College Confidential

Texas Tech leads Texas 43-38 at half

We have the answer to the question, what would happen if Clint Chapman and Connor Atchley both were on the court for Texas, at the same time, for major minutes? Texas Tech leads Texas 43-38 at halftime in Austin.

Forward Gary Johnson is in street clothes after suffering an ankle sprain Saturday night in the victory over Oklahoma.

Tech is playing with Chris Beard as acting head coach. Pat Knight, suspended one game, has to like what he's seeing watching the game on TV somewhere in Austin.

At halftime, ESPN2 studio analyst Jimmy Dykes scolded the Texas defense, which he notes has declined since November. Texas has allowed Tech, winners of two Big 12 games this season, to hit 6 of 10 from 3-point range.

Nick Okorie is 5-of-5 shooting from the field for 15 points to lead Tech.

-- Vince Langford

Texas-Texas Tech tips off at 8:40 p.m.

Virginia Tech is bidding for an upset of Clemson in a game that started at 6:30 p.m. on ESPN2, and is running long and threatening overtime.

Texas will retire the jersey of one-year sensation Kevin Durant at halftime of the game tonight in Austin. Tech coach Pat Knight is serving his one-game suspension for criticizing the officiating in the Red Raiders' loss to Texas A&M on Saturday.

The ABC NCAA campaign takes a hit

The Anybody But Connecticut campaign to win the men's NCAA basketball championship took a severe blow with UConn's 93-82 victory over Marquette on Wednesday night.

It was an absolutely terrific game. UConn guard A.J. Price had a career-high 36 points and Stanley Robinson, a mystery man with his up and down play but 6-9 and quick, was a beast (19 points, 10 rebounds). Price was so good that the Huskies could choose to ignore 7-foot-3 Hasheem Thabeet (14 points, 15 rebounds) until late in the game.

Marquette potentially suffered a huge jolt for a deep NCAA Tournament run when 5-11 senior guard Dominic James suffered a broken bone in his left foot early in the game. He is out indefinitely.

Jim Calhoun notched his 800th career victory, becoming the seventh coach all-time to reach that plateau in NCAA men's Division I.

And how good was Price? "Ray Allen-Ben Gordon" type of performance, Calhoun said. Robinson played well enough that "maybe we can overcome the loss of Jerome Dyson," said Calhoun, speaking of the season-ending injury to the starting shooting guard.

— Vince Langford

SEC Ramblings: Auburn

It's been an interesting few months at Auburn, to say the least.

After 10 seasons and 85 victories, the old guard was finally able to force out Tommy Tuberville. The old guard had never taken to Tuberville and tried to force him out following the 2003 season. But a 5-7 record was enough to finally do him in.

Following a whirlwind search, Auburn settled on Gene Chizik of Iowa State as Tuberville's replacement. That didn't sit well with most Auburn fans, considering Chizik's 5-19 record in two seasons in Ames, Iowa. One fan famously harangued athletic director Jay Jacobs and his retinue at the Auburn-Opelika Airport.

Since then, judging by the coaching staff Chizik has put together, maybe those fans jumped to conclusions. They might have forgotten also that Chizik, as the defensive coordinator at Auburn and Texas, was part of back-to-back undefeated seasons, the second one at Texas resulting in a BCS title.

Chizik's coaching search had a rocky start when Stacy Searels, the offensive line coach at Georgia, turned him down. But Chizik quickly struck gold when Gus Malzahn, the offensive coordinator at Tulsa, accepted his offer. Then Chizik went to Oklahoma again, this time to Oklahoma State, and hired Curtis Luper as the running backs coach. Then he raided the Cowboys again and hired Trooper Taylor as the wide receivers coach. Staying in the Big 12, he hired Jeff Grimes to coach the offensive line.

On defense, he hired Ted Roof, a former head coach at Duke, to coordinate the defense. He also hired former Outland Trophy winner and Auburn legend Tracy Rocker to coach the defensive line and Tommy Thigpen from North Carolina to coach the safeties.

Chizik plans for Auburn to run a spread offense, concentrating on the running game. Defensively, it will probably be more of the same.

Tuberville left Chizik plenty of talent, although the offense is quite a mess. Most of the work Malzahn and his staff has to do is as much mental as physical. The quarterbacks and receivers, in particular, have a lot of work to do.

Auburn is two players over the limit, so there is some whittling to do. But the Tigers are woefully thin at offensive tackle and linebacker.

The Tigers, as always, play a tough schedule, with most of their challenging conference games being on the road. Winning 10 games is doubtful, but don't count them out, especially if they don't suffer too many injuries.

Next: Florida

Veteran UNT sports information director dies at 74

Fred Graham, the first sports information director at North Texas, died Tuesday in Denton as a result of complications from Alzheimer's disease. He was 74.

Graham was a pioneer among "SIDs," as we're fond of calling them. UNT hired him to the post in 1959, only four years after the formation of the College Sports Information Directors of America. He held the position for 22 years until 1981.

Graham's wife, Sidney, is credited with coining the nickname Mean Green in the late-1960s for UNT's defense, even though the school's official mascot has always been the Eagle. The weekly television show Graham produced for football highlights and interviews was also one of the earliest of its kind.

"The good times and laughs were also balanced out with Fred's typical honesty, and sometimes brutal evaluation of my work," said Star-Telegram columnist Randy Galloway of his time working with Graham while covering UNT (then North Texas State) in the late-1960s and early-1970s. "He'd say, 'Galloway, your story today, it stunk.'" All these years later, I still hear that from a Jerry Jones, Mark Cuban, Tom Hicks, etc., but coming from Fred, it meant a lot more."

