40 Acres Sports

The Longhorns controlled the first half and dominated the last ten minutes in route to a 20 point win over [tag]Stanford[/tag] Friday night. Texas used a 20-3 run to turn a 1-point game into a 82-62 victory.

[tag]DJ Augustin[/tag] was the player of the game for the Horns, leading the team in scoring with 23 points and dishing out 7 assists. When he took over the game and the tempo in the middle of the second half is when Texas went on their run. But equal credit for reversing the momentum should go to [tag]Rick Barnes[/tag], [tag]Dexter Pittman[/tag], and the other bigs playing defense down inside. The switch to a 2-3 zone defense and Pittman’s big body frustrated Stanford star Brook Lopez, and without him the Cardinal had no offensive threat.

The team now advances to the Elite 8 where they will face the Memphis Tigers Sunday at 1:20pm on CBS.

Related Links

• Men’s Basketball advances with 82-62 win over Stanford
• D.J. Augustin’s the best I’ve seen
• Texas a win away from Final Four
• Texas takes its place among Elite Eight
• Augustin has UT pointed toward Final Four
• Rick Barnes credits Justin Mason
• Longhorns’ second-half spurt propels them into Elite company
• Instant Analysis: Second-half run dooms the Cardinal
• How Texas Took Down Stanford: An Inside Look
• Stanford calls its shot: Texas just plain better
• There’s more to UT than D.J. Augustin
• Where in the world are Robin and Brook? Definitely not Houston…
• Postgame notes
• Photo gallery
• Video highlights

For healthy, curse-free Barnes, it’s all ‘gosh, darn’ these days. Coach is a big advocate of Metamucil apparently.

Rick Barnes threatens Arkansas fans. I love poking the Piggies with a stick. Should have them nice and riled up.r

Texas sophomore point guard [tag]DJ Augustin[/tag] and head coach [tag]Rick Barnes[/tag] were both honored by Big 12 basketball coaches Monday. Augustin was named first team All Big 12. He was one of two unanimous selections, along with Kansas State’s Michael Beasley who was named conference player of the year. Guard [tag]AJ Abrams[/tag] and forward [tag]Damion James[/tag] were named to the second and third team respectively.

Barnes’ job taking a Kevin Durant-less Longhorns team to a Big 12 title was rewarded with a coach of the year nod. He’s been to a Final Four and coached two national players of the year, but this season was probably his best coaching job. The improvement of every single player on this year’s squad definitely reflects well on Barnes and his entire staff.

See the full list of Big 12 awards after the jump.

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Texas loses players, but Barnes keeps winning. This may be his best year as coach since he’s been at Texas.

The Longhorns basketball team only has one commit for 2008 and none for 2009, but they’ve already picked up a huge commitment for 2010. [tag]Tristan Thompson[/tag], a sure five-star power forward from Newark St. Benedict’s Prep, gave [tag]Rick Barnes[/tag] and assistant coach Rodney Terry his verbal commitment on Tuesday. Thompson is the fifth ranked sophomore in the country according to both Scout.com and RISE Magazine.

Texas fans can also thank former Horn [tag]Kevin Durant[/tag] for helping reel in Thompson. The young man, originally from Canada, admitted he was a big Durant fan and loved the way Coach Barnes featured big, versatile front court players. Thompson is big, quick, and athletic and just sounds like he’s going to be a ton of fun to watch in burnt orange.

As always, verbal commitments are non-binding. As a sophomore Thompson will not be able to sign his letter of intent until November 2009.

UT’s Rick Barnes proves he’s the king. Now without Kevin Durant, Barnes is doing one of his best coaching jobs

We’ll be posting live thoughts on tonight’s Big Monday game versus [tag]Kansas[/tag] on ESPN. The Villanova-Georgetown game is running long. No idea if the Texas game’s start will be delayed or if we’ll just miss some of the game, maybe both.

Pregame

• Vince Young at the game. Hopefully he was around this weekend to say hello to a few recruits. Should be perfectly legal since he’s in classes this semester.
• They’ve delayed the start of the game. As long as Nova-Georgetown doesn’t go to overtime it looks like we’ll see our game in it’s entirety.
• I like that they showed us Rutgers versus Tennessee women’s highlights as if anyone watching either of these two games cared.
• Villanova’s Scottie Reynolds is a former Sooner commit. They’d be pretty tough with him [tag]Damion James[/tag]. Kelvin Sampson really screwed OU over, but I guess they deserved it.
• That’s a BS call with less than a second on the clock. Awful. I don’t think any of the players or refs knew how much time was left. I like it though because it means Texas-Kansas can get started.

First Half

• Well they obviously didn’t delay the start of the game too much. ESPN just switched over and we missed three and a half minutes of the game. First three shots they show are two made threes by the Horns and one by Kansas. Based on the score there wasn’t much defense before we were watching either.

Kansas 12, Texas 15

• Erwin Center sounds nice and loud. Some of my best sports-related college experiences were Monday nights at the Drum.
• If [tag]Gary Johnson[/tag]’s offensive game can keep developing he’ll be huge for us down the stretch and in March.
• After a play that looked like offensive goaltending by KU on the other end, rough call against Johnson for the offensive foul.
• If [tag]Justin Mason[/tag] can continue to play great defense and now handle the ball handing on offense he’s suddenly a big asset for the Horns.
• Ugh. How do you call that foul on Mason? If anything the Kansas guard initiated the contact and Mason kept his hands to himself.
• Better ball movement on offense for the Horns. With [tag]DJ Augustin[/tag] playing off the ball, he and [tag]AJ Abrams[/tag] are all over the place trying to create offensive chances. Everybody looks more active.

Kansas 18, Texas 20

• Mason out, let’s see how much standing around there is on offense. No reason we can’t keep up the good off the ball movement.
• That’s the second time tonight Abrams has had a great steal. Kid has quick hands to go with his quick shot.
• Looks like the refs are allowing tons of contact against Augustin when he initiates it. Now that he’s back at the point he seems to be more out of control than earlier.

Kansas 28, Texas 29

• Kansas scores but ESPN still hasn’t given them the points. Or maybe they had 26 and not 28, I’m old and blind.
• Aaron Ross at the game as well sitting with Mack Brown. I think Ross is in school this semester as well.

Kansas 35, Texas 33

• [tag]Connor Atchley[/tag] is nails from three again. He’s four of four on the night. After he and Abrams were nailing everything we suddenly went away from both of them in our offense.
• Damion James picked up two quick fouls. I was wondering why he hadn’t played at all since we picked up the game.
• Kansas seems to have five guys on the court at all times that can score and create for themselves.
• Ouch. Johnson looks like he’s in serious pain. Is he bleeding? I don’t care how uncomfortable those masks are the kid needs to wear one to protect the nose.

Kansas 41, Texas 38

• I don’t know how [tag]Rick Barnes[/tag] doesn’t give himself a heart attack and a hernia every nigh yelling at the officials. I know it’s a tough job but hell it’s one of the most frustrating things to watch when refs are seemingly making things up as they go along.
• Sigh. [tag]Clint Chapman[/tag] looks like he has my hands. Kid doesn’t look like he could catch a cold sometimes. He has to expect the ball at anytime.

Halftime: Kansas 42, Texas 38

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Fran Fraschilla on Rick Barnes’ transformation at Texas. Discusses his change from control freak to coach who let’s his player’s have freedom.

SI’s Grant Wahl says Rick Barnes can coach. Barnes took a lot of heat last year from national media who never watched college basketball and certainly never watched the Horns (cough… Bill Simmons).