As mentioned in the Greg Oden Video Spectacular below, I’m quite a bit behind this week. Of course, with only 16 teams left in the country, there’s a lot of coverage of the Longhorns out there that I’ve been missing out on. Mixed into all the burnt-orange love is a little news from elsewhere in the NCAAs, so dive in and get your fill as the first night of the Sweet 16 quickly approaches…

Pat Forde tells a story that many Longhorn fans are familiar with as he explores the winding path D.J. Augustin took to Austin and the tight family bond the Augustins share. This story actually had front-page play on ESPN.com earlier in the week, so it looks like the Burnt Orange Media Conspiracy has stepped from the shadows and into plain sight.

And speaking of the BOMC, how about Donald Sloan openly crying that the Aggies don’t get treated with the respect that the Longhorns get? If you happened to miss Sloan’s post-game interview with radio station KZNE, you’ve definitely got to check out the link. Regardless of what you think about the referees swallowing the whistle in that situation, you’ve really got to wonder why the first place Sloan’s mind jumps is a fantasy construct where he’s D.J. Augustin…

Students at Davidson are getting a free ride to see their team play in Detroit. Oh, and they’ll be getting free lodging and tickets, as well. Trustees at the small, private liberal-arts college decided to pay for the unprecedented trip, which will allow at least 300 students to make the journey. Just imagine what Longhorn Road Trip could be with trustees like these. Hint, hint.

Mike Freeman at CBS Sportsline combines all of the recent stories about Coach Barnes into a quick, enjoyable read. All the themes familiar to Longhorn fans are there — Barnes’ moratorium on cursing, his joking remark that set off Razorback fans, and the North Carolina native’s jocular nature. But most enjoyable are the anecdotes from Coach Haith, particularly one about the Final Four in 2003. Check it out.

The folks over at Gutty Little Bruins have a hilarious post about tournament upsets leading into the game with Western Kentucky. Hats off to the writers for this one, which was not only good for a laugh but also provided a great photographic trip down memory lane.

The first round of the greatest playoff in sports is just 60 minutes away, but Longhorn Road Trip has your fix in the meantime. For the last nine days, we’ve been counting down the greatest finishes in NCAA tournament history, and today we reach the end of our list.

Jim Valvano’s Wolfpack of NC State met the University of Houston in the 1983 NCAA finals, huge underdogs against a Cougar team that had won 26 straight coming into the championship. With 44 seconds left, NC State had the ball in a tie ballgame. Without the modern shot clock, the Wolfpack was able to work the ball around in a Four Corners set, although Houston’s Clyde Drexler came within inches of stealing the ball for a possible game-winning fast break. After another near-steal, Dereck Whittenburg threw up a desperation heave with four seconds to go that completely missed the iron. But Lorenzo Charles was in the perfect position, catching the airball in time for a championship-winning putback dunk.

The video here starts with a little over a minute to go, but it’s worth it to watch the whole thing. The impatient folks who want to cut to the chase can skip to the 2-minute mark of the video.

When I started this feature, the most common question I heard from friends and readers was “Where do you have the Laettner shot?” Many thought it would be the number one play on the countdown, but instead it finds a home at the number two slot. Some may disagree with the choice, but I truly feel that there is one better buzzer beater — that’s called alliteration, kids — and we’ll check that one out tomorrow morning before the tournament kicks off.

If the Bryce Drew shot isn’t the most famous play in NCAA tournament history, this one has to be. Kentucky and Duke were locked in an epic battle from Philadelphia’s Spectrum, with a trip to the 1992 Final Four on the line. The game was so closely contested that 40 minutes of regulation weren’t enough, and after 4 minutes and 58 seconds of overtime, the two teams were still only separated by a point.

Duke had to travel the length of the floor with only 2.1 seconds to go, trailing 103-102. Grant Hill was triggering the inbounds completely unguarded, as the Wildcats decided to put all five defenders in the frontcourt. With no one to impede his vision or his heave, he threw a baseball pass that set up Laettner’s famous move…

The play became a prevalent pop-culture touchstone, with ESPN even tapping Chris Farley to spoof it for a commercial spot the following year. I loved it as a youngster and enacted my own versions of his clumsiness in the driveway, but it’s still just as funny now and deserves a second look.

At this point, you may be asking yourself how I can put the “Game of the Century” — as Farley screamed it — in only second place. But bear with me, dear readers. There’s still one more moment that we all know and love which had even greater implications than Laettner’s clutch shot. And it’ll be here on Longhorn Road Trip tomorrow morning, just in time to get you ready for 12 hours of basketball heaven.

