The Big 12 Conference revealed the 2008-09 men’s basketball schedule yesterday, a slate which includes three Big Monday appearances for the Longhorns. The weekly spotlight on ESPN opens with this year’s contest between Texas and Oklahoma, with Rick Barnes’ crew also playing on Monday nights against Texas A&M (February 16th) and in a home game against Baylor (March 2nd).

The full conference schedule is available on the league website, while the Texas schedule is compiled here for your convenience.

Texas’ 2008-09 Big 12 Schedule
Saturday, January 10th – vs. Iowa State
Monday, January 12th – at Oklahoma (ESPN)
Saturday, January 17th – at Texas Tech
Saturday, January 24th – vs. Texas A&M (ESPNU)
Tuesday, January 27th – at Baylor
Saturday, January 31st – vs. Kansas State
Wednesday, February 4th – vs. Missouri (ESPN2)
Saturday, February 7th – at Nebraska (ESPN)
Tuesday, February 10th – vs. Oklahoma State
Saturday, February 14th – at Colorado (ESPN)
Monday, February 16th – at Texas A&M (ESPN)
Saturday, February 21st – vs. Oklahoma (ESPN)
Wednesday, February 25th – vs. Texas Tech (ESPN2)
Saturday, February 28th – at Oklahoma State (ESPN)
Monday, March 2nd – vs. Baylor (ESPN)
Saturday, March 7th – at Kansas (CBS)

An in-progress composite schedule will pop up here on the site later this afternoon, which will include the non-conference games that have been confirmed, along with any dates that have been announced. Check the top menu bar under “Schedules” to find the 2008-09 slate once it’s added.

We’re just hours away from the 2008 NBA Draft, so what better time to return from an LRT hiatus of nearly three months? The only Longhorn in New York City tonight is point guard D.J. Augustin, but it could still be an historic night for Texas basketball. Nearly every mock draft is projecting D.J. to go within the first fourteen picks, which would give Rick Barnes and Texas their third-straight lottery pick, something no other school has a chance to do. Unless, of course, Chicago shocks the world by taking Washington’s Ryan Appleby with at number one.

While it’s nearly unanimous that Augustin will go in the opening half of the draft’s first round, there’s a little less agreement on where exactly he’ll end up. NBADraft.net currently has D.J. heading out west to Sacramento, while Chad Ford of ESPN thinks he’ll slide one spot lower to Portland.

NBA.com bravely attempted to sort through the mock messiness, combining the top draft projections on the net into one consensus prediction, which sends D.J. to the Pacers with the 11th pick. With Indiana trading for fellow Texas-ex and point guard T.J. Ford just yesterday, this scenario would allow Augustin a chance to once again learn from his friend and mentor.

If you’ll be surfing the Web while checking out the action live from MSG, the good folks at Bizzaro Joe Lunardi will be running a liveblog during the event. And considering how little Bill Simmons knows about college hoops, there’s really no debate over which running diary you should be checking out.

Luke Winn has more cojones than most, as he already put together a pre-season Top 10 for yesterday morning’s blog entry. He assumes that D.J. Augustin will be going pro, and that stud ’08 recruit Tyreke Evans will be landing with Villanova or Memphis once the late signing period begins next Wednesday.

I’m not even going to attempt to sort through the teams until the insanity of early entries and draft withdrawals end in mid-June. But it’s certainly fun to check out all of these early rankings and start to get jazzed about the next season. Winn slotted the Horns 6th, while Dick Vitale had them 4th — although his rankings are located so far from reality that they don’t deserve a link — so it’s safe to say that the Longhorns will be back. But where exactly they’ll end up depends heavily on the Augustin and Evans decisions this month.

In other early-entry news, sources in L.A. say Kevin Love and Darren Collison are going pro, while Collison himself is telling reporters that he’s yet to make a decision. It seems telling that he did not flatly decline the report, instead just relying on the word yet.

Perhaps most troubling for Bruins fans, though, is the source in that article which claims Russell Westbrook could throw his hat into the ring, too. Freshman combo guard Jrue Holiday will definitely make an immediate impact for UCLA next season, but I wouldn’t expect him to be able to single-handedly carry the backcourt if Coach Howland loses both Collison and Westbrook to the pros.