A memorial service for Graham, who was a Paris native, will be scheduled at First Christian Church in Denton.

--Troy Phillips

Michael Crabtree reconsiders delaying surgery

Wide receiver Michael Crabtree told the NFL Network today in a phone interview from Dallas that postponing surgery on a slight stress fracture in his left foot is now a "50-50 deal." Crabtree says he and his circle of people will sit down and come to one decision on whether to have the surgery now or wait until after he works out for NFL scouts at a personal pro day scheduled March 26.

He's getting a ton of advice to have the surgery now, which could allow him to be at an NFL rookie minicamp in late May and give him time to be completely healthy for training camp. He initially was adamant about wanting to run a 40-yard dash for scouts and allay any concerns about his speed.

ESPN's Todd McShay says he has dropped Crabtree only a couple of notches on his board of best player available in the draft and elevated Wake Forest linebacker Aaron Curry to the top spot, replacing Crabtree.

NFL Network analyst Mike Mayock told Crabtree on the phone interview to let the tape of his play in two seasons at Texas Tech speak for itself and focus on becoming completely healthy.

Blake Griffin still foggy

The father of Oklahoma Sooners star Blake Griffin told The Oklahoman before Monday night's game against Kansas that his sone was "nowhere close to being ready."

Tommy Griffin said there was indications that a combination of three blows in Saturday's game at Texas could have caused the concussion, including a shot from up under Blake's chin by Longhorns guard Dogus Balbay."

Longhorns pick up respect

Texas, with at least five wins over teams in the Top 50 RPI, jumped to a sixth seed in the latest Bracketology by ESPN's Joe Lunardi. The Longhorns were eighth a week ago. The win over Oklahoma on Saturday might be suspect, but no matter.

UT should get no worse than a split in its last four regular-season games (vs. Texas Tech, at Oklahoma State, vs. Baylor and at Kansas), leaving the Longhorns with at least a 20-10 record overall and 9-7 in the Big 12.

The Big 12 has only four teams projected into the NCAA Tournament by Lunardi. What would happen if Texas A&M could somehow win out (at Nebraska, vs. Iowa State, at Colorado, vs. Missouri)? The Aggies now stand 19-8 overall, 5-7 in conference.

Lunardi's last four in: Boston College, Penn State, San Diego State and Maryland. He has four Mountain West teams projecte into the Tournament, including SDSU.

His breakdown for conferences getting multiple bids: ACC 8, Big East down to 7, Big Ten 7, Pac-10 5, SEC 5, Big 12 4, MWC 4, Atlantic 10 2.

Numbers from the NFL Combine

Some of the numbers for college players with area or Texas ties in the NFL Scouting Combine:

• Brian Orakpo (Texas) was third among defensive linemen in the 40-yard dash (4.7 seconds) and second in the vertical jump (39.5). Despite tweaking his hamstring, Orakpo, who could play in the pros at outside linebacker, solidified his status at a top-10 or top-15 draft pick. NFL Network analyst Mike Mayock lists him among the top-five overall draft prospects.
• Chase Daniel (Missouri, Southlake Carroll) was ninth among quarterbacks in the 40 (4.92), but tied with Stephen McGee (Texas A&M) for third in the vertical jump (33 inches) behind Pat White (35) and Josh Freeman (33.5).
• Offensive guard Louis Vasquez (Texas Tech), at 6-foot-5, 333 pounds, led all players participating in the bench press (225 pounds) with 39 repetitions.
• Chase Holbrook (New Mexico State, Hurst L.D. Bell) was ninth among QBs in the broad jump (9 feet).
• QB Rhett Bomar (Sam Houston State, Oklahoma, Grand Prairie) led all players in the 20-yard shuttle (showing the athletic ability some believed would have made him a Tim Tebow clone had he been able to stay at OU).
• Jason Phillips (TCU) was fifth among linebackers in the 40 (4.69) and eighth in the 20-yard shuttle.
• Bernard Scott (Abilene Christian) was tops among running backs in the 3-cone drill (nothing to do with ice cream) and Chris Ogbonnaya (Texas) was third. Scott was the first RB in the 20-yard shuttle.
• Johnny Knox (Abilene Christian) was third among wide receivers in the 40 (4.34).
• Roy Miller (Texas) was second among defensive linemen in the bench press (36 reps).
• James Casey (Rice, Azle) tied for first among tight ends in bench press (28 reps) and second in vertical jump (36 in.)
• Mike Goodson (Texas A&M) was third among RBs in the vertical jump (39.5 in.).

Mountain West has a Gator ally

University of Florida President Bernie Machen can sympathize with his football little brothers who are outside of the Bowl Championship Series: He used to be president of the University of Utah.

In an interview with the Orlando Sentinel, he spoke on the unfairness of the BCS, where five major college conferences, including the Mountain West, with Utah and TCU, don't have automatic bids for the conference champion:

"It's not fair when you take a school like Utah — when I was at Utah, our athletics budget was around $20-22 mil per year. Our budget here is ($84.5 mil) ... and the major difference is the bowl revenue and TV revenue they get. I don't think most people begrudge what we got because of being in the championship game, but all the SEC schools got the same amount of money that we got.

"And Utah could beat a lot of SEC schools. That's the unfairness. I think that's got to be fixed one way or the other. One way to fix it would have been a playoff, more revenue to distribute like you do in basketball."