Tons of great pub following the Texas win in Bramlage last night. ESPN’s Around the Rim takes a look at Connor Atchley’s success against Kansas teams, while Jason Whitlock rubs it in the face of Wildcat fans…not that it’s anything new from the Star‘s salaried Jayhawk fanboy. Over at CBS Sportsline, Dennis Dodd praises the Horns and takes digs at Kansas. What’s not to love? A little closer to home, Mark Rosner at the Statesman gives us the Longhorn angle from press row.

I missed Stewart Mandel’s new bracket projections in yesterday’s Fast Break, but with $2 “Madcow Monday” pints waiting at Manhattan’s Little Apple Brewing Company, you can see why I may have been distracted. Mandel is also slotting Texas a 1-seed, putting them out west in Phoenix. He’s also got our friends at Belmont playing their way up to a 14-seed, which makes this traveler feel much better. Elsewhere in the muddled Big 12, Stewart likes Kansas (2-seed), Kansas State (7), Oklahoma (8), Baylor (9), and Texas A&M (9).

Joe Lunardi breaks down the odds for 1-seeds in today’s column (ESPN Insider required). He’s got Texas with a 40% chance to grab a spot on the top line, citing the head-to-head win in Pauley as his reasoning. But when he projects things out to the actual bracket we’ll see in three weeks, he thinks the Horns could be headed to Phoenix as a 2-seed, where they could eventually rematch with a top-seeded UCLA team. Oh, the humanity.

Thursday means new power rankings, and we’ve got ’em hot and fresh. Texas barely stayed in ESPN’s Power 16, hanging on to the 16th slot by the hair of their chinny-chinny-chin. A&M dropped out as a result of the demoralizing loss to Tech last night, while Kansas ascended to the #1 slot just ahead of Memphis. Vandy still isn’t getting any love, but if they can knock off the Vols, who are #5 in this week’s power rankings, the Commodores should jump quite a few teams.

Luke Winn still doesn’t have his rankings up, but we’ll get those linked up tomorrow morning if he does in fact publish them later this afternoon.

I mentioned earlier this week that I have been included in a college hoops blogpoll, and here are the newest rankings. These reflect the games through Monday night, so the losses by A&M, Dayton, and Xavier were not considered. Long-time readers of this site know how much I love crunching the numbers, so my votes favor the mid-majors a little stronger than others may have. Based simply on the numbers, I probably could’ve voted Texas higher than 19th, but until I see them put together another 40 minutes of good basketball, I have to treat the current Longhorns as a completely different team from the one that put together that solid resumé at the end of the year.

Kevin McCarthy over at Parsing the WAC has this interesting find, where conference officials have told Utah State students that their chants are too offensive and could result in a team technical. I might expect this from a tiny conference on the East Coast, but big-time college athletes have to be used to hearing every sort of awful thing someone could conceive of. I guarantee you that Tyler Hansbrough has heard opposing students mention every type of sexual act imaginable involving his mother, father, dog, cousin, uncle, and any other family member. But the ACC doesn’t come down on those students — or, God forbid, the Cameron Crazies — and you don’t see this knee-jerk reaction in the SEC, Big 10, or Big 12 either. There are four-year olds saying “suck,” for Pete’s sake. Do we really need conference offices drawing lines on something this benign?

Sorry for the lack of the regular daily posts on Monday, but instead of recovering from the 27 hours of traveling over the weekend, I instead worked ten more and then came home to immediately pass out. Things should be back on track the rest of the week, although Horns in the League will not return until tomorrow.

Monday of course means new polls, and Texas predictably fell in both of them. The Horns slipped to 19th in both the ESPN/USA Today and AP rankings. Besides the Horns, the only other three-loss squads to crack the polls are Xavier (20th in both), Villanova (21st/25th), and Clemson (23rd/24th). The Big 12 still has the same three teams in both polls, although OU, Baylor, Mizzou, and K-State all grabbed a few votes from the coaches.

There was also a new Bracketology from Joe Lunardi, who slid the Horns to a 4-seed playing in Denver for the first two rounds. As far as I’m concerned, that sounds great. It might be selfish, but I’d rather not deal with the nutjob Razorback fans if Texas were to get the “home pod” in Little Rock. The B-12 is the second-most represented conference, with the Jayhawks (1-seed), Aggies (2), Wildcats (8), Sooners (9), and Bears (10) joining the Horns in the mix.

