This incredible breakaway dunk from Cory Joseph against Texas Tech must live on at the front page...

The drought is over. Football is back.

This post is sponsored by U.S. Cellular.

This would be a lot more fun to write if Texas were on the right end of one of this tournament's top moments, but our involvement in what has been a tourney chalk full of brilliant finales was as the recipient of... sigh... the 'Ish Swish'.

But U.S. Cellular is kindly sponsoring a reason to feel good about ourselves, and who are we to refuse?

Cody put the final emotional touch on this difficult season. And Wiggo will be along sometime soon with thoughts on the upcoming season, so let's pivot away from 2010 with a look back at a happier time. When an unheralded guard hit one of the biggest shots in Texas school history.

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One of the more interesting questions in sports to ponder is what makes the greatest competitors so superior: Do they love to win, or hate to lose?

Perhaps it's one for some and the other for the rest. Maybe the two are really just the same thing. It's a question I can't easily answer, but I know in my case, one of the great challenges of my life has been to tone down my competitive nature, which is driven by an intense hatred for losing. Maybe it doesn't matter which motivates you, so long as one of them does. So long as you take it personally -- the winning and the losing.

My brother sent me a link to a YouTube link tonight, urging me to watch a clip of Larry Bird highlights. I ignored it for a while (I've seen Larry plenty), but he kept pressing, so finally I clicked through. And...

...yeah. I was glad I did. That's as sublime a highlight reel as you'll ever see.

As we prepare to tip into March Madness, I hope we see that kind of fierce competitiveness from Texas. Anything to win. Or not to lose.

Sure, it's the Ukrainian Super League, but it's nice to see P.J. Tucker thriving on the court. Easily one of my favorite Longhorns of all time: though just 6-5, Tucker had a ridiculous wingspan, hands like butter, and tremendous basketball IQ.

I'm traveling today, but I stumbled across this YouTube and had to share.

Good: A two credit class knocked out by the end of January. Bad: A final exam in January.

I've got a final tomorrow that's keeping me from finishing this week's TBR and from enjoying the two huge Big Monday games on tonight -- Georgetown at Syracuse (34-29 Cuse at the break), and Missouri at Kansas (8 p.m. ESPN). This is your open thread.

For visual accoutrement: my Rose Bowl video, which was too painful to post until the wounds healed a bit. A ten gallon hat tip to _JB_ for putting this together.

From reader BradLonghorn, our first hype video before the big game. And it. is. great.

Can you feel it yet?