My first visit to Austin was in the mid-80's and Round Rock was not part of Austin and in the late 90's during my second visit to the Austin area the Pflugerville Springhill Restaurant was in the middle of no where. Circa 2012, Austin starts north of Round Rock and I-35 is on its way to being 6 lanes from Dallas to Austin. Saturday afternoon traffic is similar to I-470 traffic in KC at rush hour, nice to see a city grow not so good to see the congestion worsen.

As you can see Austin is pretty good in basketball as they were crushing the Hoya's.

I arrived in Austin with enough time to drive around the UT campus, which appeared nice but like most campuses in urban areas there isn't enough parking and there are lots of buildings in a small area. Darryl K Royal Stadium dominates the campus with its sheer size while the Erwin Center seemed far enough away that it did not seem as imposing.

The groups of K-State fans I met were all friendly and it was good to see the locals out supporting the Cats. Overall the Texas fans were friendly although not experts on basketball rules, as I was to find out during the game. My prediction to the 2 gents sitting next to me prior to the game was that K-State would lose by 5 to 10 points.

Texas fans stand until the Longhorns score their first bucket after which the noise level went down considerably until the second half. As you can tell from the pictures I had seats (without leg room) at the baseline level behind the Texas bench. The Erwin Center was about half full, the top deck could have moved down into the empty seats in the lower bowl with maybe the first rows of the upper deck required to seat everyone.

And part of the halftime entertainment was mascot basketball, it was as bad as it sounds. The only way it could be good is if Panjandrum is the announcer.

At the half the Texas fans were concerned about the game and I mentioned several times that K-State had a tendency to lose leads that they had built up. Needless to say the first 5 minutes of the second half were not pretty to watch in the least and it did not improve.

I was not shocked but I had one of those fans behind me that everyone dreads, if the call wasn't for UT it was a bad call. And he was not familiar with the rules. I don't mind if you are loud and want to yell at the officials but at least know the rules before opening your mouth. Needless to say when I found out after the game about the foul difference, the gent was even more foolish than my original opinion. I spent a lot of time laughing at the gent as the Cats disintegrated in the second half since the calls were going for UT but he thought the refs should be wearing purple.

As you can tell from the post game picture of coach, there were not happy Cats in Austin after this game.

Observations from Austin on the game:

Cats looked good in the first half, were out hustling Texas. In the second half, Texas began to out hustle the Cats; this was noticeable with certain plays where the Cats were a half step behind the Texas player.

There were 3 fouls on the Cats that I noticed which were a result of a bad play (turnover?) then the player compounded the original mistake by committing the foul.

I don't think Thomas Gipson notices when he fouls someone.

K-State bigs if you have your arms anywhere other than vertical, you are going to be called for a foul. If you don't have your arms fully extended then you can get away with swiping at the ball but if you arms are fully extended at an almost horizontal level, it will result in a foul being called on you.

I think all the players on the team want to win, but as I've mentioned previously K-State does not have a player that will take charge of the game and the team. It doesn't have to be a high scoring player as Luis Colon demonstrated. This was very noticeable when Texas made their run in the second half. There was a visible difference in the K-State body language when Texas made several buckets to start the second half. And at that point K-State needs a player (or 2) to step up and say we are going to win regardless.

Chapman for Texas sets a moving screen every time, and is not called for it.

Rodrick Dixon when he would make a call did not focus on anything other than getting the call to the scorer's table. One of the other refs, Mike Stuart or David Hall, on several calls made them very exaggerated. Needless to say, one ref seemed better than the other.

Texas tended to grab players both on offense and defense. Not sure how or why the UT coaching staff is not correcting that, it doesn't really give that much of an advantage and will typically be called. The grabbing ranged from hooking with an arm to hand grabs.

In the second half, Rodney was blanketed. Texas played very tight defense on him from what I could see at the opposite end.

Texas does a good job with managing the crowd during games and uses the band extensively to maintain momentum. The cattle charging around the display between the upper and lower decks, that was interesting (hint: I didn't like it).

Observations from after the game

The Texas drivers who insist on driving in the left lane despite driving at or below the speed limit makes driving on I-35 very unpleasant. DFW traffic is polite and easy to drive in, I-35 not so much. Even with "Left lane is for passing" signs, passing on the right was required more than you would think.

Chuy's creamy jalapeno sauce was most excellent. The special was decent and something I would order again.

At this point I want to look at the play by play of the game to see how many fouls were called on K-State, as it did not seem like that many while I was at the game but the numbers indicate differently. I do not recall a game with that big of disparity in free throws attempted.