While Kansas, K-State, and Texas are fighting it out atop the conference standings, there’s another interesting battle brewing for that fourth and final first-round bye in the post-season tournament. While Baylor’s early play made it seem they could be the frontrunners for the 4-seed, losses in six of their last seven games have made the picture a little more murky for Scott Drew’s bunch.

Now, a look ahead at the next games for the top teams in the league…

Kansas Jayhawks, 9-2
This week: at Oklahoma State (Sat)
The Jayhawks get a long week to rest and a cupcake of an opponent to feast on this weekend. Only one team from the Big 12 South has ever won in Allen Fieldhouse, and I wouldn’t put money on Sean Sutton to win a second-consecutive road game. Kansas essentially gets a full-speed practice in preparation for a battle the following weekend with K-State.

Texas Longhorns, 9-2
This week: vs. Oklahoma (Sat)
Texas took care of business against the Sooners in Norman and are playing some incredibly impressive basketball at the moment. Without Longar Longar, OU could find itself in some trouble come Saturday afternoon.

Kansas State Wildcats, 9-2
This week: at Nebraska (Wed), at Baylor (Sat)
The roadie with Baylor this weekend could be a trap game, with the Wildcats potentially looking ahead to its next two with Texas and Kansas. Add to that the fact that the Bears desperately need some résumé-building upsets to offset their recent slide, and the Ferrell Center could be a very dangerous place for Beasley’s Bunch.

Texas A&M Aggies, 6-5
This week: vs. Nebraska (Sat)
After dropping two straight games, the Aggies have a chance to get well against Big Red at home. The tussle with the Cornhuskers is the most winnable contest that A&M has left, so they’ve got to get things clicking early in front of the Reed fans, who are becoming restless as of late.

Oklahoma Sooners, 6-5
This week: at Texas (Sat)
The last two Sooner wins came on insane three-pointers (and a foul), but they’ll have to work extremely hard to keep the momentum going in Austin on Saturday. As mentioned earlier, the loss of Longar to a stress fracture makes an already-thin Sooner frontcourt look like Kate Moss, so they can’t afford foul trouble on the road.

Baylor Bears, 5-6
This week: vs. Kansas State (Sat)
If Baylor is going to stop the bleeding, they’ve got to do it against the ‘Cats. A loss drops them even further out of contention for the first-round bye, and is one of only two remaining chances for a marquee win. (The other comes against A&M in the last week of the season.) If Baylor loses this one, fans might want to start printing up those green-and-gold NIT shirts.

Rumors and Rants gives us hilarious photography from C-USA and a Seek-N-Find puzzle, too. While we’re on the topic, is anyone actually surprised by the fact that Memphis was the team involved in this melee? I know Miami is considered “Thug U,” but there’s got to be a similar moniker for these clowns. Even Pat Forde realizes Calipari is running a halfway house, listing all of the brushes with the law these fine young citizens have had. (Minutes 19 through 25 for those of you who don’t want to read the whole article.) I get all warm and fuzzy inside when I remember that the Longhorns are the last team to beat these punks in FedEx Forum, although Tennessee could steal that distinction this weekend.

Another day, another article about Kelvin Sampson being a cheater. Forde now claims that IU will suspend and then fire my BFF Kelvin, which really doesn’t seem to be the appropriate punishment. I’m thinking something along the lines of sharks with laser beams attached to their heads.

March Madness All Season takes some time to talk about the sudden love-fest for Texas as a 1-seed. While the Horns certainly have a great profile to-date, I agree completely with his analysis of the road ahead, and would like to point out that if Kirk Bohls makes an argument, it’s usually safe to take the opposing viewpoint. Many of the pundits are saying that the winner of a hypothetical Big 12 tournament title game between Kansas and Texas could claim a 1-seed, but the committee has made it painfully clear in past years that they don’t pay any attention to what the Big 12 is doing on Sunday. And, as Peter Bean at Burnt Orange Nation reminded us yesterday, the Houston regional is infinitely more important than a 1-seed.

Texas is still a 2-seed according to Stewart Mandell at SI.com, although he’s still got them slated to play Belmont. We here at LRT love the Bruins, as we wrote a feature on their head coach which will be running during Championship Week. So, here’s to hoping that the committee isn’t as cruel as old Stewie and Texas can draw the champs of the Ivy or NEC on Selection Sunday.

#13 Connecticut 65, DePaul 60 – The Huskies nearly fell asleep on the job against the streaky Blue Demons, but put on a late run to dig out of a 13-point hole. Hasheem Thabeet was thisclose to a triple-double in the ballgame, scoring 16 points, grabbing 13 boards, and blocking a ridiculous eight shots. It was the 10th-consecutive win for UConn, who pulled within a half-game of Big East leaders Georgetown and Louisville.

