On the rise: Texas shows its depth, potential

NEW YORK — Forgive the rest of us if we're still getting to used to this.

Texas coach Rick Barnes has known about it for a while; he orchestrated it. His players have been trying to tell us about it all offseason; we just didn't believe it until we saw it.

The Longhorns are deep, talented and — gasp! — nationally relevant again, almost exactly two years removed from a horrendously embarrassing loss to Division II Chaminade and the subsequent constant chatter about Barnes being on the hot seat.

Now, these 10th-ranked Longhorns expect to contend for a Big 12 championship — and considering Kansas' 32-point loss to Kentucky earlier this week, there's no reason to think they won't.

"That shows the progress we've made," Texas senior forward Jonathan Holmes said Friday. "It shows how much we've grown, how much better we've gotten. How we've stuck together. It's good to win, but even better to win with these guys."

Holmes, whose dominant play led these Longhorns to a pair of wins at Madison Square Garden this week truly means that. He means the guys he sees when he looks around the locker room, the teammates who also experienced that Chaminade loss, the low point in a season that ended in a first-round CBI loss at Houston. They were the 'Chaminade Crew.'

"When, a couple of years ago, we wanted to make things different, get back to players who really fit into what we were trying to get done, Jon could have left," said Barnes, referencing a period of time where he essentially cleaned house. "(Holmes) could have left, but he didn't. His comment to us was, 'I was part of the problem. I want to be part of the solution, to fix this.' It started two years ago."

Not just Holmes, either. The other names should sound familiar — they, too, were key contributors last year and will be this season as well. Cameron Ridley. Demarcus Holland. Connor Lammert. Prince Ibeh. And more.

"Everybody bought in," Holmes said. "Everybody wanted to be part of the solution. Everybody was talking down about us. We worked hard, kept pushing each other. We had a season like we had last year, and now, we're just trying to build on that. We want to do something special this year."

The Longhorns have size, which will be a critical component for any elite team this season — a point made perfectly clear by Kentucky and its monstrous roster earlier this week. The Longhorns also have depth, particularly in their frontcourt, which features 6-10 Ibeh and 6-11 heralded freshman Myles Turner coming off the bench.

"It's like a five-or six-headed monster they've got," Cal center David Kravish said. "Cut off one, they bring three more at you. … I don't know if there's any front line in college that can match that."

Said Bears coach Cuonzo Martin: "We don't have bodies like that."

The Longhorns can knock down shots from the perimeter when they need to, and they block shots pretty much whenever they want to. Less than a minute into the second half of Friday's game against California, Cameron Ridley swatted a Bears shot six rows deep into the Madison Square Garden crowd, prompting a cascade of "ooooohs." That was just one of 10 (!) blocks in the game, and 17 total in the two-day tournament here.

Perhaps most impressive, Texas did what it did Friday — a 71-55 win against a rising Cal team — without talented starting point guard Isaiah Taylor, who is out for an extended period of time with a left wrist injury sustained earlier this week. In his absence, Javan Felix scored nine points and added four assists.

While there are concerns about Felix's ability to run the team heading into a stretch that features three marquee non-conference matchups — at defending national champion Connecticut (Nov. 30), at No. 1 Kentucky (Dec. 5) and home vs. Stanford (Dec. 23), Barnes remains confident in his roster's depth. He remembers Felix being thrust into a similar role when Myck Kabongo was suspended for 23 games two seasons ago. He knows his guards all get enough experience playing the point in practice, so any of them can handle it in a game situation. He's got the luxury of depth both in the frontcourt, and the backcourt, too.

And finally, we're seeing what he's seen all along — that the roots of what had supposedly been the demise of Texas basketball were really the roots its rebirth.