Although the Texas Longhorns failed to make the NCAA tournament field for the first time in 15 years, their season is not yet over. Citing sources, the Houston Chronicle’s Joseph Duarte reported that the Longhorns have accepted a bid to the 2013 College Basketball Invitational. Texas will open play at the University of Houston on Wednesday, at 8 P.M. CT. The winner of Wednesday’s game will advance to face the College of Charleston or George Mason in the second round on Monday, March 25th.

The matchup with Houston will renew an old Southwest Conference rivalry that has been dormant since the 2000-01 season. The all-time series is nearly even, with Texas holding a two-game winning streak and a narrow 32-31 overall edge. Texas coach Rick Barnes also has a 6-0 record against Houston’s James Dickey, with all of those games coming in the last three years of Dickey’s tenure at Texas Tech.

Now in its sixth year, the CBI is a 16-team tournament culminating in a best-of-three Championship Series. All games are played at the home arenas of the participating teams, meaning that the Longhorns would be able to host games if they can advance to later rounds. With the Erwin Center home to NCAA tournament games this weekend, Texas had no choice but to open CBI play on the road.

The College Basketball Invitational is produced by the Gazelle Group, a New Jersey-based sports marketing firm. The Gazelle Group also manages exempt November events that the Longhorns frequently play in, such as the 2K Sports Classic, Legends Classic, and CBE Classic.

For Coach Barnes, this post-season bid is his 21st-consecutive and 24th overall in his 26-year career. The 21-year streak includes all four years he spent at Clemson and the final two years of his stint at Providence. It is comprised of 18 NCAA bids and two NIT appearances, in addition to this year’s CBI nod.

Although the CBI bid extended Barnes’ streak of post-season appearances, his personal string of 17-straight NCAA bids was snapped on Sunday. Barnes’ 17-year run was tied with that of Duke’s Mike Krzyzewski for the longest active streak, but Coach K can now lay sole claim to that title. The Blue Devils earned a No. 2 seed in this year’s NCAA tournament, extending Krzyzewski’s streak to 18 years.

Fans will be able to purchase tickets for Wednesday’s game online or by calling the University of Houston box office at 1-877-COUGAR5.

The clash between Texas and Houston is one of four CBI first-round games that will be broadcast live on AXS TV, the cable network owned by Mark Cuban, Ryan Seacrest, and the Creative Artists Agency. In Austin, AXS TV can be found on AT&T U-Verse (Channel 1106) and Grande Communications (880). Satellite customers can also watch the game on DIRECTV (Channel 340) and Dish Network (362).

EDITOR’S NOTE: A previous version of this post did not include potential second round opponents and listed both possible game times.

Last night, the Texas Longhorns took the first and easiest step in their pursuit of an improbable Big 12 title, dispatching No. 10 seed TCU, 70-57. Texas must win the conference tournament to avoid missing the NCAA tournament for the first time in 15 years, which means that the young Horns have to put together four wins in four days. With the first victory under their belt, things now get much tougher for Rick Barnes’ inconsistent bunch.

Awaiting the Horns in the quarterfinals are the experienced Kansas State Wildcats, who beat the Horns by a combined 38 points in the team’s two meetings earlier this year. It has long been said that it’s tough to beat the same team three times in a season, but those prior results offer Texas fans little reason for optimism about tonight’s match-up. Even in the relatively-close 12-point loss to Kansas State in Austin, Texas was out of the game for the entire second half, and trailed by as many as 19 points.

Ken Pomeroy gives the Horns a 27% chance to win, predicting a six-point margin of victory for the ‘Cats. The Longhorns will have to overcome those odds and what will amount to a home crowd for KSU if they want to keep their NCAA dreams alive.

Meet the Wildcats

For an in-depth look at the Kansas State roster and the team’s style of play, check out LRT’s game preview from the first meeting between these two teams.

The first match-up

When Texas and Kansas State first faced off on January 30th, the game was quickly out of reach. The Longhorns had two leads in the first four minutes, but trailed 9-7 at the under-16 media timeout. Texas would never get any closer, falling victim to a brutal stretch of offensive inefficiency. For a span of more than 12 minutes in the first half, Texas managed only eight points, with all of them coming from Sheldon McClellan.

