40 Acres Sports

Rick Barnes has been tearing up the recruiting trail and the people placing bets in Las Vegas have taken noticed. Sportsbook.com has Barnes’ Longhorns at 10-1 odds to take home the 2009-10 college basketball national championship next March.

The Horns are right behind the two big favorites and and will have as much experience and talent as any team in the country. Joining Damion James and big man Dexter Pittman are two of the most talented freshmen in the entire country in Avery Bradley and Jordan Hamilton. If Pittman continues to improve and the young guys hit the ground running this team could certainly be one of the last teams standing at the end of the season.

(via The Dagger)

Can Texas make it through their schedule and back to the Rose Bowl for another MNC?

It’s about that time to start sizing up the college football season, so here’s my rundown of games on the Longhorns schedule, in order from easiest to hardest. These rankings take each team’s projected strength, plus the location and timing of the game.

12. (Sept 5)

Why they’re here: Because this is a gimmie game. Don’t kid yourself; this is the Glass Joe on our schedule. In their two games versus big-time teams last year (Auburn and Ole Miss) the Warhawks were outscored 93-0. Best of luck fellas!

Why they’re not higher: Because they finished 4-7 last year and the game is at home. Seriously, the Christians walking into the Coliseum to face Lions had more of a chance. On the bright side, this may be our first glimpse at the QB of the future Garret Gilbert.

11. At (Sept 12)

Why they’re not here: Okay, this team is also Glass Joe… but playing at home in what should be the biggest game in their history. Sorry that’s all I got.

Why they’re not higher: Because the got pounded by the “big boys” in the WAC last year (TCU, Utah, BYU) by a combined score of 129-14. Bite the curb, and tell us how it tastes. We’ll try and not make you look too bad in front of your parents.

10. (Sept 26)

Why they’re here: Yes, they are a small conference school, but they have a coach who guided his previous team to two Rose Bowls. Don’t underestimate the importance of coaching in college football.

Why they’re not higher: Because when you move past the coach, this is still the same team we beat 42-13 in El Paso last year. And there won’t be any chicks giving their boyfriends hand favors on the mountain to distract our defense this year.

9. (Nov 7)

Why they’re here: They gave us a hell of a tussle in their place a couple of years ago. More than any “gimme” in the schedule, they probably believe they can beat us. Plus, given where they fall on the schedule (between Oklahoma State and Baylor) our boys could be due for a letdown.

Why they’re not higher: Because they lost to UTEP by 45 points last year. THE END.

8. Colorado (Oct 10)

Why they’re here: Because their coach is pretty damn good, and they play division one football there. Not intramurals brother…

Why they’re not higher: Because we smoked their ass last year, and this team traditionally is not great away from Boulder. Seriously, look it up: the school’s biggest three wins since joining the Big 12 have either come at home or on the a neutral site. Danger Dan Hawkins, danger!!!

7. At (Oct 24)

Why they’re here: Because last year at this time, people were picking them as a National title contender. Sure they lost a bunch of talent, but I’m sure Pinkle has a bunch of talent ready to shine, right?

Why they’re not higher: Wrong. Sorry, but Chase Daniels was special (for Missouri at least) and Jeremy Maclin and Chase Coffman are NFL talents. So far, Missouri hasn’t shown the ability to reload and keep pace in the Big 12.

6. (Sept 19)

Why they’re here: Because they beat us last year, and are always a tough out. Tech is the most hit-or-miss team in the country: when they’re off they can lose to SMU, when they’re on they can beat Oklahoma or Texas…

Why they’re not higher: at home. Sorry, I should have finished that thought. Look it up, Tech’s biggest wins in the last few years have come in Lubbock. Factor in that they will be working in a new starting quarterback, and the timing of this game is the final nail in the Red Raiders coffin. Don’t underestimate the “revenge” factor working in Texas’ favor.

5. At Texas A&M (Nov 26)

Why they’re here: It’s the Aggies; they have one good game in them a year and they always seem to save it for “t.u.”. They also will be playing at home and have the benefit of the 12th Man, plus they have a former NFL coach at the helm and a better-than-you-think reservoir of talent.

