No. 5 Texas' bench delivers again as Longhorns men's basketball team routs West Virginia

The culmination of Texas’ dominant performance against West Virginia on Saturday seemed to come early in the 94-60 win at Moody Center.

With five seconds left in the first half, Arterio Morris stripped the ball from Mountaineers guard Joe Toussaint. Marcus Carr snagged the loose ball and quickly tossed it ahead to Jabari Rice, who was streaking toward the basket. Rice slammed the bucket home to give the Longhorns a 51-30 halftime lead.

The dunk provided a fitting exclamation point to arguably the Longhorns’ best half of the season. They pestered West Virginia into 20 turnovers, took care of the ball after a two-game stretch of sloppy play, and had another strong effort from bench players such as Rice and Morris to stay alone atop the Big 12 standings.

Interim head coach Rodney Terry credited the team’s reserves for sparking the resounding win and putting Texas (20-5, 9-3 Big 12) a game closer to its first undisputed regular-season Big 12 title since 1999.

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“I’ve said all along that I think our best basketball is still ahead of us,” Terry said. “We have great chemistry with this group. Everybody understands what they have to bring to the table, and they understand that their minutes on the floor are very valuable. The guys that come off the bench, they’ve really bought into their roles and have really bought into what we ask them to do.“

Reserves spark early rally

The bench had plenty of buckets for breakfast in the first morning game of the season at Moody. Rice ended the game with a season-high 24 points. Christian Bishop added six first-half points and snagged five rebounds.

But the impact of the deep Texas bench goes beyond the box score. Brock Cunningham did all the little things down low while frustrating the Mountaineers’ big men, including former Longhorn Tre Mitchell, who had just four points. Morris, a heralded freshman point guard from Dallas Kimball, had his best conference game yet with 12 points and stellar on-ball defense in 20 minutes.

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Overall, Texas' reserves accounted for 47 points, the 10th straight game that the Longhorns have gotten at least 20 points from the bench.

“You got to be able to step up when your name is called,” Rice said. “Obviously, everybody’s not going to have a good start to every single game they’re out there. You have to be able to support those guys, then come in and do your job.”

Rice, Bishop and Cunningham certainly did theirs when they entered with West Virginia up 12-8 nearly six minutes into the game. Texas reeled off a 20-5 run after they checked in, and the Mountaineers (15-10, 4-8) never recovered.

Overall, Texas made 10 of 17 3-point shots while shooting 47% from the floor. The Longhorns were even better from the foul line, where they converted 24 of 25 shots.

“It was getting popping,” said forward Timmy Allen, who had 14 points and nine rebounds. “Everyone was moving the ball; everyone was making shots. We like to find the hot hand.”

Texas' win looked like a total team effort to Huggins

West Virginia coach Bob Huggins, who has spent more than four decades in the lead spot on the bench, said his team couldn’t match the Longhorns’ intensity.

“We turned the ball over, and they made shots,” Huggins said. “I just don’t think we were prepared for the physicality. We hadn’t seen that all year.”

The accolades amassed quickly for the entire Longhorns’ team. Allen topped the 2,000-career point mark with a fadeaway jumper midway through the first half. The team tied a school record for most free throws in a single half without a miss by making all 16 shots from the charity stripe in the first half. Going back to Monday’s 88-80 loss at Kansas, Texas made 30 consecutive free throws before Dylan Disu missed the Horns’ final foul shot of Saturday's game. That streak of made free throws broke the previous school record of 26 set during the 1972-73 season.

Best of all for a coaching staff frustrated by 32 combined turnovers in the two-game trip to Kansas last week, the Longhorns gave the ball away just six times.

“One thing we really addressed was taking care of the ball," Terry said. "We were keeping the game simple, just making simple plays, hitting the open guy."

What’s next for Texas?

The Longhorns will travel to Lubbock on Monday for a matchup with struggling Texas Tech, and they should waltz into a very different atmosphere than they experienced a season ago.

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Former Texas coach Chris Beard, who left Texas Tech to take over the Longhorns’ program in 2021, drew enough vitriol from the Texas Tech fans to fill a South Plains stock tank. Beard was fired in January by Texas after being arrested on a felony domestic violence charge, and his absence will probably mean less volume in United Supermarkets Arena.

A disappointing season for the Red Raiders won’t help, either; Texas Tech (12-12, 1-10 Big 12) sat alone in the conference cellar entering Saturday evening’s game against Kansas State and will suffer its first losing season in the Big 12 since the 2016-17 season.

This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: Texas men's basketball team routs West Virginia, remains atop Big 12