The Longhorns did manage to get some good looks early in the game, but could not make any buckets. With shots not falling, Texas only made things worse by constantly turning it over and giving up easy points to the Wildcats. On the night, Texas ended 27.5% of their possessions with a turnover and allowed KSU to score 33 points off of those miscues. In a lopsided 83-57 loss, those wasted possessions and free points were easily the difference in the game.

Most troubling for Texas fans is that this beatdown came with Rodney McGruder limited due to foul trouble and Will Spradling (No. 55) playing with a broken nose he suffered in the first half. With those two only chipping in 12 points, it was Texas-born big man Thomas Gipson (No. 42) who dominated the game, scoring 17 points and grabbing seven boards in only 21 minutes on the court.

The rematch

Even with Myck Kabongo back in the lineup, things did not get much better for Texas when they hosted Kansas State on February 23rd. The Longhorns failed to challenge the Kansas State shooters all afternoon, allowing the Wildcats to knock down 50% of their 18 three-point attempts.

Texas still managed to find itself down just three points late in the first half, but a disastrous exchange shoved the momentum to the Kansas State sideline before the teams headed to the locker room. With 22 seconds left, it appeared the Wildcats would hold for the last shot. Instead, Javan Felix fouled Angel Rodriguez (No. 13), who knocked down a pair of free throws. Kabongo then turned it over with just two seconds left in the half, and the Wildcats raced down the court for a three from Shane Southwell (No. 1) just before the horn.

Things continued to deteriorate in the second half. The Longhorns took more than four minutes to score a basket, allowing Kansas State to extend its lead out to fifteen points. Texas never recovered, trailing by as many as 19 points midway through the half. The Horns closed the gap for cosmetic purposes, but still dropped the final decision at home, 81-69.

Kabongo led the way for Texas, scoring what was then his career high of 24 points. McClellan came off the bench to score 15 points, rebounding quickly from his benching in the TCU game just five days earlier. Both players were able to score in transition and Kabongo drove to the rack in half-court sets, but otherwise the offense was bogged down.

The Longhorns also again struggled to keep Kansas State from reclaiming missed shots. The Wildcats snagged 41.4% of their offensive rebounding opportunities in Austin, improving upon the impressive 40% mark they had posted in Manhattan. Those extra chances only resulted in seven second-chance points for K-State, but they demoralized the Longhorn defense when it did manage to force a missed shot.

Keys to the game

1) Look for transition opportunities – In both games against Kansas State, the Texas offense had a very difficult time scoring in their half-court sets, but did find some success on the break in Austin. Unfortunately, the Wildcats take good care of the ball, turning it over on only 18.4% of their possessions. That means that transition opportunities for Texas will have to come off of missed K-State shots. Of course, the Horns have had difficulties winning defensive rebounds against the Wildcats, so this could be a very tall order.

2) Communicate and rotate on defense – Kansas State’s offense can look like a well-oiled machine when it is clicking, as the Longhorns discovered when the ‘Cats sliced them up with crisp ball movement in Austin. In addition, Rodriguez has the ability to slash through defenses and pull defenders away from the K-State bigs inside and the shooters waiting on the perimeter. The Longhorns must play sound team defense, communicate, and rotate quickly if they hope to disrupt a Kansas State offense that scored 1.26 points per possession against them in their two earlier meetings.

3) Aggression from the guards and wings – Texas found success in the second half of last night’s game when Kabongo, McClellan, and Julien Lewis started attacking with the bounce and making harder cuts off the ball. As a result, the Horns posted a free-throw rate of 82% against TCU, meaning that they shot more than eight free throws for every ten field goal attempts. Coming on the heels of a 62.7% free-throw rate against Texas Tech, it appears that the normally-stagnant Texas offense is finally making an effort to grind out points at the line.

Combine this recent trend with Kansas State’s penchant for sending opponents to the stripe, and the Longhorns may be able to pile up some points. Even if Texas does not end up drawing many fouls by attacking with the bounce, any sort of aggression will be an improvement. Static possessions with excessive perimeter passing and challenged looks late in the shot clock have unfortunately been the norm for Texas for much of the season. If the ballhandlers can be aggressive, while Lewis and McClellan work hard to get open off the ball, Texas can stay competitive this evening. If not, the Horns will likely be victims of a third K-State beatdown this year.

