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    Jeff Howe
    With Adrian Rodriguez out of action while recovering from what Kendall Rogers of D1Baseball.com described Monday as “a minor hand procedure,” No. 2 Texas has a hole at shortstop and in the middle of the batting order.
    Jim Schlossnagle continued to go with Rodriguez (.271/.386/.383) in the clean-up spot despite the sophomore battling through a hand issue. Injured during the 2025 season, Rodriguez underwent surgery in the fall and while he was ready for the start of the 2026 season, the issue lingered and particularly bothered him in situations when he’d swing and miss in the box, which led to him often grimacing in pain and, at times, requiring attention from the team’s medical staff during at-bats.
    Rodriguez’s ability to hit from either side of the plate and the respect opponents continued to show him, even while he clearly wasn’t 100 percent, justified keeping him in the middle of the order. With Rodriguez out, Schlossnagle has the option of moving Casey Borba (.333/.438/.667) up to the No. 4 hole, where his team-leading 31 RBI and nine home runs (tied with Aiden Robbins for the team lead) would give the Longhorns a formidable option.
    The bigger issue for Texas (23-4, 7-2 SEC) is two-fold: What do the Longhorns do at shortstop and what corresponding moves would be made in the infield?
    The most likely option is to move Temo Becerra from third base to shortstop. Josh Livingston would be the most likely plug-and-play option to fill the void at the hot corner, but the staff could choose to lean on Borba's experience at third base.
    Borba has become a reliable defensive first baseman, perhaps too reliable to move him back across the diamond. Regardless, Borba and Livingston were in the mix at first base leading up to the season, with Livingston, Becerra and Callum Early competing for the starting nod at third base.
    Schlossnagle has said that Maddox Monsour has the tools to play shortstop. Would Texas roll the dice with a freshman?
    With Jonah Williams on the shelf recovering from shoulder surgery, resulting in Jayden Duplantier becoming a full-time corner outfielder, Monsour and Ashton Larson are the primary designated hitter options. Schlossnagle has also been high on Presley Courville, who made his return from injury in Friday's 4-3, 10-inning win over No. 8 Oklahoma.
    If Rodriguez is back within a month (Rogers reported that he’s expected to be out 2-3 weeks, meaning a return for the team’s road series against Vanderbilt in late April could mark Rodriguez’s return if he were to miss the next three weekends), the Longhorns have enough options at the plate and in the field to make do. Even though Rodriguez’s hand issue hampered him at the plate, he continued to play top-notch defense, which is what Texas is likely to miss most in the interim.
    After sweeping the Sooners in a three-game series to keep pace with No. 4 Mississippi State and No. 5 Georgia atop the SEC standings, the Longhorns return to action at UFCU Disch-Falk Field against Texas State on Tuesday. Texas will then travel to South Carolina for a three-game series against the Gamecocks beginning Thursday.
    Jeff Howe
    AUSTIN, Texas — When a strong, steady gust of wind kept Carson Tinney’s 111 mph shotgun blast off the bat with the bases loaded in the seventh inning of Friday’s 10-inning, 4-3 win over No. 8 Oklahoma from leaving UFCU Disch-Falk Field, Jim Schlossnagle accepted No. 2 Texas’ possible fate.
    “I was like, 'Dang it, man!'” Schlossnagle said after the Longhorns’ comeback triumph over the Sooners, while recalling his thoughts while watching a likely grand slam get knocked down short of the Yeti Yard’s mesh wall in left field. “This is an awesome ball game, but it might not be our night.”
    Texas (22-4, 6-2 SEC) only had one hit when the dust settled on the seventh inning — a two-out single up the middle of the diamond by Adrian Rodriguez in the first inning — after Oklahoma (19-7, 4-4) entered the frame with a 3-0 lead. While Luke Harrison’s workmanlike seven-inning performance on the mound (five hits, three earned runs and two walks allowed and one hit batter with six strikeouts) and timely defensive plays kept the Longhorns in the game, they were dealing with an offensive hangover after Thursday’s 14-run, 17-hit onslaught en route to a run-rule romp.
    “In the game of baseball, normally, you get 17 hits and you're probably going to get two the next day,” Schlossnagle said. “That's what it was looking like there throughout the course of the game, but our guys stayed with it.”
    Schlossnagle credited Harrison for minimizing the damage whenever the Sooners looked poised to put crooked numbers on the scoreboard with runners on base. Thankfully, the aforementioned defensive highlights — Tinney wiping out third baseman Camden Johnson’s attempt to steal third in the first, Temo Becerra nailing Johnson with a throw home after fielding a ground ball hit to him in the third and Andrew Ermis ending the top of the 10th by catching center fielder Jason Walk trying to steal second base, completing a strike ‘em out, throw ‘em out double play after Sam Cozart fanned left fielder Trey Gambill — got Texas out of a few nerve-racking jams.