#14 Indiana 77, #15 Purdue 68 – It may have been the last game at the helm for a beleaguered Kelvin Sampson, but the Hoosiers came up with a second-consecutive home win over the best that the Big 10 has to offer. Assembly Hall was absolutely rocking for the rekindling of this time-tested rivalry, and the Hoosier faithful were treated to a yeoman’s effort from senior D.J. White, who posted a sick 19/15 line with an injured knee. The win pushes IU into a three-way tie with both the Boilermakers and Wisconsin atop the league standings.

Bradley 72, #18 Drake 71 – Jeremy Crouch’s jumper put Bradley ahead with 11 seconds to go, and the Braves withstood three last-gasp shots from the homestanding Bulldogs to escape Des Moines with a huge road win. Perhaps Drake was looking ahead to this weekend’s Bracket Busters match-up with Butler, or maybe this was a letdown game after clinching the league title on Saturday. But the uncomfortable fact is that this the second loss in only eight days for the Bulldogs, who had dropped only one of their first 23 games. Should fans start to worry?

Oklahoma 92, Baylor 91 (OT) – For the second-straight game, the Sooners needed an improbable play from behind the arc to stun their opponents. But on a night filled with a bunch of crazy moments, it really didn’t seem that surprising. Tony Crocker was fouled by Aaron Bruce on a made three-pointer with only 7.3 seconds left in overtime, and the ensuing free throw put the Sooners up by a point. But Curtis Jerrells got to the line for Baylor with just over a second remaining…and missed both attempts. A Kevin Rogers putback was no good at the buzzer, and OU earned their third-straight win heading into the game with Texas on Saturday.

Not a lot of solid games on the air tonight, but the headline match-up should more than make up for the mediocrity elsewhere on the TV dial.

DePaul (10-14 overall, 5-7 Big East) at #13 Connecticut (20-5, 9-3) – 6 PM CST, ESPNU
The Huskies return home after escaping sunny Florida with an overtime buzzer-beating win against the Bulls, hoping to keep pace with G-town and the Cardinals. DePaul is at the other end of the standings, trying to stay ahead of Providence and St. John’s long enough to make the Big East tournament.

#15 Purdue (21-5 overall, 12-1 Big 10) at #14 Indiana (21-4, 10-2) – 6 PM CST, ESPN
The Hoosiers silenced critics who asked if they would ever claim a marquee win and temporarily ushered the Kelvin Sampson debacle aside with a convincing home win over Michigan State on Saturday night. Purdue dispatched that same Spartan squad on Tuesday, setting the table for tonight’s winner to slide into the driver’s seat of the Big Televen.

UNC-Greensboro (14-10 overall, 8-7 Southern) at Davidson (19-6, 17-0) – 6 PM CST, ESPN2
The Wildcats have not lost since December 21st, and there’s no reason that they should tonight. Last week they defeated UNC-Greensboro by five on the road, but tonight get to face them in the friendly confines of Belk Arena. Although Davidson clinched their league title with a win on Saturday, they are still looking to impress the tournament committee in case they somehow stumble in the Southern Conference tournament. A 19-game win streak could quite possibly be the slightest bit impressive.

Georgia (12-11 overall, 3-7 SEC) at Kentucky (13-10, 7-3) – 8 PM CST, ESPN
It’s hard to believe that this is the same Wildcat team which lost to Gardner-Webb and started the year with a 4-5 mark, but Billy Clyde Gillispie has things looking up in the Bluegrass State. Kentucky has the third-best record in the SEC, a strength of schedule ranking of 27th, and quality wins over Tennessee and Vanderbilt. While tonight’s game won’t offer a réesumé-building victory, every win gets the Wildcats closer to the post-season in a year with a really, really soft bubble.

Missouri State (13-14 overall, 6-9 MVC) at Creighton (17-8, 8-7) – 8 PM CST, ESPNU
The Jays are certainly not the team of years past, as they are sitting smack in the middle of the Metro Valley and head into this one on a two-game losing streak. This game doesn’t have much impact on the big picture this season, so unless you dig the mid-majors or have a nephew at Missouri State, you might only catch this one during commercials of whatever else you are watching.

If you’ve got ESPN Full Court, I don’t have a lot to offer you. Here are the leftovers, if you’re interested…

Bowling Green (11-13 overall, 6-6 MAC) at Ohio (16-9, 7-5) – 6 PM CST
It’s MAC-tastic!

Southern Utah (8-17 overall, 6-8 Summit League) at Oral Roberts (18-6, 13-1) – 7 PM CST
Scott Sutton and the Oral Roberts Golden Eagles should be dancing again in March, and with good reason. They are dominating the far-flung teams of the Summit League and played Texas A&M, Arkansas, and Texas close this year. As for Southern Utah…well, I honestly didn’t even know they existed until about ten minutes ago.

