HOUSTON -- Arkansas hopes its second basketball game away from home this season against another Power Five Conference team goes better than the first one.
The Razorbacks (8-1) suffered 21 turnovers and hit 1 of 8 three-pointers in losing at Minnesota 85-71 on Nov. 22.
Since then, Arkansas has won five consecutive games, but all those victories came at Walton Arena.
Houston -- a former Southwest Conference rival that now plays in the American Athletic Conference -- is the only team Arkansas beat during its current streak bearing a name that carries much national recognition.
Arkansas has a chance for a victory that will resonate with its fans when the Razorbacks play Texas -- their biggest rival from the SWC days -- at 1:30 p.m. today in the Lone Star Shootout at the Toyota Center.
"When you start out your season, one of the things you want to do is make sure you take care of the home court," Arkansas Coach Mike Anderson said. "Then you want to branch out and win games on the road.
"That's what you build your team for, because if you're going to win the conference championship, those are the things that are going to have to take place. So these are the type of games that obviously you want to go over and play, and play well.
"We had an opportunity to go play at Minnesota and it didn't come out the way we wanted it to. I want to see if we learned something from it."
Minnesota outscored Arkansas 25-9 during the last 7:13 of the first half to take a 42-25 halftime lead.
"We got down and I really thought we kind of panicked," Anderson said. "Individuals tried to bring us back. We tried to make the eight-point play, and it just dug a hole that kept getting deeper and deeper.
"From that standpoint, hopefully we learned that when adversity comes we have to bond together. That's what I want to see in play when we play against Texas, because there are going to be some periods in the game where it may not be going our way."
Texas (5-4), picked to finish third in the Big 12, has struggled since opening the season ranked No. 21 in The Associated Press poll, but the Longhorns already have beaten one SEC team with a 77-68 victory over Alabama at home and are loaded with talent.
The Longhorns start two freshmen -- 6-11 Jarrett Allen and 6-4 Andrew Jones -- who were McDonald's High School All-Americans last season.
Texas sophomore guard Tevin Mack is averaging a team-high 15 points and sophomore guard Kerwin Roach 11.3. Allen is averaging 9.3 points and 6.3 rebounds, and Jones is averaging 8.3 points.
"They have some young, very talented players," Anderson said. "They've got length, they've got athletic ability. It's early in the year, and they're finding themselves. They're a team, just like us, trying to get that identity."
The Longhorns didn't return any starters from last season's 20-13 team, which in Shaka Smart's first season as Texas' coach lost to Northern Iowa 75-72 in the first round of the NCAA Tournament on Paul Jesperson's half-court shot.
"This is a group that everyone's literally in a new role," Smart said. "I think from that standpoint with these guys, it's as much as anything trying to put confidence in them that, 'Hey, you guys can do it.'
"We've just got to make sure we're following our plan and our process of what goes into doing it."
Smart, who had a 158-56 record in six seasons as Virginia Commonweath's coach and led the Rams to the 2011 Final Four, is facing Anderson for the first time.
"Coach Anderson does a great job," Smart said. "I've been a big fan of how he does things for a long, long time going back to when he was at UAB. He did an awesome job at Missouri, and now you can see the growth they've made as a program at Arkansas.
"The biggest thing that I think they do really, really well is they play with great aggressiveness and pace. They're always coming at you on the offensive end and on the defensive end, and that's the way his teams have always thrived."
Texas dominated the second half against Alabama on Dec. 2, outscoring the Crimson Tide 51-30 to erase a 12-point halftime deficit.
"This is the thing, man," Smart said after the game. "If we can ever put this in a bottle, we'll really have something."
The Longhorns beat Alabama after losing to Northwestern 77-58 and Colorado 68-54 in New York and to Texas-Arlington 72-61 at home.
"Give them credit," Alabama Coach Avery Johnson said. "This is a team that lost three games in a row and they were desperate."
Texas lost at Michigan 53-50, but it bounced back at home to beat Long Beach State 71-65 when the Longhorns again won after trailing by 12 points.
"We did a really good job for the vast majority of the game against Michigan," Smart said. "We just didn't finish it."
Arkansas and Texas are playing in the home of the NBA's Houston Rockets, but Anderson said he considers it a road game.
"It's in Texas," Anderson said.
Anderson said he's been encouraged by how the Razorbacks have responded since losing at Minnesota.
"I think we're playing better, so let's see if we can take the show on the road," he said. "That's the next step."
Sports on 12/17/2016