Apologies for the lack of a daily update on Monday, but this week finds me mired in a couple of finals and a lot of writing. It’s a cruel set-up to have students walk before they finish their exams, but by this time Friday I will at least enjoy a sudden spike in free time. Content on the site might be a bit on the lighter side between now and then, but with most teams taking it easy during their own final exams, it works out pretty well.

New polls came out yesterday, and Texas stayed in the 4th and 5th slots of the AP and Coaches Polls. Not much movement near the top, as most teams took care of business last week. Texas fans will take note of St. Mary’s, who cracked both polls at #24 this week. If the Gaels can get past Southern Illinois on the road tonight, it looks like there will be a Top 25 match-up in Austin on January 5th.

Another week, another honor from the Big 12 Conference. This time, D.J. Augustin was named Player of the Week, while Kansas State’s freshman Towel Pisser was named Rookie of the Week. After both Damion James and A.J. Abrams have claimed the award this season, this thing might just be renamed Big 12 Player of the Week Presented by The University of Texas.

Want to watch some basketball on TV tonight? Good luck, buddy. While folks would likely enjoy that great mid-major match-up between St. Mary’s and Southern Illinois, fans will instead be treated to a scintillating game between Prairie View A&M and New Mexico State…on ESPN Full Court. Hope that new episode of Nip/Tuck captures your fancy.

At times last night, Texas looked very good in their win over the Rice Owls. But there were also some points of concern for Longhorn fans, despite the lopsided outcome. We’ll get to all of that late tonight in a wrap of this week’s games. For now, onward with our look around the country.

A couple of upsets in the middle of the Top 25, starting with Louisville stumbling against the Dayton Flyers, 70-65. The Flyers are quietly building a solid resumé, with a 7-1 record against the current RPI Top 50. In addition to beating Louisville, they’ve challenged themselves with some tough mid-major opponents, which should help after the A-10 sked hurts their SOS. In the other upset of the day, Wright State knocked off Butler, 43-42. It’s the second straight win for Wright State over the Bulldogs, as they also captured the Horizon League tournament in March by beating them in front of a raucous home crowd.

Davidson keeps playing well against good teams, but still doesn’t have any quality wins to show for it. They blew an 18-point lead to UCLA in Anaheim yesterday, falling by a final of 75-63 and dropping their record to a painful 3-5 this year. Luc Richard Mbah a Moute led the way for UCLA with 21 points.

The Big 12 looked pretty good on Saturday, if you can overlook OU losing at home to Stephen F. Austin, 66-62. The Lumberjacks are now 7-1 on the year, but have done so against the 279th-toughest schedule. Things aren’t going to get any easier for Oklahoma after this one, as their next three games are against Arkansas, Gonzaga, and West Virginia. Quality loss there, Sooners.

Elsewhere in the conference, Iowa State topped Iowa, Kansas pounded DePaul, Oklahoma State pulled away from East Tennessee State, Mizzou pressured Purdue for the win, and Texas A&M face-raped Texas State. (Thanks, Dave Lapham.) Colorado was the second Big 12 loser on the day, dropping one in Wyoming, but they are playing respectably for one of the worst teams in the conference.

FSN has a doubleheader in HD today, but otherwise not a lot on tap as many schools lighten their schedule in the midst of final exams. George Washington heads southwest to take on Virginia Tech (4:30 PM CST), followed by an early ACC matchup between BC and Maryland (6:30 PM). Over on ESPNU, Villanova and Temple renew their Big Five rivalry (6 PM). In action happening without TV coverage, Kansas State is currently facing off with Cal.

The Texas Longhorns head to Houston tonight for another game in the Toyota Center, this time with the reeling Rice Owls. The last time these two teams met was in the same building back in 2005, when the Longhorns won by an 85-58 count. All-time, Texas leads the series by a lopsided 130-59 margin.

Rice comes into this one without their top two point guards and their top three-point threat. Jasen Williams was the team’s leading scorer, but is not playing this week so that he can focus on finals. It’s unclear whether Williams is dangerously close to an eligibility situation, but his absence certainly won’t make things any easier on the Owls. Chris Hagan was the backup at the point, but ruptured his patella tendon and is out for the season. Behind the arc, Cory Pflieger was the biggest threat, but is currently out until January with an ankle injury.

