Kansas' Band Can Sing

KANSAS CITY, Mo., -- The Marching Jayhawks sing remarkably well.
The bandies circled in the tunnel about 40 minutes before Texas and Kansas tip for the Big 12 title game and did a stirring rendition of "Hog Calling Time in Nebraska."
I'm not one to get impressed by bands, but I know enough about singing to take note. Now only were they on pitch and on key and all that rot, they threw in a bit of harmony.
There's only about 30 of them here, so it was something of an ensemble performance, which made the sheer volume of it pretty impressive (of course, the acoustics of the Sprint Center's underbelly helped).
If you want an example of what I'm talking about, check this out.
But seeing the small bunch do it live was more impressive.
Catchy tune.

Thorpe Prediction - Mini Feature

San Antonio—Another year, another Big 12 corner predicting he'll win the Thorpe Award. Aqib Talib from Kansas is this year's culprit.
"I see myself keeping it in the Big 12, taking it from Aaron Ross. I think he'd appreciate that," Talib said.
Talib, who says the Jayhawks gave away four games last year, and should have been 10-2, also said that 9 wins and a berth in the Big 12 title game was a reasonable projection for this year's team. Last year, he said, was a warm up season. 2007 is the real thing.

Dwain Crawford might be the most likeable football player you've never heard of. That probably has something to do with the fact that he's a Baylor Bear, and as a defensive back, he was overshadowed by C.J. Wilson (another Thorpe Award self-nominee) and Anthony Airline.
Unlike Rhett Bomar, it's pretty safe to assume he actually worked at his summer job. The junior works as a rancher, feeding cattle and putting out hay in the Texas sun near Waco.
"That's what I'm used to doing," says the Giddings native, who started working on an oil field at 15.
This is Crawford's second summer on the job. Before that, he was clearing a lot for a realtor. But swinging an ax in the heat of the summer wasn't for him.
"It sucked," he says.
So now he's home on the ranch.
Crawford says he doesn't necessarily need the money; he's just accustomed to holding down a job. But, with a truck to keep running, the money comes in handy.
"It's costing me like 75 bucks to fill it up," he says.

Oklahoma City Miracle?

Oklahoma City, Okla. -- Ok, so it's never a miracle when a team with the best player in the country beats a team that lost to Oral Roberts at home, but no one here is giving Texas much of a chance against Kansas. They're playing for the Big 12 tournament title at the Ford Center in about an hour, and I'm among the many expecting KU to win.

Texas hasn't looked especially good in either of their first two games, and Kevin Durant has yet to put together two good halves. D.J. Augustine seems to be taking about 30 minutes of floor time before warming up and finding his groove, and Connor Atchley is, well, he's Connor Atchley. A.J. Abrams is Texas' most consistent performer here in OKC, and his specialty is the fickle-by-nature three-pointer.

Meanwhile, Kansas is looking fine, and that's enough to beat the Longhorns if they keep underperforming. To be fair, Durant's had two incredible halves to go with his to ho-hum halves, and Augustine made a huge shot against Baylor, then several shots down the stretch versus Oklahoma State. If they can get hot together and stay that way, Texas' chances increase exponentially.

***

After much soul searching and serious debate, Cody Hale and I have decided we'd rather live in Oklahoma City than Texas' panhandle. This has more to do with how awful the panhandle is than how great OKC is, but this town's not that bad if you stay in a select few areas.

When I say a 'select few', I'm giving OKC the benefit of the doubt. The only nice place we've found is Bricktown, but we haven't explored much. There are plenty of restaurants on and around downtown's knockoff Riverwalk, and the bars look nice from the outside. Circumstances beyond our control prevented us from checking out Skyy Bar or any of the others, but given the chance, we would have. We ate at Toby Keith's I Love this Bar and Grill, and a 1-hour 10-minute break not withstanding, it was pretty good. The cover band was too loud for conversation, but at least they sounded alright. The ribs were delicious, and the fried okra, "freedom fries," and caesar salad were all good. The corn bread was nothing special, but the cheap beer to wash it down with made up for it.

***

Alright, 30 minutes till tipoff, time to get my game face on.
Quick, meaningless predictions:
Texas loses, 65-75
Durant scores 28
Craig Winder has three steals, three fouls and two points
Texas gets into the NCAA tourney as a 4 seed

Birthplace of Basketball

Lawrence, KAN. -- Not too often you find yourself at the birthplace of basketball to see Texas fight for a share of the conference title. But here I am an hour and 20 minutes before tipoff at Allen Fieldhouse. The students are already filling up their allotted seats and the place is full of media. I'm here as a photographer. Pretty nice gig, in the second half I'll be next to an ESPN.com photographer with Getty Images and Reuters photogs next to him.

As usual, we had to drive up here, and we made it in about 11.5 hours. After being greeted with snow we headed out for a nice dinner at IHop before calling it a night. Now I'm in the media room, about to get lunch. This place definitely has a different feel than the Erwin Center, even an hour before the game starts. And it's nothing Texas could ever hope to change. This place is just special.

As far as the game goes, I'll predict 29 points from Kevin Durant and a 9-point, 70-61 loss for the Longhorns. Dallas Morning News columnist Chip Brown is predicting a double-digit defeat. Looks like giving Texas much of a chance in this environment isn't a popular move. Maybe we're all wrong.