    “He gave us length in the game,” Schlossnagle said of Harrison, who combined with Cozart (three strikeouts with just one baserunner allowed in three innings) to limit Oklahoma to a 1-for-10 night with two outs and with runners in scoring position while limiting the Sooners to a 2-for-12 effort with runners on base. On the heels of Ruger Riojas scattering six hits and striking out eight in a seven-inning complete game on Thursday, Harrison's extended outing and Cozart only throwing 30 pitches means Schlossnagle and Max Weiner have everyone in the bullpen available for Saturday's series finale (4 p.m., SEC Network).
    “For us to play 17 innings of baseball or so in two days and we've only used three pitchers, that's good for us."
    Tagged for 10 runs in two SEC starts, lefty starter Cameron Johnson struck out eight in a solid five-inning outing for the Sooners. The Longhorns only pushed two runs across the plate through eight innings, with 12 walks issued by Skip Johnson’s pitching staff accounting for the bulk of the offense Texas generated.
    “We had him on the ropes a few times,” Schlossnagle said of Johnson, who induced two inning-ending double plays on a night when he dialed up his fastball on 81 of his 95 pitches. “He made enough pitches and he throws enough strikes and then enough pitches that are close to the strikes and he throws so hard that he gets you to chase the ball out of the strike zone.”
    Although the Longhorns struck out 11 times, the walks helped the offense break through. A bases-loaded, pinch-hit walk drawn by Josh Livingston got Texas into the scoring column in the eighth.
    The Longhorns’ patience finally paid off in the ninth inning, with Ethan Mendoza’s leadoff base knock scooting all the way to the wall in center field for a triple, allowing Tinney to come through with a game-tying RBI single (a rocket back up the middle too hot or reliever Jackson Cleveland to handle).
    Six of the seven Texas hits on Friday came in the eighth, ninth and 10th innings, including Becerra’s leadoff single to right and Ashton Larson’s game-winning, opposite-field RBI single, which landed just inside the left-field line to clinch a series victory.
    Taking the series from the Sooners with wins that followed two different scripts has positioned the Longhorns atop the SEC standings, with a chance to stay there should they complete the series sweep on Saturday. Similar to going on the road and winning a three-game conference series with then-No. 5 Auburn after a humbling midweek home loss to Tarleton State, Texas put Tuesday’s late-inning collapse in a 9-7 road loss to Houston firmly in the rearview mirror before notching a series win over a formidable conference foe.
    “We've only lost four games, but, as you guys know, three of them have just been brutal, tough,” Schlossnagle said after the Longhorns' first win of the season when trailing after eight innings. “To have one that kind of goes our way in a close one like that is big time.”
    Jeff Howe
    Sean Miller’s Texas squad spent Sunday away from the court after advancing to the Sweet 16 with Saturday’s NCAA Tournament second-round win over Gonzaga.
    The downtime allowed Jordan Pope to get treatment for an ankle injury he sustained late in the 74-68 win over the Bulldogs, which allowed the Longhorns to reach the second weekend of March Madness for the first time since 2023 and the second time since 2008.
    “With Jordan, I think we’ll be fine,” Miller said Monday during a Zoom call with reporters. “We didn’t do anything yesterday, so we weren’t together, but he’s gotten treatment and moving forward.”
    A source told On Texas Football on Sunday how close it could get Pope “to 90-95 percent will come down to Sunday through Wednesday."
    Texas (21-14) doesn’t travel until Tuesday for its West Regional semifinal at San Jose’s SAP Center against No. 2 seed Purdue on Thursday (6:10 p.m. CT, CBS). The Longhorns will be on the court for practice Monday afternoon, giving Pope more time to rest before putting his ankle to the test against a veteran backcourt led by Braden Smith, who broke Bobby Hurley’s NCAA record for career assists (1,091 after Sunday’s 79-69 second-round win over Miami) in Purdue’s (29-8) first-round rout of Queens.
    “You go and break that record, I think that says everything about his ability to pass, play-make, make his teammates better,” Miller said of Smith. “He’s one of the best in the game and a big, big part of why Purdue is so great offensively.”
    The fifth all-time NCAA Tournament meeting between Texas and the Boilermakers will feature two of the most experienced backcourts in the country. Smith and Fletcher Loyer have played a combined 294 collegiate games (147 each), which actually falls short of the 305 combined games played by Pope (134) and Tramon Mark (171).
