In that light, the lead up to Texas’ trip to Kansas State on Monday was refreshing. It was a game for which I needed no prompt to get excited about. This matchup featured two very good teams in an enivironment that promised to brim with energy. The Big 12 looks more and more like one of the top conferences this season, and the Longhorns and Wildcats are two of its best teams. But, even though both teams showed tremendous effort, energy and talent in the Big Monday nightcap, Kansas State’s 71-62 win over Texas left me with eyes glazed.

As the points per possession indicates, the defense was stifling. This game was the rare one when neither team surpassed 40 percent eFG, and both teams surpassed 22 percent turnover rate. A lot of that was, in fact, terrific defense. Pomeroy rates these teams among the top 20 defenses in the nation, with Texas second.

K-State’s Curtis Kelly and Jamar Samuels are long, athletic and active in the frontcourt, while Jacob Pullen and Dominique Sutton — as well as backups Martavious Irving and Rodney McGruder — apply terrific pressure in the backcourt. The result is a defense that stifles shooting numbers — both on twos and threes — and forces a ton of turnovers.

Texas is one of the best field-goal defense teams in the country, holding opponents to 40 percent shooting on twos and 29 percent shooting on threes. Point guard Dogus Balbay is one of the best defensive guards in the country, and Balbay and freshman Avery Bradley form a thieving backcourt. The frontcourt is built around thickness rather than K-State’s length, with Dexter Pittman clearing out space in the post like a left guard in football. Then there’s Damion James and his versatility and activity on the wing.

So, while it should be no surprise that these two defenses proceeded to force their opponents to clank shots and give away possessions with aplomb, the manner in which it happened was a bit frightening. If you watched the game, you know what I mean. The amount of physical play and use of the hands on drives, screens and box outs were alarming. I don’t believe that I am exaggerating when I write that the officials could have called 4-6 fouls per possession. The three officials called some of the fouls, but were unable to call them all — the game was two hours, 40 minutes long even with just a moderate number of foul calls.

As a result, “haggard” would be too kind a name for the flow of the game. On several occasions, players were even prevented from setting the screen that they intended to by force. Commentator Bob Knight continually bemoaned the lack of movement in both offenses, but it’s hard to blame the players for understanding the futility of trying to create organized patterns on offense when the defenses were permitted to shove them off each cut without repercussion.

The game’s style fell right into the hands of Kansas State, which is one of the most aggressive and foul-prone teams in the country. It wouldn’t be too strong to say that K-State bullied traditional Big 12 bully Texas. And “bully” for them — the Wildcats weren’t using cheap shots but simply playing within the style allowed by the officials’ interpretation on that night.

As a result, Texas’ offense was completely stagnant, and even when it did get some good looks, they were missed. James was completely taken out of the game in the second half, finishing 3-of-12 from the floor with four turnovers and zero assists. Without James’ play-making from the wing, the offense devolved into J’Covan Brown and Balbay trying futilely to drive into the lane and create open shots for their teammates, who usually missed the ones created for them.

Texas, known for having such a terrific interior defense, has to wonder how it allowed Kelly and Samuels to run roughshod inside. The two combined for 37 points and 20 rebounds and were the only two players to take more than four shots and still make more than half of their shots. It was the ability of Kelly, Samuels and McGruder to grab offensive rebounds — they combined for 12 — that gave Kansas State its decisive advantage.

That and the free-throw shooting. Texas sabotaged its effort to narrow a late deficit with poor foul shooting. As a team, Texas shot 9-of-22 (40.9 percent), and the Longhorns’ shooting at the charity stripe is looking a lot like Memphis’ in 2007-08. The Longhorns shoot it at a 62.4-percent clip for the season. That Memphis team finished at 61.4 percent.

In fact, it’s not just free-throw shooting that appears to be a problem for Texas’ offense. The Longhorns are also mediocre on 3-pointers (3-for-11 on Monday and 34.2 percent for the season), and they are loath to attempt them. That’s usually not a problem when Texas can boss the game inside, but that didn’t happen on Monday, and when it didn’t, there wasn’t enough of an outside threat from guys like Jordan Hamilton, Bradley and James to loosen up K-State’s defense.

With a set of guards that can drive and finish at the rim, K-State is better equipped to flourish in a game where offensive movement breaks down like it did on Monday. Denis Clemente was able to penetrate and find his teammates — Kelly and Samuels primarily — for much of the Wildcats’ offensive success. Basically, the Wildcats leveraged what they do best — offensive rebounds, field-goal defense and forced turnovers — into a signature win. It did what it did well better than Texas did.

It would be harsh and short-sighted to take one poor performance by Texas’ offense as a referendum on its ability to go deep in the NCAA Tournament, and so I won’t do that — yet. Upcoming matchups with Baylor, Kansas and Missouri should give us a more conclusive indication. Either way, both teams figure to get high seeds. Right now, they’d figure to be No. 2 seeds, with Texas and Duke fighting for the last No. 1 seed.

The Big 12 has several teams that should be a factor in March, and the league should provide us with some of the great matchups during the rest of the conference season. Hopefully, some of those will provide more eye-pleasing basketball as well.

It may be hard to believe that Kansas State actually has one of the best offenses in the country, but that’s what the numbers suggest. The Wildcats dominate the offensive glass, led by Connecticut transfer Curtis Kelly and junior Dominique Sutton. Each had three on Tuesday as K-State grabbed 46 percent of its misses.

The second area of success for K-State’s offense is getting to the free-throw line. Despite standing at just 6-feet Jacob Pullen has already attempted 113 free throws in 16 games, and the entire starting lineup save Denis Clemente gets to the line often. On Tuesday, the Wildcats hit 24-of-31 free throws.

The killer for Texas A&M, though, was K-State’s shooting. The Wildcats are just a middle-of-the-pack Big 12 team in eFG, but Clemente was back on form on Tuesday. He hit 5-of-12 3-pointers while scoring a game-high 24. Clemente entered the game hitting just 28.7 percent of his 3-pointers after nailing 36.6 percent last season. If Clemente can find his shooting form, K-State could boast an offensive attack that can beat opponents in three ways. Jamar Samuels also had 19 off the bench on just eight field-goal attempts.

Texas A&M appears to be in a similar situation as last year. The Aggies spent most of last season right around the bubble before a six-game winning streak to finish the regular season clinched an NCAA bid. This year, the Aggies boast a pair of impressive non-conference wins over Clemson and Minnesota but will need to improve their offense to get the nine conference wins that will likely ensure an NCAA Tournament bid.

The big differences in this year’s offense are almost entirely attributable to the departure of Chinemelu Elonu. His ability to grab offensive rebounds and shoot 66.5 percent on 2-pointers are sorely lacking on this team, which has gone from 58th to 160th in offensive rebounding and from 109th to 132nd in eFG. The loss of Josh Carter’s 3-point shooting hasn’t helped this offense either.