It took 42 hours on the road and a few crazy setbacks, but we are finally in the Pacific Northwest and ready to watch the Horns begin the best postseason tournament in sports. Recipients of a 4-seed, the Longhorns draw the 13-seed New Mexico State Aggies, the winners of the WAC’s auto-bid. The Aggies held off Utah State to win the conference tournament despite throwing an inbounds pass out of bounds in the waning seconds with only a two-point lead.

Coached by Reggie Theus, the Aggies run an up-tempo game with high defensive intensity. NMSU’s possessions per game is 24th nationally. They will throw out a lot of full-court pressure and trap in the half-court sets, so it will be important for D.J. Augustin to stay out of foul trouble. When Augustin is not on the floor, pressure-oriented defenses have a field day with Texas’ less-seasoned guards.

New Mexico State is ranked 5th nationally in free throw rate, which indicates that they attack the rim a great deal and draw fouls in shooting situations. Unfortunately for the Aggies, they don’t have much success when they get there. Point guard Elijah Ingram shoots 84% from the charity stripe, but all of the other players with significant minutes are shooting 70% or worse.

The high tempo scheme employed by Theus also forces the Aggies to run fairly deep on the bench. Nine different players average over 15 minutes per game. If Texas allows the Aggies to run the game at their preferred pace, fatigue and depth could definitely come into play. The Horns only truly run six deep — perhaps now seven, if Craig Winder continues to pull solid minutes — and cannot affod to get into a track meet with NMSU.

Ingram is the only Aggie who takes many three pointers, and is making them 42% of the time. Former Kansas State guard Fred Peete and senior guard Shaun Davis also take a fair number from behind the arc, but neither is as dangerous as Ingram. For a Texas team that has often shown a weakness in guarding the perimeter, this could be an excellent matchup. The Horns like to collapse and clog the lane, so it could come down to a battle between the big men for NMSU and the sagging Texas defense.

The Aggies definitely have some trees in the lane that could cause problems for a much smaller Longhorn squad. Martin Iti is a 7-foot center coming off the bench for Coach Theus, while forwards Justin Hawkins and Tyrone Nelson rebound remarkably well. Texas needs to be careful to avoid offensive possessions that result in defensive rebounds and easy outlets into transition. And on the defensive end, the Horns need to keep the NMSU bigs off the glass. They are a great rebounding team and can get a ton of points off second-chance opportunities.

For now, I need to get some food and head over to the Spokane Arena. TV is obviously CBS, although there are also three other games that will be on across the country. I’m thinking the pull of Kevin Durant might make this the “national” game for any areas not tied regionally to any of the other games, but if you’re not from the Austin area, you may want to try a sports bar.

Post-game thoughts will be up late tonight, as we’ve got the USC/Arkansas game after ours. And if time allows on Saturday, I may try to write up the crazy journey to the game. Enjoy the wall-to-wall basketball action, and Hook ’em Horns!

If you’re a University of Texas grad who happens to be living in the Pacific Northwest, we’d love to see you in the burnt orange section for Friday’s game — and hopefully Sunday’s, too. While priority is being given to Longhorn Foundation donors, basketball season ticket holders, and students with the LASP, I can guarantee you that there will be tickets left over from our allotment when the 12 P.M. deadline passes.

So what to do if you want one of those remaining tickets? Call the Texas Box Office at (512) 471-3333 after 12 P.M. CDT on Tuesday, or click on over to TexasBoxOffice.com and place an order. You can’t order tickets for the session including the Oregon-Miami game and Notre Dame-Winthrop match-up, but there may be tickets available outside the arena if you’re interested in those two games. Each session ticket is $56, while the service charges come in at $10 per order.

Orders can be picked up at will call from the arena in Spokane on game day, beginning an hour before the session. I hope to see some of you Seattle and Portland-based Longhorn fans at the games.

The Longhorn Road Trip just got a whole lot longer. Thanks to the genius of the the NCAA Selection Committee, Texas — a “protected” four seed — will be playing its first two rounds over 2,000 miles from home, with a possible Sweet 16 date in East Rutherford, New Jersey their reward for a pair of victories.

Does anybody actually know anything about Spokane, Washington? Or have any tips of what to see along the way? I’m guessing there won’t be a whole hell of a lot once we get past Denver, but looking at mountains for 891 straight hours ought to be grand. If you’ve got any sights or restaurants for us to check out, feel free to leave them below in the comments.

Honestly, the entire Big 12 got shafted by the committee. A&M is a 3-seed that gets sent to Lexington, while Memphis gets sent to New Orleans as a 2-seed? Why aren’t the Tigers close to home in Lexington while the Aggies play closer to home in Nawlins? And that doesn’t even address the fact that A&M could end up playing Louisville in the second round, only 75 miles down I-64 from the UL campus.

Then Kansas is given a 1-seed, but is rewarded with a regional where 2-seed UCLA gets to play only five hours from home? I realize that the top seeds are only supposed to be protected in the first two rounds — unless, apparently you’re a top four seed from the state of Texas — but is preserving the S-curve so important that a 1-seed should get jobbed that badly?

Why not ship UCLA to the San Antonio regional and send Memphis out to the San Jose regional? I’m assuming, of course, that the S-curve held perfectly for these top eight seeds. If that’s so, you’ve got the overall third-best team (Ohio State) playing the fifth-best team (UCLA) if chalk holds to the Elite Eight, while the fourth-best team (Kansas) gets the sixth-best (Memphis) and no top seeds are absolutely screwed by road games in the second weekend.

That’s enough bitching for now. At least Texas has two winnable games in front of them. We’ll be driving to Spokane on Wednesday and Thursday, so there will likely be few updates to the website in the middle of the week. A preview of the New Mexico State Aggies should be coming on Thursday night once we arrive at the hotel.

That sound you just heard? It was a major-conference bubble bursting as the Horizon League Championship came to a close. Wright State upset Butler in front of a raucous home crowd, stealing the auto-bid and sending the Bulldogs to the at-large pool.

Congratulations are also in order for the North Texas Mean Green, who won the Sun Belt Championship just minutes later. For UNT, it is only their second NCAA bid in school history, with the other one coming 19 years ago. In 1988, they were a first-round victim of the mighty North Carolina Tar Heels.

Watching the final seconds of that Butler-Wright State game really epitomized everything that March Madness is about. Throw in the fact that it was on Wright State’s home floor instead of a neutral court, and the chill factor went through the roof.

Sophomore guard Will Graham hit four free throws in the final twelve seconds to ice the game. After he had made the third to put his team up by two possessions, he pounded his chest and pointed into the crowd. Reading his lips was easy. “I love you!” he shouted. His teammates locked arms and jumped with the excitement only a championship can provide.

Just two seconds later, the final buzzer sounded and fans stormed the court. Like UNT, this year will mark only the second time that the Wright State Raiders will be dancing in March. You see that, Michigan State? A championship is truly worthy of a court-rush.

Selection Sunday is still five days away, so there’s a lot of basketball left. But with Butler likely claiming an at-large bid, the pool for bubble teams just got a bit more shallow. Who will miss out thanks to this game? Kansas State? Illinois? West Virginia?

No matter who ends up staying home, the moral of this story remains the same — during Championship Week, the little guys hold all the power.