Take a minute and enjoy that photo. It is not something you’ve seen often as a Texas fan, so celebrate the moment because we don’t know if/when it will happen again.

Texas has now doubled their total wins in Lawrence. That is the second-ever win in the Phog, and the margin was large enough that there will be no “if the crowd was there” asterisk attached. Texas dunked the Jayhawks into the lower mantle; the corpse of the fictional bird is a mile beneath the lowest-known point on the planet, internet reviews of Wonder Woman 1984. Shaka Smart and Rick Barnes are the only two Texas coaches to win on the road against Kansas, and this loss was the worst home loss of Bill Self’s Kansas tenure. All of these things I’ve typed are real things and not a hallucinatory after-effect of NYE shenanigans. I think.

Sims picked a great time to have his best game of the season; a not-insignificant part of Texas being able to build a lead - and snuff out comeback attempts - was because of the work done on the glass to limit Kansas to one-shot possessions. Texas pulled down 72% of their defensive rebounding opportunities thanks to the work of Sims and his friends, holding Kansas well under their season average of snagging over 35% of their offensive rebounding opportunities. Sims was assertive on both ends of the floor and the guards fed him in positions where he could thrive. That grown-man dunk over two Kansas Jayhawks in traffic was a play that doesn’t happen to Kansas much.

When was the last time Kansas was outgunned in the bigs department? It has to be Udoka’s freshman year when he didn’t play much; David McCormack was always going to be a step down from Azubuike, but it’s more like a canyon at the moment.

The only reason the final margin was 25 instead of 35 is because of Texas turnovers, and the unforced turnovers are going to bite Texas at least a couple of times this season. 16 turnovers were nearly 22% of the possessions, and in a game where Texas shoots more like their season average from three that’s going to whittle down the margin for error. I really hope they can clean those up, the ‘non-steal turnover’ metric for Texas - which is basically cataloging unforced errors - is by far their worst offensive mark on Pomeroy.

Coleman wasn’t as splashy as some of the other guards (hello, Courtney Ramey) but he also wasn’t as prone to error as some of the other guards (hello again, Courtney Ramey). 13 points, 4-4 from the line (he’s now at nearly 90%), 6 rebounds, and a 6:1 ATO is the line of an upper-tier point guard playing entirely under control. He’s so damn good this year.

I have an extremely informal/unscientific metric for how to distinguish the best teams, they never leave their point guard hanging out under the rim, waiting to inbound a ball after the opponent makes a shot. The general idea here is that a lead point guard should almost never have to unexpectedly inbound the ball and/or stare at an empty baseline because his teammates forgot their role. It’s a small thing, a detail, but it’s one of those things the best teams rarely forget to do. Texas guards in some years have either had to wait for a big to jog his ass back from half-court because he thought somebody else would do it..or didn’t think about it at all; this year it almost never happens. I say this for absolutely no reason as I watch Cade Cunningham stare at all his teammates like they’re aliens because he can’t see any of their faces as they jet down to the other end of the court, leaving him to pass the ball to a random teammate before they give it back to him because HE’S CADE CUNNINGHAM and they are not CADE CUNNINGHAM.

I didn’t expect a win today. I hoped for a win, but considering the house of horrors the Phog has been for basically all of my life I wasn’t counting on it. Even if I thought they might win, I still didn’t expect this against them. Texas now takes the spot as the primary alternative to Baylor as the Big 12 title contender - though there’s still a gap between the teams - as they just won what is in any year at least the second-toughest win to earn. If Texas and Baylor don’t get the Waco game rescheduled, the toughest win has already been stashed in the bank. The gap between Texas and the rest of the non-Baylor Big 12 is starting to grow, as Kansas, West Virginia, & Texas Tech have all fallen out of the KenPom top ten with two of them potentially falling even further if OU & OSU manage to hold onto the slim leads they have as I type this.

That was as close as Texas has come to an A+ game this season and gives you a glimpse of what their apex form can be. The thing that kept them from being A+ has been addressed above and is probably picking nits given how everything else went, but if Texas can rein in the giveaways they’re going to be a tough team for anyone to beat. Yes, I said anyone.

Coming into the season, I was told Texas expected a transfer or two. It makes sense, a roster that goes 13-deep with top-100 talents is going to have a guy or two who isn’t happy with their minutes. Will Baker (now headed to Nevada to reunite with the guy who recruited him at UCLA) was the first and Liddell has followed suit. He saw the rotation and figured out his chances to play a lot of minutes were more likely somewhere else. I don’t know where he’s headed, but I wish him well.

What you saw today is probably a 95% representation of how things unfold going forward, with 8-10 minutes pulled from a handful of guys to make room for Royce Hamm when he returns from COVID protocol. I suspect Donovan ‘Stretch’ Williams getting more run as he gets back into playing shape played a role in Liddell’s decision, and it’s probably going to be a feature of the rotation going forward. It is honestly refreshing to see Shaka Smart and his staff have such a coherent rotation/substitution pattern; some previous seasons it felt more like they were throwing darts than following a well-defined thought process, but this year has been very consistent. Texas played 8 guys, and it would’ve been 9 if Hamm was available. It makes me more hopeful that if Febres gets all the way back, they’ll understand how to bring him into the fold without screwing other things up.

Texas beat the hell out of a top-5 opponent on the road in what may be one of the biggest wins of the last decade of Texas basketball and the Discord chats were all talking about what linebackers coach Steve Sarkisian might bring in. I got an email from Texas about the head coaching hire (from the goddamn university president) before 4 PM and the basketball post-game press release still hasn’t been sent out despite it ending hours earlier. My parents, at least one of whom subscribes to this newsletter and both of whom are aware of my sports priorities both texted me separately this afternoon…to talk about Tom Herman. I can’t wait to hear their thoughts on the new LB coach. I bet he’s dreamy.

I know this is how it is and this isn’t really a complaint, just a reminder that there’s a reason Shaka Smart got 6 seasons to turn it around where Tom Herman got punted after 4: Texas fans are football fans first, football recruiting fans second, and basketball fans if time permits.

Tuesday, Jan 5: Iowa State 7 PM CT (LHN)

Saturday, Jan 9: at West Virginia 11 AM or 12 PM CT (one of the ESPNs)

Please remember to check out Pretend We’re Football; we skipped a week due to the Texas A&M-CC game being canceled but we’re recording after the Kansas game. My next recap will come out after the WVU game. Also, I have a Patreon if you want to tip me for making fun of my parents.

Writing tunes provided by Random Movement.