#4 Pittsburgh Panthers 78, #8 Syracuse Orange 60 – Pitt bounced back from their first loss of the season in convincing fashion, blasting the visiting Orange at the Pete on ESPN’s Big Monday. The Panthers were able to overcome Andy Rautin‘s five three-pointers by dominating on the glass, outrebounding their opponents by a 37-24 margin. DeJuan Blair was an unstoppable force, posting 20 and 12, while Sam Young came alive in the second half to lead the team with 22 points.

Kansas Jayhawks 73, Texas A&M Aggies 53 – The Aggies were the last visiting team to win in Allen Fieldhouse, all the way back in February of 2007. But Texas A&M stole that game behind the heroics of Acie Law, who they sorely missed in last night’s contest. The Jayhawks owned this rematch from start to finish, thoroughly dominating the contest much more than the 20-point margin would indicate. The Kansas D forced 20 turnovers on the night and held every single Aggie player to eight points or less.

Texas slid in this week’s polls as a result of its meltdown in Norman last Monday night, dropping to 14th in the AP and 15th in the ESPN/USA Today rankings. The Sooners and Longhorns are the only Big 12 teams in the AP poll, while Baylor clings to 23rd in ESPN’s rankings after their road loss to A&M last Wednesday. Kansas and Missouri also received votes in both polls.

Joe Lunardi’s latest Bracketology has the Horns dipping to a 4-seed and playing their first two games in Portland. After a nice trip to Spokane two years ago for the NCAA tournament, we’d love another roadie to the Pacific Northwest. But, of course, the selections are still two months away, and absolutely anything can happen.

We’ve had our share of interesting moments in the O-Zone over the years, including the time former OU guard Bobby Maze had to be held back by a teammate during pre-game warm-ups. Even more intense was the incident with a Colorado forward (who will remain unnamed) that exchanged shoves with a Texas student during the 2003-04 season. But nothing that’s happened in the Erwin Center can hold a candle to the video below, where a Clemson student tackles Chas McFarland. Good thing it wasn’t Ron Artest…

If you happened to check the website yesterday (or have LRT’s feed set up on your RSS reader), you may have noticed our quiet and unassuming return to coverage. For the rest of you, chances are you won’t even notice the return for another few days…or more. But this is the time of year when everyone tries to make changes in their lives, and the ones we’re making are allowing more time for writing. We can’t promise things will be as consistent as last season, when there was content here on a daily basis. But we can promise that we are damned sure going to try.

The recruiting bonanza continues for Rick Barnes and the Longhorns, as they’ve now secured a verbal commitment from 2011 point guard prospect Myck Kabongo, beating out the likes of Villanova, Kansas, and Florida. The high school sophomore is a teammate of 2010 Texas commit Tristan Thompson, but he credits Barnes and assistant Rodney Terry with selling him on the program. This verbal is just the latest in a string of recruiting successes for the Longhorns, who have already inked one of 2009’s top classes in Avery Bradley, Jordan Hamilton, and Shawn Williams, in addition to landing Florida transfer Jai Lucas for next season. When you throw in Thompson and fellow ’10 commit Daniel Bejarano, it seems that Texas will be loaded for years to come.

While Gallagher-Iba Arena is certainly never an easy place to play, Texas A&M might have lost a huge opportunity when they stumbled there on Saturday. The defeat came in the conference opener for the Aggies, who now have a murderous four-game stretch approaching that could easily sink their aspirations for a league title. Mark Turgeon’s squad hosts a salty Baylor squad tomorrow night before the Sooners come to town this weekend, but then also must travel to Lawrence and Austin the following week to take on the Jayhawks and Longhorns. For a Texas A&M team that has hardly been tested in non-conference play, this opening slate will truly be a trial by fire.