Caught up on some weekend TV thanks to the DVR and absolutely loved Rick Barnes’ appearance on Friday Night Lights. Coach played a recruiter from the fictional Texas Methodist University, which uses the TSU football stadium on the show but has a superimposed Austin skyline behind it. Barnes got the hotshot “Smash” Williams to give a verbal commitment to TMU, but I’ve got to hope his real recruiting calls are a little less wooden. If you missed it, you can check out full episodes at NBC.com. Rick’s in Episode 211, and he appears near the end.

I’ve just joined a pretty big blogpoll hosted by the good folks at March to Madness. There are currently 18 voters and the newest poll will be released tomorrow, covering games through last night’s Big Monday. I’ll show my selections tomorrow along with commentary and invite you readers to chime in with your own thoughts.

ESPN.com has a good, quick read from Pat Forde regarding the one-year draft rule and Wednesday night’s McDonald’s All-American Game in Lexington, Kentucky. While it was certainly weird to not have any future Longhorns to watch this year, it was quite enjoyable to know that everybody involved will be a part of March Madness just a year from now.

Even without a Longhorn on the McD’s All-American rosters, there was still a bit of a burnt-orange tinge to Forde’s column. After all, the Horns brought in seven freshman during the first season impacted by the NBA’s new rule. And apparently there’s a pretty good Longhorn frosh who wears 35 and has a penchant for exuberant chest-beating.

[UCLA commit Kevin] Love said he is close friends with Durant, talked to him often during the season and last chatted with him this week.

“He doesn’t know what he wants to do yet,” Love said of Durant’s pro decision. “I told him, ‘The only thing you can do is go down or get hurt, so you might as well go.’ But he hasn’t decided yet.”

If Durant makes any decision other than the one Love has counseled, he’s nuts. He served his time, played well, probably had fun. But whatever higher education he got beyond a jab series and a more polished spin move is purely incidental.

While Horn fans certainly aren’t sending Love or Forde any thank-you cards for those bits of unwanted advice, the same thoughts are certainly running through Longhorn Nation’s collective mind. But what the burnt-orange faithful can thank Forde for are some gems regarding big-time star Michael Beasley and the sickeningly cocky O.J. Mayo.

Game MVP Michael Beasley did cause a bunch of eyebrows to arch when he announced that he planned to stay at Kansas State all four years. His 23 points and 12 rebounds were the work of a guy who doesn’t need four years in school.

…”I would love to see him have the opportunity [to go pro], but he’s going to go to the best coach in the world for my son,” [Beasley’s mother] said.

That coach is Bob Huggins.

“He still needs some fine-tuning, and he’s going to get it,” [she] said. “Discipline, sportsmanship, character.”

There might be a few (hundred) coaches I’d turn to before Bob Huggins for fine-tuning in those areas, but to each his own.

Ziiiing! He’ll be here all week. Don’t forget to tip your waitstaff.

As for the pothead prima-donna, Forde said that Mayo “could use a conscience” and was “booed for his shameless shot selection.” O.J. finished the night 4-of-17 from the field. Looks like he’d fit in with the NBA folks already.

Andy Katz always gives the Horns good press. He was all over us at the start of last season, and stuck with the team through their lowest point in December when they lost to Duke and Tennessee consecutively by a combined margin of about 172 points. If I remember correctly, he even had Texas in his pre- and post-season Final Four picks. And while the Horns didn’t get a chance to finally beat Duke in Atlanta and make that prediction a reality, they did come within one win of getting there for a second time in four years.

Wednesday, Katz followed Kevin Durant around on the day of the A&M game, which included a fifteen-minute visit between Durant and the students waiting outside the South O-Zone entrance. For the previous two or three conference games, KD and Dexter Pittman had come out of Cooley Pavilion to meet with the students in line. But with the huge crowd waiting for the Aggie game, it turned into a madhouse.

The resulting article is a great read and even makes it sound like we have good student fan support. (It appears that we fooled Katz, whose Wisconsin Badgers have students who actually “get it” and can create an intimidating atmosphere.) And since I chatted up the Longhorn-friendly reporter, I even was quoted in two consecutive graphs of the article.

“You should see it on the road,” says fifth-year senior Ryan Clark. “I’ve been to every game, every one, all 31, including exhibitions, and he’s just as big a superstar on the road as he is here at home.”

Clark is so dedicated to Horns hoops that he says if Durant comes back for his sophomore season, then he’ll come up with a reason to return for his sixth.

While my mother certainly doesn’t like that idea, I have to say a sixth year wouldn’t be so bad if I was watching KD lead the Horns to a national title. And I could always take the Matt Leinart plan and fill the schedule with ballroom dancing.