More early-entry news to come as the MSM reports it.

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.

The domino rally is underway in the coaching ranks, with Indiana’s huge vacancy being filled yesterday afternoon. But the hiring of Tom Crean in Bloomington means there’s another position open at Marquette, while the resignation of prolific perspirer Sean Sutton means it’s time for another job posting in Stillwater.

Head spinning with all of the coaching changes? Never fear, as LRT is here to keep track of everything for you.

Oklahoma State
Within hours of Sutton’s resignation, both Bill Self of Kansas and Billy Gillispie of Kentucky stated that they had no interest in coaching the Cowboys. Both men’s names had been floated for a few months in online rumors involving the very deep pockets of OSU booster T. Boone Pickens. At this point, brother Scott Sutton would be a reasonable choice to continue the family line, but many feel that Pickens is looking for a big splash with the next hire. Could Kevin O’Neill be in the mix considering that he will not be returning to the Arizona staff?

Rice
One place that Kevin O’Neill has interviewed is Rice University in Houston. While the Owls are certainly not a high profile gig, C-USA is a huge league with a very short list of quality teams. With the right hire, the Owls could quickly make some noise. Athletic Director Chris Del Conte worked in the Arizona athletic department and is apparently keen on the head AD position with the Wildcats in the near future, according to the Houston Chronicle‘s Moisekapenda Bower. This could mean that hiring O’Neill would earn Del Conte some points with the former employers, which might put Olson’s ex-assistant ahead of Belmont’s Rick Byrd and assistants Rodney Terry (Texas) and Mark Montgomery (Michigan State).

Louisiana State
While LSU has had more than an extra month to prepare for their coaching search, the Tigers played things close to the vest through the end of the season. But even with the lack of info coming from official sources, the media seems to be keyed in on three top candidates. Butch Pierre finished the season as interim coach and has expressed interest in the job, although former LSU player Johnny Jones has found a ton of success at North Texas and would love to work in Baton Rouge. Early press reports focused on VCU head man Anthony Grant, but he lacks the ties to the program that Pierre and Jones sport.

Oregon State
There’s nowhere to go but up for Jay John’s successor, thanks to an abysmal 6-26 season including the first 0-17 conference record in Pac-10 history. Interim coach Kevin Mouton was responsible for the last 11 of those losses and is reportedly not a candidate for the job. The Beaver brass seems to be focusing on WCC coaches at the moment, interviewing San Diego’s Bill Grier and expressing interest in St. Mary’s head man Randy Bennett.

California
The other vacancy in the Pac-10 is at Cal’s Berkeley campus, where sights seem to be set quite high…perhaps a little too high. The Bears reportedly want Pitt’s Jamie Dixon and Washington State’s Tony Bennett, although Dixon has spurned those advances. The San Francisco Chronicle and San Jose Mercury-News are offering differing takes on Bennett’s interest in the job, but both agree that Nuggets assistant Mike Dunlap is also a top candidate.

Marquette
With Crean moving on to Indiana today, the newest big-name vacancy on the block is in Milwaukee. As the move will not even be announced until 10 A.M. today in Bloomington, a list of top candidates is still being formulated somewhere in the caverns of the Marquette athletic department. But in a statement released on Monday, the Golden Eagles top staffers believe “a Marquette coaching vacancy will attract many well-qualified candidates.” We’re inclined to agree, and will be eagerly watching the newswire over the next few days to see which names pop up.

Other notable coaching vacancies include those at Kent State, Providence, San Francisco, and Western Kentucky. Kent State lost coach Jim Christian to TCU, while the Hilltoppers were left without a coach on Monday when Darrin Horn departed to fill the South Carolina vacancy following his team’s Sweet 16 run. At San Fran, Eddie Sutton has maintained all season that he was only coaching the Dons on an interim basis, so it will be interesting to see what angle they take in the coming weeks.

We’ll be watching the coaching carousel closely this off-season, so be sure to check back often for the latest updates.