Why they’re not higher: Because the reservoir doesn’t run THAT deep. Look at the rankings, the Ags recruiting fell off mightily during the Fran tenure (or as they call it on Texags.com “the Dark Ages”). Plus the fact that the Horns seniors are 1-2 versus the Ags will provide a little extra motivation. A+M will really need the 12th Man… hell, they might even need to grab a 13th and 14th while they’re at it.

4. At (Nov 11)

Why they’re here: Because the Bears have the fastest collection of skill players in the Big 12 (no really!), and now their Freshman All-American QB Robert Griffin has a full year starting under his belt. If you recall, the Bears battled back to tie the score at 14 in Austin last year before Texas pulled away. I just have the feeling that Art Briles has one major upset in him next year… and A&M doesn’t count.

Why they’re not higher: Because playing Baylor on the road is only slightly more difficult than playing them at home. Waco is basically a stone’s throw from Austin, relatively speaking, so the crowd will be 40% Horn fans at worst. Plus, Colt McCoy’s girlfriend will be in attendance, so he’ll be extra motivated. Wouldn’t you be?

3. (Nov 21)

Why they’re here: Because Kansas is good, that’s why… potentially REALLY good. Todd Ressing is a top 10 quarterback nationally, and Kerry Meier and Dezmon Briscoe form the conference’s best 1-2 punch on the outside. The Jayhawks’ falloff last year can directly be attributed to the defense, which should be much improved this fall.

Why they’re not higher: Because the game is in Austin and an improved Kansas squad is still a notch below what the Horns will line up with. The Texas D, playing without All-American Brian Orakpo, shut down the Jayhawks last season holding them to a season-low 7 points. Plus the timing of this game likely means the Horns will either be locked in on a BCS berth, or at the very worst trying to salvage the Cotton Bowl; regardless, it is unlikely they will have their guard down coming into this game.

2. (Oct 17)

Why they’re here: This is always the game of the year in the Big 12 conference, but with all the late season debate and hoopla last year, this game’s intensity has been ratcheted up to another level. The Sooners are they only team quite in UT’s weight class on the schedule, and like it or not, they’re won the last three conference championships. The offense is manned by Heisman winner Sam Bradford and All-American Jermaine Gresham (who’s caught three touchdowns in his career versus the Horns), and their defense looks both deep and talented. Plus they have Ryan Reynolds back, who’s like the greatest football player ever!

Why they’re not higher: No, really he’s not. This is still the same defense that Colt hung 38 on last season, and Greg Davis seems to have Brent Venerables’ number. The Sooners’ also lost four starters on the offensive line along with their top two receivers, so Bradford won’t likely duplicate his numbers from last year. And to be honest, all the extra motivation is on Texas’ side: they beat OU, OU gets the BCS title shot and Bob Stoops crows and taunts by taking some less-so-subtle shots at Mack Brown. It’ll be a battle, but Texas looks to be a little stronger than 08, whereas OU looks to have taken a slight step back.

1. (Oct 31)

Why they’re here: 26. That’s the combined halftime deficits the Horns have faced their last two trips to Stillwater. I don’t know if it’s something in the water or what, but our boys always seem to stumble through the first half, only setting the stage for a thrilling comeback. This team is too good for us to spot double digits in the first half, plus the Horns will be coming off one huge game (Oklahoma) and one somewhat tough road game (Missouri) the two previous weeks; can they be at their best three weeks in a row?

A lot of things about this scenario bring back memories from Lubbock last year.

The Texas baseball team holds the Big 12 Tourney trophy. (TexasSports.com)

The Memorial Day weekend got even better on Monday when ESPN announced that The University of Texas baseball team will be the number 1 seed in the upcoming 64 team College Baseball Tournament. The Longhorns will be joined by Texas State, Army, and Boston College in their opening regional bracket. The likely match-up in the super regional is TCU. If not TCU, it could be Texas A&M.

