3 Immediate Takeaways After Texas Shuts Down Gardner-Webb in Dominant Win

The No. 7 Texas Longhorns are off to a dominant start through the first two games of the 2026-27 season.

Matas Vokietaitis scored a team-high 16 points while grabbing seven rebounds and Texas ran away with a 98-50 win over Gardner-Webb at the Moody Center on Thursday night to move to 2-0 to begin the year.

The competition will only get tougher for the Longhorns, starting with next weekend's matchup with Baylor in San Antonio, but it's hard to not feel pleased with the way Sean Miller's second year has started out.

Texas Knows How to Put on a Dunk Show

Texas Longhorns guard Elyjah Freeman (6) moves to the basket against Gardner-Webb Runnin' Bulldogs during the first half at Moody Center. | IMAGN IMAGES via Reuters Connect

The Longhorns started off the game with some highlight-reel slams and hardly slowed down from there.

In the opening minutes, Elyjah Freeman showed why he's the team's highest flyer with poster dunk off the baseline. He followed this up later on with a windmill slam on a fastbreak.

Marcus Spears Jr. clearly felt left out, and delivered a windmill dunk of his own after poking the ball free. It's hard to think of the last time the Longhorns had two windmill dunks in the same game.

On top of that, David Punch and Matas Vokietaitis had their fair share of damage on the rim.

Through the first two games of the year, the Longhorns have 24 dunks as a team.

Everybody Eats Once Again

Through the first two games of the season, the Longhorns have shown that this roster has multiple players who can help carry the scoring load.

Led by Vokietaitis, the Longhorns had seven players reach double figures in scoring, which included all five starters. Isaiah Johnson had 15 points while Marcus Spears Jr. and Joe Sterling both had 13 points off the bench.

After routinely relying on Dailyn Swain to carry a heavy scoring responsibility last season, Texas clearly has more versatility this year.

Dominant Defense

Texas Longhorns guard Austin Goosby (10) moves to shoot the ball Gardner-Webb Runnin' Bulldogs guard Seth Brown (1) during the first half at Moody Center. | IMAGN IMAGES via Reuters Connect

No, Gardner-Webb doesn't come anywhere close to some of the teams that Texas will face this season but that hardly makes it any less impressive what the Longhorns were able to do on the defensive end Thursday night.

The Longhorns held Gardner-Webb to just 20 points in the first half. Texas finished the night holding the Runnin' Bulldogs to 33 percent shooting on just 15 made field goals along with 22 turnovers.

Considering that Oklahoma just lost to a mid-major earlier this week, it can't be overlooked when the Longhorns handle their business on the defensive end in dominant fashion.

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