Kansas at Texas Preview

Story posted March 3, 2023 in CommRadio, Sports by Sam Kirk

Kansas took home yet another Big 12 regular season title on Tuesday, beating Texas Tech 67-63. Now, head coach Bill Self’s group has yet another challenge before postseason play begins against a familiar rival in the Texas Longhorns.

This matchup could have decided the fate of the Big 12 this season if it wasn’t for Texas’ most recent struggles including a loss to TCU on Wednesday night 75-73. Now, this game will be a big test for Texas to better their seeding heading into the Big 12 conference tournament. 

Texas is coming into this game losing their last two games which were the third in five games for the Longhorns, at a crucial time of the year.

Texas has seemed to rely on Marcus Carr a bit too much recently who went 4-16 from the field in their heartbreaking loss to TCU.

Seniors Sir’Jabari Rice and Timmy Allen need to provide more for this Texas offense if they want to counter a high-powered team like Kansas. It should be a wild game full of emotion on Saturday in Austin. Texas needs to approach this game as a must-win in order to stay in the top four of the Big 12.

As for Kansas, this game won’t affect their seeding during the conference tournament but will be another test to see if this team has what it takes to get through March.

The amount of depth and postseason experience the Jayhawks have made it hard to see them as anything other than a one-seed.

Freshman Jalen Wilson and Gradey Dick have led this team throughout this brutal conference schedule and appear to be much more than first-year players at this point in the year.

Kansas is going to be tough to stop for anyone in the country. The advantage of Texas seeing them in a matchup in February should help them expose some holes in this Jayhawk team.

There is too much on the line for Kansas to risk losing any key starters on Saturday. Expect that to be enough for Texas to get a win at home to try to get them back on track.

This game comes down to it just being more important for the Longhorns. If Texas manages to go down Saturday, expect their path to an NCAA title to get much harder.

Sam Kirk is a third-year Broadcast Journalism major at Penn State to contact Sam email sjk6325@psu.edu.