J’Covan Brown scored a career-high 35 points, leading host Texas on a second-half surge past Rhode Island en route to a 100-90 victory on Tuesday afternoon.

It was the second straight game Brown broke his career high, as he continues his transformation from role player to star for the new-look Longhorns (2-0).

Brown, a junior guard who was used mostly for bench scoring the previous two seasons, is now averaging 31.5 points, and he also added six rebounds and six assists.

Jamal Wilson scored 24 points and Nikola Malesevic added 22 for Rhode Island (0-2), which gave up more than 90 points for the second straight game to open the season.

It was an up-and-down, fast-paced game, with neither team taking much time off the shot clock before hoisting up shots. Rhode Island full-court pressed for much of the game, but the Longhorns broke it rather easily, resulting in lots of fast-break buckets.

Texas jumped out to a 34-17 lead early, but the Rams cut it to 46-43 by halftime and then took a brief 59-58 lead early in the second. But Brown found Sheldon McClellan for an alley-oop on a breakaway, and that sparked a 13-0 Texas spurt that Brown ended with a top-of-the-key 3-pointer to make it 71-59 with 10:49 remaining.

From there, the Longhorns never looked back.

Myck Kabongo added 18 points on 12-of-17 free-throw shooting for Texas.