Senior University of Texas (UT) Longhorns forward and Pflugerville native Dylan Disu scored a season-high 28 points on 14-of-20 shooting to help the second-seeded program ward off the Penn State Nittany Lions 71-66 in the second round of the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division I men's basketball tournament on Saturday.
Disu, who earned Most Outstanding Player (MOP) honors in the recent Big 12 Conference tournament earlier this month, came through when UT struggled to connect from behind the 3-point arc, Austin NBC affiliate KXAN reported.
“Everyone has dreams of showing up in March Madness, and my teammates were finding me,” he said, according to KXAN. “I couldn’t have done this without my teammates.”
A UT-issued press release said that the number of shots made by Disu is a new NCAA Tournament single-game record for the team, surpassing the mark set by the Phoenix Suns’ Kevin Durant in his lone season in Austin.
Disu averaged eight points per game (PPG) during the regular season and close to 15 points a contest during the conference tournament, which the Longhorns won prior to entering the Big Dance.
Per the school, graduate duo Sir’Jabari Rice and Marcus Carr combined for a total of 23 points to complement the effort from Disu.
Despite their woes from long distance, the Longhorns, who endured a change at the head coaching position when assistant Rodney Terry took over for the terminated Chris Beard, shot nearly 51% from the field.
UT is 21-7 under Terry as of Monday after winning eight of its first nine games with his predecessor, according to the release.
KXAN reported that the Longhorns did a lot of their damage offensively in the paint.
“We knew we had a size advantage in there, and whether they were in man or zone, we really wanted to get the ball in there,” Terry said in the report.
The Longhorns are slated to face the third-seeded Xavier University Musketeers on Friday in the former’s first Sweet Sixteen appearance since 2008.