Here comes Texas

The Texas Longhorns basketball team is picking up where it left off last season, without Kevin Durant.

Texas has started the 2007-2008 season strong and fast, rattling off 5 impressive wins thus far, with the most impressive win coming against the 7th ranked Tennessee Volunteers Saturday night, 97-78.

Their first win was against lowly Texas-San Antonio, but after that they've shown they're indeed a force to be reckoned with again in the Big XII. They then beat UC-Davis 73-42 with Jr. guard A.J. Abrams shooting 9-15 from the field and finishing with 21 points. Abrams decided to put on another show, putting up 30 on Arkansas-Monticello while going 8-12 from three point land. Then after going up against a decent New Mexico St. team, Abrams put down 31 and went 9-12 from behind the arc, while sophomore sensation D.J. Augustin piled up 25 of his own.

Yes, you can say those teams weren't very formidable opponents, but Texas shot over 54% in 3 of those games and their defense clamped down on these opponents all night long. But yes, it was still Texas-SA, Arkansas-Monticello, and UC-Davis.

Then came the Vol thrashing...

Four starters put up at least 21 points against Tennessee and this time it was Augustin who was on fire from behind the arc, going 4-8 and finishing with 23 points. Abrams went 3-8 from 3 point land and ended up with 21 of his own. And it's not these two doing all the work, Connor Atchley put up 22 and Justin Mason had 21 while the Longhorns cruised 97-78 over the Vols.

I was impressed, very impressed as they shot 64% from the field while holding Chris Lofton and Co. to 39% shooting.

They have another chance to show they're the real deal when they travel to play UCLA on December 2nd.

I was one of those who questioned in the pre-season whether Texas would be able to hang with the big boys without Kevin Durant, and they showed it after their win over Tennessee. They shouldn't slow down and will be there in not only the Big XII race, but the national race as well, till the end.