40 Acres Sports

The Texas Longhorns are the number 1 team in the land this week after all. The football team came up short, but thanks to a upset loss the men’s basketball team is now the top ranked team in both the AP Top 25 and the ESPN/USA Today Coaches Poll. This is the first time in Texas history to hold the number 1 ranking.

Head coach felt the ranking was a compliment to the program and all the effort each of the players puts in every week. Of course, unlike football college basketball has a playoff and as Barnes put it, “I can’t honestly tell you who the No. 1 team was in the country on the second week of January last year, but I do know who won the national championship.”

Here’s this week’s top 5 college basketball teams:

• Full AP top 25 rankings
• Full Coaches Poll

Barely any Texas talk but ESPN has a brief look at the teams in the East Region of the 2009 NCAA Tournament. Watch Rece Davis, Digger Phelps, and Scott Bilas break down the region below…

Rick Barnes has his work cut out for him in the East bracket. (TexasSports.com)

The Texas basketball team’s once in a decade loss to was bad but apparently two Big 12 tournament wins were enough to get the Horns a 7 seed in the tough East bracket. The Longhorns will open the tournament against Minnesota on Thursday at 6:10pm.

The East may be the toughest region in the tourney. If Texas can get past Minnesota they’ll have to face in the second round in what would be essentially a home game for the Blue Devils in Greensboro, North Carolina. If the Horns get by that tough test, it could actually set up a rematch with two top teams they beat earlier this season in 3-seed or .

We’ll have previews of Thursday’s game and the rest of the tourney so check back in on the 40 Acres all tourney long.

Related Links

• Tourney bracket
• Downloadable bracket (PDF)