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After testing the NBA draft waters Longhorns guard AJ Abrams has made the decision to return to Texas for his senior season. AJ made the announcement at a press conference today, the last day he could withdraw his name and retain his eligibility.

He had a few workouts with NBA teams but was not invited to the league’s pre-draft camp and it was clear he would not be drafted. Returning to Texas will allow AJ to get his degree while also improving his chances of playing professional basketball. He’s not going to be the team’s starting point guard but he’ll likely have more ball handling responsibilities and at least a chance to prove he’s more than just a spot up shooter.

Watch video of an excerpt from AJ’s press conference and comments from Kevin Durant and Rick Barnes below:

Welcome back AJ.

Barnes’ rotations in Texas/Memphis game. Nice analysis of the box score from the BON diaries.

The Longhorns controlled the first half and dominated the last ten minutes in route to a 20 point win over Stanford Friday night. Texas used a 20-3 run to turn a 1-point game into a 82-62 victory.

DJ Augustin was the player of the game for the Horns, leading the team in scoring with 23 points and dishing out 7 assists. When he took over the game and the tempo in the middle of the second half is when Texas went on their run. But equal credit for reversing the momentum should go to Rick Barnes, Dexter Pittman, and the other bigs playing defense down inside. The switch to a 2-3 zone defense and Pittman’s big body frustrated Stanford star Brook Lopez, and without him the Cardinal had no offensive threat.

The team now advances to the Elite 8 where they will face the Memphis Tigers Sunday at 1:20pm on CBS.

Related Links

• Men’s Basketball advances with 82-62 win over Stanford
• D.J. Augustin’s the best I’ve seen
• Texas a win away from Final Four
• Texas takes its place among Elite Eight
• Augustin has UT pointed toward Final Four
• Rick Barnes credits Justin Mason
• Longhorns’ second-half spurt propels them into Elite company
• Instant Analysis: Second-half run dooms the Cardinal
• How Texas Took Down Stanford: An Inside Look
• Stanford calls its shot: Texas just plain better
• There’s more to UT than D.J. Augustin
• Where in the world are Robin and Brook? Definitely not Houston…
• Postgame notes
• Photo gallery
• Video highlights

For healthy, curse-free Barnes, it’s all ‘gosh, darn’ these days. Coach is a big advocate of Metamucil apparently.

Rick Barnes threatens Arkansas fans. I love poking the Piggies with a stick. Should have them nice and riled up.r

Barnes’ job taking a Kevin Durant-less Longhorns team to a Big 12 title was rewarded with a coach of the year nod. He’s been to a Final Four and coached two national players of the year, but this season was probably his best coaching job. The improvement of every single player on this year’s squad definitely reflects well on Barnes and his entire staff.

See the full list of Big 12 awards after the jump.

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Texas loses players, but Barnes keeps winning. This may be his best year as coach since he’s been at Texas.

The Longhorns basketball team only has one commit for 2008 and none for 2009, but they’ve already picked up a huge commitment for 2010. Tristan Thompson, a sure five-star power forward from Newark St. Benedict’s Prep, gave Rick Barnes and assistant coach Rodney Terry his verbal commitment on Tuesday. Thompson is the fifth ranked sophomore in the country according to both Scout.com and RISE Magazine.

Texas fans can also thank former Horn Kevin Durant for helping reel in Thompson. The young man, originally from Canada, admitted he was a big Durant fan and loved the way Coach Barnes featured big, versatile front court players. Thompson is big, quick, and athletic and just sounds like he’s going to be a ton of fun to watch in burnt orange.

As always, verbal commitments are non-binding. As a sophomore Thompson will not be able to sign his letter of intent until November 2009.

UT’s Rick Barnes proves he’s the king. Now without Kevin Durant, Barnes is doing one of his best coaching jobs

We’ll be posting live thoughts on tonight’s Big Monday game versus Kansas on ESPN. The Villanova-Georgetown game is running long. No idea if the Texas game’s start will be delayed or if we’ll just miss some of the game, maybe both.