The number 1 seed ensures Texas won’t have to leave Austin to play a baseball game unless they make it to the College World Series in Omaha. A trip I’m sure they’d be eager to make.

Texas got the weekend started by winning three straight games in Oklahoma City to capture the Big 12 tournament championship. The team got off to a bumpy start in the tournament with an opening game loss to Baylor. But wins over and followed by a championship game win over Pool B winner gave Texas their fourth tournament championship. The Longhorns win the tournament for the second straight year.

The Texas Longhorn baseball team wrapped up the 2009 regular season with a double header sweep over an overpowered Alabama A&M squad. Head Coach used the late season matchup to get his staff ready for the upcoming Big 12 tournament in Oklahoma City.

The Longhorns will enter the conference tournament as the number #1 seed. Texas will face #8 seed on Wednesday at 12:30, on Thursday at 3:00, and on Friday at 12:30.  The finals take place the following day between the top teams in each pool. and A&M are the favorites in pool B.

Despite an occasional dry spell at the plate this year’s Longhorn team has performed better than any team since the championship squads. Texas sports the best pitching staff in college baseball, and in post season play pitching depth is as important as point guards in March Madness. Garrido’s group still has question marks behind the plate, but the lineup has shown the ability to score runs if they can get on a roll early.

Texas has all but locked up a top 8 national seed. The granting of a top 8 seed would guarantee the Longhorns wouldn’t have to leave Austin until the College World Series, if they were good enough and lucky enough, to make it.

The Texas Longhorn baseball team got swept by an average Kansas Jayhawk team to fall to 2-4 in conference. The Longhorns have now lost four straight and five of their last seven after a series win against propelled them to number one in the nation.

The Texas bats once again failed to come through. The Longhorn pitching staff has yet to give up more than six runs in a game. Conversely the Texas offense has only recorded over six runs one time in the last 12 games. For the few series of the season the pitching staff dominance was enough to carry the team to victory, but since conference play has began it simply hasn’t been enough.

Both the starters and the bullpen had a solid weekend. Texas gave up five runs in the first game and four runs in the next two. In college baseball, remember the bats are metal, five runs shouldn’t win you many games.

Texas has failed to come through with runners in scoring position all year. believes in the sacrifice bunt. That is a fact, a fact that Texas baseball fans just need to swallow and get over. It will not change. The man is the all time leading college baseball coach in team wins. He has won titles at two schools, with two completely different budgets. Again, he is not going to change. As long as he is the coach the Longhorns will scrap to get on base, move people over, and count on clutch hitting, good defense, and solid starting pitching.

Unfortunately the bats are not coming through, and when you give up outs to move people along each at bat is magnified. And right now there are too many blemishes in the current lineup to play with less than 27 outs.

But Augie ain’t changing.

Because of that this team will go as far as the pitching staff can carry them until the bats wake up. If they ever do. The good news is Texas will enter every series, except maybe with , with the best overall pitching staff. The problem is that teams like Baylor, , , and possibly Texas A&M have a number one starter that is better than . If opposing teams can take the first game it turns every series into a must sweep on the weekend. This already happen with Missouri.

Texas has the bats in the lineup and on the bench to compete with any team in the nation. The question is not one of talent. Right now it doesn’t look like the bats fit the get them on, move them over, bring them in strategy of Longhorn baseball.

Augie ain’t going to change. Will the bats?

Dexter Pittman dunks against the KU defense. (AP)

The Texas Longhorns men’s basketball team finished the season with a win over and a second half meltdown loss against . Texas finished the 2009 regular season 20-10 (9-7 in conference), good enough for fifth place in the Big 12. Rick Barnes’ squad will take on Wednesday in the Big 12 tournament.

Most experts feel UT locked up a March Madness berth by beating Baylor and earning their 20th win of the season. Texas holds wins over UCLA, Villanova, Wisconsin, and . Out of Texas’ 10 losses only the ones to Arkansas (who also beat Oklahoma), Nebraska, and Kansas State can be considered “bad” losses.

