Longhorns focused on Little Rock first

KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Texas Longhorns players were not joining in any discussion that their road to the Final Four in San Antonio would go through Houston.

“We don’t execute in Little Rock, we don’t get to Houston,” center Connor Atchley said.

Point made.

So the trail for the Longhorns as the top No. 2 seed in the NCAA Tournament begins Friday in the first round of the South Region against 15th-seed Austin Peay (24-10). Austin Peay won the regular-season and tournament championships in the Ohio Valley Conference.

Texas would then have to defeat the Miami-St. Mary’s winner — a game matching 7 and 10 seeds — on Sunday to advance to the Houston regional. The Hurricanes are coached by Barnes’ former top assistant, Frank Haith. Texas defeated St. Mary’s in late December.

“We tell our guys every year that it’s a four-team tournament, and you have to take care of one game at a time and don’t even think about looking ahead at anything,” coach Rick Barnes said. “Any [team] that is in the tournament has had to earn its way.

“I’ve been around long enough to know that Austin Peay has a great basketball tradition. They have really good balance and they come out of a very tough league.”

Barnes takes an experienced, seasoned and well-conditioned team into the year’s tournament, a far cry from a year ago when his starting lineup included four freshmen on a team that bowed out with a second-round loss to Southern California.

“We’re more hungry and a lot more experienced than we were a year ago,” guard A.J. Abrams said.

“We’re much stronger, we can go longer, and we can play with the best teams in the country,” point guard D.J. Augustin added.

Texas has proved that from November through to Sunday’s Big 12 championship final against Kansas. The Longhorns have victories over two NCAA Tournament top seeds (UCLA and Kansas) and a No. 2 seed (Tennessee).

“We tested ourselves early, and, obviously, going through the Big 12 was hard,” Barnes said. “Then to come in here to Kansas City and play two teams [Oklahoma State, Oklahoma] for the third time and play Kansas basically on their home court has to help us.

“I think we’re a confident team, and we should be. This group has worked had for a long time and responded pretty well.”