Pregame

• Vince Young at the game. Hopefully he was around this weekend to say hello to a few recruits. Should be perfectly legal since he’s in classes this semester.
• They’ve delayed the start of the game. As long as Nova-Georgetown doesn’t go to overtime it looks like we’ll see our game in it’s entirety.
• I like that they showed us Rutgers versus Tennessee women’s highlights as if anyone watching either of these two games cared.
• Villanova’s Scottie Reynolds is a former Sooner commit. They’d be pretty tough with him Damion James. Kelvin Sampson really screwed OU over, but I guess they deserved it.
• That’s a BS call with less than a second on the clock. Awful. I don’t think any of the players or refs knew how much time was left. I like it though because it means Texas-Kansas can get started.

First Half

• Well they obviously didn’t delay the start of the game too much. ESPN just switched over and we missed three and a half minutes of the game. First three shots they show are two made threes by the Horns and one by Kansas. Based on the score there wasn’t much defense before we were watching either.

Kansas 12, Texas 15

• Erwin Center sounds nice and loud. Some of my best sports-related college experiences were Monday nights at the Drum.
• If Gary Johnson’s offensive game can keep developing he’ll be huge for us down the stretch and in March.
• After a play that looked like offensive goaltending by KU on the other end, rough call against Johnson for the offensive foul.
• If Justin Mason can continue to play great defense and now handle the ball handing on offense he’s suddenly a big asset for the Horns.
• Ugh. How do you call that foul on Mason? If anything the Kansas guard initiated the contact and Mason kept his hands to himself.
• Better ball movement on offense for the Horns. With DJ Augustin playing off the ball, he and AJ Abrams are all over the place trying to create offensive chances. Everybody looks more active.

Kansas 18, Texas 20

• Mason out, let’s see how much standing around there is on offense. No reason we can’t keep up the good off the ball movement.
• That’s the second time tonight Abrams has had a great steal. Kid has quick hands to go with his quick shot.
• Looks like the refs are allowing tons of contact against Augustin when he initiates it. Now that he’s back at the point he seems to be more out of control than earlier.

Kansas 28, Texas 29

• Kansas scores but ESPN still hasn’t given them the points. Or maybe they had 26 and not 28, I’m old and blind.
• Aaron Ross at the game as well sitting with Mack Brown. I think Ross is in school this semester as well.

Kansas 35, Texas 33

• Connor Atchley is nails from three again. He’s four of four on the night. After he and Abrams were nailing everything we suddenly went away from both of them in our offense.
• Damion James picked up two quick fouls. I was wondering why he hadn’t played at all since we picked up the game.
• Kansas seems to have five guys on the court at all times that can score and create for themselves.
• Ouch. Johnson looks like he’s in serious pain. Is he bleeding? I don’t care how uncomfortable those masks are the kid needs to wear one to protect the nose.

Kansas 41, Texas 38

• I don’t know how Rick Barnes doesn’t give himself a heart attack and a hernia every nigh yelling at the officials. I know it’s a tough job but hell it’s one of the most frustrating things to watch when refs are seemingly making things up as they go along.
• Sigh. Clint Chapman looks like he has my hands. Kid doesn’t look like he could catch a cold sometimes. He has to expect the ball at anytime.

Halftime: Kansas 42, Texas 38

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Fran Fraschilla on Rick Barnes’ transformation at Texas. Discusses his change from control freak to coach who let’s his player’s have freedom.

SI’s Grant Wahl says Rick Barnes can coach. Barnes took a lot of heat last year from national media who never watched college basketball and certainly never watched the Horns (cough… Bill Simmons).

Rick Barnes took one last shot at Texas A&M at the basketball banquet. “Pooooor Aggie!”

It’s been a crazy day for Texas basketball fans. Depending on who you asked and when you asked the question, the answer was different every time. Rick Barnes was either not interested, very interested, or already in contract talks for the open coaching position with the University of Kentucky.

