FORT WORTH — The Texas men's basketball team pulled out a needed road win Saturday when Max Abmas scorched TCU for all 13 of the Longhorns’ points in a 13-2 run to close a 77-66 win. Rodney Terry’s 200th career win as a head coach keeps Texas (15-7, 4-5 Big 12) in the thick of a crowded race for first place in the conference. Five teams — Houston, Kansas, Baylor, Texas Tech and Iowa State — enter Monday atop the standings with just three conference losses, while the Longhorns are among seven other teams within two games of first place.

Here are three things we saw in Texas’ win over TCU:

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Star power to the max

Abmas, who leads Texas with 17.9 points a game, possesses enough star power to always produce the spectacular, and it doesn’t matter if he’s on a hot streak or colder than Deep Eddy in December. Through the game’s first 36 minutes, the 6-foot guard had just eight points on 3-of-11 shooting in a game knotted at 64-64. In the final 3 minutes, 27 seconds, he went 3-for-3 from the field and 5-for-5 from the free-throw line to end the game with 21 points. Abmas, who transferred to Texas for his final season after four years at Oral Roberts, has never scored in single digits for the Longhorns.

They said it: “You never know with Max. “He had an and-one late in the game, and that's when I kind of could see that it’s starting to click for him. We tried to draw up a couple of plays to get him going, but for Max, he’s a player that can go get it himself.  You don't really have to draw anything up for him.” — Texas forward Dillon Mitchell

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Dillon Mitchell, Horns dominate the glass

The Longhorns’ rebounding has become one of the most accurate barometers for the team. Texas dominated a good rebounding team 34-21 and doubled TCU on the offensive glass with 14. The 6-8 Mitchell led the way with 11 rebounds while also scoring 13 points for his eighth double-double of the season, and 6-9 forward Dylan Disu pulled down seven boards. Chendall Weaver, a good rebounding guard at 6-2, added four boards.

Texas has won the rebounding battle just twice in its past seven games and has claimed victories in both of those games. The Longhorns are 1-4 in that stretch when rebounding less than their opponents.

They said it: “We simply didn't get it done (on the boards), and I’m really disappointed by it. I mean, to get outrebounded in a really low possession game, 13 is an enormous number. We’d get a stop and (Texas) had someone come up with the rebound twice in the last couple minutes. That just speaks volumes.” — TCU coach Jamie Dixon

Chendall Weaver debuts as starter

After averaging more than 10 points and 27 minutes over the previous three games, Weaver got his first start of the season in place of Ithiel Horton. Weaver, who grew up just southeast of the TCU campus in Mansfield, responded with seven points and four rebounds in a season-high 33 minutes. He also teamed with Tyrese Hunter to continually harass the TCU backcourt and help collect 11 steals. Weaver is used to opening games on the court, however; last year, he started the final 15 games of the season for UT-Arlington and led the team in minutes while earning freshman of the year accolades in the Western Athletic Conference.

They said it: Weaver “is always in the game in closing time for us,  but he's earned the right to have an opportunity to be out there when the game starts. Every guy understood that, they accepted that, and I felt embraced it.” — Texas coach Rodney Terry

Up next: Cyclones blow into Austin

Texas will face its sixth consecutive ranked team when No. 12 Iowa State (16-5, 5-3) visits Moody Center for a 7 p.m. game Tuesday. The Cyclones almost pulled off a dramatic road win Saturday at Baylor, but a potential winning 3-pointer from Milan Momcilovic came one-tenth of a second after the game clock expired in the Bears’ 70-68 win.

This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: Three things we saw in Texas basketball team's win at No. 25 TCU