Texas’ Augustin adjusts on the fly

The Kevin Durant Show packed up and left for the NBA, but Texas is getting along pretty well without him.

That’s thanks in no small part to D.J. Augustin, the Longhorns’ 6-foot sophomore point guard who will be running the show when No. 8 Texas plays at No. 2 UCLA on Sunday in the headliner of the first Big 12/Pac-10 Hardwood Series.

Adjusting to change is something Augustin can handle.

A couple of days before Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans in 2005, Augustin and his family evacuated to Houston, leaving behind their home in the Gentilly neighborhood of the city.

Although he has been back, Augustin has never truly gone home.

“Probably a month and a half or two months after the hurricane hit, I wanted to go back and get some kind of closure. I wanted to see for myself,” Augustin said. “When I did, I realized there was no chance of me going back [for good].”

Instead of trying to lead his Brother Martin High team in New Orleans to a third consecutive Louisiana 5A state title, he played his senior season at Hightower High in Sugar Land, Texas.

His family has remained in the Houston area, and Augustin doesn’t know if they’ll ever return to their flooded home.

“It was tough. My family means everything to me, and it meant everything to know everybody was all right,” Augustin said. “I miss it a lot. New Orleans is so small, everyone lives so close to each other, and I love the food.”

All the upheaval in Augustin’s life has made losing Durant, the national player of the year, seem like no more than a hiccup.

After a summer spent playing in Austin against former Longhorn T.J. Ford of the Toronto Raptors -- and rooming with UCLA point guard Darren Collison for the Steve Nash Skills Academy camp for point guards in New Jersey -- Augustin has gone from averaging 14.4 points and 6.7 assists last season to 17 points and 7.8 assists.

Ford played the trash-talking tutor, teaching Augustin to be more vocal.

Collison set a different sort of example.

“He’s real quiet,” Augustin said. “He’s a great player, he has good vision and gets his teammates involved. He can score when he needs to, is a good leader and plays great defense.”

Whether they’ll meet on the court Sunday is uncertain. UCLA has yet to announce when Collison will make his season debut after recovering from a knee injury, though it might be as soon as tonight.

Augustin is the point man for Texas (5-0), but there’s more to the Longhorns than him. His three-point shooting sidekick, A.J. Abrams, is averaging 22.8 points, and last week, Texas laid claim to a spot in the top 10 by defeating then-No. 7 Tennessee behind 23 points from Augustin, 21 from Abrams and a 22-point, 11-rebound game by big man Connor Atchley.

“I think if we keep doing the little things, keep working hard in practice every day, we can be a really good team,” Augustin said. “I think all my teammates are willing to sacrifice.”

Big 12/Pac-10 Hardwood Series

OK, the Oklahoma game at USC on Thursday is part of the Big 12/Pac-10 Hardwood Series, but the Kansas game at USC on Sunday is not. Got it?

And by the way, the Big 12 and Pacific 10 conferences would rather you didn’t keep score. That’s why they’re not calling it a challenge, like the series between the Atlantic Coast Conference and the Big Ten.

“We’re trying to stay away from ‘us against them,’ ” said Dave Hirsch, the Pac-10 assistant commissioner who helped put the series together. “We don’t want to say, ‘It’s 4-3, we’re leading,’ but ESPN started anyway. People will keep track.”

The trick to that is figuring out which games count, because some were scheduled before the Big 12/Pac-10 series was announced -- and some of those are included and some are not. Plus, because there are two more Big 12 teams than there are Pac-10 teams, two Pac-10 teams, Arizona and Stanford, are playing two games. (By the way, the Big 12 is leading, 1-0, after Kansas defeated Arizona in overtime Sunday.)

The bottom line is that the series, under contract between the conferences for four years beginning this season, is designed to bolster conference and team Rating Percentage Index ratings, draw a little early-season attention to their leagues, and enhance opportunities for the scheduling-challenged teams in both leagues.

That’s how Baylor -- which two seasons ago didn’t play a nonconference schedule because of NCAA penalties -- gets to play host to a top-10 team in Washington State. And the arrangement will help Pac-10 schools such as Oregon State -- and even Washington State, because of its location -- have stronger nonconference home schedules.

“Certain teams in each league don’t need a challenge to put together a great schedule,” Texas Coach Rick Barnes said.

UCLA, Arizona, Kansas and Texas are some of the most obvious.

“We can get games,” UCLA’s Ben Howland said. “This helps the rest of our league.”

The remaining 11 games this season: Oregon at Kansas State and Oklahoma at USC on Thursday, Washington State at Baylor and Iowa State at Oregon State on Friday, Washington at Oklahoma State and Missouri at California on Saturday, Arizona State at Nebraska, Stanford at Colorado, Texas at UCLA and Texas A&M; at Arizona on Sunday, and Stanford vs. Texas Tech on Dec. 22 in Dallas.

This season’s matchups will be repeated on the other team’s home floor next season, with a new set of home-and-home series to follow the next two seasons.

robyn.norwood@latimes.com