Reports from early this afternoon were that Barnes was very interested in the job and that he was Kentucky’s second choice (behind Florida’s Billy Donovan), there was actually lots of noise that he was as good as gone. Either those reports were erroneous or something changed. The latest and most official news is that Rick Barnes will be back next year as the head basketball coach for the University of Texas.

Texas coach Rick Barnes on Thursday said he plans on being the Longhorns coach next season, shooting down speculation that he would entertain leaving for Kentucky’s vacant head coaching job. “I’m the Texas basketball coach,” Barnes said.

Great news for Texas fans. It sounds like Texas AD DeLoss Dodds and Barnes were able to work out more than just a pay raise to keep him in Austin. He and his entire staff deserve everything they get. Or maybe there was no raise but Kevin Durant called him up and told him he’d be back if Barnes was back. I can dream. There’s got to be at least a slightly higher chance KD comes back to school now. At the very least the Horns will have their basketball coach back and don’t have to worry about any current players or recruits wanting out.

My favorite rumor of the afternoon: Barnes to Kentucky and Texas A&M savior Billy Clyde Gillispie to Austin to replace him. As much as I would’ve hated to lose Barnes, the meltdown in Aggieland would have been hilarious and might have made it worth it. Though the Aggies are still screwed. Since Barnes passed on Kentucky, Gillispie is now the favorite there and he’s not likely to pass on the job. Texas A&M sources are already telling ESPN he’s gone. Now I can actually root for the guy.

No matter how everything went down, the Longhorns came very close to losing an incredible basketball coach today. Barnes is nowhere near a perfect coach, but he’s turned the Texas Longhorns into a marquee basketball program and Texas fans should be ecstatic that he’ll be back next year.

Rick Barnes is AP Big 12 coach of the year. Apparently Bill Simmons doesn’t get a vote.

Bill Simmons has a huge man crush on Kevin Durant, but has some pretty harsh words for how Rick Barnes is handling his super-star freshman. In his latest Page 2 article on ESPN.com, Simmons absolutely rips into Rick Barnes, calling for his retirement and labeling his coaching unconscionable. Here is one of the funniest lines from his rant:

Do they have plays in their playbook called “Durant stands frozen 25 feet from the basket while other guys dribble aimlessly” and “half-assed pick-and-roll that leads to nothing” and “Durant posts up while the point guards stare him down, then reverse the ball the other way?”

I have to admit, lately I have been saying something along the same lines. Durant needs to get the ball more. Actually, Durant has to WANT the ball more. But I think this will come in time. Durant is still young and growing into a leader.

I actually think Barnes is doing a good job handling all of the youth he has on the floor. I mean, Texas is 22-8 so far on the season and was 1 game away from winning the tough Big 12. I would say he is doing an alright job. Ease up Bill.

You can read the whole rant after the jump.

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A lot of love in the media the last few weeks for the Texas A&M basketball program and the job Billy Gillispie is doing turning garbage into wins, but the Houston Chronicle points out that the Longhorns are still the premier program in the state. The Texas program was never at the horrid depths that the Aggies were, but Rick Barnes has taken it to a whole new level of excellence and consistency.

Some interesting facts from the article:

• Wins against ranked teams: Penders 10, Barnes 38.
• Trips to the Sweet 16: Penders 2, Barnes 4.
• Final Fours: Penders 0, Barnes 1.
• McDonald’s All-American recruits: Penders 1, Barnes 8.
• Weeks in top 10: Previous 92 years: 3, Barnes: 41.
• Only three schools have advanced to the Sweet 16 in four of the last five years - Duke, Connecticut and Texas.
• Texas is one of just nine programs to advanced to eight straight NCAA Tournaments.
• America’s favorite college basketball programs: Duke, North Carolina, UCLA, Kentucky, and Texas.

Bob Knight shows his softer side, giving Rick Barnes framed strategy notes from his record breaking 880th win against New Mexico.

Rick Barnes liked the effort against OSU, but he’s using the loss to motivate them for Villanova.

I beg to differ on one point, Texas fans bitch about the basketball coaching nonstop as well.

Does this squash any Barnes to NC State rumors?