No. 16 Oklahoma runs No. 10 Texas off its own home floor

AUSTIN – The mirror was waiting. Whether he liked it or not, Demarcus Holland knew he and the rest of the 10th-ranked Texas Longhorns would have to look into it after No. 16 Oklahoma ran them off of their home floor on Monday.

When they did, the reflection was as ugly as the 70-49 outcome at the Erwin Center.

"We can't stay that same team," Holland said after OU tied its largest margin of victory ever in Austin. "We don't even know who that team is."

To UT coach Rick Barnes, though, it's looked all too familiar in recent weeks. After the Longhorns missed 20 of their first 23 shots, shot 30 percent for the game and allowed themselves to be pushed around by the Sooners inside, Barnes questioned whether his team has been "a bunch of phony tough guys" since pushing No. 1 Kentucky in a loss a month ago.

"I don't think we showed any kind of toughness at all," Barnes said. "We didn't show any kind of fight."

Said UT forward Jonathan Holmes: "That was embarrassing. They came in here and took us out of everything. They played harder than us, showed more pride than us. They took us out of every part of the game."

Before Monday, the Longhorns' worst offensive performance of the season came at No. 1 Kentucky, where they shot 29.8 percent with 22 turnovers. But at least that 63-51 loss was competitive.

On Monday, UT (12-3, 1-1 in the Big 12) failed to put up much of a fight anywhere on the court – not even in the areas where it was supposed to own a distinct advantage. The Longhorns' vaunted front line allowed the Sooners free access to the rim, leading to OU's 34-16 edge in points in the paint.

That uninspired defensive effort, combined with an atrocious shooting performance, led to a Red River Rivalry blowout that turned disastrous even more quickly than some of the early-millennium football thrashings at the Cotton Bowl. And like Bob Stoops' best teams, the Sooners kept pouring it on.

"We had to keep our foot on the pedal," said OU forward TaShawn Thomas, who had 12 points and 11 rebounds. "I thought we did a good job of that."

Said Barnes: "The more we dug that hole, the less we showed fight."

Buddy Hield led the Sooners (11-3, 2-0) with 13 points, and four of his teammates scored at least 10. Javan Felix was UT's only double-digit scorer, with 13 points on 4-of-12 shooting.

For the Longhorns, it continued a rough recent stretch in which they lost a home game to Stanford and slogged through ugly victories over Long Beach State, Rice and Texas Tech.

"We've got to figure out who we are," Holland said. "We have to get back to the basics, being a blue-collar team."

Barnes said his players "splintered" on Monday, with everyone on the team trying to save the Longhorns by themselves. He said that can't continue.

"Pride gets into it, too," Barnes said. "At some point, you have to decide, 'We're not going to take this.'"