Gary Johnson and Texas tumbled to a 4 seed
(Photo credit: Charlie Riedel/Associated Press)

A day after falling to Kansas in the Big 12 Tournament final, the Texas Longhorns were awarded a 4 seed in the NCAA’s West Regional by the Selection Committee. The Horns will open tournament play against the Oakland Golden Grizzlies on Friday at 11:15 A.M. in Tulsa, Oklahoma. If Texas wins its first game — now considered a part of the second round — the Longhorns will advance to face either Arizona or Memphis in a third round game on Sunday.

Texas will have its hands full preparing for Oakland this week. The Golden Grizzlies boast one of the most efficient offenses in the country, and utilize an up-tempo attack that gives them even more opportunities to pile up the points. Oakland is led by a bona fide star in big man Keith Benson, a 6’11″ shot-blocking, rebounding machine that will undoubtedly be playing in the NBA next year. A full look at Texas’ second round match-up will be available in LRT’s game preview later this week.

The at-large selection was the 13th consecutive NCAA tournament bid for Texas, a streak that dates back to 1999. The 13-year run is tied for fourth-longest among active streaks with Gonzaga and Wisconsin, and puts the Horns behind only Kansas (22 consecutive appearances), Duke (16), and Michigan State (14).

While the bid was expected, the 4 seed came as a surprise to most national observers. Prior to the bracket being released, most projections had Texas firmly on the 3-seed line, with a few writers — such as CNNSI’s Andy Glockner — even slotting Texas as a 2 seed. Fellow SI scribe Luke Winn called Texas’ 4 seed “harsh” on Twitter, while sympathizing with the Longhorn bigs who would be tasked with containing Benson. ESPN’s Jay Bilas even took the time to disagree with Texas and Kentucky’s 4 seeds in between his numerous rants against the selection committee.

Elsewhere in the Big 12, Kansas secured a 1 seed in the Southwest Regional, and will also play their second and third round games at the BOK Center in Tulsa. Kansas State earned a 5 seed and will face the WAC Champion Utah State Aggies in Tucson on Thursday night. The Missouri Tigers, who were bounced in the quarterfinals of the Big 12 Tournament, were tabbed an 11 seed and will face Mick Cronin’s Cincinnati Bearcats on Thursday night in Washington, D.C.

Texas A&M was slotted as a 7 seed and will face Florida State, a team that will get a boost if Chris Singleton finally returns after fracturing his foot on February 12th. There was speculation that Singleton would return for the ACC tournament, but he did not play against Virginia Tech and the Seminoles were promptly sent packing in one of the most tense conference tournament endings in recent memory. With an extra week off, perhaps the 6’9″ forward will be ready to give it a go on Friday afternoon in Chicago.

The Big 12 collected just five bids in this year’s tournament, as Colorado was left on the wrong side of the bubble. Despite three wins over Kansas State and home wins against both Missouri and Texas, the Buffaloes’ atrocious non-conference schedule was the likely cause of their omission. Colorado’s non-conference strength of schedule was ranked 324th out of 345 Division I teams by Ken Pomeroy, with the Buffs suffering losses against the few quality opponents. Coach Tad Boyle and his team will have to bounce back quickly from the disappointment, however, as they are a 1 seed in the NIT and will host Texas Southern on Wednesday.

Nebraska and Oklahoma State also earned NIT bids, while Baylor will be sitting out the 2011 post-season. The Cornhuskers travel to Wichita State on Wednesday night, while on Tuesday Oklahoma State will host Harvard. The Crimson slid into the NIT after Princeton stunned them with a buzzer-beater to win a one-game playoff for the Ivy League title and an automatic NCAA berth.

If you want to challenge (and destroy) that bracket in a free pool, click on over to the Longhorn Road Trip group in the SI Bracket Challenge on Facebook. Winner will earn unending fame on LRT and their choice of one of next year’s two t-shirt designs.

We’re going to be cutting it close on the back end of this trip, as we should be pulling into Greensboro about four hours before the Longhorns tip against the Gophers. I’m not sure what kind of preview (if any) I’ll be able to write for the game, but you can get your hoops fix covered by reading the preview from the fine folks at Burnt Orange Nation and seeing what fellow our blogpollers at The Daily Gopher think about Thursday night’s match-up.

In the meantime, think fondly of us as we travel the long, purple line below. Because while you might wish that you were skipping work to criss-cross the country on a basketball sojourn, the fact of the matter is that we’ll be in the middle of nowhere running on a refined mixture of Starburst, Wheat Thins, and energy drinks. We’re just living the dream.

The Texas cities making bids for the Final Four went two for three earlier today, when the NCAA named Arlington and Houston future Final Four sites. The 2014 event will be held at the new Cowboys space station out in Arlington, while Reliant in Houston will follow up their 2011 Final Four with another in 2016. San Antonio was one of five cities whose bids were not selected.

It seemed that perhaps Ole Miss could make a run as a darkhorse NCAA candidate with the SEC having a bit of a down year. But after losing Trevor Gaskins at the start of the year, the Rebels took another huge blow when junior guard and leader Eniel Polynice had season-ending knee surgery. It’s a tough break for Andy Kennedy and the Rebs, who were bringing in a serviceable freshman class to compliment the nucleus of a team that started 13-0 last year.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.