The prime question, for the Longhorns, was whether Santa Claus could really find them on Christmas Eve in this city by the sea.
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Bill Little commentary: Santa Claus is coming
Filed under Football by on Dec 25th, 2011. Comment. 
KANSAS CITY — A few days ago, Texas coach Rick Barnes turned to one of his assistants in practice and made a bold prediction about the 2011-12 season. Well, kind of. “We’re going to be good at something — at least one thing,” Barnes told him. “I’m just not sure what it is yet.” There are indeed plenty of questions surrounding a Longhorns team that had three players — Tristan Thompson, Jordan Hamilton and Cory Joseph — selected in the first round of last summer’s NBA draft. Six of the nine recruited scholarship players on Texas’ roster are freshmen, and there appears to be a serious lack of depth in the paint. Still, if Barnes is searching for a team strength, it may be a safe bet to look in the backcourt, where highly touted freshman point guard Myck Kabongo will team with junior J’Covan Brown , who is easily the team’s top returning player. Barnes said Kabongo has all the tools to become the next great point guard for a program that has produced standouts such as T.J. Ford and D.J. Augustin. “He’s somewhere in between those two,” Barnes said of Kabongo. “He’s extremely fast like T.J., but T.J. would pace his game. Myck is a more full throttle. Forget the cruise control. He’d be great this weekend at Talledega. He can beat everyone down the floor with the ball, but he’s going to learn to change his pace from time to time so our team can get into a flow.” As much as he needs him to excel with the ball in his hands, Barnes is also counting on Kabongo to assume a leaderhip role for a squad that also lost senior forward Gary Johnson along with the three draft picks. That’s fine with Kabongo, who played high school ball for hard-nosed coach Dan Hurley at St. Benedict’s Prep. “He got me ready, mentally,” Kabongo said of Hurley. “Some of these [freshmen] have never been at schools where coaches are going to get after them every day. That’s what Coach Barnes does. I just let the young guys know, ‘You can’t take it personal. It’s part of the game. You’ve got to be coachable.
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Mature Myck Kabongo will lead young Texas
Filed under Basketball by on Oct 21st, 2011. Comment.
KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Here are some observations after spending Thursday at Big 12 media day: 1. Texas freshman Myck Kabongo is going to be successful. How do I know without seeing him play a single college game? Just call it a hunch. Kabongo was introducing himself in such a polite and engaging manner Wednesday night and then again Thursday. He had such a presence about him, answered his questions and even avoided some about other players in the Big 12 without sounding disrespectful. He might be one of the most impressive freshmen I’ve seen at a media day in terms of the way he carried himself. Kabongo understands the importance of a first impression. 2. If Kansas wins the Big 12 yet again this season, it could go down as one of Bill Self’s most impressive coaching performances. The Jayhawks legitimately don’t have a star or a stud on this roster that you can guarantee will be a first-team all-league player or an NBA first-round pick. But Self is relishing this roster. This is a collection of players who are just like him, players who have to earn their keep and will need to win by ensuring they are one team with one agenda. 3. Kansas State’s media guide cover may go down as one of the best I’ve ever seen. You can’t watch Frank Martin on the sidelines and not be drawn to his facial expressions. So the KSU marketing department captured the many faces of Frank from the scowl, to the growl, to the shock, to the euphoria. K-State wrestled with what to do and whether or not to put a player on the cover. They ended up picking Martin and thankfully he went along with it. 4. Texas Tech coach Billy Gillispie has had quite a run, from Self’s bench at Illinois to head-coaching gigs at UTEP and Texas A&M to the tumultuous time at Kentucky to some personal failings to dealing with the recent death of his mother. Gillispie can be quirky and hard to read. But he was genuinely in as good a mood Thursday as I’ve ever seen him at this point in the season. He does seem to be at peace with his position. We’ll see if that lasts. But he is embracing this latest second chance. 5. I’ve seen Missouri coach Frank Haith twice in the past week — once in New York and again in Kansas City — and he’s handled himself quite well dealing with the speculation of the Tigers’ conference affiliation, the Laurence Bowers ACL injury and of course the NCAA investigation into an allegation that he knew of a $10,000 payment to the family of Miami’s DeQuan Jones . Haith has lost weight, but no longer sounds as stressed as he did when the story first broke. He’s locked into making this season work. He was essentially popped by the Yahoo! Sports report and was staggered by the news flow from the story.
