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Tre Johnson breaks Texas record held by Kevin Durant in loss to Arkansas
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Tre Johnson was a man on a mission Wednesday night.
The freshman shooting guard for Texas knocked down 7 of his 11 shots from beyond the arc en route to a 39-point game. The Longhorns lost to Arkansas in overtime, 86-81, but Johnson, who finished 14-for-28 from the floor, did absolutely all he could. He scored 17 points in the second half and then all 12 of Texas’s points in the overtime period.
It was Johnson’s third 30-point game of the season. It also set a new Texas record for points scored in a single game by a freshman, topping the 37 points Kevin Durant scored on 4 occasions as a freshman at UT in 2007. (Terrence Rencher also scored 37 points in a game during the 1991-92 season.)
Johnson, a 5-star recruit from Dallas in the 2024 class, is the Longhorns’ leading scorer this season at just under 21 points per game. And he has upped his scoring in SEC play as Texas fights for an NCAA Tournament bid.
“He is a lottery pick,” Texas head coach Rodney Terry said after the game. “He’s one of the best players in this league. You know, sometimes he doesn’t get protected that way and treated that way when he’s shooting the basketball or trying to attack the basket late in the game. We’re going to put the ball in his hands and give him an opportunity to go win the game for us. He’s either going to get fouled or he’s going to make the winning shot. But he’s a special talent. We knew that when we signed him, he was the number one player in his class for a better part of his career in high school until Cooper Flagg reclassified. He’s one of the top players in the league.”
Texas (16-12, 5-10 SEC) returns home on March 1 to host Georgia.
Related: The college basketball season is winding down, but there are still tons of opportunities to win money with DFS apps like PrizePicks.
Derek Peterson does a bit of everything, not unlike Taysom Hill. He has covered Oklahoma, Nebraska, the Pac-12, and now delivers CFB-wide content.