Kansas JuCo transfer Mario Little won’t take a medical redshirt this year, despite missing the first twelve games of the season. The guard has seen limited action in three games, including a lightning-quick foul-out in East Lansing this weekend. But with the hardship option still on the table until tonight’s game against Kansas State, Little informed Coach Self of his intentions to finish out the season. The decision will give Sherron Collins some much-needed veteran help in a backcourt that starts freshmen Brady Morningstar and Tyshawn Taylor.

After a season in which Kansas and Memphis split first-place votes and instigated bar arguments nationwide over who was truly superior, it seemed only fitting that 40 minutes wouldn’t be enough to separate the two teams in last night’s championship game. And even more fitting was the fact that the Tigers’ free-throw shooting woes were finally their undoing, after they had miraculously disappeared during the post-season just as their coach predicted. But thanks to super-human play by Mario Chalmers and that aforementioned Memphis choke-job at the charity stripe, the Kansas Jayhawks have their first national title 20 years to the day after Danny Manning and the Miracles clinched the title in Kansas City.

So much to talk about, and we’ll get around to more of it later today. For now, the real world and the McJob are calling. In the meantime, we leave you with this year’s “One Shining Moment” montage, which featured Texas Pom, Damion James, A.J. Abrams, and Alexis Wangmene.

Finally, Selection Sunday is here. And with it comes the game that we’ve all been waiting for since February 11th, when the Longhorns held off the Jayhawks in Austin for a huge win and the tiebreaker that afforded them the 1-seed in this conference tournament.

There’s a ton of history between these two teams, despite the short life of the conference they dominate. This marks the third-straight year that Texas and Kansas will meet in the finals of the conference tournament, where Kansas has won two straight. In fact, the Longhorns are an imperfect 0-4 in Big 12 title games heading into this one.

Following Tennessee’s loss to Arkansas in the SEC semifinals, many pundits are claiming this game could decide the fourth 1-seed that will be handed out in the NCAA tournament. Personally, I’m not sure I buy it, as the Vols have an incredibly strong computer profile and a handful of excellent victories. But if Texas were to win today, it would be hard to argue against a team that has the 5th-best RPI and SOS in addition to 12 wins against the RPI Top 50, which would include four wins against the Top 5 alone.

So if that’s not enough at stake for Texas today, they also are all too aware of the fact that they blew a double-digit lead in the conference championship to Kansas last season, just a week after doing the same thing in Allen Fieldhouse. There’s not just pride and seeds on the line, but perhaps a little bit of revenge, too. And if you include the 19,000 Jayhawk fans that will be filling the Sprint Center today in hopes of seeing their own revenge for the February 11th loss, this one should be incredibly intense.

If you’re interested in who the Jayhawk players are, you can check out the game preview from the February 11th contest in Austin. The only player that KU used in last season’s two wins that won’t be on the floor today is Julian Wright, so the ‘Hawks bring plenty of experience into this one. The addition of freshman Cole Aldrich gives them some depth inside, while Darnell Jackson has made huge strides in his senior year and is now an absolute stud in the paint for the Jayhakws.

What to look for

1) Ball control – Texas has led the country in controlling the ball for much of the season, and they’ll need to do that today. Kansas loves to play pressure defense extended well past the perimeter, and will throw a variety of full-court looks at random times just to throw teams off. If the Longhorns can keep the Jayhawks from amassing a nice chunk of points off of turnovers, they should be in good shape today.

2) Smart defense – In the first half of the February 11th game, Kansas used lightning-fast ball movement to attack the Texas defense for good looks inside and open attempts from behind the arc. Fortunately, the Jayhawks scaled back their attacks the inside in the second half, which was a big reason why the Horns were able to win the game. Texas will need to rotate quickly and communicate well on D to ensure that the incredibly talented Jayhawk offense doesn’t slice them up.

3) The role players – Who will step up today for Texas? It can’t simply be D.J. Augustin and Damion James. A second-straight big game from A.J. Abrams could put the Horns over the top, but key contributions could also come from Connor Atchley or even one of the big men on the bench. This looks to be a very close game again today, so even the smallest contribution from an unsung player could spell the difference.