No. 16 Texas will look to continue to grow as a team when it hosts Texas State on Thursday.
The Longhorns (5-1) remain at home in Austin, Texas, after a dominating 86-63 win over Wyoming on Sunday. Star transfer guard Max Abmas, who began his career at Oral Roberts, poured in a season-high 23 points.
“The players I have around me are really good players, too,” Abmas said. “I’ve had to score a whole lot when I was at Oral Roberts. Here, it doesn’t have to be at the same rate. I have really good players around me. When they get going, that just opens up shots for me.”
Kadin Shedrick added 17 points in the win for Texas, with Tyrese Hunter and Dillon Mitchell hitting for 12 points each and Ithiel Horton scoring 11 off the bench.
The Longhorns bounced back from their only loss of the year to defending champion UConn in New York on Nov. 20 by holding Wyoming to just 39 percent shooting from the floor.
“Good win for us,” Texas coach Rodney Terry said. “We’re trying to continue to get better at this stage of the season right now, and we’ll keep working and moving forward. Our guys played really hard and had a great effort on (the defensive) end of the floor.
“We took the three away, and Wyoming was doing a good job of really getting to the basket. But I thought our guys with the adjustment of switching the ball screens did a great job.”
Texas still is without arguably its best player, forward Dylan Disu, who is working his way back to the team after an offseason foot injury.
“We won’t have our rotation set until we completely get Dylan back in the fold and get him going a little bit and everything,” Terry said. “That is another guy you’ll add to the rotation.”
The Bobcats (3-4) travel to Austin after a 73-66 win at Texas-Arlington on Saturday. Jordan Mason scored a career-high 21 points as Texas State ended a two-game losing streak and rebounded from a last-place finish in the Louisiana Tech MTE Tournament in Ruston, La.
It was Mason’s season debut after missing the first six games due to an injury.
Brandon Love added 15 points, 10 rebounds and four blocked shots while Kaden Gumbs continued his impressive start to the season, scoring 11 points and dishing out a career-high eight assists.
“It was a complete team effort,” Texas State coach Terrence Johnson said after the win. “I feel like we brought culture to the floor. We played with great energy, were focused, competed and were a connected group. The credit goes to the players. They understood the sense of urgency. Those guys wanted to do whatever they needed to do for us to be victorious.”
The Bobcats shot 45.5 percent from the floor (25-55) and committed just eight turnovers, while forcing Texas-Arlington into 15 turnovers.
The Longhorns have never lost to Texas State, beating the Bobcats a dozen times since 2004.
–Field Level Media