It's been some time since Texas football fans have been able to watch the Longhorns practice. Not since August of 2010, in fact, after head coach Mack Brown closed all practices to the public both in the spring and in the fall. However, that will finally change as the football team enters spring ball with no changes to the coaching staff, the university announced on Thursday.

Fans will be able to watch their 'Horns practice on March 2nd and March 3rd at DKR, with both sessions beginning at 4 pm CST.

Now for the bad news -- the annual Orange-White game will only be televised on the Longhorn Network, but so a trip to Austin might be worthwhile for those interested in catching the 'Horns go at each other on April 1st. The game is set to kick at 2 pm CST.

Spring practice starts in exactly one week.

[Update]: Horns Nation writer William Wilkerson just tweeted that Robinson told him Texas wants him as a defensive tackle. Could have implications for Justin Manning. --Wescott--

Momentum is a fickle thing in recruiting. Just days ago, some corners of the Longhorns interwebs were shaken by the lack of a single pledge on the first Junior Day, but after Hookem.com once again broke the news of another commitment, the second in two days, Texas now appears to be rolling with the 2013 class. Fort Worth Arlington Heights OL A'Shawn Robinson joins Dallas Jesuit WR Jake Oliver and Celina OL/DL Jake Raulerson as the 2013 commits for Texas.

Of the three offensive linemen who received offers at JD1, Robinson was considered the least likely to make an early pledge, as he said that he wasn't planning on making a quick decision and then went off the radar following the visit, choosing not to do any in-depth interviews. In fact, Robinson wasn't even ranked among the top five most likely to become the second commit.

Perhaps those lack of interviews were a sign he was close to ending the process, as Robinson surprised the Texas recruiting world with his Thursday commitment.

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So, after waiting for the Big 12 to resolve West Virginia's exit from the Big East to get the Mountaineers into the league this season, the long-awaited release of the conference schedule finally went down Tuesday morning.

Here's a look at how things will go down for the Longhorns in the 2012 conference season:

• at Oklahoma State, September 29th
• West Virginia, October 6th
• vs. Oklahoma (Cotton Bowl), October 13th
• Baylor, October 20th
• at Kansas, October 27th
• at Texas Tech, November 3rd
• Iowa State, November 10th
• TCU, November 24th
• at Kansas State, December 1st

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Coming off the first Junior Day weekend that failed to produce a single commitment in the 2013 class to join Celina OL/DL Jake Raulerson, the Longhorns finally added the much-anticipated second commit on Wednesday morning when Dallas Jesuit WR Jake Oliver gave his pledge ($) to the Texas coaching staff, as reported by Hookem.com.

In recent days, it sounded like Oliver could be close to a decision, as he indicated to the services that he was planning to sit down and speak with his father about the recruiting process, which has now come to a head with Oliver holding nearly 50 offers from programs around the country.

Texas had surged into the lead amid rumors that the family didn't care for the handling of former coach Mike Sherman's firing, which may have been a significant factor in swinging the pendulum in favor of Texas only months after it seemed like the A&M legacy was a heavy Aggie lean.

But Oliver maintained throughout the process that he was open to other schools and proved that to be the case with his commitment.

The family detailed how the process went down in a press release ($) to Hookem.com:

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Is it possible that the Longhorns are turning the corner? The Texas basketball team has been playing really well for the last few weeks, but a difficult schedule and some bad breaks have prevented them from turning high quality play into wins. But that wasn't a problem this week. Texas played very well against both Kansas State and Oklahoma. Kansas State is a tough team, and while Oklahoma has been struggling lately, you should never take a road win for granted.

Why are things looking up? I think that we are starting to see the effects of this team gaining experience against tough competition. While the losses to Kansas, Missouri, and Baylor were tough, playing against a higher level of competition seemed to really help this team. Texas is now playing defense at a much higher level than they were at the start of the conference season, and the offense is better than it is given credit for. In fact, Texas has the #18 ranked offense in the country, based on the kenpom.com rankings. While Texas' offense has looked inconsistent at times, much of this is due to the high quality of defenses that this team has faced. Additionally, Texas really excels at getting offensive rebounds (#11 ranked team by kenpom.com) and getting to the free throw line (#15 ranked team). And unlike some recent Texas teams, this year's squad hits their free throws.

In this edition of Inside the Numbers, I will recap the week's games and talk about some troubling home vs. road splits on free throw attempts in Big 12 games.

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Make it four straight for the surging Texas Longhorns basketball team, who ripped off another outstanding second half to rally from a halftime deficit and defeat Oklahoma on their home floor, 69-58. With the win Texas improves to 17-9 on the season and 7-6 in Big 12 play, delivering another performance that demonstrated this young team's steady improvement.

Myck Kabongo showed us why he came to college a projected lottery pick, putting his exceptional quickness and floor vision to terrific use for much of the night. The freshman point guard finished with 13 points and 7 assists -- which should and would have been 10 if Clint Chapman could finish a lay up in traffic -- one of which keyed the highlight of the night, after Kabongo tossed a beautiful lob in transition to Jaylen Bond for a highlight reel alley oop. (Have I mentioned what an outstanding open court player I think Bond can be?) On the bright side (where his returning for another year is concerned), Myck also had 5 turnovers, 4 of which were needless -- the kinds of mistakes he'll cut at least in half as he continues to gain experience.

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