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10 observations from Big 12 Media Day
Filed under Basketball, Football, News by on Oct 21st, 2011. Comment.
Houston is not a modern recruiting powerhouse. Since the early 1980s, when Clyde Drexler and Hakeem Olajuwon did their Phi Slama Jama thing, the Cougars have mostly existed outside the margins of elite basketball and elite recruiting. That has been especially true in recent years. Frankly, Houston is not a school you expect to announce big or impressive recruiting news — it just doesn’t ever happen. And yet, here we are. On Sunday night, Houston officially earned commitments from five-star small forward Danuel House and four-star power forward Danrad “Chicken” Knowles . House is the No. 15-ranked overall player in the class of 2012 and the No. 3 player at his position. Knowles is No. 56 in the country overall and No. 15 at the power forward spot. So what gives? Why did two of the country’s top 50 or so recruits, including one of its best, suddenly decide to play their collegiate basketball at Houston despite offers from schools like Georgetown, Kansas, Texas, Ohio State, and so forth? Both players seem thrilled by the prospect of bringing Houston basketball back to the national conversation.
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Houston lands rare elite recruits
Filed under Basketball, News by on Sep 12th, 2011. Comment.
This past weekend, I convinced a group of military officers to meet up in Austin for the Texas-Rice game. One of them was a UT Alum, but the rest of the group all went elsewhere for undergrad and law school. It’s one thing to share the city of Austin, UT, and DKR with other UT students or alumni. It’s something else entirely to witness a group of outsiders experiencing the city,…
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Texas/Rice Game as "Texts from Last Night"
Filed under Lets Talk Texas by on Sep 5th, 2011. Comment.
SONOMA, Calif . (AP) – People heading to downtown Santa Rosa Sunday morning will have a chance to witness a tradition usually associated with the Wild West. A team of professional wranglers will be herding about 40 cattle through the streets of the city’s Source: San Diego Local News 1
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Cattle drives set downtown Santa Rosa on Sunday
Filed under News by on Aug 6th, 2011. Comment.
While I got ya, here are nine things and one crazy prediction: 1. Sorry, but I’m still dubious about the Formula 1 race that is coming to Austin next year. I don’t doubt that it could do very well, will greatly broaden our city’s international appeal, Source: Austin American-Statesman
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9 things, 1 crazy prediction
Filed under News by on Aug 1st, 2011. Comment.
Austin loves their Longhorns, and since there are no pro sports teams, the University of Texas has long been seen as this cityâs team. Now it can be seen all day, all night. Itâs obviously a lucrative business decision made by… Source: Austin Post
Filed under News by on Jul 14th, 2011. Comment.
DS:Â As much as we’re looking forward to facing the Longhorns in Austin and the Huskies in Seattle, the most eagerly anticipated matchup outside of Athens will be the trip to the City of Angels… Source: BC Interruption
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The Twelve Pack Conference Draft Profile: Georgia Bulldogs
Filed under News by on Jun 28th, 2011. Comment.
School: Southern Methodist Location: Dallas, Texas Enrollment: 11,000 Bowl appearances: 11 NFL first-round picks: 4 Losing seasons: 43 10-win seasons: 4 Source: ESPN Stats & Info (Note: Numbers date back to 1936, the first year of the AP poll.) The good: SMU is a small school, but located in the heart of the city of Dallas, the home of numerous Fortune 500 companies. For a program more apt to send players into the business world than the NFL, that can be a real selling point. Coaches can sell small-town kids on big-city life more than almost any school, and certainly more than any school that plays FBS football in the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex. The Ponies are on the rise of late, too, after a dark period before June Jones arrived from Hawaii and put the Mustangs into two consecutive bowls. The bad: Those dark ages came at the worst time possible, too. Chronicled by the ESPN 30 for 30 film, “Pony Excess,” recruiting violations resulted in the death penalty when the SMU program was at its height. Shortly after, the Southwest Conference split, and instead of finding a soft landing in the Big 12, the Mustangs are now relegated to the Conference USA, blocking them from getting access to the Cotton Bowl, where it’s played four times. The school has plenty of money and a nice, albeit small, stadium. Its size keeps it from really grabbing a stronghold in the Texas, Oklahoma and Texas A&M-dominated Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex. Also not helping matters: Only 21 percent of students are minorities.
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Heart of the City: SMU
Filed under Football by on Jun 20th, 2011. Comment.