Baylor (17-7 overall, 5-5 Big 12) at Oklahoma (17-8 overall, 5-5 Big 12) – 7 PM CST
The selection committee says they don’t assign certain conferences a number of bids, but that doesn’t stop some pundits from labeling match-ups such as this one “elimination games.” But with that soft bubble I referred to earlier, there’s a good chance that both the Bears and Sooners could find themselves in the field of 65 next month, regardless of tonight’s outcome. Of course, if Baylor wants to even sniff the Big Dance, they need to first get off of their skid, as they’ve lost five of their last six, including a home game against this Oklahoma team.

On a night when everything seemed to go right for the Texas Longhorns, even their fans made half-court shots. Twice. While the hometown Longhorns were cruising to a convincing 77-50 win over the rival Aggies, a pair of students hit 47-footers to win a year of Chick-fil-A and two round-trip tickets on American Airlines. The prize for the Longhorns, though, was a ninth conference victory and a tie for the league lead.

Texas came roaring out of the gates, hitting 4-of-5 from behind the arc to start the game as their defense limited Texas A&M to just 2-of-17 shooting over the first ten minutes of play. D.J. Augustin and Damion James led the offensive charge in the first half, scoring 17 and 10 before even heading to the locker room.

Despite having a comfortable 21-point lead at the break, Rick Barnes didn’t let his team’s intensity waver. The Longhorns were still pressing the ball in the backcourt with nearly a thirty-point lead and only seven minutes on the clock, and reserve forward Alexis Wangmene was even knocking down jumpers with regularity as the final minutes ticked away. By the time the student sections led the crowd in singing “Poor Aggies,” many of the maroon-clad supporters in the upper decks had long since departed.

There were a ton of things to like about this one for Longhorn fans, starting with the return of Augustin as a scorer. While Texas continued to win during D.J.’s recent slump, other players were forced to step up in his place. But while his teammates maintained their strong play against A&M, the re-awakened Augustin poured in 27, including his 1,000th point as a Longhorn. The only downside for the point guard might have been the fact that he sat on the bench for just four minutes in the rout, despite having the game well in hand the entire second half.

Justin Mason continued his scrappy play, picking up loose balls and rebounds for putbacks, including an improbable dunk following an airballed hook shot by Dexter Pittman. Mason may have fired too many three-point attempts during the early scoring barrage, but he was getting open looks and was certainly not afraid to try to capitalize on them. Personally, I will take a slightly overconfident Jay Mase over one who is unsure on the offensive end and only contributes on defense. If Mason continues to play at this level the rest of the way, Texas has yet another X-factor that can put it over the top in close games.

One of the other reassuring things seen on the court last night was the solid contribution from every member of the frontcourt rotation. Gary Johnson continues to amaze me in how quickly he has progressed from the guy who seemed overwhelmed in late January. He played 23 minutes against the Aggies this time, after managing only four ineffective minutes during the game in College Station. He had eight points and seven boards, but perhaps his most surprising contribution was how well he defended the giant DeAndre Jordan when given the unenviable task. And with that solid mid-range jumper he’s got going now, he’s turning into a mini-Damion James, ripping down rebounds, popping Js, and attacking the rim. Exciting stuff is ahead for this guy.

While I’ve praised Gary for his solid defensive work on Jordan, I certainly can’t overlook the excellent D from all of the frontcourt players, who put on an absolute block party down low — twelve shots were officially swatted — and limited the Joseph Jones/Bryan Davis/DeAndre Jordan troika to 18 points on the night. In the first game between these two teams, those three players combined for 33 points. If Texas continues to hold down the fort in the paint, their recently-improved rotations on the perimeter shooters mean that this defensive resurgence could be around for the rest of the year.

Even the lesser-used forwards played well, as Clint Chapman had some solid minutes, including some great work on the glass just before half and an assist on a kick to Augustin for three. Wangmene earned a lot of his points in garbage time, but his continued hustle inside and nice touch on that high-arc jumper are going to be a great addition for five-to-ten minutes a game.

It can be easy to get drunk on the burnt-orange Kool Aid after a convincing win like that, but the last few games have made it seem like Texas is finally putting it together. Take away two scary minutes at the end of the Baylor game, and the Longhorns have looked incredibly impressive against three excellent ballclubs in a row. There’s a huge test looming next Monday in Manhattan, but much of the remaining schedule for Texas is very favorable and could set things up nicely for the post-season tournaments.

Enjoy the win for now, Horn fans. We’ve got quite a bit to talk about this week, including yet another rivalry game on Saturday.