By the final whistle, United Supermarkets Arena was nearly empty.
After students spent days camping out in anticipation of the Texas Longhorns traveling to Lubbock to face the Texas Tech Red Raiders for the final time as Big 12 opponents, the Longhorns put the game away early by taking a 25-point halftime lead and cruised to the finish in the 81-69 win, robbing opposing fans of the opportunity to storm the court 18 months after Texas football players were assaulted on the Jones AT&T Stadium field following a Texas Tech win.
Red Raiders fans set an ugly but predictable tone early in the game when Longhorns senior guard Max Abmas needed medical attention after being elbowed in the forehead by an Texas Tech player, chanting, “He’s a pussy” while Abmas was down bleeding on the court.
“It’s not fun to hear those words sometimes,” said Texas senior forward Dylan Disu. “Obviously, Max probably didn’t love to hear it when he was bleeding, but when you hear the crowd saying things like that and the energy that they have, that means you’re doing something right and I think that being at Texas we’ve learned to embrace that.”
The game turned even more ugly in the second half in the wake of a physical foul by Texas senior forward Brock Cunningham on Texas Tech guard Darron Williams going after a loose ball when fans began throwing objects onto the court, including targeting the Longhorns bench. Cunningham was assessed a flagrant two foul and ejected as the Red Raiders fans were given an administrative technical.
“We wanted to pride ourselves tonight on winning the 50-50 ball. In terms of any loose ball, any opportunity, we were going to try to be on the floor first to the loose ball,” said Texas head coach Rodney Terry.
Texas Tech head coach Grant McCasland was forced to address the crowd directly as security ejected some of the worst offenders.
“Everybody listen. Hey, right here. Everybody listen,” said McCasland over the public address system. “Everything that gets thrown on the floor, we’re going to get a technical foul. Listen to me. It’s gotta stop. It’s gotta stop. Nothing else on the floor. Am I clear?”
Terry was worried enough about protecting his team that he considered taking them into the locker room until some semblance of order was restored.
The poor fan behavior obscured one of the best performances of the season by Texas to break a three-game losing streak in Lubbock and send Texas Tech to its first home loss under McCasland.
Terry credited the response to Saturday’s blowout loss to Kansas at Allen Fieldhouse.
