by 15 in Ames but held Bill Self’s team to 53 points. Texas almost had that by intermission.

But who’s the best in the league? Stay tuned.

This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: Who's the Big 12's best team? After impressive win, Texas makes a case