While fans may have been familiar with many of the buzzer beaters seen so far in our countdown, if not all of them, the clip seen today at number three may be new to you. We go all the way back to the 1981 tournament for this buzzer beater. The location? Our very own Frank Erwin Center. The teams? Defending champion Louisville, who was seeded 4th, and Arkansas, the 5-seed who had advanced after beating Mercer in the first round. And on the sidelines were two coaches who are now both legendary, Denny Crum for Louisville and Eddie Sutton for the Hogs.

Down 73-71, Arkansas had the ball with only fives seconds left to play and the length of the court in front of them. But U.S. Reed only needed to go half of that distance to make the game-winner…

According to Rivals.com, Reed is now a pastor in Arkansas after a break pro career. After being drafted by the Kansas City Kings, he failed to make the roster and spent the 1982 season in the CBA. The following summer he had a training-camp stint with the Spurs, but a knee injury cost him the season and effectively ended his career.

For today’s buzzer beater countdown, we revisit one of the most famous plays in tournament history.

Down by two to Ole Miss, Bryce Drew of Valparaiso tried to hit the go-ahead three as time wound down. But his shot clanged off the front iron and Ansu Sesay came down with a huge rebound with only 4.1 seconds to go. Following the foul, Sesay choked on the front end of his one-and-one and the carom was tipped out of bounds by the Rebels. That left Drew and Valpo with 2.5 seconds to go the length of the floor with no timeouts…

Keep an eye out for current Baylor coach Scott Drew as an assistant for his dad in this clip.

We’re back in Austin after an absolutely exhausting weekend of basketball and an all-night drive home, and I’m ready to sleep for about 86.3 hours. But first let’s talk a little about the bracket.

While it was certainly disappointing to lose to Kansas in the conference tournament finals again, things worked out incredibly well. If Texas would have earned a 1-seed in Detroit by winning the game, perhaps that loss was the best possible outcome. Texas now has the route of Little Rock-Houston-San Antonio if they win their games, which is reassuringly similar to the Birmingham-San Antonio-New Orleans route that the 2003 Final Four team took.

Oddly enough, I’ve seen Austin Peay play in person this season, as Bear and I stopped in Nashville when we were traveling to the Michigan State game in December. The game was at Belmont that night, and the one memory that stands out most in my mind was how sloppy the Governors were with the ball, nearly choking away a 17 or 18-point lead to the Bruins late in the game. I’ll have to dig up my notes and media info from that one to give a more detailed Austin Peay preview later in the week.

The CBS storyline machine is already working overtime, as former Rick Barnes assistant Frank Haith could coach against his mentor if the Miami Hurricanes and Longhorns both win in the first round… Up in Omaha, it’s a match-up of super freshmen when Michael Beasley and O.J. Mayo tangle. And we also can’t forget that Mayo’s former high school teammate Bill Walker is also on K-State… If Winthrop pulls the first round upset, they could face Notre Dame in the second round, which would be a rematch of the first-round game in Spokane last season where the Eagles upset the Fighting Irish.

Is Wisconsin undervalued as a 3-seed? While they only lost four games this year, their SOS of 61 really paled in comparison to most of the other 2 and 3-seeds, so moving them up a line might have been a stretch. But when you consider the road awaiting Duke in this tournament, I’m not sure any of the 3-seeds would’ve wanted to be bumped up. If they get by Belmont, the Blue Devils have to face the winner of West Virginia and Arizona, which is one hell of a second-round test for a 2-seed. And if Duke does happen to survive to the second weekend, they get to fly out to Phoenix with a potential Elite Eight game against UCLA awaiting. I guess even the anointed Blue Devils can’t get the sweetheart treatment when they go 5-4 to finish the year.

Have any other thoughts or storylines I missed in this pre-dawn post? Leave them in the comments section below as we talk hoops all week long leading up to the tourney.

As we ride into Selection Sunday, the countdown of the Top 10 buzzer beats in the NCAA Tournament continues with number five.

Today’s selection will be very familiar to Longhorn fans, as it comes from the Texas/West Virginia Sweet 16 match-up just two seasons ago. As Texas fans will remember, the last 14 seconds of the game were absolutely crazy. The Longhorns were up three points, but West Virginia rushed down the court and tied the game on a Kevin Pittsnoggle trifecta with just five seconds left. Texas immediately pushed the ball up the floor, and A.J. Abrams threw an “ohshit” pass that nearly sailed past Kenton Paulino. But KP calmly controlled the feed, set up for an NBA-range three, and shot the team into the Elite Eight.

In an interesting twist, Pittsnoggle and Paulino are now teammates on the Austin Toros, a team in the NBDL.

The countdown of the top ten finishes in NCAA tournament history continues this evening with number six.

One of the craziest March Madness buzzer beaters I can remember watching as a kid came in a game between Missouri and UCLA in the 1995 NCAA tournament. The Bruins were down a point and had to go the length of the floor with 4.8 seconds to go.