    Pope is averaging 11 points, 2.3 assists and 1.3 rebounds per game in the Longhorns’ three NCAA Tournament victories. Although his 7-for-22 mark from beyond the arc is behind the pace at which he’s converted 3-point shots throughout the season (36.9 percent through 35 games), Pope’s clutch 3-pointer with 1:29 left in a 79-71 first-round win over BYU is one of several big-time plays Texas has gotten from the Oakland, Calif., native during the team’s unlikely run to the Sweet 16.
    “I don't know if there's too many guards that are playing in the Tournament that are playing at a higher level than Jordan Pope,” Miller said after Pope scored 17 points on 7-for-18 shooting (3-for-8 from 3-point range) with three assists and no turnovers in the win over Gonzaga. “He means a lot to our team. What he's really mastered is that he controls the game and he's our point guard, but he adds such a strong scoring punch that he can change the game from the 3-point line.”
    Jeff Howe
    AUSTIN, Texas — When Texas coach Jim Schlossnagle analyzes fifth-ranked Auburn ahead of the second-ranked Longhorns’ three-game weekend road series against the Tigers, he sees a lot of similarities to the squad he coaches every day.
    “Auburn has an awesome team,” Schlossnagle said on Thursday before departing UFCU-Disch Falk Field for the airport. “They actually remind me a lot of our team and some of the best teams we've had — that I've coached.”
    It starts on the mound, where Texas (18-2, 2-1 SEC) and Auburn (18-2, 3-0) rank among the nation’s leaders in team ERA (the Tigers are second with a 2.26 while the Longhorns are fourth with a 2.67) and strikeout-to-walk ratio (Auburn’s 5.34 leads Division I while Texas is currently ninth with a 3.63). Ruger Riojas (4-0, 2.05 ERA) and Jake Marciano (3-0, 0.93) square off in Friday’s series opener, pitting two of the nation’s top starting pitchers against each other.
    “He throws a boatload of strikes with multiple pitches,” Schlossnagle said of Marciano, who has only walked two batters in 29 innings while firing 42 strikeouts, 13 of which have been looking (the third-most in the SEC). “He's got a really, kind of loose body, loose arm. The fastball — it's not like some super high-velocity fastball — it gets on you. It's relentless strikes.”
    Schlossnagle said Marciano, a sophomore lefty who went 4-2 with a 6.08 ERA in 15 appearances as a freshman at Virginia Tech last season, controls the running game so well that it’s tough to envision the Longhorns doing a lot of damage with men on base. Even though Texas enters the series boasting one of the most productive offenses in the country (12th with a .560 team slugging percentage, 15th with an average of 1.8 home runs per game, 17th with a .324 team batting average, 18th with a .442 team on-base percentage and 19th with an average of 9.5 runs scored per game), Schlossnagle wants to see how the bats bounce back against the Tiger arms after a forgettable performance in Tuesday’s 6-1 loss at to Tarleton State, one Schlossnagle described as “beyond brutal.”
    A first-inning solo home run by Carson Tinney and a two-out single to right field by Josh Livingston in the bottom of the ninth were the only hits Texas scratched out. The Longhorns struck out 12 times, left nine runners on base and went 0-for-5 with runners in scoring position.
    “The at-bats were horrific,” Schlossnagle said. “They pitched well. Ethan Mendoza, yesterday, said the one right-hander for them — I think the third pitcher — that's the best pitcher we've seen all season. At least he felt. When a guy in the box is saying that. The guy was going 95, 96 (mph) with two breaking balls. I think he had walked like nine guys in 11 innings. Our plan was to make him throw strikes and he threw nothing but strikes.
    “We didn't do a really good job with the right-handers they threw out there,” he added. “We kept chasing balls on the first-base side of home plate, pulling off the breaking balls. It's more about, as a team, sticking with our approach that we've had all year of using the whole field to hit.”
    After taking Wednesday to reflect on what happened Tuesday, and making a trip to Round Rock to get some infield work on the dirt and grass at Dell Diamond, Schlossnagle would like to think the loss to Tarleton State will ensure Texas is locked in when facing an Auburn club that’s a “national championship-caliber team that's playing well and playing with a lot of confidence" after opening SEC play with a road sweep of Missouri and recording a 9-2 rout of No. 3 Georgia Tech at home on Tuesday.
    “Everything in life happens for you, not to you,” Schlossnagle said. “Maybe we'll look back on that and say, 'Wow, what an experience that was,' and we learned from it and got better. Or the opposite.
    “Hopefully, it's not the opposite.”
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