Texas may not need to win Wednesday over the Buffaloes to make the dance, but a loss would most likely result in an 8/9 seed. Beggars can’t be choosers, and right now the Longhorns probably just want to get to the tournament and see what happens, but an 8/9 seed would set up a potential second round matchup with the number one seed of their bracket. That is assuming the Horns get past their first round opponent, which is no given this year.

If Texas can make a nice run in the tournament they have a chance to creep up to a 6 seed. Texas would likely need to beat Colorado, beat Kansas State in the second round then have a good showing in the semifinals. A 6 seed would set up a matchup with a 10 seed and set up a second round matchup with a team ranked no better than a three seed in their bracket.

Texas has the ability to play with any team in the country. In the first half against Kansas on Saturday the Longhorns proved that. When is attacking the basket and making jump shots, and new point guard is getting into the lane Texas is very dangerous.

The problem is this team has had a very hard time sustaining a team effort for 40 minutes. The Longhorns fell apart offensively down the stretch against Kansas and the defense couldn’t hold up to the pressure. If teams keep Balbay out of the lane and James and even stop hitting their mid-range jump shots teams are able to focus all of their defensive energy on taking away sharp shooting and clogging the lane.

Kansas moved into a form of box and one to take away Abrams and completely shut down the lane and Texas had no answer. The Longhorns have been prone to long droughts between points and against the type of teams they will face in the national tournament teams can’t afford to do that.

Anything can happen in March, which has been proven year after year. Texas does have a few of the ingredients needed for an unlikely tournament run. They play great defense, they have a deep front court, and they have a guy who can make four or five three pointers in a row.

March Madness is a guard dominated tournament. And that is where the problem lies for this year’s Longhorns. Texas has a guard who can shoot. Texas has a guard that can defend. Texas even has a guard who can break down a defense off the dribble and get to the bucket. Unfortunately they need three different small guards on the court to have all of them on the floor at the same time.

Texas has their work cut out for them, and they enter this post season in a different role than they’re used to the past few years. It will be interesting to see how the team reacts. There is no doubt Rick Barnes can recruit with the best coaches in the nation. Now it is time to prove he can elevate a team to achieve more than their talent should suggest.

Finally. The best source for college sports coverage on the Web Rivals.com has upgraded their video player to allow embedding of video on other websites. They’re only allowing other sites to post non-premium videos so it doesn’t look like there will be a ton of free recruit videos but their features and highlight packages are also good and much of that content available.

Some of the better recent Texas videos are below…

A video breakdown of Colt McCoy’s day versus :

Rivals Minute’s Ashley Russell discusses :

SI.com writer Stewart Mandel has written up his predictions for all the BCS and non-BCS bowls and has the Horns headed to the Fiesta Bowl. He’s predicting will win out and make it to the BCS title game. The Red Raiders winning out would make football hell freeze over but is actually the clearest path for the Horns to make it into a BCS game. Mandel’s BCS and Big 12 predictions are below:

BCS Bowls

Orange: Maryland (ACC champ) vs. Cincinnati (Big East champ)
Rose: Penn State (Big Ten champ) vs. USC (Pac-10 champ)
Sugar: Alabama (BCS at-large) vs. Utah (BCS at-large)
Fiesta: Texas (BCS at-large) vs. Ohio State (BCS at-large)
BCS Championship: Texas Tech (BCS No. 1) vs. Florida (BCS No. 2)

Big 12 non-BCS Bowls

Alamo: Missouri (Big 12 No. 4) vs. Northwestern (Big Ten No. 4)
Holiday: Oregon State (Pac-10 No. 2) vs. Oklahoma State (Big 12 No. 3)
Toilet: Michigan (Big 10 No. 9) vs. Texas A&M (Big 12 No. 11)
Sun: Arizona (Pac-10 No. 3) vs. Nebraska (Big 12 No. 5)
Insight: Minnesota (Big Ten No. 6) vs. Kansas (Big 12 No. 6)
Cotton: Oklahoma (Big 12 No. 2) vs. LSU (SEC)