You always hear coaches and TV analysts say that in late-game situations you can take a dribble for each second on the clock. But most players aren’t as fast as Tyus Edney, who streaked down the court, whipped it around his back, and took it to the rim for one of the most memorable plays in tournament history.

In the two previous meetings this season, the Oklahoma State Cowboys took the Texas Longhorns to the wire. When they first met in Stillwater, it was only a 63-61 victory for the Longhorns, while the margin in Austin was a slightly more comfortable seven-point spread. So when the teams met in Kansas City yesterday, Sean Sutton’s team wasn’t daunted by the fact that they were only a 9-seed taking on the league champions. They knew they could hang with Texas, and it showed.

After the Longhorns sprinted out to a 9-3 lead, the Pokes went on a 10-0 run to jump on top and get the entire arena rooting for their upset bid. The rest of the first half was a repeat of the first few minutes, with Texas rebuilding a seven-point lead, yet finding itself down by a point at half following a Terrel Harris three with two seconds left.

The second half was a completely different story, though. The Texas defense — which seemed to confuse the hell out of OSU with a 2-3 zone — held the Pokes scoreless for nearly the first eight minutes of the half, by which point the Longhorns were already up by eleven.

But as had been the case all season for Rick Barnes and company, they could not shake Okie State. The Pokes clawed back over the final 8:02 of the game, chipping away at a 13-point advantage. After an Obi Muonelo layup with just two minutes left, OSU was down just five, and the late-arriving crowd of 19,000 was smelling Longhorn blood. But with Jayhawks, Wildcats, Aggies, Sooners, and even the Colorado band pulling for the Pokes, the Texas defense stiffened up and stopped the comeback short.

The stars of the game for Texas were most certainly D.J. Augustin and Damion James. At one point early in the second half, Texas led by a 37-33 count. Thirty of those points came from Augustin and James. On the day, the pair combined for 47, while James pulled down 11 boards and added a highlight-reel block.

While Connor Atchley had a really rough start to the day, his second-half contributions were huge. The junior’s shot was way off, and he even airballed a free throw. But his scrappy play inside led to some key putbacks in the second twenty, and his four blocks were integral to shutting down the Pokes. He even hustled on the loose balls, getting Texas an extra possession by reaching around an OSU player to throw it off of him along the sideline.

The negative from this win was the unfortunate injury to Gary Johnson in the first half, which initially looked like some kind of knee problem, but is apparently an ankle injury. After he headed to the locker room, he wasn’t seen again until second-half warm-ups, at which point he was walking around with a soft cast or brace wrapped around the ankle. Mark Rosner from the Austin-American Statesman reported in his blog yesterday afternoon that x-rays were negative, so Gary should be ready to go soon. But with the big tourney just a week away, I hope we keep the kid on the bench for the one or two games left and rest him up for the ones that truly matter.

The silver lining in Gary’s injury was a really solid day from Alexis Wangmene. Oklahoma State was absolutely abusing Texas on the offensive glass, grabbing nine rebounds off of their own misses in the first half. Coach Barnes went big in response, running only two guards out there to help fight off the Pokes. But without Johnson on the floor and Dexter Pittman getting yanked after about 0.004 seconds of play, the bulk of the load fell on Lex’s shoulders. And while he did pick up quite a few fouls, he ate up 14 minutes for Texas and added an inside hoop and pair of rebounds.

A win is really nothing more than stat padding at this point for the Horns, because it seems hard to believe that even a Big 12 Tournament title can get them a 1-seed in the NCAAs. The Selection Committee has made it painfully clear that they don’t pay attention to the B12 championship, and who can blame them when it ends just before the brackets are announced? Add that to the fact that UCLA, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Memphis are all winning the games they are supposed to in their own conference tourneys, and there doesn’t seem to be room for Texas or the Jayhawks to slide up a line.

Regardless, the Horns will march on and look for another confidence-boosting W today against the Oklahoma Sooners. Game preview will be coming your way shortly, as we’ve got to head out early in case the shuttle lines are lengthy. As was the case yesterday, enjoy the wall-to-wall hoops action, and check back here all afternoon as I’ve set the website to post some pre-written content throughout the day.

It’s quarterfinal Friday in the Big 12, so by the time you’re viewing this we’ll be knocking back drinks in the Power & Light District after what is hopefully a Longhorn victory. Today we bring you the seventh-most exciting buzzer beater in NCAA tournament history…or at least since the advent of television.

Number seven comes from the 1992 second-round game between 7-seed Georgia Tech and 2-seed Southern Cal. The Trojans led 78-76 with only 0.8 seconds standing between them and the Sweet 16. But the Yellow Jackets had one final play remaining, with the inbounds pass coming from nearly half-court…

The Yellow Jackets would go on to lose to Memphis State (now Memphis) in the following round, but James Forrest’s miracle three-pointer earned a place not only in Georgia Tech history, but March Madness lore.