The Texas Longhorns open play in the Phillips 66 Big 12 Championship with one, straightforward goal: win the whole damned thing. For the Longhorns, anything less than that will mean an end to a 14-year streak of NCAA appearances. And while Texas is hoping to preserve its historic streak, the rest of the program’s history is stacked against it. The Longhorns have never won the Big 12 Championship, despite appearing in the finals on six different occasions.

Even getting to that championship will be extremely difficult, as Texas must win three games in a row to reach that point. Until Saturday’s overtime win at Texas Tech, the Longhorns had not even strung together two consecutive victories in league play. Furthermore, Texas would still have to get past Kansas State and then either Oklahoma State or Baylor, three teams which the Horns posted a 1-5 record against in the regular season.

Of course, the old adage holds that you must take it one game at a time. For Texas, that would be sage advice. Although the Horns open tournament play against last-place TCU, they have to remember that the Horned Frogs have pulled off surprising upsets to earn their two league victories. Earlier this season, TCU shocked the college basketball world with a home win over a Top 5 Kansas team. On Saturday, they wrapped up their regular season by building a massive lead against Oklahoma and then hanging on for the improbable win. If Texas makes the mistake of looking ahead to a possible matchup with Kansas State tomorrow night, the Horns might not even get there.

Meet the Horned Frogs

For an in-depth look at the TCU roster and the team’s style of play, check out LRT’s preview of the first match-up between these two teams.

The first meeting

Texas had to grind it out with TCU in the first game, which saw only 57 possessions on the night. Even with such a slow tempo, the Longhorns were able to build a lead as large as 19 points and won the game by a 17-point final margin. Texas used stifling defense to limit the already-anemic TCU offense to just 0.753 points per possession, while having one of its best shooting nights of the season on the other end.

One reason Texas was able to get so many good looks is that the team made it a point to work the ball inside-out against TCU. Connor Lammert cracked double-digits in points for the first time in his collegiate career, logging 10 on a perfect 5-for-5 shooting night. Since then, the freshman has continued to play with confidence, earning starts in the team’s last two games.

Ioannis Papapetrou also had a solid night against the Horned Frogs, scoring 13 points in his 34 minutes on the court. More importantly, the Greek forward snagged nine boards on a night where the Longhorns performed terribly on the glass. The Longhorns grabbed just 30 rebounds as a team, posting an ugly 26.9% mark on the offensive glass.

For TCU, the bright spots were in the frontcourt, where Connell Crossland (No. 2) continued his surge in conference play. The senior had 12 rebounds, including four on the offensive end. Fellow big man Adrick McKinney (No. 24) led TCU in the scoring department with 13, while also logging eight boards.

The rematch

When the two teams squared off once again on February 19th, Myck Kabongo was back on the court for Texas, and he made an immediate impact. The sophomore point guard scored eight points in the first half and dished out five dimes, as the Longhorns took a 33-25 lead to the locker room.

Texas moved the ball extremely well in the first half, while Kabongo was aggressive with the bounce. The Longhorns could have been even more efficient on offense, if not for a series of poor passes into the paint that resulted in turnovers.

On the other end, the Longhorn defense had a tough time shutting down a TCU team that typically struggles to score. Even though Demarcus Holland did a solid job turning back the penetration of point guard Kyan Anderson (No. 5), the Horned Frog bigs repeatedly found great post position. Cameron Ridley especially struggled to force McKinney off the block, and he played only six minutes as a result. Even with that interior success, TCU did not limit its scoring to the paint, as Garlon Green repeatedly knocked down midrange jumpers.

In the second half, TCU coach Trent Johnson made adjustments to slow down the Horns, most notably tabbing Nate Butler Lind (No. 21) to guard Kabongo. While he is perhaps a step slower than Anderson, Butler Lind’s extra length made it tougher for Kabongo to score, even when the Texas point guard was able to drive the lane.