The Longhorns prevailed Saturday in a 35 – 7 win over the Kansas Jayhawks on the road. Road wins in the Big 12 should never be taken for granted, especially with weather conditions including a 30 MPH wind and 30 degree temps. Quarterback had a good day both on the ground and through the air, but the star of the afternoon was Will Muschamp’s defense. Watch brief highlights of the game below:

Follow along below with our live thoughts and analysis during today’s Texas Longhorns game versus on FSN. Participate in the discussion by following 40acressports on Twitter or by refreshing and commenting on this post.

Texas vs. Kansas tweets

• RT @suzhalliburton: Just saw Blake Gideon. Am told he’s fine. I was standing with Quan Cosby and Gideon waved at the WR. #UT postgame
• A couple of good Jeremy Hills runs and then a kneel down ends the game. Final score: #UT 35, KU 7 late fourth quarter
• And the defense holds despite the extra and goal snaps for KU. Sack and fumble recovery by #UT on 4th and goal from the one. Big stop. during fourth quarter
• Has Chykie Brown been playing today? If he’s not healthy why is he playing now? Did I just miss him earlier? during fourth quarter
• Roughing passer by R Palmer is huge penalty. Gives KU 1st down instead of 4th and long. Now #UT defense needs 4 more stops. during fourth quarter
• Backups are in for #UT defense in front 7. We need stops and to hold them at 7, every point matters this time of year. Right @kbohls ? during fourth quarter
• Texas safeties are really hitting today. Gideon, Scott, and Thomas have all gotten in a good lick or 2 for #UT defense. during fourth quarter
• Great run by Fozzy. We’re definitely trying to milk the clock here. Love to see long drive and get some points, then get Colt out of there. during fourth quarter
• Collins makes up for his false start by getting wide open on post route. Looked just like play last week against BU. 36 yd TD. #UT 35, KU 7 during third quarter
• Christian Scott sure likes to fly around at safety. Big hit, strip the RB, then recovers the fumble for #UT. Texas needs to put this away. during third quarter
• Not sure where the safety was but Cosby makes the catch on the slant on 3rd down for the TD. Good protection & good throw. #UT 28, KU 7 during third quarter
• Three straight Kirkendoll catches. That was a LOOOONG WR screen/hitch. Don’t like the play call but Kirk fought and got the 1st down. during third quarter
• Very nice catch on a quick slant by James Kirkendoll gets #UT another first down. during third quarter
• First long McCoy run in several weeks. Middle of the field opened up wide for him and he took off for 25 yards out to midfield. during third quarter
• Christian Scott catches like the guy he replaced (Gideon). Scott can’t hang on to the floater. #UT during third quarter
• Why do our DBs interfere after they’ve got great coverage? Beasley was there but got a little handsy once the ball was in the air. #UT during third quarter
• Blake Gideon is down with head/neck injury. Took a big hit from KU RB. during third quarter
• Wild 4th and long catch by KU extends drive and KU punches it in. Huge play keeps Kansas in the game. #UT 21, KU 7 during third quarter
• Blitzes by #UT defense have been successful today but KU has given QB decent time if we only bring 4. during third quarter
• Why can’t we run block like that outside the red zone? Another easy TD run, this time by Chris O. #UT 21, KU 0 during third quarter
• KU moved first and then Dockery. Bad false start call by refs but it was a close one. Sets up tough 3rd and 15. during third quarter
• #UT fakes the FG on 4th down and Shipley flies over top of everyone for 1st. Aggressive 3rd and 4th down play calls. during third quarter
• #UT will start 2nd half with good field position as kickoff goes out of bounds. start of third quarter
• RT @bevobeat: Halftime stats: Run yds: TX 38, KU 3 … Pass yds: TX 122, KU 99 … First downs: TX 12, KU 4 … McCoy 14 of 19 passing. during halftime
• Click to view first half…