Texas Suffers Embarrassing Loss at Home to Virginia in ACC/SEC Challenge

The Texas Longhorns football team won't be making the College Football Playoff, but at least there's men's basketball to look forward to!

Or so we thought.

Texas looked even uglier than the weather outside Wednesday night at the Moody Center, falling to the Virginia Cavaliers in blowout fashion in a 88-69 loss as part of the ACC/SEC Challenge.

“I want to apologize to Longhorn nation," Texas guard Jordan Pope said. " … Continue to support us. Continue hanging in there.”

Chance Mallory scored a a game-high 16 points and Virginia used a 12-0 run in the opening minutes of the first half, as the the Cavaliers never looked back, leading by as many as 24 in the win.

Embarrassing Loss at Home for Texas

Texas Longhorns guard Simeon Wilcher dribbles against Virginia Cavaliers guard Dallin Hall (30) during the first half at Moody Center. | Dustin Safranek-Imagn Images

It doesn't get much worse if you're Texas in the biggest home game of the season at this point, the Longhorns showed little effort and quite frankly, wasted the time of the fans in attendance in the process.

Virginia shot 12 of 24 from deep, had 18 assists and 38 bench points in a dominant effort. The final score really doesn't indicate how lopsided things were.

“It’s becoming a pattern with us. We're too easy to score on," Texas head coach Sean Miller said. "We have to fix that. We have to be better.”

Dailyn Swain had a team-high 15 points for Texas while Pope added 10 points as the only two Longhorns in double figures. Matas Vokietaitis finished with a season-low seven points, failing to reach the 10-point mark for the first time this season.

Virginia center Johann Grunloh added 15 points while forward Thijs De Ridder finished with 13 points and six rebounds. Malik Thomas had 11 points and Cavs center Ugonna Onyenso had few standout plays before finishing with nine points.

Texas led 4-0 early but that was the biggest lead the team held the entire night. Virginia's 3-point barrage started shortly after and sunk the Longhorns before they could even blink.

The Cavaliers drilled nine triples in the first half, some of which were some tough shots but others that simply came as a result of Texas defenders leaving their man wide open.

Mallory, Onyenso and Jacari White combined to make four straight 3s for Virginia as part of the 12-0 run. Texas cut the lead down to as little as eight at 21-13 but it was a double-digit deficit for the Longhorns the rest of the night.

Texas will host Southern on Monday before hitting the road to face No. 5 UConn. It's no secret the Longhorns will need to make some major adjustments before heading to Storrs.