The Longhorns briefly experimented with a zone in the second half, but Anderson quickly took advantage without Holland in his shirt. Anderson penetrated the zone and hit his teammates in good position as the defense collapsed, logging six assists in the second half alone. He also chalked up some of those dimes by being alert after missed Texas shots, judiciously picking the spots where he could push the tempo for transition points. His leadership allowed the Horned Frogs to tie the game with just under nine minutes to go, and he kept them within a few buckets of Texas down the stretch.

In the end, it was clutch plays from Connor Lammert and Holland that iced the game, keeping Texas just ahead of a determined TCU squad. After a pass by Kabongo from the opposite three-point line, Lammert made an acrobatic, backwards layup in transition as he was fouled, and then he converted the free throw. A few possessions later, Holland drilled a three from the corner as the shot clock neared zero. Thanks to those timely buckets, the Longhorns escaped Daniel-Meyer Coliseum with a 68-59 win, their first true road win of the season.

Keys to the game

1) Clean up the glass – Although TCU is just an average rebounding team, the Longhorns had trouble keeping them away from the offensive boards in both games. Texas allowed the Horned Frogs to reclaim 37.8% of their misses in the first meeting between the two teams and 45.2% of their misses in the second game. The Horned Frogs do not shoot the basketball well and rely mostly on scoring from their bigs in the post. If the Horns wants to avoid the upset tonight, they have to take advantage of that offensive weakness by limiting second and third chances once they have forced missed shots.

2) Make the bigs uncomfortable – With TCU’s preference for dumping it into the post, Texas has to make it a point to put the Horned Frog bigs in uncomfortable positions. (No, not the back of a Volkswagen.) The Longhorns can force TCU to make entry passes further up the lane or perhaps choose to immediately double on the catch near the block. With TCU hitting less than 31% of their threes on the season, the risk of doubling down is diminished greatly.

No matter which approach is taken, the Horns have to focus on making things tough for McKinney and Devonta Abron (No. 23). The Longhorns also need to make sure that their interior fouls count, limiting the number of and-one opportunities they concede. At the line, TCU is the eighth-worst team out of 347 in the country, making less than 60% of their attempts. If the Horns are beat in the paint, they must make the Horned Frog bigs earn both of the points, not give up the two and still allow a chance for the bonus.

3) Aggression from the guards – TCU has a very stout defense that packs it in tight and forces opponents to beat them with outside and midrange shooting. In the last meeting, Kabongo showed how easily dribble penetration can make that TCU defense break down. The adjustment to put Butler Lind on Kabongo slowed down his attack, and it also slowed down the Horns as a result.

If the Texas point guard is unable to mix things up with the bounce, Holland, Sheldon McClellan, and Julien Lewis will need to pick up the slack and drive from the wings and along the baseline. Otherwise, the Longhorns will be forced to win this game with their jump shots, and those have been very inconsistent all season long.

The worst regular season for the Texas basketball program in nearly two decades comes to its quiet end on the South Plains this afternoon as the Longhorns take on Texas Tech. This year, Texas suffered its worst start in conference play since the 1970’s, posted its first losing record in conference since Tom Penders’ final season in 1997-98, and will need a miracle run at the Big 12 Championship in Kansas City to avoid missing out on the NCAA tournament for the first time in 15 years.

With no hopes for an at-large bid to the NCAA tournament, Texas is playing only for seeding in the Big 12 Championship. If West Virginia loses at home to Iowa State this afternoon, the Longhorns can lock up a No. 7 seed in the conference tournament with a win over Texas Tech. That would set up a game against TCU on Wednesday in Kansas City, with the winner advancing to face the No. 2 seed, which will be Kansas or Kansas State. If the Mountaineers defeat Iowa State this afternoon, the Longhorns will be playing for nothing but pride when they tip off in Lubbock.

Meet the Red Raiders

For an in-depth look at the Texas Tech roster and the team’s tendencies, check out LRT’s game preview from the first meeting between these two teams.

The first match-up

The Longhorns entered their first game against Texas Tech with an 0-5 Big 12 record and in desperate need of a win. The opening minutes of the game did little to calm the fears of Longhorn fans, as the team scored just 10 points in the first eight minutes, while point guard Javan Felix picked up two fouls.

