Rivals.com is reporting that Greg Monroe, the top-ranked prospect in the 2008 class, has committed to Georgetown.

PF Greg Monroe (Photo credit: AJ Mast)

Just two weeks ago, Monroe had narrowed his list of schools down to five, including UConn, Duke, LSU, and Texas. Although it had long been believed that Georgetown was leading the hunt, most observers thought Monroe was going to take all five visits. Sources say that Monroe was originally scheduled to visit Texas this upcoming weekend.

Monroe apparently saw all that he needed to on Friday night at the Hoyas’ midnight madness. Fans lined up around the Washington, D.C. campus all day in order to secure the best seats. Once inside, they were treated to an unveiling of the newest Final Four banner and the hanging of recent alumnus Jeff Green’s Seattle SuperSonics jersey alongside other Hoya greats. Even Jerry Rice was in attendance, and danced to Soulja Boy at midcourt with Patrick Ewing, Jr.

This leaves Texas with a decidedly thin list of prospects for the current recruiting class. J’Covan Brown — who was in attendance at last season’s Texas A&M game — has yet to commit, although sources feel he is the closest thing the Horns have to a lock at this point. Jeff Taylor, Jr., who visited two weeks ago, is also still considering Texas.

But the biggest prize still on the table is Tyreke Evans, the Pennsylvania point guard who sources say will visit the Forty Acres the weekend of November 2nd. At 6-foot, 5-inches, Evans would add some much needed height to the Texas backcourt, and would also fill the vacancy at the 1 if D.J. Augustin declares for next summer’s draft. Early news claimed that Villanova and Louisville were leading the charge for Evans, but family members have denied those reports.

For now, the loss of Monroe is not a huge blow, as many felt his signing with Texas was nothing but a pipe dream. However, big commits are being scored every day across the country, and the Longhorns have yet to land one.

It’s 7 o’clock on the east coast, which means that college basketball is officially upon us. At campuses from Chapel Hill to Storrs, passionate fans have filled arenas just to see the first practice of the season. Texas has not taken part in the “Midnight Madness” in many years — although that temporal name is really no longer appropriate considering the new rules — but the Horns will still be hitting the court in Denton Cooley Pavillion for a team workout. However, the Aggies will be embracing the festivities just one hour from now. And Soulja Boy will be in the house, reminding all the white-bred Ags of College Station to “Crank That.” Ought to be interesting.

Get ready, hoop-heads. Basketball is back.

While tickets are already on sale for the Michigan State and Rice games in Detroit and Houston, fans have still been in the dark about when they can secure their seats for the Legends Classic and UCLA game. But thanks to LRT, Longhorn fans will wait no longer. That’s right, folks. We’ve got your info……sort of.

Tickets for the two Legends Classic games in Newark will go on sale this Thursday, October 11th. The games will be played at the brand new Prudential Center, which means it’s been difficult to find anything resembling a reliable seating diagram. A call to the box office has confirmed that there will be three price levels per ticket, allowing fans to buy them at 53, 23, and 12 dollars. No confirmation as to whether or not there’s a service charge for that new-arena smell.

The UCLA game being played in December at Pauley Pavilion is a little more dicey. Bruins season tickets have been on sale for months, and recently “holiday packs” were put on sale to get fans into the upper-deck seats for games later in December. Now we learn that all non-conference single game tickets will go on sale October 17th — except for the Texas game.

Box office reps couldn’t give me a sale date for the December 2nd game (or the Pac-10 Conference games for the Bruins), but they were fairly certain that the only seats available would be upstairs. So, if you’re planning on sitting in the lower levels for the UCLA game, you may want to start scouring the web. And if you’d like to buy through LRT-sponsor Ticket City, leave us a comment or shoot an email if you would like to help us get a cut. I have no shame in my internet whoring.

More info to come later this month on those UCLA tickets through the school, but in the meantime snap up your seats for Rice, Michigan State, and the Legends Classic. And if you want to hook up with the LRT crew anywhere on the road this season, just let us know.

While the eyes of Texas are locked on Dallas this weekend, the NBA is firing up its pre-season slate with a trio of games in Europe.

T.J. Ford and the Toronto Raptors open play against the new-look Boston Celtics in Rome on Saturday night. Tip-off is 1:30 PM Central, and will offer fans their first glimpse of the C’s with big man Kevin Garnett. Fans in the States who want to catch a little roundball instead of pigskin can tune in on NBA TV.

The Raps follow their NBA pre-season opener with an international clash against Lottomatica Roma on Sunday. The host Italian team includes former Villanova guard Allan Ray, who spent some time with the Austin Toros of the NBDL. While this match-up won’t be televised in the US, fans can check stats on NBA.com when the contest tips at 11:30 AM Central.

It’s long been a complaint that the student sections in the Frank Erwin Center leave a lot to be desired. And to keep from pointing fingers at any one particular group, I’ll go ahead and expand that complaint to the entire arena. The simple fact of the matter is that the FEC is rarely home to an intimidating atmosphere, and is nowhere near the level of product that Rick Barnes puts out on the floor every year. And while these are issues I plan on addressing here at LRT as we close in on opening night, today it seems like there may be a little hope that things are going to be different this year.

The marketing department in Belmont has scheduled a night of giveaways, promotions, and general pandemonium to be held in Gregory Gym on Friday, October 26th. While I couldn’t get much in the way of exact details from the gentleman I spoke to in the marketing office, he repeatedly mentioned that they were looking to get the word out to students about the basketball program.

Of course, most students still have no idea what is going on with the ticket system or the Stampede pass, and there is the looming question of whether or not anything will be done to remedy the giant clusterfuck that occurred at the final home game of the season against A&M. And sure, there’s still more to be done to increase attendance in the rest of the arena. But I’m glad to see some acknowledgment that there’s an elite basketball team on this campus and a slight effort to get our gigantic student body to fill up its small ticket allotment.

I’ll post more details as they are released, but for now let’s all cross our fingers that this is the first in a series of initiatives to increase attendance.