PB: Nervous yet?

AW: Very, but very excited too.

PB: So excited.

AW: Can we play man at all? AJ on CDR, Mason on Rose, DJ on Anderson? That doesn't seem to work.

PB: 1) No and 2) Don't think we should bother. We need Memphis jacking threes.

AW: I agree zone is probably the answer, but we can't get beat on angles off the dribble when we play zone either. The team defense must be fantastic - even better than we played against Kansas or Miami.

PB: Agree. I think we have to do what Bruce Pearl did - play a sagging zone, keep them from slashing, and take your chances on them not shooting great. Memphis hit like 5 early threes against TN and during the half time interview, Pearl said, "We're sticking with it. They'll start missing." Which Memphis did. And TN came back.

AW: Yeah, I agree. With our personnel, we just can't play man. Memphis is going to have to miss some threes for us to stay close. On the other end, Memphis is pretty freaking good as well. They totally eliminated Neitzel from the game on Friday. If that happens to AJ, we're in trouble.

PB: Yeah, we have to shoot well, and we need to take advantage of our bigs shooting well - have them pull Dorsey out from the lane by hitting some jumpers. Give DJ some penetration room.

AW: Any chance we can get Rose into foul trouble? Allen is a decent back up but Rose really makes Memphis go in transition.

PB: DJ does a great job drawing contact, though some officials don't give him the calls. I think here we again would be well served by Connor hitting outside shots. If so, Memphis is going to have to guard everyone 20 feet out and DJ will have some room to penetrate without Dorsey help behind.

AW: Exactly. Don't know how many Diaries on BON you've read, but we're 40 minutes from asking if Colt is good enough to lead the Horns to a conference / national championship. As strong as this basketball season as been, most of our readers and most Horns fans are still so football only.

PB: I had all these plans to talk about spring football, but have honestly forgotten all about pigskin for the last six weeks. 1) It's mostly meaningless, 2) this hoops team has become my favorite ever, and 3) this hoops team is Texas' best ever. Final Four or not. And yes, it's discouraging that Texas fans barely care.

AW: Walters picks Texas: Perfect headline for today.

PB: On Friday? TexasSports.com's lead story was the effing spring scrimmage. The Stanford game was a little block story. Disgusting.

AW: The lead story today is NCAA swimming championships

PB: What a joke. If Rick Barnes ever leaves, this will be why.

AW: You're going to get to watch this one on a home TV if you'd like.

PB: Yeah, no sports bar this time around. Just me pacing my apartment like a lunatic, scaring the living shit out of my neighbors with primal screams. (Hopefully celebratory and not murder-seeking.)

Any thoughts on today's crowd situation based on what you saw Friday?

AW: I think it will be better. One thing I didn't mention in my thoughts was that is was a slow, after-work arriving crowd. We shouldn't have that problem today. The upper deck seats are just ridiculously far from the court. The noise is going to have to come from the lower level ones. I was surprised to see so many tickets on Craigslist and Ebay last night. Hopefully those people will show up even if they can't sell them.

PB: Sounds like Reliant has been a bit of a bust as a venue?

AW: It is really nice but just not a basketball arena. The Alamodome sucks but at least the set-up they have used in the past allows fans to be much closer to the action. Houston has the Regionals in 2010 and the Final Four in 2011. This is the future. I can't see the NCAA going back to the old set-up and losing 10k tickets per session.

Ford Field had 57k on Friday. That’s just insane, and Bill Self still said that it wasn't that loud.

PB: Interesting. And a bit disappointing. Sounds like this is heading down the Super Bowl path, which isn't how these college events should be.

AW: Checck out picture #2. I am one row from the top in burnt orange, almost directly above Damion's head.

I'm really blurry, though.

PB: All I can see in that picture is the cheerleader.

AW: Ha! I assure you that is not me and those are not my abs

PB: Begs the question: with that seat, do you watch the game or the backside of the cheerleaders? The assless chaps are just unfair.

AW: Well, they only go with the chaps in the second half. So, my focus isn't too distracted in the first half. Actually, the tickets are almost directly behind that basket. So the structure blocked out some of the action on both ends. I moved to a better angle for game two on Friday, but won't have that chance today.

PB: Any final thoughts on today's keys? I'm desperately hoping for a red hot AJ Abrams.

AW: I don't think we can get into a track meet. We need a slower, half-court game that forces Memphis to hit threes. If they are a little cold, we will be fine. If Rose gets into foul trouble or AJ shoots lights out, then we'll be in an even better spot. I can't freaking wait.

PB: I think you're right. I loved how we made Stanford run on Friday, wearing them out in the latter part of the second half. Today, that's a disadvantage. We can't out-Memphis Memphis.

AW: Gonna hop in the shower and get ready. Hook ‘Em.

PB: Have fun. Hook 'Em