With Felix on the bench, Ioannis Papapetrou took over primary ballhandling duties and Demarcus Holland stepped up. Texas closed out the half with a 25-14 push, building a lead as large as 13 late in the first half. Holland played 17 of the first 20 minutes, scoring nine points with aggressive drives and a triple. His three steals also flustered Josh Gray (No. 5) and the Tech offense, which coughed it up nine other times in the first half.

In the second, Texas extended its lead to as many as 16 points in the first few minutes. Tech refused to fold, however, slicing the lead to only eight points with just under eight minutes to play. After wasting late leads against USC, UCLA, Kansas, and West Virginia, it looked like the Horns might once again snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. Instead, Papapetrou fueled a late-game surge, hitting a trey before assisting on three straight buckets. The Longhorns outscored Tech 17-6 over the next five minutes and cruised to a 73-57 win, their first victory in Big 12 play.

Sophomore guard Julien Lewis led Texas with 18 points, despite having a rough 2-for-7 performance behind the arc. The Longhorns also received a strong effort from freshman Cameron Ridley, who chipped in six points and ripped down ten rebounds. Texas made it a point to get their big man the ball, and it led not only to points in the paint, but opportunities for other Horns.

Since then…

The loss to Texas was the first in a nine-game skid for the Red Raiders, who finally broke out of the funk last Saturday with a home victory over TCU. Porous defense was the culprit in all of the losses, with the Red Raiders allowing 1.18 points per possession during the losing streak. Their best defensive effort came in a narrow road loss to West Virginia, where they still allowed the anemic Mountaineer offense to put in 1.015 points per possession.

Big man Dejan Kravic (No. 11) has continued to be inconsistent for Coach Walker, performing admirably in early February losses to West Virginia and Kansas State before going into a terrible slump. In Monday’s loss at Kansas, Kravic hit his absolute low, posting an offensive rating of five.

To put that performance into perspective, we can compare it to the day that Northern Illinois tied an NCAA record with four points in one half and went on to score 25 total. The Huskies had only one player who posted a single-digit offensive rating, and that was bench man Akeem Springs, who somehow managed an ORtg of just one.

It’s clear that Texas Tech is much better when Kravic is able to use his throwback game to earn points in the paint. Unfortunately, he has had little success doing that in conference play. If he continues to struggle this afternoon, the Red Raiders will likely find it tough to close out their season on a positive note.

At the point, freshman Gray has put up some solid performances down the stretch, but he is still struggling with decision making. His speed is very tough to defend and he can get to the rim with ease, but his lack of a consistent outside shot allows opponents to sag off. When opponents hunker down and take away his driving ability, Gray will often make a questionable pass inside that results in a turnover.

Even with those weaknesses, Gray scored 46 total points in back-to-back losses to Oklahoma and Iowa State. He also dished out six dimes against TCU, with many of those coming after he had sliced up the Horn Frogs off the bounce. The freshman clearly has a bright future in the Big 12, but needs to make better passing decisions from the perimeter and he will have to work on finishing at the rim and developing an outside shot over the summer.

Keys to the game

1) Come out with intensity – United Spirit Arena was once a dangerous road trip in the Big 12, as Kansas repeatedly found out in the late 2000’s. Unfortunately, numerous coaching changes and abysmal seasons have killed the crowd support and turned the arena into an empty cavern. That provides little energy for games, and it can make it difficult for visiting teams to show up to play. Kansas and Kansas State both struggled to put Tech away until late in their visits to Lubbock this season, while Iowa State actually fell victim to the Red Raiders in mid-January.

With the Longhorns having very little to play for, they will have to manufacture their own energy this afternoon. Although the team could be playing for a No. 7 seed in the Big 12 Championship, that doesn’t provide too much motivation. If they come out flat like they have on numerous occasions this season, the Horns will certainly let Tech hang around and be in a position to pull off an upset.

2) Force mistakes – In the first meeting, Texas forced Tech into 19 turnovers and converted that into 22 points. That was no anomaly, as the Red Raiders have struggled controlling the ball all year. Their turnover rate of 21.3% is one of the 100 worst marks in D-I hoops, and they actually have coughed it up slightly more against Big 12 opponents, with 21.5% of their possessions ending in a miscue.