The rash of injuries and study breaks leaves Rice with only eight scholarship players for tonight’s game. And for a team that was already struggling to replace the huge hole left by Morris Almond and Lorenzo Williams — both who now play in the NBDL — this bad luck makes the mountain even tougher to climb.

By the numbers

Texas is still holding strong to the 3rd-highest RPI in the country, according to Ken Pomeroy. This game with Rice won’t help that ranking, as the Owls check in all the way at 256th. They also run one of the slowest offenses in the country, and that will certainly be the case with such a short bench tonight. Rice cannot afford to get into an up-and-down contest with a more athletic and more talented Texas team.

The starters

Without the top two point guards, the job at the one falls to Bryan Beasley, a former Aggie who was allowed to transfer and immediately play for Rice during the Billy Gillispie/Mark Turgeon changeover. With an inexperienced, third-string guard at the point, the Longhorns could force a good share of turnovers and earn some easy fast break points. Beasley is a pretty quick guard, however, so on defense he might be able to stick with Augustin a little better than most third-stringers would. We all know it’s impossible to hold D.J. down all game, but Beasley could make things a little more difficult.

Sophomore Rodney Foster will likely start at shooting guard, although he is having a rough start from the floor this year. While he is averaging nine points per game, his three-point percentage is an abysmal 21% after sitting above 35% last season. While the Owls have a solid inside game, their offense is not nearly as effective as that of the Longhorns. If they want to stay in this game, they will need some three-point buckets, and that means Foster will need to break out of his slump.

Aleks Perka will probably be slotted at the three tonight, and he is going to be a bit of an oversized one. If he matches up with Justin Mason, he should try using his five-inch height advantage to post up and earn some buckets. Jay Mase is a much quicker player, so Perka won’t be slashing from the wings for any layups.

In the paint, Patrick Britton comes in riding high after a career-best 24 point game against Texas State on Wednesday. While he’s not the biggest threat on the glass, he could definitely create a problem inside for the Horns. Damion James is a much more athletic player and can match up well with him, but Britton might get a few extra baskets when the Longhorn freshmen forwards are in the game.

Paulius Packevicius is a double-double machine for Rice, having reached that plateau in four of his games so far. Last season, he didn’t achieve that statistical feat even once, so it’s quite clear that the kid has made some huge strides in the offseason. He is averaging 11.3 PPG and 10.1 RPG so far this year and should provide another good challenge for Connor Atchley inside. Much like Atchley, Packevicius is not a flashy player, but is fundamentally sound and is easy to coach.

Key reserves

With the bench so thin for Rice, their options are incredibly slim. Lawrence Ghoram is a solid defender in the backcourt and will likely be called upon to stick Augustin and A.J. Abrams when Beasley and Foster need a breather. Freshman big men Suleiman Braimoh and Scott Saunders may also see an increase in minutes if Rice is unable to control the tempo.

What to look for

The deck is extraordinarily stacked against Rice in this one. With the short bench, their only true hope is to slow this one down into an ugly slopfest and limit the potent Texas offense. The Owls will be forced to run a lot of zone to keep their team from getting too fatigued, so this will likely open Rick Barnes’ dangerous three-point shooters. If by chance Rice is still able to frustrate the Texas offense, they will also need a few timely threes to threaten a much better Longhorn squad.

I finally graduate in about nine hours, which means that I’ll be missing a lot of great hoops action this afternoon. But the good thing about a noon ceremony is that it leaves enough time afterwards to travel to Houston for the Rice game, which tips at 7 P.M. tonight.

And speaking of the Rice game, two people out of the eleven in our group will no longer be able to make the trip. They are really great seats only four rows up from the baseline beside the Texas bench, and I’m being asked to try to resell them at face ($16 each). If you’re interested, leave me a comment with your phone number as they are moderated and will not be made public. I leave town at 3ish, so that will have to be the cut-off.

Not much going on in NCAA hoops last night, but UTA won on a running jumper with 6.3 seconds at Wichita State to move to 8-0 on the season. The Mavs are one of only 17 undefeated teams left in Division I hoops, and are certainly one of the most surprising ones. In the other game of interest to Texas fans, UC-Davis was embarrassed at home by Oregon State, 73-59.

