J’Covan Brown sunk six late free throws to ice the game en route to 14 points, helping guide Texas ( 12-4, 2-1) to a much needed victory in the final scheduled home match-up with Texas A&M (9-6,0-3). However, Brown’s injured ankle visibly continued to hamper his play as he only shot 2-12 from the field, but did sink all 10 of his foul shots, bringing him within 17 points of 1,000 for his career. Brown also made six crucial assists and continues to be a threat to make plays happen, despite his injury.

Freshman guard Julien Lewis led the team with 16 points, including all three of the team’s made three pointers and shot 6-for-10 from the field. Having struggled in his past few games after slamming the door of senior Alexis Wangmene’s car on his left hand, Lewis has seemingly recovered just in time for Texas’ most critical six game stretch of the season.

Texas also got a solid effort from senior center Clint Chapman ( 11 points and seven rebounds) as he recorded his second double-digit scoring effort of his career, which was also happens to be his second in the last three games. However, highly touted freshman Myck Kabongo continued his struggles finishing the game with three points on 0-for-1 shooting from the field and a free throw percentage south of 50% ( 37.5%). Kabongo’s inefficiency at the line and from the field, have made him a liability on the offensive side of the ball. If he is unable to find his rhythm and adjust to the college game, the ‘Horns struggles to score (60 points per game their last two contests) will only get worse.

Texas did force 17 A&M turnovers and was able to convert that into 19 points (nine more than A&M off of 12 Texas turnovers) which helped contribute to victory by the ‘Horns. Texas also dominated A&M in points off the bench 24-4, thanks to Lewis’ strong effort.

Game Grade: B

After a sloppy first half, Texas finally found its groove and was able to pull away from A&M. The ‘Horns continue to get to the line, but more importantly are hitting their free throws (71%). Texas is currently ranked No. 89 nationally in free throw percentage up from 282 (65.4%) last season and 326 (63.3%) the season before. This also marks the highest free throw percentage by Texas since the 2006-2007 (73.6%) season which was dominated by freshmen Kevin Durant at the time. Texas now enters their most difficult three and six game stretch as they go on the road to Missouri and Kansas State, host Kansas and Iowa State, travel to Waco to face Baylor and finally host Missouri. The way the young ‘Horns handle Missouri on the road will be a good indicator as to how they will do during this six game stretch that Texas fans can only hope will end 3-3 or better.

Interestingly enough, some of the weaknesses of this team actually aren’t so weak compared to Missouri’s short-comings. Texas has four guys taller than 6’-6” while Missouri only has two. The biggest difference is that Missouri is a team full of upper classmen who have experienced deep tournament runs and winning big games while Texas is still a team full of freshmen.