Once again, the unexpected has happened. Texas, the last-place team in the Big 12 and the No. 10 seed in the conference tournament, ended a seven-game losing streak and upset — upset? — the No. 7 seed Texas Tech. The Red Raiders crumbled at the end of this season, and the Longhorns will face 11th-ranked West Virginia, the No. 2 seed, at 7 p.m. on ESPNU in today’s third quarterfinal

This is of course the third time the two have played this season. The Mountaineers won the first two games by two and 15 points, and this means WVU will get one more — and maybe last — look at freshman forward Jarrett Allen. He’s made 13 of 16 shots and averages 17 points and seven rebounds against WVU.

“Allen’s pretty good,” WVU coach Bob Huggins said. “They don’t have anybody else up on the same caliber, but they’ve got a bunch of guys. They throw guys in there, and the guy making shots stays.”

Josh Eilert, the team’s coordinator of operations who’s filled in for assistant Ron Everhart since Everhart had back surgery in December, is in charge of the scouting report, as he was for the two regular-season games. Here’s what he had to say.

Texas (11-21) flew back into the first-round game with a flourish. A 17-3 run, capped by a fancy fast-break lob, turned a nine-point deficit into a three-point lead. The game-ending run was ultimately 30-10.

The Longhorns had 31 points before the run. They have gears. Sometimes they find the right one.

“They’re talented,” Eilert said. “Very talented.”

Shockingly or not, Texas was No. 21 in the preseason pol. But Texas is flawed, too. It’s how the Longhorns finished 4-14 in the Big 12 and why they hadn’t won a road or neutral-site game before Wednesday. They’re still 3-7 in games decided by three points or fewer. Nobody in a major conference played more such games.

“They’re young,” Eilert said. “I think they’re inexperienced in terms of this league and top to bottom how many games come down to the very end. That’s why you see with a lot of teams the cream rises to the top. That has a lot to do with the experience these teams have. I think they’re the 12th-youngest team in the country. Are they talented? Absolutely. They’ve got as much talent as anybody in the league. I think their lack of depth and their lack of experience has hurt them.”

Texas Tech was the far more experienced team and could do nothing right in the second half of the second half against a team that looked like is started to believe in itself.

Q. Ending the year like you did on that tough stretch what is it when you have to kind of pull up your boot straps and get going after halftime. What’s a win like this do to kind of reenergize?
SHAKA SMART: We’ve been in a lot of games that we’re — that have played out the way that this game was playing out through the first 30 minutes or so. So it was a similar script. I knew that we were going to have to change the script if we wanted to win. I thought, you know — obviously a lot of it has to do with if you can make shots. When you’re 1-13 the first half that makes it tough from outside.

So we made just enough shots and then we went on a run and our guys got a lot of energy from that run, and I think they gained confidence from that. When we play with confidence we’re a different team, and that’s what we’re going to have to do tomorrow.

Q. With 10 minutes left, did they finally get it? Did it flash before their eyes that this is going to be it?
SHAKA SMART: I told those guys, I said, what have you got to lose? You’ve got nothing to lose. We have a great opportunity to attack. The game is not over. Our guys were saying all the right things, but we’ve said all the right things before and not necessarily gone out and done what we needed to do.

You know, maybe it was the reality that, you know, this would have been our last game if we didn’t really battle and let loose. I thought the play that you mentioned where we played with great aggressiveness, dove on the floor. That was a huge difference maker and that’s the way we gotta play. That’s the way I want our team to play all the time and obviously we have a long way to go to get to that point. Plays like that were the difference.

The season was altered in January when leading scorer Tevin Mack was suspended. He’s since been granted his release, and the 6-foot-6 Mack is free to transfer.

“The first time we scouted them, we thought Mack was going to be in the lineup,” Eilert said. “We were kind of scrambling and figuring out how they were going to play in the first matchup against them, and then he didn’t play. We didn’t know how that dynamic was going to work out. But since then, their lineup has been pretty much the same.”

Pretty much, but one of the seniors, Kendall Yancy, has been playing more and playing better lately and had eight points against the Red Raiders. Another senior, graduate transfer Mariek Isom, made two 3s Wednesday, and coach Shaka Smart isn’t likely to forget that. His team likes to spread WVU, but his team can’t really shoot, either. In nine of the past 10 games, Texas has shot worse than 30 percent from 3-point range.

“They’re going to try to go through Allen in some form or fashion and try to get as many post touches as they can due to the fact they don’t shoot the ball great,” Eilert said. “But if they can play inside-out — we’ve done a pretty good job, especially in the second game, avoiding easy post touches.”

Allen, of course, is the key. He can score with defenders in front of him and behind him. He’s good in transition. He finishes. The Mountaineers just don’t want him to get started.

“We’ve got to be real physical with him, meet him high in the lane, and if he catches it in this post — and it’s hard to keep him from catching it — it’s got to be off the block where he’s got to make a play,” Eilert said. “If I remember correctly, he leads the team in turnovers. We’ve talked about double-teaming him. A lot of teams double-team him. But more often than not, what we try to do is avoid the touches in general. If we can front him and keep him from catching it where he wants to catch it, we’re doing our job.”

Allen is actually (barely) second in turnovers per game behind Kerwin Roach, Jr., and Roach is one of the team’s primary ball-handlers. But he’s really an off-guard. So are freshmen Andrew Jones and Jacob Young and sophomore Eric Davis, Jr., a so-so shooter who seems to enjoy WVU’s defense. Jones and Roach average a combined 7.3 assists and 5.2 turnovers per game as they try to operate the offense.

“Everyone’s saying they don’t have a true point guard, but Jones and Roach are very capable of running the show in terms of what they do,” Eilert said. “They’ve really got three guys who can handle it.”

In some ways, this helps Texas against WVU’s defense.

“What we do in terms of the press against the Monte Morrises and Jordan Woodards of the world, the guys who are primary ball-handlers, is we try to make them get rid of it and keep them from catching it,” Eilert said. “We want to get the ball out of their hands. It’s a little different with Texas. They don’t have that type of guy to focus on. They kind of do it by committee.”

The Longhorns played closer at home in the first game than they did on the road in the second game, but they also gave WVU some problems in that second game that required adjustments. They don’t shoot well, but they’re good off the bounce and good in the paint, and their big guards help them score in the paint.

“They space us more than everybody else,” Eilert said. “They start at the half and try to run up. The second game, that really hurt us. They were throwing it over the top and running out on us. We have to control the runouts against the press.”

WVU actually backed off its press in the Coliseum and used some 1-3-1 zone … and WVU started playing the 1-3-1 against Texas Tech a few games earlier after watching Texas use it with success against the Red Raiders. The Mountaineers were trying to protect a double-digit lead, and it worked. Texas couldn’t get as many straight-line drives or free throws and had to slow down and back the ball out and find a way to attack the zone. WVU used the zone to use the clock as an ally, and the 1-3-1 remains an option in Round 3.

“We try to stick to our principles and not change too much,” Eilert said. “We know what they’ll try to do. They’ll try to get Allen touches. They’ll drive and drive and drive and get in the lane and kick it out. They’ll try to throw it close to their bigs, which is a little different from some other teams. We’ve got to gap the driving lanes a little more and be more help-conscious, whereas a team like Iowa State, there are certain guys we can’t leave.”