The Longhorn Road Trip story on Fox 7 News is going to air twice tonight and twice during tomorrow’s morning show. For those of us at the game or watching the Horns on TV, that means the showing at 9:40ish is going to be missed. But that 9 P.M. news does follow American Idol, so maybe I can pull in the coveted 10-14 year-old brain-dead demographic.

The other showings will be 5:40ish P.M. tonight, and at 5:15 and 6:15 A.M. tomorrow morning. A huge thanks once again to John Hygh for taking the time to do the piece. If you get a chance to see it, let me know what you think. Fingers are crossed that I don’t make too big of an ass out of myself, although I’d be willing to bet I do.

Apologies to anybody who tried to watch the news piece last night. John Hygh from Fox 7 called me while I was on my way to work and let me know that a story on DeLoss Dodds’ induction into the Texas Sports Hall of Fame was going to air last night instead. Unfortunately, I don’t have internet access at my work and the post was just left sitting there announcing something that wasn’t going to happen.

Instead, my story will air next Tuesday, which is a tough break considering we’ll be playing Texas Tech at the Drum right about then. It will also air the next day during their morning show, so it sounds like there will be four times in the span of about 13 hours that it will be on. I think my own mother will be tired of my face at that point.

Last night was absolutely crazy in the Big 12, as A&M went down to Tech (again), K-State lost to Nebraska, and OU lost to Iowa State. That puts the Horns in sole possession of 3rd place, only one game back of the leading Aggies. And now Kansas has a pretty good shot at the title, needing only to run the table and have A&M falter in one of their remaining five.

Tuesday was also good for Texas’ RPI, without the team even taking the court. Tennessee knocked off Kentucky and Michigan State beat Michigan, pushing the Horns to 49th in Ken Pomeroy’s RPI approximations. The Tech win also stopped their wicked slide down the charts, keeping them at 34th. Texas has three wins against the top 50, with Oklahoma State (25th) and Arkansas (39th) providing the other two.

The biggest thing about the Tech victory is that it keeps them in the NCAA tournament talk. They now have two wins over A&M, a win over Kansas, and a win over Arkansas to put on the resumé. And with home games left against Colorado and Baylor, Bobby Knight’s squad should have 18 wins easily. Their other three games are at Texas, home against Oklahoma State, and a road finish in Ames, Iowa against the Cyclones. If they hold serve at home and steal a road game, we’re looking at a 20-win team heading into a conference tournament where they could likely pick up at least one more.

Tonight’s Big 12 game has the Kansas Jayhawks traveling to Colorado for what should be the first of four consecutive easy wins. Elsewhere, the Greg Oden Show airs on ESPN as Ohio State goes to Happy Valley to take on Penn State (6 PM), while the Texas RPI will fluctuate a little based on the results of Cincinnati-Villanova (8 PM).

Fox 7 News in Austin is running a human interest piece on my quest that will air twice tonight. Your first chance to catch it is during their 5 P.M. broadcast, and it will air around 5:40ish. The second is during the 9 P.M. news, and will be on around 9:40ish. That’s right, I get the House lead-in, coincidentally the only person who is a bigger asshole than myself.

Special thanks to Fox 7’s John Hygh for the interviews and being interested enough in my pursuit to think it’s something a wide audience would be interested to learn about. I can only hope that people seeing it might think, “If somebody can care about UT basketball that much, maybe it’s something I’ve been missing out on.” Call me quixotic or my dreams too grandiose, but I really do think that we can cultivate an intense, passionate basketball fanbase on the 40 Acres.

If anybody out there in the land of interwebs knows how to get the story on a computer, I’d love to know what to do. I’m going to try ripping it from a DVD-R, but we’ll see how that goes.

For those of you who didn’t get a chance to listen to my interview on ESPN Radio a couple of Fridays ago, it is now here on the website for you listening pleasure…or displeasure. A huge thanks to Hobo Davis for covertly recording this at his office and getting it on the interwebs. It may take a second to load, as it’s currently on another server.

I started off with a reference to their argument regarding whether players or coaches are the “rock stars” in college basketball and a not-so-well-received joke about our attendance issues. After that it’s all pretty self-explanatory. But feel free to laugh at me for completely forgetting to mention LonghornRoadTrip.com at any point in the interview.

Tip-off is only five hours away. Where will you be?

Mark Rosner has some good ink in the Austin-American Statesman today on fan favorite Dexter Pittman. As always, Todd Wright is given a ton of credit and the requisite McDonald’s joke is thrown in.

It’s great seeing Dexter getting all the love from the media and the fans. There’s no doubt that Kevin Durant is the superstar on this team, but Big Dex is by far my favorite player. He works his tail off — obviously, considering his huge weight loss — and has a really great attitude about it all. From the moment I met him this summer, he has been the nicest and most gracious UT athlete I’ve known.

He’s been called Dex-a-trim by someone on the UT athletic department publicity staff, Dex Armstong because he spent so much time on exercise bikes, and Sexy Dexy by coeds he knows.

Oddly enough, no mention of the newest Pittman nickname, “winDex.” He does clean the glass, after all. I can smell the NBA endorsements now.

Rosner also notes that Pittman played on the same AAU team in Houston as A&M star Joseph Jones. The two might get a chance to tangle tonight, although it might be best for the Horns to avoid playing Dexter for too long. I’ll get into that in more depth on my game preview in just a few minutes.

In the meantime, check out the article at Statesman.com.