With Holland now in the starting five, the Longhorns will get even more minutes out of a guy who gave the Red Raiders fits in the first game. If they can get a repeat performance from him and force Tech to waste their possessions, the Horns should be able to finish the regular season with a win.

3) Clean up defensive glass – Even though Texas won the first game comfortably, their effort on the defensive glass left a lot to be desired. The Horns allowed Tech to reclaim 48.6% of their missed shots, and the Red Raiders turned all of those second chances into 17 extra points. The Longhorns had particular trouble with Jordan Tolbert (No. 32), who grabbed 13 boards on the night, with eight of those coming on the offensive end. If the Longhorns allow that many offensive rebounds in this game, a Tech offense that typically struggles to score will suddenly become much more dangerous.

For forty minutes on Monday night, the young, beleaguered Texas Longhorns finally looked like a team. Role players made key contributions, stars stepped up to make huge buckets, and the squad that had so often folded under pressure actually responded to adversity with poise and composure. The Longhorns turned back the Bears and their comeback bid at every opportunity, holding on for a 79-70 win in the final home game of the season.

The loss was especially damaging to Baylor, which entered the game as one of the “First Four Out” in Joe Lunardi’s latest Bracket Math update. It was the fifth defeat in the last six games for the Bears, and the eighth loss in the team’s last 11 contests. After also squandering an opportunity for a résumé-building win against Kansas State two days ago, Baylor now must put all of its eggs in the “upset Kansas” basket on Saturday. Even with a victory there, the Bears still would likely need a solid win over the Big 12’s No. 3 seed in the conference tournament next Thursday to truly feel comfortable.

As damaging as the loss was for Baylor, it meant very little in the grand scheme of things for Texas. The Longhorns now have a better chance to claim the No. 7 seed in the league tournament, but will still need assistance from Oklahoma and Iowa State, who both play West Virginia over the next four days. Outside of helping the Longhorns perhaps earn a marginally better draw for a possible four-wins-in-four days miracle run to the NCAAs, the victory had no tangible big-picture implications.

Still, there was so much to be excited about after watching the Longhorns earn a tough win tonight. Myck Kabongo bounced back quickly from his rough game in Stillwater, scoring 19 points while also leading the team with six boards and eight assists. Sheldon McClellan also turned in a big performance, scoring 23 points just two days after seeing the court for only seven minutes in the Saturday loss to Oklahoma State.

Coming off the bench, Cameron Ridley showed heart and hustle, never more apparent than in a huge play late in the game where he was falling out of bounds and tapped a loose rebound to the corner, where Ioannis Papapetrou knocked down the triple to stifle a Baylor rally. That big shot was one of many clutch plays by Papi, who was aggressive with the bounce and steady behind the arc en route to a highly-efficient 18 points on 7-of-13 shooting. Even Prince Ibeh made key contributions, coming up with two blocks and three important boards.

The Longhorns established their new season high for offensive efficiency, scoring 1.241 points per possession. It was the third time in the team’s last five games that the offense cracked the 1.2 mark, and it was a vast improvement over the even 1.0 points per possession that they scored against Baylor in Waco on January 5th.

Texas also made a huge turnaround on the glass, where the team limited the Bears to reclaiming just 30.6% of their offensive rebounding chances. In the earlier loss to Baylor, Texas gave up 39.1% of those opportunities. The Longhorns also kept the Bears from getting to the line, slashing their defensive free-throw rate from an astronomical 70.3% in the loss to just 38.6% in Monday’s win.

But even with the big plays and solid performances up and down the lineup, Texas’ win over Baylor still left behind a feeling of sadness. Since the return of Kabongo, the Longhorns have pulled off wins over Oklahoma, Iowa State, and Baylor, teams ranked fourth through sixth in the league. Although it’s an incredibly small sample size, those results and the jolt Kabongo has provided the offense make it seem like these Horns could have easily been in the middle of the Big 12 standings had he played all year.

With that in mind, it’s not a stretch to imagine that the full-strength Horns could have won one of the games against West Virginia, if not both. The road loss at Oklahoma was close enough that you can’t help but wonder if that outcome would have changed, too. Heck, the Longhorns forced Kansas into enough second-half miscues that the Jayhawks were on the ropes in Austin, even without Kabongo. Take a step further back, into the non-conference slate, and you can easily picture Texas hanging on against UCLA and hopefully avoiding the detestable loss to Chaminade.

