But there’s what’s interesting. In the 21/2 years since the Thunder became a Western contender, the Thunder has been a better road team, comparative to the rest of the league, than a home team.

That’s different this season, with limited data. The Thunder is 9-1 at home. The Thunder is 12-5 on the road, which is the NBA’s best road record. Ironically, the two teams that have played the most road games (Chicago 20, OKC 17, though Indiana and Toronto also have played 17), have the league’s best records. OKC is 21-6, the Bulls are 23-7.

But in 2010-11, when the Thunder finished 55-27, OKC tied Miami and the Lakers for the NBA’s fifth-best home record, 30-11. The Thunder tied the Spurs for the NBA’s fifth-best road record, 25-16.

In the Thunder’s breakout season two years ago, OKC finished 50-32. The Thunder went 27-14 at home, the 12th-best home record in the NBA. The Thunder went 23-18 on the road, tying the Lakers and Heat, ironically enough, for the sixth-best road record.

This year, OKC ties Chicago for the second-best home record (San Antonio is 13-1).

Keep that kind of home record going, especially through the next 10 days, and the Thunder very well will finish with the league’s best record overall.

Brown has been especially hot the past three weeks. He’s averaged 22.4 points and 5.0 assists the past five games.

“He doesn’t have to be shooting it to be the key guy, either,” said OU coach Lon Kruger. “He can penetrate and distribute. But he’s always a threat to score. He can hit the 3 and put the ball on the floor. That makes him hard to guard. Everyone on him obviously has to work hard.”

In a strange scheduling quirk, the Sooners (13-11 overall, 3-9 in league play) are done playing Kansas and Kansas State and have played every team except Texas. The rematch is scheduled in two weeks in Austin.

The Longhorns (16-9, 6-6) are riding a three-game winning streak. They’re projected as a No. 12 seed in the NCAA Tournament by ESPN’s Joe Lunardi.

“They’re playing as well as they have all year these past three ballgames,” Kruger said. “They had a big road win (at Texas A&M) and a 27-point swing Saturday against Kansas State. They were down 15 in the second half and went up 12. That’s a pretty impressive run.”

The Sooners are riding a season-worst four-game losing streak, including an embarrassing loss Saturday at Texas Tech, which was winless in league play entering the game.

“That was really surprising,” Kruger said. “Not to take anything away from Tech’s win because their guys worked really hard. But we weren’t pleased with what we did. We hadn’t really done that for awhile. Our practices had been good.

“We thought we had been playing as good as basketball the past couple of weeks as we’ve been playing all year. Then to come out and not have much going on either end was surprising, disappointing all those things.”

Kruger, though, stressed players continue to work hard.

“We’ve been practicing well,” Kruger said. “The enthusiasm level has been good. We have to transfer that (to games). It goes back to being a little bit more physical. We keep focusing on that, initiating some of that. We’ve done it at times but not consistently.”