Today the television is full of quality hoops action. Arizona kicks things off at Illinois (11 AM CST, ESPN), while Duke hosts Michigan and new coach John Beilein (1 PM, CBS). Duke will roll, but it’s a chance to see how Beilein’s style translates to a new, troubled team. DePaul faces Kansas in Allen Fieldhouse with Brandon Rush on the court (1 PM, ESPN), with Pitt and Washington tipping just an hour later way out west (2 PM, FSN). Kentucky also faces IU (3 PM, CBS), Purdue travels to Mizzou (3 PM, ESPN2), and Texas A&M hosts Texas State (7 PM, FSN). But perhaps the most interesting televised matchup of the day is the grudge match between Marquette and Wisconsin, airing at 5 PM on ESPN2.

Some more games of note not on TV today: Michigan State faces their last real test before Texas when they travel to BYU (3 PM CST) and Colorado looks for a road win in Wyoming (3 PM). While I mentioned that UTA was one of the most surprising undefeated teams remaining, the other two shockers are Ole Miss and Sam Houston State. Both are in action today, with the Bearkats facing Ian Mooney’s old school, St. Louis (7 PM) and the Rebs traveling to Central Florida (6 PM).

If you’re going to that Texas/Rice tilt and want to catch some high school hoops action, your ticket also gets you into a doubleheader starting at 1 P.M. Fans can get a preview of some future Big 12 action when two class of ’08 recruits face off in the first game. Baylor commit Anthony Jones plays for Yates, who will square off with Texas verbal commit J’Covan Brown and his Port Arthur Memorial team. The second half of the high-school doubleheader features Madison against Duncanville and highly-touted ’09 prospect Shawn Williams.

While it’s not basketball, the fantastic Texas volleyball team will be televised in their Elite Eight match against USC at 3 PM CST on ESPNU. And if talented girls in spandex beating the crap out of the Trojans isn’t enough to entice you, then I’m just not sure what else I can throw out.

There’s disappointing news today coming out of Lawrence, Kansas, where Brandon Rush was arrested yesterday for failing to appear in court. He had two separate traffic incidents in October of this year and December of 2006 which led to charges for speeding, driving on the wrong side of the road, having no proof of insurance, and driving with a suspended license. After posting $500 bond, he was released from custody.

Clearly the kid thinks he is above the law, and maybe this will slap a little bit of sense into him. I highly doubt it, though, and that’s why I’m incredibly disappointed in Bill Self’s decision to not suspend Rush. Do I think this incident is actually worth a full suspension? Probably not. But the alternatives — keeping him out of the starting lineup or sitting him for a half — really won’t make much of an impact with the way his year is going. Rush hasn’t been starting thanks to the injury he suffered this summer and is only averaging 22 minutes per game since he rejoined the team. It’s not like they are going to lose to DePaul without him; the Blue Demons lost to North Carolina AT&T, after all.

If you think back to 2006, you might remember another traffic incident involving a Jayhawk under Self’s watch. Senior guard Jeff Hawkins had the munchies one night, and decided to drive to the McDonald’s for some food. But he just couldn’t wait in that long drive-thru line, so he thought he’d try to cut ahead. After hitting another car, he sped off and was ultimately suspended one game — against Baylor. Personally, I think the four charges against Rush plus failure to appear is a little bit worse than leaving the scene of a car accident. Yet Hawkins was suspended a game while nothing will happen to the future NBA pick. Could it have anything to do with the fact that Hawkins was a reserve guard who only averaged 19 minutes per game that year, while Rush is a star on this loaded Kansas squad?

Brandon Rush is only back in Lawrence because he hurt his knee. Without that poorly timed injury, he’s playing on an NBA team right now. I’m sure he feels that college and even NCAA basketball are beneath him, and that he’s just wasting some time until he hears his name called next June and starts cashing the checks. The apology he made today smacks of half-heartedness as he blames a mix-up in dates. Could his license have been suspended because he never cleared up the charges from his traffic stop twelve months ago? That oversight takes a little more than a mix-up in dates, don’t you think?

I realize Texas fans don’t have much room to talk thanks to the moronic football players who decided to get arrested 793 times this offseason. But the Longhorn basketball program has always run things the right way, while Bill Self doesn’t really seem to care. I’m not asking the guy to suspend a star player for a post-season game or even a conference one. But the message that he’s sending to Brandon Rush is just reinforcing the kid’s warped worldview — he’s already a big star, and Lawrence is just small potatoes.