NCAA

Longhorns keep adding snapshots

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© St. Petersburg Times
published March 31, 2003

SAN ANTONIO, Texas -- Imagine it as a photo album. A collection of snapshots that tell the story of a family brought together by fate and happenstance.

Turn each page and learn a little more about the Texas basketball team. It's an interesting bunch. Playful, yet burdened by history. Diverse, yet often defined by the smallest of the lot.

Here are the Longhorns in all of today's glory. And with a few memories of past misery. Here is the story of their trip to the Final Four.

This is the Kohl Center in Madison, Wis. It's late March 2002. The little fella with the braids in his hair and tears in his eyes is T.J. Ford.

The most heralded recruit in school history, his freshman season just ended when his shot at the buzzer bounced off the rim and Oregon beat Texas 72-70 in the NCAA Midwest Region semifinal.

In this picture he is walking with coach Rick Barnes down a corridor toward the locker room. Before they got there, Ford asked a question.

"He said, 'Coach, I promise you I'm going to come back next year and I'm going to be better,"' Barnes said. "'What do I need to work on?"'

He came back better, of course. According to the people who vote for the Naismith award, Ford came back as the best player in the nation.

He is 5-10 and growing in legend. When the Longhorns beat Michigan State 85-76 Sunday to advance to the Final Four, Ford was the difference.

It's not just that he left the court with 19 points or 10 assists. It's the way he controlled the game. The Spartans survive with their defense. Their offense is predicated on the fastbreaks that come from turnovers.

On Sunday, the Spartans forced only four turnovers. Texas scored 16 off turnovers. Michigan State scored two.

This is how the Longhorns have won all season. With Ford directing a breakneck offense that has come to average 81.5 points in the NCAA Tournament.

But we're getting ahead of ourselves. It hasn't always been this way. As recently as five seasons ago, when Barnes arrived, Texas was a program best known for woefully falling short of its potential.

This is a clip from the Daily Texan, the school's student newspaper. It's an advertisement from the fall of 1998. That was Barnes' first year in Austin. He inherited a team that had turned on the previous coach.

There were transfers and academic issues. There was also a shortage of bodies. For much of the season, Barnes had seven scholarship players.

This is a help-wanted ad. Barnes was desperate for walkons.

He came in as a hard case. Barnes figured the program needed direction, and he was going to start with discipline. There were lots of little rules. Picky stuff that a lot of the players weren't accustomed to.

It didn't help Barnes' case that Texas lost its first four games and seven of its first nine. But, gradually, changes began to take hold. The Longhorns came out of the holiday break with seven victories in eight games.

They would go on to finish first in the Big 12.

Now Barnes was established. Now he was going to start finding his type of players. Now he would create a family.

This is an apartment near the university in Austin. It's fall 2000. Barnes has brought in the recruiting class he plans to build around. Brian Boddicker, Royal Ivey, Jason Klotz, Brandon Mouton and James Thomas.

In the victory against Michigan State, more than half the points and 75 percent of the rebounds will come from this group.

The apartment is where bonds began to forge. It was a small place, sparsely furnished. Mouton, from Louisiana, and Thomas, from upstate New York, were roommates. Then Ivey, the kid from Queens, showed up. There was no room for him. Didn't matter. Thomas offered to share his bed.

"All right everybody, I used to sleep with Royal. That's why we're so close," Thomas laughs. "No, really, it wasn't like that. He slept at the bottom of the bed and I slept at the top."

Still, there was something missing. Texas had a tough group of players. Thomas was the rebounder. Mouton the shooter. Ivey the defensive specialist. All solid, all workmanlike. But not enough.

Barnes needed Ford. Craved him, really. Barnes was watching the kid when he was just a wisp of a player, but already a local celebrity, in Houston. The coach started recruiting him hard as a high school junior.

Elite players simply did not choose Texas. It was not a basketball school. Although he grew up down the road, Ford said he never dreamed of playing in Austin. Not until Barnes showed up with his sparkle and his dreams.

Together, Barnes said, they could do it.

They could make Texas a place for basketball.

They could make it to the Final Four.

This is the court inside the Alamodome. It is early Sunday evening. Texas has held off Michigan State and earned a trip to the Final Four for the first time since 1947.

When the game ends, Ford is dribbling the ball. He does not hoot. He does not holler. He lets the ball bounce away on its own and he throws his arms around Barnes. The coach can not break away.

And so this is how the Longhorns coach shakes hands with Spartans coach Tom Izzo -- with Ford resting his head on Barnes' shoulder.

"It was heartfelt. It was a special moment," Barnes said. "My wife probably would like me to hug her like that more."

That's the last snapshot we have.

But there is room still in the album and games still to be played.

The Final Four begins Saturday in New Orleans.

You almost can picture it.

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