No. 8 Texas, which slugged No. 3 KU on Saturday, was ‘supposed to win,’ Ramey says
Texas’ veteran basketball players arrived at Allen Fieldhouse on Saturday morning ready to alter the Longhorns’ fortunes in the Jayhawks’ tradition-rich building.
“It was a great experience. We talked about it as a team that we’d never won here,” junior guard Courtney Ramey said of pre-game banter after scoring a team-leading 18 points on 7-of-11 shooting in No. 8-ranked UT’s 84-59 rout of No. 3 KU.
The victory, which snapped Texas’ nine-game losing streak in Lawrence, was the Longhorns’ second win against 16 defeats throughout history in Allen.
“We came close my freshman year (80-78 loss). Last year we let one slip away (69-58 defeat). The biggest thing we learned from those past two years is we had a lead the first half of every game. The biggest thing was keeping our lead,” Ramey added.
The Longhorns (8-1, 2-0), who started two seniors, two juniors and a freshman, led 10-2 early and by eight points at halftime, ultimately handing KU (8-2, 2-1) a 25-point defeat. It tied for KU’s worst home loss in fieldhouse history. Missouri also beat KU by 25 points in January of 1989.
“I think the biggest thing I said when we first got in the locker room (after game) ... I said ‘We were supposed to do that. This shouldn’t be a shock. This shouldn’t be a surprise. We should believe in ourselves. We should believe we are supposed to win games like that,’’’ said Ramey, a 6-foot-3 native of St. Louis.
Ramey entered Saturday’s game 1-4 versus KU. Included were a pair of losses at Allen.
“It was just good to get a win on their homecourt,” Ramey said after helping break KU’s 13-game homecourt win streak and halt KU’s 17-game winning streak in Big 12 regular-season games.
Ramey was asked in a postgame Zoom call with reporters what this victory meant for sixth-year Longhorn coach Shaka Smart, who entered 0-5 versus KU in Allen and 1-10 overall in matchups against the Jayhawks.
“Every win is a big win, no matter who it’s against. Davidson was a big win (78-76, Nov. 30). Sam Houston State was a big win (I79-63, Dec. 16),” Ramey said. “This win was more for Hudy with her being a Kansas Jayhawk 27 years or however long it was,” he added.
Ramey was giving a shout out to former KU basketball strength and conditioning coach Andrea Hudy, who accepted a similar position at Texas last season after working 15 years at KU.
KU defeated Texas, 69-58, in the fieldhouse and 66-57 in Erwin Center in Austin during the 2019-20 season, Hudy’s first at Texas.
Following Saturday’s victory, Smart said he was, “happy for our guys. Our guys put so much energy, time and effort into everything. This has been a challenging stretch for everybody these last several months — having (two) games canceled, guys having things up in the air, having a couple guys not available that are so important to the team. I’m just happy for them.”
Smart said on Friday “one or two guys” would not travel to Lawrence because of COVID-19 protocols. Reserves Royce Hamm and Kamaka Hepa indeed did not make the trip because of undisclosed reasons.
Asked what a win over KU in Lawrence means for his program, Smart said: “I think honestly, what is it, Texas has won one other time here? Is that right?” Smart asked a media member. “Coming in here and winning for the guys on our team and even guys on our staff it’s a feeling of, ‘OK we can go do that.’ The guys did a good job of doing that convincingly. Put a game like this in the pocket and you can learn from it in the future.”
On a lighter note, Smart’s first win in Allen Fieldhouse in six tries came with the coach sporting hair. He preferred to go with a shaved-head look his first five seasons in Austin.
“I told you before, my wife asked me to keep my hair,” Smart said, smiling. “I’ll tell you a funny story. She gives me this little conditioner I’m supposed to put in my hair when I get out of the shower. I got out of the shower today (and noticed) I forgot to bring the conditioner. I honestly had other things on my mind. I called her and said, ‘Sorry I don’t know how that’s going to look, but I’ve got to go to this game.’ She just laughed about it.
“Trust me,” he added, “it’s not about the hair, it’s about when those guards play like they did today and Jericho (Sims), Kai (Jones) and Greg (Brown), those guys are flying around. That’s what makes the team win.”
Texas will play host to Iowa State on Tuesday. KU will travel to TCU for a 9 p.m. game Tuesday at Schollmaier Arena in Fort Worth. TCU is 9-2 overall and 2-1 in league play after Saturday’s 67-60 win at Kansas State.
The Jayhawks have two days of practice to prepare for the Horned Frogs.
““I don’t know if I want to laugh or cry or what,” KU coach Bill Self said after the loss to Texas, one that snapped his squad’s eight-game winning streak that followed a season-opening loss to Gonzaga. “It’s disappointing as it’s the worst performance we’ve probably had at home I would say in our 18 years.”
KU’s previous worst losses at home in the Self era had been 12-point defeats to Baylor (last season) and to Texas Tech in 2018.
“More so than that,” Self said, “we didn’t fight down the stretch and did nothing to make them play poorly and didn’t have the energy to make them play poorly especially when things started to go the other way. That is what good teams do. They stem those tides by shortening momentum runs or extending momentum runs and we didn’t have really any momentum runs and they had several and we didn’t do anything to really slow them down.”
This story was originally published January 3, 2021 at 11:49 AM with the headline "No. 8 Texas, which slugged No. 3 KU on Saturday, was ‘supposed to win,’ Ramey says."