If you hypothesize that Kabongo’s presence flips a few of these games to the win column, you can’t magically create an amazing season, but you do start to add up enough victories to be able to imagine Texas as a bubble team. It seems that every year, the teams filling the bottom of the bracket have résumés that are even more odious than the ones in the previous year. This season has been no exception, with Ole Miss was still only five slots out of Lunardi’s bracket after losing at home to a 7-20 Mississippi State team — the very same Mississippi State team that lost at home to Vanderbilt by 41 points just a week earlier.

There’s no way to know what impact Kabongo would have actually had on the games earlier in the season. Some of the close losses could very well have remained losses even with his leadership. Even with those wins, Texas’ horribly weak non-conference SOS might have kept it out of the NCAA field. The Longhorns’ inability to put together road and neutral-site wins against quality competition might have also left them on the wrong side of the bubble. Unfortunately, the sad fact of the matter is that the NCAA didn’t ever give this team or its fans a chance to find out.

ESPN’s Jay Bilas was the most outspoken critic of the NCAA’s decision to suspend Kabongo, a ban that was reduced to 23 games after initially being set for the full season. But even prior to this particular decision, numerous analysts have been ripping the agency’s enforcement arm for the last few years. Recent scandals surrounding the Shabazz Muhammad and Miami investigations have put more egg on the face of the NCAA, which prodded the league into investigating itself in the miraculous time span of two weeks.

Should Kabongo have been forthcoming with UT compliance officials from the start? Absolutely. But as Bilas and others have reminded us, these 18- to 22-year old kids are thrown into frightening situations where they are questioned without any counsel. These are kids who are playing for no money, only a college education and dreams of making it as a professional athlete. Asking them to handle the stress of a huge institution scrutinizing their possible transgressions is tough enough without also trying to use them as examples to future scallywags when they try to massage the truth in an effort to save face.

As Texas beat writer Mike Finger pointed out this weekend, the Longhorns’ string of 14 consecutive NCAA appearances will likely end because of a $475 plane ride. Kabongo, a kid who was worried about jeopardizing future in which he could make millions, was scared enough to lie about a measly 475 dollars because he might have done something deemed illegal in the NCAA’s arcane rulebook.

It is no secret in the sports world that the NCAA model is a system that is broken in so many different places, it is impossible to even know where to start. There are the issues with enforcement, the gulf between the haves and have-nots, the constant shifting of realignment’s tectonic plates, the debate on pay-for-play…the list never ends. Kabongo’s case is not unique, his problem is far from the biggest one facing college sports, and Texas is certainly not a persecuted victim. But at some point, all of the off-the-court problems, scandals, and distractions take us away from enjoying the game that we all love, the game that brings us all together for five fabulous months every year. When investigations and sanctions earn as many headlines as the contests themselves, some of the magic of college hoops is stripped away.

These are the debates and issues that dominated my thoughts as I watched my 250th consecutive Texas basketball game on Monday. On a night that should have felt like some sort of grand closure to my seven-year journey, a night I should have been swept up in the drama of a back-and-forth game, all I could focus on was how sad it was that none of the effort Texas was putting forth would mean anything. As hard as the Longhorns played and as resilient as they were for forty minutes tonight, nothing that happened between the lines would actually matter. A season that could have been filled with suspense and bubble-sweating and résumé-dissecting and Championship Week pressure was simply over before it even began. Because a college kid made one mistake and compounded it with another, 13 other guys were simply playing for fun from November to March.

There is still the slim chance that Texas could get hot in Kansas City and play its way right in to the NCAAs. The Longhorns had opportunities to prove their worth before Kabongo’s return, and they still have one more week to do the improbable. But after seeing what the Longhorns were capable of with their full roster, it’s a shame Texas fans didn’t get to experience the highs and lows of living on the bubble in February and March. In a thrilling year of college basketball that loudly and undeniably refuted the New York Times’ declaration that the regular season was irrelevant, the Longhorns and their fans had to suffer through a season that never truly mattered.