AUSTIN, Texas — The Texas Men's Basketball team will play on in the 2024 NCAA Tournament.
The Longhorns advanced to the second round after a 56-44 win over Colorado State Thursday night. Max Abmas and Dylan Disu led the team in scoring with 12 points each.
Early on, the story of Thursday's game was undoubtedly the Longhorns' defense, which held the Rams in check from the opening tip. The Longhorn defense was so suffocating that it held Colorado State to 11 points in the opening half, holding them to only an 18.3% conversion rate on their shots in the first half and just under 30% for the entire game.
However, the Rams found their offense and battled back in the second half, cutting the Longhorns lead all the way down to as few as five points with around six minutes left.
But the veteran prowess of the Longhorns took over late, with Abmas and Disu converting on a number of critical shots to vault the Longhorns into the Round of 32.
Next up, the Longhorns will face the No. seed 2 Tennessee on Saturday, which means the Longhorns will next face former head coach Rick Barnes, who now leads the Volunteers. Current Longhorns head coach Rodney Terry was one of Barnes' assistants at Texas from 2002 to 2011.
The Longhorns and Volunteers will face off Saturday in Charlotte at 7 p.m. Central Time on CBS.