Not a ton of time to preview this morning’s game, but considering this is the third time that Oklahoma State and Texas have tangled this season, that’s probably not a big deal. If you need a refresher on the Cowboy roster or the style of hoops that they employ, you can take a look back at the game preview from the first match-up.

As we pointed out in the preview of the second game just five days ago, the biggest cause for the resurgence of Sean Sutton’s team is the play of chubster point guard Byron Eaton. As he goes, so go the Cowboys, so the Longhorns must shut him down this morning.

I’m incredibly worried about this game, but not because it has any real implications on the tournament. It appears that Texas is pretty well locked into a 2-seed for the Big Dance, as it would be nearly impossible to work their way up to the 1-seed line, and their résumé is too good to drop to a 3-seed with one loss in the tournament.

But we’ve all heard the tired refrain of how hard it is to beat the same team three times in a year, and last season’s insane comeback against Baylor was proof enough of the validity of that aphorism. OSU has taken Texas to the wire twice this year, and today’s game will likely mimic a road atmosphere as everyone in the arena will be rooting for the top seed to fall. Add to that the fact that the Horns haven’t played very well in early games (see: Wisconsin Dec ’07, Baylor Jan ’07) and there’s cause for concern.

We’re going to prep the next buzzer-beater for the countdown so that it will post between the morning and evening sessions, but we’ll be in downtown KC until late tonight. So, post-game and notes from the tourney won’t come until the wee hours. In the meantime, enjoy the wall-to-wall hoops action.